The Girl in Black Stockings (1957)

The Girl in Black Stockings is an American B-movie mystery film released by United Artists in 1957. Directed by Howard W. Koch, it stars Lex Barker, Anne Bancroft, and Mamie Van Doren.

Director – Howard W. Koch

Writers – Richard H. Landau (screenplay), Peter Godfrey (story “Wanton Murder”)

Cast –
Lex Barker as David Hewson
Anne Bancroft as Beth
Mamie Van Doren as Harriet Ames
John Dehner as Sheriff Holmes
Ron Randell as Edmund Parry
Marie Windsor as Julia Parry
John Holland as Norman Grant
Diana Vandervlis as Louise Miles
Richard Cutting as Dr. Aiken
Larry Chance as Joe
Gene O’Donnell as Felton
Norman Leavitt as Amos
Gerald Frank as Frankie
Stuart Whitman as Prentiss
David Dwight as Judge Walters
Karl MacDonald as Deputy
Dan Blocker as Bartender
Mark Bennett as Brackett

Watch “The Girl in Black Stockings” (1957)

Plot

A lodge in Kanab, Utah, is where Los Angeles lawyer David Hewson goes for a peaceful vacation. He quickly is attracted to Beth Dixon, a switchboard operator and a former personal assistant to lodge owner Edmund Parry.

The murder of playgirl Marsha Morgan, her throat cut, disrupts the peace and quiet. Sheriff Holmes begins the investigation, starting with the wheelchair-using Parry, who admits to hating the dead woman, and Parry’s possessive sister Julia, who helps him run the lodge. It turns out David once dated Morgan as well.

A new guest, Joseph Felton, checks in. The sheriff’s suspects also include guests Norman Grant, a drunken actor, and his ambitious girlfriend, Harriet Ames. A missing kitchen knife believed to be the murder weapon is found by Indian Joe, who works at the lodge.

Beth eavesdrops on a phone call Felton makes from his room. She overhears him speaking to a man named Prentiss. Felton is later found killed by a gunshot, and it turns out he was a private detective. David becomes more and more convinced that the Parrys are behind all this. Ames is seen kissing Edmund Parry, which does not please Edmund’s sister or Grant.

To his shock, David arrives as Beth holds a knife to Julia Parry’s bloody throat, claiming to have stabbed her in self-defense. It turns out, however, that Prentiss is Beth’s husband, and he had hired the investigator Felton to follow the psychologically disturbed Beth, who is responsible for all the murders.