STARK FEAR (1962)

Ellen (Beverly Garland) is stuck in a dysfunctional relationship with her husband Gerald (Skip Homeier) and things are just getting worse. Though employed, Gerald seems to be on the way down the corporate ladder rather than up, and Ellen has gone to work as a secretary for Cliff (Kenneth Tobey), a nice guy who sympathizes with Ellen's problems. But Gerald wants Ellen to quit her job because he thinks Cliff hired her just to have an affair with her. On Gerald's birthday, Ellen tries to cheer him up (and also tries to get him interested in sex, something that's been lacking in their relationship), but instead he gets violent, calls her a tramp, and says he wants a divorce. She goes to stay with Ruth, a friend and social worker, and when she finds out that Gerald has taken an "unpaid holiday" to the anger of his boss, she goes looking for him and finds out that he has gone back to his hometown of Quehada, Oklahoma. She is surprised because he told her he came from Pennsylvania, and she soon discovers some unsavory facts about him (multiple affairs, a dead-mother fixation). Eventually, Ellen is raped, on top of the mother's grave, by an old friend of Gerald's--with Gerald watching from the shadows, though she doesn't find that out until later. Meanwhile, her friendly boss Cliff has developed feelings for Ellen, and she for him, but he's heading off to Mexico for two years and invites her to come. Ellen is torn between wanting to go and wanting some kind of closure with Gerald. More unsavoriness follows until we wonder how low Ellen will go before realizing she needs to get away from her husband.

This B-film has the cheap look and feel of a naughty grindhouse film (though there is no nudity or explicit sex), and the script drowns in simplistic psychological explanations for everyone's behavior--Gerald is a sadist, Ellen is a masochist, taking the blame for Gerald's behavior and belittling herself). Even good guy Cliff may be acting out his problems--we find out that Gerald had worked for Cliff years ago until a falling-out, so is Cliff deliberately pursuing Ellen to punish Gerald? The film remains involving despite the shoddy production values, mostly due to solid acting from the lead trio; the film was shot on location in Oklahoma and most of the rest of the cast is made up of locals. (Sidenote: the movie got a big ballyhooed world premiere in Norman, Oklahoma in January 1963, but played much of the rest of the country as a second feature to King Kong vs. Godzilla.) Garland (pictured with Homeier) does what she can with her overloaded, underwritten character, Tobey makes the most of could have been a thankless role, and Homeier, who I know as a 13-year-old Nazi in TOMORROW THE WORLD, is chilling as the totally unsympathetic husband. The last half of the movie is unrelenting torture for poor Ellen, but she gets a relatively happy ending--though it's a bit abrupt and feels like it might have been a last-minute script change. Marketed as noir, but really drive-in exploitation. If that's your thing, you'll like this. [DVD]