Mirage

After the lights suddenly go out in a corporate high rise in New York City, the world of cost accountant David Stillwell (Gregory Peck) starts to twist into something like a Twilight Zone episode in this 1965 thriller based on the 1952 pseudonymous novel Fallen Angel by Howard Fast, and featuring music by Quincy Jones. David follows an enigmatic woman (Diane Baker)—who seems to know him—into a subbasement that doesn't exist, assassins and thugs keep popping up with threats, and he can't remember anything that happened over the last two years. His whole life seems to be a fiction and when he hires a private detective (Walter Matthau) to find out who he really is, the man is killed and David is framed for his murder. What begins as a Manchurian Candidate-like thriller turns into a Hitchcockian psychodrama more like Spellbound, with Peck in a similar role as an amnesiac living with a false identity. Screenwriter Peter Stone creates an atmosphere somewhere between conspiratorial mystery and paranoia and veteran director Edward Dmytryk plays up the Hitchcockian elements with the glamorous but ambiguous presentation of Baker's Shela, who alternately assists and betrays David. The direction is efficient and Dmytryk teases out the mystery effectively, although he lacks the flair displayed in similar psychological thrillers. Kevin McCarthy, Jack Weston, and George Kennedy costar as co-conspirators. Extras include audio commentary by film historians Howard S. Berger, Steve Mitchell, and Nathaniel Thompson, an interview with Baker, and an animated image gallery. A strong optional purchase. (S. Axmaker)