The Night Holds Terror (1955)

(On Cable TV, March 2021) To find interesting movies in Hollywood history, it pays off to get away from the classics and take a look at the B-grade material that was also produced at the time. Forced to work without the lavish budget of bigger productions, those second-rate filmmakers had to be inventive and stick closer to reality than the lavish spectacles that headlined theatres. So it is that The Night Holds Terror does a few really interesting things. For one, it tackled a home-invasion premise that seems to belong to later decades rather than the image we hold of the mid-1950s. For another, writer-director-producer Andrew L. Stone uses a lot of practical location shooting as a substitute for studio sets, managing along the way to portray a sense of realism that also feels ahead of its time. Thirdly, it goes into its story with a procedural mindset, using narration and plenty of exposition footage to show us policemen using then-high technology to close the net around the criminals. Speaking of which — the most likable of those hoodlums is played by John Cassavetes, years before striking out on his own as a director. Adapted from a real story to such a degree that the criminals sued the production company (which led to a courtroom hearing where the victim punched one of criminals in the face), The Night Holds Terror does feel a bit more immediate and more contemporary than similar films of the era.