The Girl in Black Stockings (1957)

Director:

Howard W. Koch

Writers:

Peter Godfrey (story)
Richard H. Landau (writer)

Release Date:

24 September 1957 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Film-Noir | Mystery

Tagline:

She's every inch a teasing, taunting "Come-on" Blonde.

Plot:

A party girl is murdered, and everyone at a Utah motel is a suspect.

Plot Keywords:

Utah | Motel | Lodge | Sheriff | Brother Sister Relationship

Cast

Lex Barker	...	David Hewson
Anne Bancroft	...	Beth Dixon
Mamie Van Doren	...	Harriet Ames
Ron Randell	...	Edmund Parry
Marie Windsor	...	Julia Parry
John Dehner	...	Sheriff Jess Holmes
John Holland	...	Norman Grant
Diana Van der Vlis	...	Louise Miles (as Diana Vandervlis)
Richard H. Cutting	...	Dr. John Aitkin (as Richard Cutting)
Larry Chance	...	Indian Joe
Gene O'Donnell	...	Joseph Felton
Gerald Frank	...	Frankie Pierce
Karl MacDonald	...	Deputy Fred
Norman Leavitt	...	Amos
Stuart Whitman	...	Prentiss

Also Known As:

Black Stockings (USA) (alternative title)
Wanton Murder (USA) (alternative title)

Runtime:

73 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

USA:Approved (PCA #18281)

Filming Locations:

Kanab, Utah, USA

Company:

Bel-Air Productions

Movie Connections:

Featured in Bikers, Blondes and Blood (1993) (V)

Soundtrack:

Symphony No. 40 in G Minor, K. 550

Tailfins-era whodunit wastes a bizarrely mixed cast

What can you say about a movie whose three female stars are Anne Bancroft, Marie Windsor and Mamie Van Doren? Well, that none of them is used at anywhere near her full potential (except maybe Van Doren, the sum of whose potential is exhausted at first glimpse). And that's basically the problem with this little tailfins-era whodunit about a serial killer at a Utah mountain lodge. Its very real potential is never delivered. The characters and plot strands are handled perfunctorily, mechanically; they're interesting and offbeat but not satisfyingly developed, so the solution comes as a bad surprise and something of a cheat. Owner of the lodge, Ron Randell, is a psychosomatically paralyzed woman-hater nursed by his doting sister (Windsor). Les Barker (not to be confused with Les Baxter, who wrote the score!) loses no opportunity to display his physique poolside as a vacationing L.A. attorney who's wooing the diffident Bancroft. 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.