Scared Stiff ** (1945, Jack Haley, Ann Savage, Barton MacLane, Veda Ann Borg) – Classic Movie Review 12,222

Director Frank McDonald’s willing but weak 1945 American comedy murder mystery film Scared Stiff [Treasure of Fear] from Pine-Thomas Productions, is released by Paramount Pictures, and stars Jack Haley, Ann Savage, Barton MacLane, Veda Ann Borg, George E Stone, and Lucien Littlefield.

When a convict escapes, reporter Larry Elliott (Jack Haley) tries to solve a murder and a plot to steal jade chessmen. Ann Savage plays Haley’s girlfriend Sally Warren, who deals in antiques, and Veda Ann Borg plays a detective, Flo Rosson, who reveals that she is an insurance agent tracking the gang of convicted murderer Deacon Markham (Barton MacLane) to retrieve the chess set.

This daft, desperate-to-please comedy-thriller is low on credibility, scares and guffaws, and it doesn’t really work as a thriller at all, though the game performances from the pleasant cast help to save it.

Writers: Daniel Mainwaring (screenplay) and Maxwell Shane (screenplay).

Producers William H Pine and William C Thomas reissued the film as Treasure of Fear as part of a package of 30 of their films for TV in 1955, changing the title as Paramount used Scared Stiff for their Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis 1953 film.

Pine-Thomas had signed Jack Haley to a multi-film contract in 1944 and now signed Ann Savage to a three-film contract.

The film is in the public domain.

The cast are Jack Haley as Larry Elliot, Ann Savage as Sally Warren, Barton MacLane as George “Deacon” Markham, Veda Ann Borg as Flo Rosson, Roger Pryor as Richardson, George E. Stone as Mink, Robert Emmett Keane as Professor Wisner, Lucien Littlefield as Charles Waldeck / Preston Waldeck, Paul Hurst as Sheriff, Arthur Aylesworth as Emerson Cooke, Eily Malyon as Mrs. Cooke, and Buddy Swan as Oliver Waldeck.

It started shooting as You’ll Be the Death of Me Yet in early November 1944 and was released on 22 June 1945. It runs only 65 minutes.

Ann Savage featured with Rosalind Russell in What a Woman!, one of a dozen films with Savage released in 1943. Her blonde locks were reddened for Footlight Glamour (1943). She joined Joan Davis and Jinx Falkenburg in Two Senoritas from Chicago (1943) and starred (as a brunette) in the first of several films with Tom Neal in Klondike Kate (1943).

Although Savage and Neal did not see eye-to-eye, they starred together in Two Man Submarine and The Unwritten Code (both 1944) before their most famous film, the 1945 film noir Detour. Afterwards, although Savage starred in a half-dozen more films during the later 1940s – including Scared Stiff (1945), The Spider (1945), The Dark Horse (1946), and Satan’s Cradle (1949) – her busiest years were over.

© Derek Winnert 2022 Classic Movie Review 12,222

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