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.

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.

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.