The Girl in Black Stockings (1957, Howard Kotch) *1/2

    I was hoping for a gem of a B movie, when I  saw that it was “A Bel-Air Production”. A studio whose logo was vaguely reminiscent of a poverty row studio that was primarily responsible for movies for the Drive-In market of the 50's. This one comes with a stellar cast: Lex (Tarzan) Barker in the lead as an attorney on vacation who stumbles upon a horribly disfigured murder     victim. As these kinds of movies       have it he reports the murder and sticks       around to solve it. In this case  T.V. character actor superstar      John Dehner (12 “Gunsmoke” episodes alone) is       the dogged Sheriff in whose territory the victim is       found. Much of the rest   plays out in and around a       remote lodge where every guest is a suspect – but the  guy who runs it   (Ron Randell; also a      veteran of TV) is  the guy you want to watch.       Too slow to be really   effective as a thriller      but there is a nice assortment of actors to      watch as you     wind through the process of unraveling the mystery: Anne Bancroft       (outstanding as always she shines   through the production and makes    the other actors      work for it), Mamie Van Doren, Marie Windsor,     John Holland and Dan Blocker.  One more,      someone I was certain I had seen many      times named Gerald Frank – as it happens     he only has 2 film credits and 1 for TV. He plays Frankie of whom it is said, “poor (Frankie)     had all the big man scared out of him.” Lastly     it is eerily evocative (???) in its prediction of Hitchcock’s Psycho; in it’s straight-up presentation (not docudrama but not pulp either) and emotionless performances. But such a comparison is an anachronism as “Black Stockings” precedes Psycho as both a movie and novel.