Fear Is the Key *** (1972, Barry Newman, Suzy Kendall, John Vernon, Dolph Sweet, Ray McAnally, Ben Kingsley) – Classic Movie Review 6,257

Barry Newman stars in Fear Is the Key as the hard-bitten adventurer John Talbot, who sets about plotting an elaborate scheme to avenge the deaths of his wife and child in a plane crash. Alistair MacLean’s 1961 novel Fear Is the Key provides the story for director Michael Tuchner’s engrossing, rapid-fire 1972 action thriller, shot in Louisiana, Los Angeles, Illinois, and London.

Newman makes a solid if unexciting hero, while the coolly beautiful Suzy Kendall makes little of the love interest, millionaire’s daughter Sarah Ruthven. But then she is left with too little to do except be a beautiful adornment.

Commendably, Tuchner directs with a great deal of pace and flair. Fear Is the Key is only a B-movie potboiler, maybe, but it is quite a good one.

It features Ben Kingsley playing Royale, in his only cinema film performance before his Oscar-winning Gandhi (1982) Also in the cast are John Vernon, Dolph Sweet, Ray McAnally, Peter Marinker, Elliott Sullivan, Roland Brand, James Berwick and Tony Anholt as an FBI agent, in his only credited film role.

Fear Is the Key is written by Robert Carrington, shot in Technicolor and widescreen by Alex Thomson, produced by Alan Ladd Jr, Elliott Kastner and Jay Kantner, scored by Roy Budd, and designed by Maurice Carter and Syd Cain. Budd also wrote and performs Bayou Blues on the soundtrack.

Cassian Elwes and Andre Gaines are producing a remake after acquiring the rights from Studio Canal.

Tony Anholt in Space: 1999.

RIP actor Tony Anholt, born on January 19 1941, who died on July 26 2002, aged 61, after a brain tumour. He is remembered as Charles Frere, the heartbreaker son of wealthy Sir Edward Frere (Nigel Davenport), in TV’s Howard’s Way, which ran for five years from 1985. Co-star Tracey Childs became Anholt’s second wife in 1990 but they divorced in 1998. His first marriage to Sheila Willet, by whom he had a son, actor Christien Anholt, ended in divorce in 1986. Both ex-wives were at his bedside when he died.

Barry Newman (November 7, 1930 – May 11, 2023) was best known for the 1971 film Vanishing Point and Fear Is the Key (1972), as well as the 1970s TV series Petrocelli.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 6,257

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Tony Anholt (1941–2002).