Strangers In 7A, The 1972
Andy Griffith plays a philandering apartment house manager who picks up a pretty young girl (Suzanne Hildur) in a bar. He takes her home, whereupon the girl’s male cronies show up armed with guns. Griffith and his wife Ida Lupino are held hostage by the crooks, led by Michael Brandon, who plan to use the apartment as headquarters while they pull off a big robbery. Griffith and Lupino pull off the daunting task of conveying emotion while spending half the film bound and gagged. Director Paul Wendkos stages the action essentially from the victim’s point of view; we see only what they see, and are kept guessing as to the full details of the crime and the ultimate fate of the hostages. Based on a novel by Fielden Farrington, Strangers in 7A was first telecast as an ABC Movie of the Week.
