Peter Hanson Movies

Natalie Wood plays what was touted as her first "grown up" role in the tense melodrama A Cry in the Night. Based loosely on the Caryl Chessman case, the film showcases Raymond Burr as a psycho who stalks and attacks young couples on Lover's Lane. Overpowering Wood's boyfriend, Burr kidnaps the girl and locks her up in a seedy one-room apartment. Though he barely lays a hand on her, Wood has every reason to be terrified of her captor, who has a disturbing habit of brutally killing small animals. Meanwhile, Wood's police-captain father Edmond O'Brien brusquely ignores all manner of civil liberties as he and fellow officer Brian Donlevy turn the town inside out in search of the girl and her abductor. Carol Veazie appears as Burr's blowsy, dominating mother, while Mary Lawrence offers an interesting characterization as Wood's plain-Jane sister, who is jealous of all the attention showered on her missing sibling. Cry in the Night is a surprisingly lively offering from the normally uninspired director Frank Tuttle. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

A communist spy plots the abduction of an important American atomic scientist in this espionage drama. To do his evil deed, he coerces a notorious gangster to do the kidnapping. Meanwhile a G-man is hot on the spy's trail and is determined to protect the endangered scientist. Unfortunately, the spy is on to the detective and plans to bump him off first. The spy does not count on the fact that he has chosen a patriotic gangster to do his deeds and when the crook learns the spy's true alignment he takes action. Between him and the G-man, the world ends up safe for democracy once again. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

The Paramount publicity department had a field day heralding the news that Charlton Heston portrays a Native American named "Warbonnet" in The Savage. Actually the ad campaign was a bit of a cheat, since Heston turns out to be a white man raised by the Sioux. The crisis comes when hostilities break out between the whites and the Indians, forcing Heston to question his loyalties. The script tries to be equitable, but the Indians lose out again. Ironically, one year after starring in The Savage, Charlton Heston played an Indian-hating government agent in Arrowhead. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

First published in 1932, Philip Wylie and Edwin Balmer's speculative novel When Worlds Collide was immediately purchased by Paramount as a possible project for director Cecil B. DeMille. But because none of Paramount's scriptwriters were able to come up with an adequate screen treatment, the property lay on the shelf until 1950, when producer George Pal was casting about for a follow-up to his successful sci-fier Destination Moon. Though the film was top-heavy with special effects, Pal was able to bring When Worlds Collide in for under a million dollars, thanks to an inexpensive cast and a heavy reliance upon stock footage. The story is set in motion when Dr. Cole Henderson (Larry Keating) announces that a extraterrestrial planet is on a collision course with the Earth. No one believes Henderson's story, save for crippled financier Stanton (John Hoyt), who finances the construction of a gigantic spaceship, built for the purpose of transporting selected survivors from the doomed Earth to another Earthlike planet. As it becomes obvious that Henderson's predictions will come true, a worldwide lottery is held to select those people who will be rescued from oblivion by Stanton's spaceship. In the climactic scenes, the worlds do indeed collide, with appropriately spectacular results. But will the spaceship, overloaded with humanity, be able to take off and seek out a Brave New World? Amidst the thrills, a romantic triangle emerges, involving Richard Derr, Barbara Rush and Peter Hanson. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi