Experiment In Terror

I would love to have this movie on DVD. I purchased a used VHS copy on EBAY at the beginning of the year and it was well worth it, but I would love to see a nice clean widescreen print and hear that wonderful Mancini score again. I picked it up primarily due to one of my favorite bands (Fantomas) doing an interpretation of the theme song and it was well worth it.

Me! Me! Me!!!

Encore Mystery Channel has been running EXPERIMENT IN TERROR lately, which has only increased my appetite for a nice Region 1 DVD release, in OAR, of this tip-top (yet greatly underrated) thriller from Columbia.

Bring it on, torch lady!

My only knowledge of this film is the Fantomas cover of its theme song. So I'm curious. And I'd pick it up if it was released.

I don't have that VHS, David, but it's the same cover that my laserdisc has. The disc looks quite nice but unfortuantely, it's not matted to 1.85:1 as it should be. Considering what Columbia has done with recent titles like Cowboy, Perfect and 84 Charing Cross Road there is no guarantee that E in T will be matted should it see the light of day on DVD.

If they get Blake Edwards involved with a commentary then I'm sure he would pressure for an OAR.

EXPERIMENT IN TERROR would go to the top of my wish list. This is truly one incredibly intense motion picture that I would love to own.

WAIT UNTIL DARK is another superb film in this genre. Henry Mancini's score with that slightly out of tune piano is really disturbing and effective. I hope they release this gem as well.

Jeff

I've got Wait Until Dark on laserdisc too but unlike Experiment In Terror, it's properly matted to 1.85:1.

If you need your Mancini fix, the Experiment In Terror soundtrack is available on CD. Unbelievably, the score to Wait Until Dark has never been released on any format (vinyl, tape, CD).

Yes, please! One of my top 11 most wanted. My top 10, you ask? The Haunting holds all ten of those spots!

i don't have it with me at the moment, and i haven't yet sat down to watch the whole thing yet, but a cursory viewing of a few minutes here and there-
pic quality was a little rougher than i was expecting.
i'm not familiar with the film , so its possible that the high contrast, grainy look has always been a quality of it.
shots with transitions are noticably worse, but the non 'optical' shots are decent.
not one of the best looking vintage titles released so far, but still watchable.
and yes, it is anamorphic.


and i'm still very much looking forward to having the time to watch it!

I finally got around to watching my copy last night and was thoroughly impressed. The the image was razor sharp (clearly noticeable by many of the very close-up facial scenes of the "wheezer"). Grain was slim to none. My only true complaint (albeit, very minor) was the black level. It wasn't as deep as it could have been. That Mancini score was brilliant.

Great movie....!

David:

The audio is DD Mono. While there was very little that stood out, there was no hiss and it did sound rather full.

And to expand upon my earlier post re: the video -- that is not to say it is without any flaws. It was at times soft and I did notice some light shimmer on occasion, but overall, I was impressed. Whenever I put in an old Columbia classic, I'm just never sure what I'm gonna get...

Just this evening, I finally got around to watching my copy of The Bad And The Beautiful (WB) - now there's a transfer...

Herb.

Re: Experiment In Terror

OLD THREAD - REVISITED

Sorry to dredge up a thread that hasn't seen the light of day in four years, but this past week or so has seen me discover this great unsung film. Until just recently, I'd never heard of it before, and can now rank it up among my favorites.

I came to EXPERIMENT IN TERROR by way of THE TIME TUNNEL TV series. Truly odd, I know. What happened was that a few weeks ago, on a TIME TUNNEL fan forum I got word of the passing of actor James T. Callahan. He'd appeared in any number of TV shows like THE FUGITIVE, THE TWILIGHT ZONE, M*A*S*H. I remember seeing him on many other QM TV shows back in the '60s and '70s. Anyway, at his passing, I went to the IMDB to look at his body of work and saw a film title listed there called EXPERIMENT IN TERROR. Curious enough just from the title, I clicked on it to see what it was all about.

The descriptions and the review that popped up were enough to make me want to see the movie, so I clicked through to Amazon, only to find that the DVD was already out of print. Reading further at Amazon, I saw a review by our own David R. Von Pein that further convinced me that I needed to see this movie. There were a couple available as Amazon Marketplace purchases - one was listed as new and had a not-unreasonable pricetag between $25 and $30.

Equivocating a bit about spending that amount of money on basically a blind purchase, I finally chose the "new" copy from the Amazon seller, and it arrived at my door last week.

As I sat down that evening to the computer, likely to read and participate in more of the conversation going on here about the release of THE FUGITIVE, I popped the DVD into my computer drive and fired up the trailer for EXPERIMENT IN TERROR.

From the first measure of the great score, warbling through the hiss of the less-than-perfect-condition trailer, I was hooked. Essentially, the trailer is the first few minutes of scenery of San Francisco as Lee Remick is driving toward home, leaving the viewer to want more as things get going quickly in this movie.

The next morning, intrigued, but without enough time, I popped the DVD into the DVD player and watched about the first half-hour of the film. Now I was REALLY hooked - and I didn't want to go to work that day. But reality settled in and I went about my daily routine.

Unable to watch the film that night, I repeated my actions the next morning, this time unspooling another half-hour or so of the film before heading to work. Again, I felt like I really wanted to see how things turned out for Ms. Remick, Ms. Powers, Mr. Ford, etc, as the film was now playing out in some kind of weird real-time pace.

Mentioning all of this to the wife at breakfast on Saturday, we decided that after the weekend chores got done that we'd sit down and watch the whole film together, since my ravings had her curious about the movie as well. I didn't mind spending another hour setting the story up again, as I could tell that this was a film I'd likely revisit a number of times in the years to come.

So, we watched the whole thing through on Saturday and we both enjoyed the film a great deal. I could tell that my wife had no clue that Ross Martin was the "bad guy" as she commented on the photography that continually had his full face invisible. It was interesting to see the film through her eyes not knowing who the protagonist was. From the start, I'd known, just from reading the first review on the IMDB page, so I never got that element of surprise, recognizing Mr. Martin's features even in the dark shadows of Ms. Remick's garage as the trailer played that first time.

Anyway, I loved everything about this movie. The pace, the cinematography, the location shooting and the stars' performances. All were just right. Blake Edwards did a fabulous job on this and it deserves to be more well known among our populace. I'm assuming it didn't sell all that well on DVD since it's apparently already out of print. The DVD itself was well done with the lovely anamorphic black & white picture and adequate soundtrack. This was a film that I liked well enough that had there been a commentary track, I probably would be listening to it right now, rather than typing in this aged thread.

Now, finding this thread, I see that my "Fugitive-thread-buddy" Mr. Von Pein and I are again on similar ground regarding this fine film. The difference is that he's known about it much longer than me.

Oh, and James T. Callahan? His role was certainly minor as one of the FBI agents on the case, but his presence in it will always now remind me of not only his life and career, but of how he ultimately got me hooked on this movie.

Harry
...with a new old film on his list of favorites, online...

Re: Experiment In Terror

Funny you should resurrect this topic - I just watched it for the first time this weekend and absolutely loved it. I picked it up in $5.99 Sony sale a while ago and it's been sitting unwatched until now.

Re: Experiment In Terror

That's quite a coincidence Gregory!

What are the odds?

Harry

Re: Experiment In Terror

Added to my ziplist. Looking forward to it.