Lost But Found

PRIVATE PROPERTY-1960-Two hoodlums, Duke (Corey Allen) and Boots (Warren Oates) use intimation and switchblade to get their way. Duke also rides Boots for still being a virgin. They take a shine to a Ann Carlisle (Kate Manx, the director's wife) who they spot at a gas station and force an old guy (Jerome Cowan) to follow her to her house. Fortunately for them the house next door is unoccupied and they squat there and spy on her and her husband Roger (Robert Wark). Duke's sick plan is to seduce Ann and then turn her over to Boots but it doesn't quite work out that way when Boots winds up doing the dead man's float in the swimming​ pool and Duke is shot to death by Ann. 

Though rather mild and irritating by today's standards, PRIVATE PPROPERTY caused a lot of controversy in its initial release and was condemned by The League Of Decency. It played very few venues and disappeared. So much so that it was thought to be a "lost" film until a print was discovered and restored around 2016. 

PRIVATE PROPERTY was the first movie directed (and written) by Leslie Stevens, a busy TV screenwriter at the time. He went back to TV after the failure of this feature before returning to the big screen in 1966 with INCUBUS, the supernatural Bergmanesque parable with dialogue in Esperanto and starring William Shatner. His last work is on the series THE OUTER LIMITS. Sadly, leading lady Manx committed suicide four years after this was made. Star Corey Allen had been in REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE and other films and later became a successful TV director.

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