14 December 2024
Paper Man (1971)
90 min.
Directed by Walter Grauman.
With Dean Stockwell, Stefanie Powers, James Stacy, Elliott Street, Tina Chen, James Olson, Ross Elliott.
When Joel erroneously receives a credit card by mail addressed to a non existent 'Henry Norman,' he and four college friends use the university supercomputer to generate a completely fictitious person....a paper man.

All seems to go well as the kids live off the credit of someone who doesn't even exist...but soon each of them begins meeting an early and mysterious death.

Is there really a 'Henry Norman' and if so, is he out to exact revenge for his identity theft?

Well acted and cautiously paced, this superior TV thriller is a cool treatise on both the dangers of technology and the timeless evils of man; it dodges from supernatural to man-made horror and all the while manages a relevance to today.

Best scene: Chen's crunchy end in the computer-controlled elevator...or Stacy's weird electrocution death (by a creepy overcharged med school dummy)!

Director Walter Grauman also did a number of other telethrillers such as the excellent Crowhaven Farm (1970), and The Golden Gate Murders (1979) among others.

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