The Girl in Black Stockings

Plot synopsis:
A lodge in Kanab, Utah is where Los Angeles lawyer David Hewson goes for a peaceful vacation. He quickly is attracted to Beth Dixon, a switchboard operator and a former personal assistant to lodge owner Edmund Parry.
The murder of playgirl Marsha Morgan, her throat cut, disrupts the peace and quiet. Sheriff Holmes begins the investigation, starting with the wheelchair-bound Parry, who admits to hating the dead woman, and Parry's possessive sister Julia, who helps him run the lodge. It turns out David once dated Morgan as well.
A new guest, Joseph Felton, checks in. The sheriff's suspects also include guests Norman Grant, a drunken actor, and his ambitious girlfriend, Harriet Ames. A missing kitchen knife believed to be the murder weapon is found by Indian Joe, who works at the lodge.
Beth eavesdrops on a phone call Felton makes from his room. Felton is later found killed by a gunshot, and it turns out he was a private detective. David becomes more and more convinced that the Parrys are behind all this. Ames is seen kissing Edmund Parry, which does not please Edmund's sister or Grant.
To his shock, David arrives as Beth holds a knife to Julia Parry's bloody throat, claiming to have stabbed her in self-defense. It turns out, however, that Edmund had hired the investigator Felton to follow the psychologically disturbed Beth, who is responsible for all the murders.

Tags: mystery, murder

Review:
It was directed by the able and eclectic Howard Koch, and features three quite different actresses in major roles,--Mamie Van Doren, Anne Bancroft and Marie Windsor.
Suave character man John Dehner is cast as the local lawman; ex-Tarzan Lex Barker is the male lead; Stuart Whitman and Dan Blocker have small roles; and Barker wrote the music score.
This is the only movie I have ever seen that features a murder suspect who is a bitter, woman-hating man, psychosomatically paralyzed from the neck down, who can't even pour his own drinks or light his own cigarettes.
Ron Randell plays him marvelously, and had the film been directed by Ingmar Bergman would surely have won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar.
I wouldn't quite call this movie trashy, but it has a trashy feel to it, as it comes across in some ways as a sort of Southwest version of Peyton Place crossed maybe with Anatomy Of a Murder, the small-town black and white mood of which it strangely anticipates.
Music is by Les Baxter and cinematography by William Margulies.When a party girl is found murdered at a Utah hotel, everyone is under suspicion.Miserable predatory creatures!One of the definitions of the low budget drive-in movie, The Girl in Black Stockings is an odd and fascinating picture.
In core essence it's a standard murder mystery piece, a sort of minor Ten Little Indians only with kooky overtones.She'd get on that dance floor and fry eggs!The characterisations, performed by a wide scope cast list, are firmly in the realm of the off kilter or suspiciously suspect!
What can you say about a movie whose three female stars are Anne Bancroft, Marie Windsor and Mamie Van Doren?
And that's basically the problem with this little tailfins-era whodunit about a serial killer at a Utah mountain lodge.
Owner of the lodge, Ron Randell, is a psychosomatically paralyzed woman-hater nursed by his doting sister (Windsor).
Van Doren does her platinum-blonde bombshell shtik and John Dehner, as the sheriff, seems to have wandered in from a Western shooting nearby.
The movie looks good, in a simplified, populuxe way, and winds up like a better-than-average TV drama from circa 1957.
Too bad: The Girl in Black Stockings had all the makings of a more interesting movie..
Unbelievable murder-mystery centering around an upscale lodge in Utah, wherein sheriff John Dehner (in a cowboy hat) investigates the gruesome slaying of a blonde actress, a "man-hating witch" who had plenty of enemies.
Soon, more bodies start popping up, the main suspects being: Lex Barker as the local he-man (with his navel judiciously covered at the pool), Ron Randell as an anti-social quadriplegic, Anne Bancroft as his wet-nurse, Mamie Van Doren as a model, and Larry Chance as Indian Joe (Chance appears to believe his character is a Wooden Indian instead of a Drunken Indian).
Koch (who later became a famous producer) sets up this whodunit like a plodding amateur, and most of the acting is atrocious (including La Bancroft).
