Experiment in Terror

With Experiment in Terror, Edwards, working in the familiar genre of criminal depravity, does something that may well be, for Hollywood, unprecedented: he makes a virtual piece of film criticism in movie form.

After Carpenter and De Palma, it may seem a little dated; yet Edwards' classical feel for pure cinema remains unalloyed.

Blake Edwards' moody suspense thriller captures San Francisco from unexpected perspectives, starting with a dark drive with a perfect noirish Henry Mancini score across the Bay Bridge, and ending with then-new Candlestick Park. [08 Feb 2015, p.D6]

Edwards' direction is effective, although he relies too heavily on overhead and boom shots to show his action scenes.

Credit the film’s modest virtues to Edwards’s undeniable verve as a visual stylist. Still, with a running time slightly over two hours, Experiment in Terror is a bit too protracted to count as an unqualified success.

It takes more than two hours to come to a solution of the problem in this film. They would do it in one hour on TV, and it would probably be every bit as good.

The film treatment embraces a number of unnecessary character bits that merely extend the plot and, despite their striking individual reaction, deter from the suspense buildup.