Evading a manhunt three escaped convicts takeover the home of Jack Kelly and Hildy Parks and their two small children. The three are John Cassavetes, Vince Edwards and David Cross are about as mean a trio you'll find on film. It's also apparent that Cross is playing way out of his league with the other two.

It's an open hostage situation meaning that the trio really has no fixed plans what they are doing next which is worse for the hostages because they have no idea when or if they'll be free. Especially bad for Parks because Edwards is getting ideas about her.

The husband and wife team of Andrew an Virginia Stone present this film in a fine and realistic documentary style. The film benefits from the fact that Kelly, Cassavetes, and Edwards were not any kind of names yet on the big or small screen. And Hildy Parks was primarily a New York actress

The film compares well with The Desperate Hours which had a lot of big name players in it. While The Desperate Hours has a lot of style to it The Night Holds Terror far more realistic.

This one is a real sleeper, catch it if possible.

Gene Courtier picks up a hitchhiker. It turns out to be wanted criminal Victor Gosset. He is forced to drive out to a remote location where Victor is joined by his fellow criminals Robert Batsford (John Cassavetes) and Luther Logan. At first, they threaten to kill him. Then they take over his house and family while they wait for the bank to open to get their money.

This alternates between threatening realism and weaker B-movie material. There is some over-acting melodrama. It is interesting to see a young Cassavetes earning his chops. Despite its limitations, it is a tense little thriller. Once the criminals leave the house, the intensity gets a bit muddled. If it's ransom, the crooks should take the kids. If they're worried about witnesses, they can't leave the wife behind. The movie becomes tied down by the police minutia. It's better to stay in the house but it's still a solid crime drama B-movie.

When husband and father Jack Kelly is on the road, he is stopped by a supposed stranded motorist (John Cassavettes) who instantly places a gun to Kelly's head and plans to leave him dead in the desert to take his car. Desperate to save his life for the sake of his family, Kelly promises to get him cash, and Cassavettes and his co-horts (Vince Edwards and David Cross) take over their home. This is a taunt and tense film noir that grasps you from the very beginning and doesn't let go. What seems to be heading down a familiar street turns out to be intriguing once the pace gets moving. Kelly and his wife (Hildy Parks) are appropriately frightened, while there are multi-dimensional portraits given to each of the thugs. There are vulnerabilities and humanities in some of them that you don't see in most gangster thrillers, so obviously the script writer took great pains to add more detail to their characterizations. There are also some wonderful twists and turns that get the viewer convinced that the villains are about to get their dues when something else happens to take it down a different path. This makes it more exciting and as more of the law becomes involved, so does the media, which makes the tension even worse. While not yet released in Columbia's film noir collection, this is definitely one that should be. It is one of their better later film noirs.