Reflections on ... The Girl in the Black Stockings (1957)

 

Recently watched: The Girl in the Black Stockings (1957). Tagline: “She was every inch a teasing, taunting “come-on” blonde … and she made every inch pay off!” I’m using this period of enforced social isolation to explore the weirder corners of YouTube for long forgotten and obscure movies. (My boyfriend is accompanying me only semi-willingly). 

/ The stars of The Girl in the Black Stockings: Lex Barker, Mamie Van Doren, Anne Bancroft and Marie Windsor /

Look, I don’t mean to overpraise what’s essentially a lurid minor exploitation b-movie. But in terms of low-brow fifties pulp thrills, the addictively trashy Girl in the Black Stockings veritably pulsates with prurience, misogyny, twisted psychology and an almost tangible revulsion towards sex. And it condenses its shock-by-shock twists into a taut 73-minutes. 

While vacationing at The Parry Lodge, a luxe mountain resort in Utah, hunky Los Angeles-based attorney Dave Hewson (Lex Barker) tentatively romances shy Beth Dixon (Anne Bancroft), the hotel’s switchboard operator. We first encounter the couple dancing by moonlight at an outdoor pool party. “Are you breathing this hard because of me or the altitude?” Hewson suavely inquires.  Their tryst is abruptly ruined when he lights a cigarette, and the flame illuminates a brutally slain female corpse in the bushes. The dead woman is Marsha Morgan – the local “good time girl” (prepare for lots of slut-shaming and blame-the-victim talk). Her throat has been slit – and her black stockings are in shreds! Suddenly, every guest and employee at Parry Lodge is a suspect – and what a menagerie of freaks they are! They’re all hiding sordid secrets, and they all seem guilty as hell. One thing’s for sure: as Hewson surmises, “We’re not dealing with an ordinary killer committing an ordinary crime!” 

The hotel’s proprietor is Edmund Parry (Ron Randell), an embittered misanthropic quadriplegic who viscerally loathes women in general and Marsha Morgan in particular. “I must say, the man-eating witch deserved it!” he’s apt to declare. “She was poison. Like a disease! A common creature whose every word, every breath, every gesture, was the show of an empty shallow strumpet. Miss Morgan was an example of a completely justifiable homicide!” Edmund is doted on by Julia (Marie Windsor), his devoted-to-the-point-of-incest sister. Does Edmund’s paralysis eliminate him as the killer? (It’s hinted his disability is psychosomatic). And what about the hotel’s knife-wielding, blood-splattered Native American handyman Joe (Larry Chance)? Due to an alcoholic black-out, he can’t account for his actions on the night of Marsha’s murder. Or bad boy ex-con sawmill employee Frankie (Gerald Frankie), who was sexually entangled with Marsha? Meanwhile, faded matinee idol Norman Grant (John Holland) is staying at Parry Lodge while preparing for a screen comeback, accompanied by his platinum blonde paramour Harriet Ames (Mamie Van Doren). As more dead bodies begin cropping up (cut to newspaper headline exclaiming “Maniac Strikes Again!”), it becomes apparent a serial killer is stalking this remote desert town. Who will be next? 

/ Edmund Parry (Ron Randell) /

/ Sheriff Jess Holmes (John Dehner)/

/ Joe (Larry Chance) /

/ Frankie (Gerald Frank). Who was the actor Gerald Frank? He looks like an escapee from Bob Mizer's Athletic Model Guild and fills-out a tight white t-shirt and pair of Levis beautifully! /

/ Harriet Ames (Mamie Van Doren) /

/ Dave Hewson (Lex Barker). Screen grabs via / 

The Girl in the Black Stockings certainly boasts a fun ensemble cast.  By this point, premium fifties beefcake leading man Lex Barker (a former husband of Lana Turner’s) had already portrayed Tarzan and was yet to feature in Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita (1960). Barker’s facial expression is permanently set to “pensive squint”, but we get copious glimpses of his wondrous physique, so who’s complaining? Today we remember Anne Bancroft as a heavy-weight credible “prestige” talent, but before she won her 1962 Best Actress Academy Award for The Miracle Worker, she paid her dues in b-movies like Don’t Bother to Knock (1952), Gorilla at Large (1954) and this one. Character actor John Dehner plays local sheriff Jess Holmes as if he’s wandered in from a Western. Tough-as-nails film noir broad Marie Windsor is cast against type in a virtuous “good girl” role. The Girl in the Black Stockings’ poster mischievously hints archetypal fifties bad girl and personification of moist womanly needs Mamie Van Doren is the film’s star (and the titular girl in the black stockings). In fact, her third-billed role as “the stunning blonde who lived for pleasure” is surprisingly small. Ultimately, it’s Ron Randell’s ferocious performance as the twisted-by-hatred Edmund that leaves the most indelible impression. 

/ Marie Windsor, Ron Rendell and Anne Bancroft /

/ Ron Rendell and Lex Barker /

/ John Dehner and Lex Barker /

Because it was made in ’56 (when the Motion Picture Production Code was still enforced), The Girl in the Black Stockings can only imply the violence and kink. All the murders occur off-screen, but the script compensates by having characters describe the mutilations in gruesome detail (“A girl was slaughtered and carved-up like a side of beef tonight!” “Those arms! Cut up like a jigsaw puzzle!”). Some particularly vivid moments: when one of the potential culprits is cornered by the cops at the lumber mill, he panics and falls into a buzz saw! And when a little girl discovers a dead body floating face down in the hotel’s pool, she giggles, “Look at that funny man!” Foreshadowing Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960), William Castle’s Strait-Jacket (1964), eighties slasher films and even David Lynch’s Twin Peaks (think of Marsha Morgan as the equivalent of Laura Palmer), The Girl in the Black Stockings offers a tawdry good time.

Watch The Girl in the Black Stockings here: