Blake Edwards

CHAPTER 4Experiment in Terror (1962)

Produced and Directed by Blake Edwards

During 1961–1962, Blake Edwards made a trio of films that would mark a transition from his early period to his middle period: Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961), Experiment in Terror (1962), and Days of Wine and Roses (1962). These films, which brought new critical and popular attention to him as a film director, all share the following characteristics: none of them was written by Edwards; all of them were made in the 1.85:1 aspect ratio at a time when widescreen films were made in or close to a 2.35:1 aspect ratio; and all of them featured A level stars (Edwards was brought in to direct Breakfast at Tiffany’s at Audrey Hepburn’s request and Jack Lemmon requested Edwards for Days of Wine and Roses). Paradoxically, he rose to a new level of success which departed from a career as a developing writer-director (Bring Your Smile Along, He Laughed Last, Mister Cory, This Happy Feeling, and High Time) and as a skilled widescreen director (Mister Cory, This Happy Feeling, The Perfect Furlough, and High Time).¹ And, ironically, beginning with The Pink Panther in 1963, Edwards blossomed as a widescreen writer-director. But, as we shall see, these films were unusual and experimental in various ways linked to his highly personal middle and late periods which followed.

Experiment in Terror opens with a disturbing sequence in which we see Kelly Sherwood (Lee Remick), a young bank teller, drive home from work and enter ...