"The Shadow On the Window" was another of those tight little 80 minute film noires turned out by Columbia Pictures in the 1950s. It has a good cast and provides a lot of excitement.A little boy, Petey (Jerry Mathers) witnesses a murder and the abuse of his mother through a window of an isolated house where the mother Linda Atlas (Betty Garrett) had gone to work as a stenographer. The crime was committed by a gang of three youths, Gil Ramsay (Corey Allen), Jess Reber (John Barrymore Jr.) and the simple minded Joey Gomez (Gerald Sarracini). Petey goes into shock and wanders aimlessly down the highway where he is picked up by a trucker and brought to the police.The gang had broken into the home of a wealthy senior citizen to rob him. When he resisted, he was killed. The gang is unaware of the boy and thinks that his mother is bluffing. The boy's father Tony Atlas (Phil Carey) just happens to be a police detective. Together with his colleagues he begins to try and find his wife while at the same time, trying to reach his son.At the house, the gang is deciding what to do next. Having no car they are unable to leave. They ponder over "what to do with the dame". Jess favors doing away with her, while Gil the leader, does not. Neither does the hulking Joey who threatens bodily harm to anyone who touches her.Tony identifies the members of the gang through police work. In the meantime, Gil leaves to obtain a car but is surprised by Tony and the police. Back at the house, Jess gets a hold of the murdered man's gun and...................................................Phil Carey was never able to achieve "A" player status in the movies. He did get the occasional lead as here, but was mostly as a supporting player in westerns and cops and robbers dramas. He did however, achieve success on TV in the soap opera "One Life to Live" for the last 30 years or so of his life. Betty Garrett had a good career in the 40s in various musicals and comedies. She was however, married to actor Larry Parks ("The Jolson Story") who was blacklisted by House on Un-American Activities Committee (HUDAC) in the early 50s. She, by association was also put on the black list for a number of years. Her casting in this film was only her second film in years. John Barrymore Jr. was the son of the famous actor who's behavior was erratic to say the least. He changed his name to John Drew Barrymore in 1968 and is the father of actress Drew Barrymore.Also in the cast were Sam Gilman, Rusty Lane and Paul Picerni as various cops and Angela Stevens and Mort Mills as the dead man's niece and husband. Jerry Mathers of course, will be forever known as "the Beaver" in the hit television series, "Leave it to Beaver" (1957-63).

When the film begins, a group of punks are tormenting some people at a farmhouse. Soon, they kill the old man who lives there and the lady who is visiting (Betty Garrett) is being held captive...and all this is seen by her very young son (Jerry Mathers) who has been playing outside. Naturally, the boy is traumatized and he wanders off in a catatonic haze. Eventually he's found wandering along a highway and the kid is taken to the police. The boy is recognized-- -he's the son of one of the cops! The woman, apparently, is the cop's ex-wife. Can the police figure out where the woman and these sickos are in order to rescue her?This is a tense and reasonably well made film. I particularly like the scene where the woman attempts an escape--it's surprisingly brutal. Well worth seeing and currently posted on YouTube.

***SPOILERS*** A pre "Leave it to Beaver" 8 year old Jerry Mathers as Petey Atlas finds himself in the middle of a murder & kidnapping when he stumbles across these three juvenile delinquents, which they were known as back in the 1950's, who after beating the owner of the house Ben Canfield, Watson Downs, to death took his mom Linda Atlas, Betty Garerett, who was there looking for a job hostage. Traumatized by what he saw Petey loses both his voice & memory of the tragic incident and is picked up, aimlessly walking down the highway, by a couple of truckers who take him to the nearest truck depot in order to both identify him and find his parents. As it turned out the cop who's in charge, or better yet took charge, in finding Petey's mom is non other that his dad Officer Tony Atlas, no relations as far as I can see to Charles, played by that handsome hunk or a man Phil Carey.Back at the Canfield house the three juveniles lead by psycho Jess Reber, John Barrymore Jr, and his two pals the sensitive but at the same time maniacal Joey Gomaz, Gerald Sarracini, who in fact brained Mr. Canfield to death and all American looking Gil Ramsby, Cory Allen, try to make their way out with the $6,000.00 they ripped off the murdered Mr. Canfield. But with them facing the San Quentin gas chamber, for murder & kidnapping, their chances of surviving a major police as well as FBI manhunt aren't that good.****SPOILERS**** It's the crazed jess Reber who tries to take command of the trio who's crazy actions ends up doing both Gomez & Ramsby in with them never living long enough to see the end of the movie. Gomaz ended up getting killed, by him trying to protect Mrs. Atlas, by Reber and Ramsby getting shot by the police in refusing to give himself up when surrounded by them! Reber the one who planned to go down in a blaze of glory ended up meekly giving himself up and releasing Mrs. Atlas when he saw that his goose was cooked with her husband Officer Tony Atlas pointing a gun to his head after slapping him silly! As for the "Beaver" or Petey Atlas in the end he was not only reunited with his parents, who also reunited after being divorced, but also got his voice and memory back as well.P.S Actor Cory Allen who co-stared with James Dean in "Rebel without a Cause" had the unenviable distinction of not only having his co-star James Dean in the movie die tragically in a car accident a week before the film was released but also had his co-star here Gerlad Sarracini tragically die in trying to prevent a mugging outside a Manhattan night-club restaurant some eight months after the movie "the Shadow in the Window"-that he stared in with Sarracini-was also released!

Starring Jerry Mathers as the shell-shocked child who witnesses an assault on his mother, Shadow On the Window is a decent 'B' film with a solid cast and a decent script. Jerry's dad, a police officer, is played stoically by Phil Carey and mom is Betty Garrett, decent as a woman under constant threat from three stereotypical teen bad boys. One of the boys is played by Corey Allen, who revisited the role in the similarly themed Key Witness (1960), and the others are John Drew Barrymore--apparently channeling the spirit of an evil Dobie Gillis--and lovable lunk Gerald Sarracini. Beach Party director William Asher displayed his serious side here, and cinematographer Kit Carson got some nice set-ups during the climactic chase scene across roof tops and through subway tunnels. I'd love to know where this was filmed--perhaps somewhere in the Imperial Valley of California?