The Girl in Black Stockings

The Girl in Black Stocking has an interesting and broad cast, as well as some solid elements to it, but unfortunately the story components and characters seems very fractured to me. They're all performing in the the same film and yet looking right past/through one another. The storytelling is so poor that it's hard to engage with, and on top of everything else I found it confusing as well. A shame that all this talent couldn't produce something a little more worthwhile.

A pretty interesting whodunit, but too short ;the action is too hurried for comfort and some characters should have been more developed,particularly the frustrated disabled owner in his wheelchair and his companion (Marie Windsor,often cast as the bad girl,here she acts as some kind of nurse apparently devoted to her brother); Lex Barker is just OK and only in it to provide Anne Bancroft with a love interest . The whodunit has the de rigueur unexpected twist , but then again,the explanations are a bit far-fetched .

Thought this 1957 film starring some very great actors would be entertaining or at least a good murder mystery. The film takes place in a Utah Mountain Lodge where there are a large group of tourists and also behind the scenes very sick people running this lodge. The manager is a man who is handicapped and taken care of by his sister who waits on him hand an foot and this man seems to hate all kinds of women and is also a mental case. 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. There are other murders and the film goes completely around in circles until you have already figured out who the killer is and you can't wait for the film to end.

I'd never actually heard of "The Girl in Black Stockings" until I saw it and now that I have, I'm not surprised why. 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". However, I think leading lady Anne Bancroft, a few years before stage-fame and Oscar-glory in "The Miracle Worker", would rather we forget she was ever associated with such drivel. 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. Koch), and appalling acting by everybody, Bancroft included, make this a Grade A turkey that should be avoided at all costs.

Frankly, this a lame "B" flick, with hilarious dialogue, great locations and uneven performances. To even utter the phrase "film noir," in conjunction with this film, is ludicrous. Some of the comparisons found in previous posts are mind-boggling. Disposable characters, inane conversations and an annoying soundtrack are buffered by a wonderful setting - a kitschy, picture-perfect motel, straight out of a retro-fanatic's dream. 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. Lex Barker is, well, Lex Barker. "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!