Lumsdal
Good , But It Is Overrated By Some
Intcatinfo
A Masterpiece!
Kaelan Mccaffrey
Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.
paul-ayres-60784
Very predictable hostage crime drama but nonetheless entertaining.
Coventry
"The Shadow on the Window" is a rather anonymous and insignificant 50s drama/thriller, but it's engaging enough for as long as it lasts, thanks to a few interesting story ideas and a decent cast. I'm sure that director William Asher envisioned making a fantastic hostage thriller with film-noir echoes, in the vein of "The Desperate Hours" that was released two years earlier, but he eventually had to settle for a modest B-movie without spectacular action footage or Humphrey Bogarts in the cast. Little 7-year-old Petey accompanies his mother to a large and remote farmhouse. It's her first working day as a secretary for a wealthy, elderly businessman, while Petey plays outside in the garden. Unfortunately enough, three ruthless young thugs decided that today they would invade the home of the old man and rob him. Just when little Petey looks through the window, he witnesses how the man is brutally killed by the assailants. Petey promptly goes into a severe state of shock, runs off into the streets and gets picked up by friendly truck drivers. While his mother is kept hostage by unprepared but extremely dangerous criminals, Petey is reunited with his father – and police detective – Tony Atlas but he remains in shock and unable to explain what is happening to her. It's definitely a good plot for a tense and forceful "race-against-the-clock" thriller, but the screenplay nevertheless suffers from a couple of defaults and clichés. I really don't understand, for example, why the hoodlums remain in the house or why one of them has to be a sensitive one. The leader of the pack, John Drew Barrymore, tries really hard to look handsome and nihilistic, and he probably dreamed of becoming the next James Dean. The little kid who portrayed Petey, on the other hand, became quite famous thanks to his role in the TV-series "Leave it to the Beaver".
MartinHafer
When the film begins, a group of punks are tormenting some people at a farmhouse. Soon, they kill the old man who lives there and the lady who is visiting (Betty Garrett) is being held captive...and all this is seen by her very young son (Jerry Mathers) who has been playing outside. Naturally, the boy is traumatized and he wanders off in a catatonic haze. Eventually he's found wandering along a highway and the kid is taken to the police. The boy is recognized-- -he's the son of one of the cops! The woman, apparently, is the cop's ex-wife. Can the police figure out where the woman and these sickos are in order to rescue her?This is a tense and reasonably well made film. I particularly like the scene where the woman attempts an escape--it's surprisingly brutal. Well worth seeing and currently posted on YouTube.
kapelusznik18
***SPOILERS*** A pre "Leave it to Beaver" 8 year old Jerry Mathers as Petey Atlas finds himself in the middle of a murder & kidnapping when he stumbles across these three juvenile delinquents, which they were known as back in the 1950's, who after beating the owner of the house Ben Canfield, Watson Downs, to death took his mom Linda Atlas, Betty Garerett, who was there looking for a job hostage. Traumatized by what he saw Petey loses both his voice & memory of the tragic incident and is picked up, aimlessly walking down the highway, by a couple of truckers who take him to the nearest truck depot in order to both identify him and find his parents. As it turned out the cop who's in charge, or better yet took charge, in finding Petey's mom is non other that his dad Officer Tony Atlas, no relations as far as I can see to Charles, played by that handsome hunk or a man Phil Carey.Back at the Canfield house the three juveniles lead by psycho Jess Reber, John Barrymore Jr, and his two pals the sensitive but at the same time maniacal Joey Gomaz, Gerald Sarracini, who in fact brained Mr. Canfield to death and all American looking Gil Ramsby, Cory Allen, try to make their way out with the $6,000.00 they ripped off the murdered Mr. Canfield. But with them facing the San Quentin gas chamber, for murder & kidnapping, their chances of surviving a major police as well as FBI manhunt aren't that good.****SPOILERS**** It's the crazed jess Reber who tries to take command of the trio who's crazy actions ends up doing both Gomez & Ramsby in with them never living long enough to see the end of the movie. Gomaz ended up getting killed, by him trying to protect Mrs. Atlas, by Reber and Ramsby getting shot by the police in refusing to give himself up when surrounded by them! Reber the one who planned to go down in a blaze of glory ended up meekly giving himself up and releasing Mrs. Atlas when he saw that his goose was cooked with her husband Officer Tony Atlas pointing a gun to his head after slapping him silly! As for the "Beaver" or Petey Atlas in the end he was not only reunited with his parents, who also reunited after being divorced, but also got his voice and memory back as well.P.S Actor Cory Allen who co-stared with James Dean in "Rebel without a Cause" had the unenviable distinction of not only having his co-star James Dean in the movie die tragically in a car accident a week before the film was released but also had his co-star here Gerlad Sarracini tragically die in trying to prevent a mugging outside a Manhattan night-club restaurant some eight months after the movie "the Shadow in the Window"-that he stared in with Sarracini-was also released!
