STORM FEAR

US, 1955, 88 minutes, Black and white.
Cornel Wilde, Jean Wallace, Dan Duryea, Lee Grant, David Stollery, Dennis Weaver, Steven Hill.
Directed by Cornel Wilde.

Storm Fear was the first film to be directed by Cornel Wilde who had a ten-year or more period as a Hollywood idol, even receiving an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Chopin in A Song to Remember, 1945. Over the next twenty years he made eight films, generally action films, often with his then wife Jean Wallace. They include Lancelot and Guinevere, The Naked Prey, Beach Red, No Blade of Grass.

This is familiar material, a group on the run from a bank robbery visit the house of the leader’s brother and threaten the family. This is familiar material from the different versions of The Desperate Hours. Cornel Wilde plays the leader of the robbers with Steven Hill as one of his henchmen. Day Duryea portrays his successful brother, married to Jean Wallace.

The film is brief, creates an atmosphere, along with Elmer Bernstein’s score. The writer was Horton Foote, later author of such moving films as The Trip to Bountiful and Tender Mercies.

1. The significance of the title for the weather during the film and also the internal states of mind?

2. How successful a melodrama was this? Did it matter if it was not original? What insight into human behaviour and character is possible via melodrama and its conventions? The heightening of dramatic situations for excitement and for insight? Was the film successful here? Why?

3. How well did the film combine its various elements to make satisfying, grim entertairment? The credibility of the criminals, their robbery and their escaping to the farm, the family with the tensions of situation; the role of David Jr, the family and his relationship to Uncle Charlie; the isolation of the farm in the weather and Hank as the farmhand? How interesting did these ingredients make this melodrama?

4. How realistic was the home situation and its unhappiness? How was this quickly established in the early sequences? The relationship between Elizabeth and Fred? The relationship of Davey to both? The contrast of his relationship to Hank with his parents? How did this give a basis for the melodramatic developments to follow?

5. Who was the central character of the film? The boy, Charlie, Elizabeth? Would this alter our response to the film? Why?

6. How well presented was the character of Davey? His life on the farm, relationship to Hank, to Fred, to his mother? 'Why did he respond so well to his Uncle Charlie and want to help him? His experience of violence during that time, the fact that he wanted to lead Charlie to safety, what he saw of his father's suffering and his mother's suffering? His seeing of Edna left in the snow, his shooting of the criminal? And his seeing his uncle shot? What was the ultimate effedt of his so being used by adults and his future life? Was this facet of the child's role in the film. well explored?

7. Did the film establish relationship between Elizabeth and Fred successfully? The radio and the bickering. the role of Hank? Their discussions about their marriage, the fact that David was Charlie’s child? Fred's ambitions and his disillusiorment? His self-awareness at Hank's speech? The pathos of his death in the snow? His attitude towards Charlie and the others?

8. How attractive a criminal was Charlie? What were his good qualities? His bad? His being sorry and thoughtless? His impact on Elizabeth? On Fred? The clashes with Benjie? His impact on Davey and his response to him? How much was love and how much using him? Did he tell him the truth or did he tell him lies about his past to help Davey? His carrying him to the shack? Was there any other end for him than what he received?

9. How conventional were Benjy and Edna as criminals? Benjy’s maniac attitude towards people? His cruelty and violence? Edna, and the typical gangster's moll? Her human touches? The pathos of her being left in the snow and its effect on audiences?

10. How attractive a character was Benjie Rio help for Davey? The implications of his talk in the kitchen and his being overheard? His pursuit of Charlie and shooting him? The future for Elizabeth and Davey?

11. The film was grim and violent with several deaths. What attitude towards death and crime did the film have?

12. Was the resolution satisfying? The death of Charlie and the reunion of Davey with Elizabeth and Hank? What future would they have?