Man Afraid (1957) User Reviews

Pleasantly Surprised

[telegonus · 7/10 · 12 July 2006]

This 1957 movie is fairly typical of a certain type of film from the fifties, usually made in black and white, often a thriller or crime drama, heavy on the suspense, with hints of madness, obsession or perversity of some sort in the villain. Most of these movies were made independently, but some studios ground them out, too. This one's a studio job, with a good deal of location shooting, and is a tad better than the average.

Competently directed by Harry Keller, a veteran of this sort of thing, the plot revolves around a gentle, decent minister stalked by the father of a man he killed accidentally during a robbery. Most of the cast is competent if unexciting for the most part, with only Harold J. Stone really outstanding in his role as a police lieutenant. He handles his dialog excellently. The big surprise with with this one is the performance of George Nader in the lead. Never the most compelling of actors, I generally find Nader lacking in credibility in most everything he did. In this picture, however, he's excellent as the upstanding reverend. His acting is well above average for him, and elicits genuine sympathy, from this viewer anyway, and this made watching this otherwise generic movie a pleasant surprise.

Competent If Flat

[boblipton · 5/10 · 19 October 2023]

The reverend George Nader hears noise from his son's bedroom and goes in to investigate. He leaves the lights off to avoid waking the child. When he dimly sees a burglar, he throws a snow globe at him, and kills him. After police lieutenant Harold Stone investigates, he goes home. The papers cover the news, and we see shots of the burglar's father, tailor Eduard Franz, ripping the seams out of a coat with a razor.

Odd things start happening, and eventually Nader concludes that Franz is stalking Nader's son, Tim Hovey. The police refuse to do anything because of lack of evidence.

It's a very slow and very flat build-up, so much so that all the suspense was drained out of the story, and Nader's near-constant, solemn and pastoral demeanor don't help much. There's some good camerawork by DP Russell Metty, including views of the seedy parts of Santa Monica Pier. With Phyllis Thaxter, Reta Shaw and Martin Milner.

The basic story idea is exciting.

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 1 April 2024]

The story begins with a family at home at night. A criminal has climbed into the son's room and the parents come running when they hear the boy screaming. The Assailant attacks the mother...temporarily blinding her. Then, he comes at the father with a knife. In self-defense, the father throws a snow globe at the attacker and the object kills the attacker.

After returning home from the police station, the father, Reverend Collins (George Nader), is shocked to see reporters at him home. They want to make a bit deal out of the incident and make out the Reverend to be some sort of hero. But Collins isn't interested in publicity and he sees the entire affair as a tragedy...which it is. He tosses the reporters out and just wants to be left alone. But he doesn't realize that he cannot just put the events behind him, as the dead man's father (Eduard Franz) begins stalking the family and appears to be up to no good. What's next? See the film and find out for yourself.

"Man Afraid" is a very exciting film, though it has one major flaw. The reaction of the police detective on the case really makes very little sense. Again and again, the cop has reason to detain the stalker...but again and again, he discounts it and does nothing. In fact, he even accuses the minister of possibly making all this up...which simply makes no sense. Had he underreacted a bit, the story would have worked much better. But such repeated underreactions just undermined the story. It's a shame, as otherwise it's a wonderful film and one that makes you wonder what you would do in such a situation. Still worth seeing but flawed.

George Nader is a star

[lor_ · 4 January 2024]

Growing up, my list of favorite action heroes was an odd one, including George Nader, who I enjoyed starring in that series of German-made B movies beloved by TV syndication packages (similarly, Klaus Kinski my favorite villain from his endless Edgar Wallace junkers -imagine my thrill in 1981 interviewing the great KK when "Venom" was released!).

Here we have Nader starring as a most unusual man of the cloth, playing perhaps the obverse of the character played by Charles Bronson in "Death Wish" two decades later. Watching this Universal-International release on Youtube in glorious CinemaScope and crisp black & white just now was a reminder of the late '50s when theaters were a great leveller - little movies given a deluxe treatment. In fact, here's a Nader vehicle shot by the great Russell Metty and boasting an original score by Henry Mancini!

The problem with "Man Afraid" is very, very poor pacing. The opening reel dramatically sets the table: putting all the elements of suspense and thrills in play, then for seemingly a full hour the picture just lies there, not action-packed, not heroic, but merely repetitive. Eduard Franz as the silent, dour bad guy wanders around threateningly, and given that this came from Universal Pictures, I immediately thought of The Mummy, that shambling horror figure in the studio's pantheon who is the least frightening of all, desperately in need of a shot of industrial strength Geritol.

Nader is earnest and forced to carry the movie single-handed, while poor Phyllis Thaxter as his wife is scripted pathetically, literally.

I don't think it's as good as some are saying

[rooster_davis · 5/10 · 16 February 2024]

I decided to watch this movie because the premise seemed promising. And I did watch it all the way to the end, which says something good about it since often I give up on a movie that doesn't hold my interest. What I found wrong with 'Man Afraid' is that right off the bat the parents - especially the father - are playing so fast and loose with the safety of their son, i.e. Having him walk to his friend's house after dark especially after the kid has told them that the father of the dead burglar has approached him. The kid's father knows that the other father is upset and would not even talk to him, so he just dismisses the kid's claims out of hand? Even though the kid has a history of exaggeration, this would be no time to dismiss his claims about being pursued by the dead guy's father.

And the police seem awfully reluctant to do much about the dead guy's father either, even when the kid's mother sees him in her home and she has to try and get away from him. 'Oh, she couldn't have seen him, she didn't know what he looked like,' says the police detective. Over and over the police refuse to believe there's anything really going on to be concerned about.

This movie was only so-so. And I have to say that I didn't find the ending all that satisfying either. This is not in the same league as 'Cape Fear' as someone else said. Not even close IMO.

A 1957 Amber Alert.

[mark.waltz · 9/10 · 23 May 2022]

In this case, the kid is Tim Hovey, stalked throughout the motion picture by the creepily photographed Eduard Franz, playing the crazed father of a robber costume preacher George Nader found in his house, in the bedroom of the little Hovey. Saying little, Franz is the Lon Chaney of the year (in addition to James Cagney who plays him in the biographical film made at Universal, maybe at the same time this was being filmed there), so in grief over the death of his son that he loses all sense of reality in his need for vengeance. Nader's wife, Phyllis Thaxter, is injured at the same time as the home invasion, left nearly blinded and thus vulnerable to fear. The invaluable Reta Shaw is warm and loving as the nurse hired to look after Thaxter and take care of Hovey, quite funny but definitely formidable, stealing every scene that she is in. A fellow future "Bewitched" co-star, Mabel Albertson, is cast against type as the drunken landlady, pointing out Nader as a killer and adding to his feelings of guilt over accidental homicide. Martin Milner is instantly recognizable as one of the parishioners in Nader's church.

This is an amazingly intense thriller, quite different then I expected it to be. The spiritual tones indicating that had Nader not been a minister, the accidental death would not have been the recipient of the as much attention. The scene where Franz sees pictures of Nader's family on television is a prime example of the sometime irresponsibility of the press, the bomb that set him off on his path to madness. Everything about this film is gripping from start to finish, and the film's conclusion handles everything in a perfect manner. The musical score by a young Henry Mancini is very dramatic and unlike anything else he wrote during his heyday, and the photography and editing are top notch. Even though the film is done in Cinemascope, the black and white photography aids to the mood and makes it all the better.

Uneven Noir - Man Afraid

[arthur_tafero · 5/10 · 1 March 2024]

I'm sorry, but. I wasn't afraid of a man who didnt change his clothes for over a week. You could probably smell him two blocks away. George Nader plays a minister and is relatively convincing. Eduard Franz, however, steals the film as the sicko Simmons, who wants some type of revenge for his son being killed by a fastball to the bean of his son by the minister while he was robbing a house. He had it coming. Nice pitching job by Nader; he might have helped the Yankees that year.

Watchable mess just for the Simmons character. The music by Henry Mancini is not very romanic. Nader's son, Michael Collins, would go on to become a great leader of the Irish resistance in Ireland, although the name might just be a coincidence. Don't waste your time on this one.

I Suppose Of The Same Vein As Cape Fear

[richard.fuller1 · 10/10 · 20 January 2013]

Such a simple idea of a story, all turned on the father of the convict when the news program shows pictures of two sons from entirely different backgrounds. Perhaps this was the cheesy bit, as no one would show a child who had been a victim and compare him to a culprit, but this was when the burglar's father decided to 'even the score' and pursue the child himself. This in any event is what I truly best remember about this movie.

Seemingly little things, like the boy having to walk home is suddenly emphasized by cigarette butts discovered under a 'dark tree'.

I always remembered this movie rather fondly (watching it as a child but in the bright morning daylight) and wondered who had been in it or what it was called.

All I remembered was Mother Stephens from Bewitched had been a slouchy landlady, so I had to track the movie down here thru Mabel Albertson.

Took me a bit.

Enjoyed it very much and would hate to see it now and see it in a lesser light. That would be a shame.

I think it definitely would be worth watching.

A priest's extreme predicament

[clanciai · 9/10 · 23 April 2023]

George Nader is the priest who is visited by a burglar at home scaring the wits out of his young son and his wife, but Nader interrupts the burglar in his act, there is a fight, and accidentally the priest kills the burglar by just throwing a hard object at him, in defence of his son, his wife and himself. He can not be convicted of the homicide, while at the same time he refuses to call it an act of self defence, as the death of the burglar nails his conscience. The burglar succeeded in damaging his wife's eyes at that, and she has to remain blindfolded from now on, until it becomes clear whether she may keep her sight or not. Since the burglar is dead and the priest can't be prosecuted, the case seems to be closed, but the burglar had a father, and here is the complication. The father can't get over it, and starts stalking the reverend's boy. The reverend tries to come to terms with him, which proves impossible. That father never speaks a word throughout the film.

It's an educating study in the mentalities of fathers, a failed father, another father whose boy ends up in hospital, and the father of the criminal, whose depths of unfathomable anguish we can never understand, as little as his way of acting. He probably isn't aware himself of what he is doing in persecuting the boy. What really gives the film some dynamic dimension is the terrific music by Henry Mancini. It is brutal, subconsciously suggestive and horribly intrusive, like a dramatic illustration of the common nightmare of all the protagonists. The film is unique in many ways, as I've never seen any film trying to cope with the same kind of dilemma of conscience, despair and death.

Excellent American drama with a moral to it.

[Vivekmaru45 · 10/10 · 23 January 2024]

I was well entertained by this late 50's film. Normally movies like this have a slow pacing, however this one is more interesting and the pacing is terrific. Your eyes will never leave the screen start to finish.

The plot concerns Rev. David Collins(played by George Nader) who surprises a burglar in his house and accidentally kills him. Feeling profound remorse for his actions, he tries to apologize to the victim's father Carl Simmons(played by Eduard Franz), who is a tailor by profession.

However Carl will hear none of it. He refuses to speak to David. Meanwhile David tries again and again to appeal to Carl's sensibilities.

What will happen next is for you to see and find out!

Verdict: excellent acting, background music, direction and script. I would also recommend for your collection of 50's thriller movies.