Menace in the rain.

I'm trying to locate a movie that probably dates from the 1950s. Set in that period and borrowing ideas from 'The Spiral Staircase' it concerns a woman besieged in a big house. Outside heavy rain is falling and a male figure, completely masked by a dark rain-hat and cape is seen in situations which imply menace. The film is an old fashioned thriller where the tension builds as the woman succumbs to panic. I'm nearly sure that it's shot in black and white. It could be a TV movie but I think that I saw it in a cinema. What sticks in the memory is the driving rain and the anonymous, menacing figure in the dark hat and cape; a kind of proto-Darth Vader. Can anyone come up with the title?

Except it isn't raining could be The Bat (1959)

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Seriously though, the movie "The Roman Spring Of Mrs. Stone" from 1961 has a strange looking young guy glaring at her house for days on end, and on one occasion I'm fairly sure he is still standing there in the pouring rain in a raincoat. She begins to get quite upset about him. It's probably not the film your thinking of, but I thought I'd just mention it in case.

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That movie can never be considered a thriller and even having just watched it, I can't really see the connection to the first post.

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Actually the 1930 version of The Bat, The Bat Whispers, fits a little better, but that is an early talkie and shows it. It has thunder and lightening, but apparently not rain.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xkw...-1930-65mm_fun#

The closest I can think of to a Dark Vader type in hat and cloak is House of Wax (or the orignal, Mystery in the Wax Museum), but it otherwise doesn't fit.

Many thanks to members who assisted with suggestions. Further digging suggests to me that it was a TV movie from the first Westinghouse Studio One series and is now in the public domain. It was called 'The Storm' and was directed by Yul Brynner. The first series is available on dvd but is quite expensive. I've ordered a two film volume from Festival Films which includes 'The Storm'. I hope that this is the film that I remember and that it is as good as that memory suggests. As I recall there was no supernatural element to the story but it was a cracking suspense thriller in the tradition of Hitchcock.

Are you sure?

That is not a movie. It was part of a televsion anthology series and probably was never aired after its first broadcast.

You would have had to seen it when it first came out in 1962.

I'm not yet certain that this is the movie which was shown on UK television. Certainly it was shown here later than 1950. It may have been a remake for television. The story was set in the US, in and around a big house. The rain was very realistic which doesn't suggest a filmed studio drama. Apparently the Studio One series was preserved by filming a studio monitor. I don't think that we got to see the entire series in the UK if indeed the presentation which I saw was from Studio One. I remember that, shortly after it was shown, one of the American horror comics ran a version of it as a kind of graphic novel.

Getting back to the 'movie' itself, there were outdoor scenes which, I suppose, could have been separately filmed but I don't remember any of the jarring disparities that attended live studio/filmed outdoor combinations (even up to recent times). I remember it as a movie, albeit perhaps a tv movie.

The synopsis of 'The Storm' rings some bells. I won't know till I get the dvd whether it's the production which I saw.

Prompted by Will.15's suggestion that Studio One Shows may have been broadcast in the early sixties I cast around for possible remakes. It turns out that 'The Storm' WAS remade for the 'Thriller' series headed by Boris Karloff. Dammit I'll have to save up for that version now. THAT must be the version that I remember - a TV movie. Many thanks to Will.15 for giving me the clue.

I had nothing to do with that.

Yeah, Thriller, you could have seen. They are still airing those over here.

It turns out that there was another TV movie remake in 1972, called 'The Victim' and starring Elizabeth Montgomery. That movie is currently up on Youtube. It was scripted by the same writer as 'The Storm' and looks good but it isn't the movie that impressed me all those years ago.

You might want to look at the Thriller episode anyway. It might be closer to what you saw.

You might want to look at An Unlocked Window from The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. That is on youtube. I have seen that before. I think the intro of the killer in the first scene may fit your description, but I don't remember actual rain. Maybe there was later in the story.


Moderators: you can change this back to unanswered

There is indeed a rainstorm in 'An Unlocked Window' and a shrouded figure approaching the house where vulnerable, frightened women are trapped in darkness knowing that a killer is at large in the area. I suspect that this is a very clever borrowing from the film which I saw. There is, however, a twist at the end of 'Window' which is all the more effective because the viewer has been craftily misled. I'm not sure that the shrouded figure in my film doesn't also turn out to be a 'goodie'. For sure there is a real 'baddie' in it. I've ordered the Thriller series that contains 'The Storm' (1962) which may resolve this issue. I promise to return to 'Movie Forums' with the results of this exercise.

Watching 'Window' reminded me how good some of the 'Hitchcock Presents' productions were. I have some of these in my collection but not this one. It does seem worth collecting these as, nowadays, they are good value for money and a lot of fun to watch.

'The Storm' from the Westinghouse Studio One series definitely isn't the memorable thriller that I'm looking for. It looks like a forerunner to it.

'The Storm' from the 'Thriller' series isn't the movie that I'm looking for either! It doesn't have the dark, cowled, menacing figure prowling about outside the house. The search goes on...

I put that on the classic horror film board and received no replies.