Van Doren has an oddly surreal tipsy scene that rates as pure camp and Dan Blocker is fun as a leering bartender (how come he isn't a suspect?), but the poor writing defeats Dehner and Randell.
Man, I want to stay at the "Parry Lodge" for a weekend!!Every time actor Ron Randell opens his mouth, you know you're in for some scenery-chewing, par none.
"Sheriff" John Dehner comes across the least scathed, although as a previous comment did point out, he appears to have wandered in from another movie set.All in all, worth a viewing, just to see what it meant to stay in a "motel" before Holiday Inn and Ramada ruined the experience.UPDATE: Lodge is still up and running - see parrylodge.com!.
Note the five-minute explanation Dehner has to deliver in order to tie-up loose ends in the movie's last scene.
But then, who could bring off all that goofy sarcasm that the script sticks in his mouth.The real crime is not using such ace performers as Marie Windsor and Anne Bancroft to better effect, especially Windsor whose role could have been filled by a dozen lesser actresses.
In fact the whole production seems a curious affair-- almost like a bunch of Hollywood types suddenly found themselves at the same Southwestern resort and decided to shoot a movie, typing up the script each night after a heavy cocktail hour.
The stars are Lex Barker, Anne Bancroft, John Dehner, Ron Randell, Marie Windsor and Mamie Van Doren.
The stars are Lex Barker, Anne Bancroft, John Dehner, Ron Randell, Marie Windsor and Mamie Van Doren.
The plot concerns murders at a resort - in fact, the film begins with the discovery of a dead body, and several more follow.
The resort is owned by a man with hysterical paralysis (Randell) and his sister (Windsor), who takes care of him.
There's a Barrymore-type actor preparing for a comeback with the help of a va-va-va-voom blonde (Van Doren), and several guests, including Barker and Bancroft, who apparently have some sort of history together.The acting is okay with the exception of a very young Bancroft, who smartly underplays what could have been an extremely over the top character.
The Girl in Black Stockings (1957) ** (out of 4)Bizarre thriller set in a Utah resort where the body of a woman is found brutally sliced up.
David Hewson (Lex Barker) was supposed to have gone out with the woman but instead went with someone else (Anne Bancroft) and soon he's looking into who did the brutal murder.
It's important to note that THE GIRL IN BLACK STOCKINGS came out three years before PSYCHO or PEEPING TOM and while this film here isn't nearly as good as those two, it's worth saying that this one here beat them in regards to murder and mental illness.
This film here is too uneven and at times too poorly done to be considered "good" but I think fans of the genre are going to find enough interesting things here to make it worth viewing.
I really liked how the film played itself out and once you see who is responsible and why the murders were done, well, it's very nicely handled.
Barker, best known for his stint as Tarzan, does a pretty good job here as he's at least interesting enough to help the viewer go through the entire film.
He manages to carry the film without a problem but Bancroft also deserves a lot of credit as she too is extremely good.
Ron Randell is also good in his role as a paralyzed man and Marie Windsor, a noir vet, is good as his sister.
Barker not only acted in the film but he also did the music score, which is quite effective.
Still, this film manages to set itself apart from a lot of other mysteries from this period and the good things here make it worth sitting through at least once..
Whatever inspired Howard Koch to direct this B-movie was certainly not the script, full of atrocious dialog and given dead pan acting by everyone in the cast except RON RANDELL as a bitter crippled man being cared for by his wife, MARIE WINDSOR.
Randell at least attempts to give some backbone to his role, but nothing works as he delivers most of his dialog through clenched teeth.JOHN DEHNER is the sheriff at a Utah lodge, who questions suspects of a brutal murder with absolutely no conviction.
He seems distracted by something or other even as the investigation becomes more complex and seems almost bored with his role.ANNE BANCROFT and MAMIE VAN DOREN are figured prominently among the women in the cast but do nothing here that contributes to the film's effectiveness.
LEX BARKER shows off his physique but was much more convincing when he was playing Tarzan than he is here.Summing up: A complete waste of time.
It's astounding how many reviewers here have given this either high marks for being a well-made film noir(-ish) murder-mystery, or for it's high camp value.
It's just plain bad, in every way imaginable.But let's get something else out of the way first: for those who want to claim a 'Twin Peaks' connection for this film (which is the reason I was curious about it, initially), such an assertion is basically a bunch of garbage, grasping at less than even tenuous similarities and standard murder-mystery tropes.
You know it's gonna be bad from the very first lines of dialogue exchanged between Lex Barker and young Anne Bancroft.
It's the kind of meaningless, pseudo-hip banter that has zero meaning and makes you want to slap the screenwriter, tell him, "Try writing some words that sound like they might come out of the mouth of an actual human being, you hack!" But the main problem (one of MANY problems) is that no one seems to take the murder particularly seriously.
But after about 30 seconds of this guy, you'll change your mind and start hoping that when Anne Bancroft and Marie Windsor take him in the pool for some hydrotherapy that they'll both get phone calls and leave him to make out on the bottom with the Creepy Crawly.
Like so much in this film (just wait until you hear Lex Barker's 'explanation' for the murderer's motives at the end of the film), it MAKES NO SENSE.And not just that - IT'S BORING!
It's bad enough that we, the viewers, don't care what's being said, but when the actors all sound like they're on Quaaludes...Never has 74 minutes passed so slowly, so excruciatingly.I will say that, as someone who loves the '50s as a design era, the Parry Lodge (and the adjoining boutique, the Pink Poodle) are pretty cool to look at; the fact that they shot this stinker on location is about the only thing this movie has going for it, although it also means that the Kanab Chamber of Commerce gets in a number of blatant promos for local businesses and sights.
Thought this 1957 film starring some very great actors would be entertaining or at least a good murder mystery.
One night, a girl is murdered and slashed to death with a knife multiple times and it looks like they have a serial killer on their hands.
Lex Baxter, Anne Bancroft and Mamie Van Doren all add a great deal to this story with their great supporting actors roles.
With such shapely feminine types as Anne Bancroft, Marie Windsor, Mamie Van Doren, and Diana VanderVlis, The Girl In Black Stockings surely boasts one of the sexiest casts of women ever in the same film.
All of these people are at a resort lodge in Utah when a whole lot of murders start to happen.
Two more murders follow and one accidental death of a presumed suspect occurs when sheriff John Dehner and deputies go to question him.
A veteran of many a noir film, Windsor is the sister of her quadriplegic brother Ron Randell who owns the lodge.
Usually Windsor played sex pots in films, this represents a change of pace for her.
But don't kid yourself, she holds her own in beauty with the rest of the pulchritude.As for Randell, he laces his part with appropriate bitterness and he'll be the one you remember if you can take your eyes off the feminine beauty for a bit.In smaller roles are such future stars as Stuart Whitman who arrives at the lodge looking for his runaway bride and Dan Blocker seen briefly as a bartender.The Girl In Black Stockings despite a cheap production and lurid title is a competent enough mystery.
Some of this is slightly entertaining in a trashy kind of way, but not quite enough to save this stiff and incompetently Directed Movie.People talk and talk and say very little.
This atrocious Z-Movie is the kind of thing that its cast would rather leave off their CV's though I doubt if it would have done much harm to the careers of Lex Barker, John Dehner, Ron Randell, Marie Windsor and a certain Miss Mamie Van Doren who also appeared in "The Navy Vs the Night Monsters" and "Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women".
Actually, the whodunit plot, (party-girl is murdered at a posh resort and everyone's a suspect), isn't that bad but the dreadful script, inept direction, (by Howard W.
THE GIRL IN BLACK STOCKINGS and SCREAMING MIMI, both made at the tail-end of the American Film Noir cycle (1941-1958), predicted something wicked this way comes -a savage darkness that would reach fever pitch in Alfred Hitchcock's PSYCHO just two years later.
Female serial killers are a rarity in real life -and rarer still in films up to that time- and she's a brutal sex-slayer of women no less, possibly a film first.
The film's "Americana" Utah resort locations (with wardrobe by "The Pink Poodle of Kenab") are used to excellent sun-shiny effect; the outdoor scenes reflect a "normalcy" that belies the darker indoor melodrama and the film's stark B&W low-budget TV look and feel shows up in THE SCREAMING MIMI as well, accounting for a lot of their dark charms.
Midway through THE GIRL IN BLACK STOCKINGS, the killer opens the door to a couple's room and watches while they make out.
After getting a voyeur's thrill that sets the twisted psyche raging, the killer barges in, knocks the man out and butchers the girl!Lawyer Lex Barker (more a giallo hero than a noir anti-hero), in Utah to get away from the rat-race of L.A., gets sucked into a whirlpool of sex and savagery in a shocking opening sequence that sees him use his cigarette lighter in the dark to bring to light the mutilated body of a woman.
The resort's owner, Ron Randall, hates women -he actually became paralyzed because one left him.
His sister, Marie Windsor, caresses and kisses his brow the way a wife would -and it was she who drove her brother's woman away.
A Native American ranch-hand hates all women because he cared for, and tended to, Randall until Windsor hired Bancroft to do it.
There's a young buck recently released from prison (who hasn't had a woman in two years!), an aging Addison De Witt-type actor and his Miss Caswell (Mamie Van Doren), the sheriff and other various and sundry guests.
What's interesting here is that Anne Bancroft plays the same "mouse" she did in 1952's DON'T BOTHER TO KNOCK -only this time, it's the mouse and not the platinum blonde bimbo (Van Doren here) that has a few mental screws loose.
Once you know that Anne Bancroft's the culprit, watch her throughout the film and catch the clues she's trying to give us that she's the killer.
Best scene: Mamie Van Doren drunk at the dinner table, throwing herself on paralyzed Ron Randall.
There's some lingering shots of Lex Barker in his bathing trunks and the Va-Va-Voom attributes of Mamie Van Doren are often on display.
Throat slashed ...even her arms and legs." Anne Bancroft, as well as the rest of the cast, are in top form giving it all they've got in their respective ways.
THE GIRL IN BLACK STOCKINGS is seminal -and "killer" for so many reasons and in so many ways....
Notable for its eclectic cast and authentic setting, this odd little murder mystery has entertainment value in spite of itself.
Set at (and filmed on location at) the Parry Lodge in Utah, it stars Barker as a handsome and tan ladies man who finds himself investigating the people around him when a young woman is found brutally slain.
A particularly oddball batch of characters make up the list of suspects including Bancroft as Barker's mousy girlfriend, Randell as a paraplegic with a strong resentment towards loose women, Windsor as his overprotective sister and Holland as a somewhat lecherous movie producer.
Other faces include Van Doren as a platinum blonde starlet, Dehner as the local sheriff, Van der Vlis as a fellow motel guest and Chance as a stone-faced, heavy-drinking Indian.
The film is aided immeasurably by the location shooting around a real motel that is still in operation today (and was the favorite boarding choice of many old time Hollywood stars and crews who were using the surrounding terrain when filming movies.) Barker, a former Tarzan, is bronzed and strong, offering several glimpses of his physique in and around the pool.
Small roles are played by future stars Whitman as a concerned husband and Blocker as the lodge's bartender.
There's nothing life-changing about this rather run-of-the-mill movie, but it offers some decent black and white photography and an intriguing assortment of actors, along with an ending that may surprise some viewers.
Lex Barker, Marie Windsor, Anne Bancroft, Mamie Van Doren, score by Les Baxter,Stuart Whitman in a tiny role, directed by Howard Koch.Filmed like a Perry Mason episode, the movie is interesting but has no real tension, drama and a flaccid climax.
Eye candy for any persuasion: Lex Barker in swim trunks and Mamie Van Doren in skin tight dresses.
Marie Windsor is always a treat, but largely wasted in this as her wheelchair bound brother's caregiver.Easy to guess the perpetrator in this one, but still fun to watch.Goof: Lex Barker takes off in a 56 Chrysler which turns into a 55 Chrysler during the same trip, then back again into a 56 Chrysler as he pulls up to his location..
Then, there's one of the many screen Tarzan's, all together for the story of a character that you only see briefly as a corpse and find out that everybody had some reason to kill her, as well as several other murders that occur in very much the same grizzly way.Having been around with no real success on film, Anne Bancroft is the female star, not the murdered first victim, with Lex Barker as the dead girl's much abused ex who falls for the sweet Bancroft, filled with secrets of her own.
John Dehner is the law enforcer on the case, while Ron Randell plays another key figure.