The moral universe of Man Afraid (1957) is disturbing. A 20-ish burglar invades the home of a minister, and the minister unintentionally kills him in self-defense. The burglar’s father, of a lower socio-economic class and seemingly not quite right in the head to begin with, completely loses it and commences stalking and threatening the minister’s family, especially his (annoying) eight-year-old son. What develops is a situation where someone who did one “bad thing” accidentally must atone for it (explicitly by both word and action in the final scene), while someone who did a number of very bad and indeed murderous things with intention gets to walk away (literally, also in the last scene). Not even in a very forgiving Christian context does this make any sense.

The black-and-white CinemaScope framing of the menacing-feeling town is rather elegant, and George Nader convinces as a minister although the character is just not very dynamic. I think he was made a minister so that his overly troubled feeling over a reasonable action would appear realistic.

I was struck by (1) the hostile attitude of the police detective towards the minister, which is never explained, and (2) the brattiness of the kid, who is awfully and consistently disobedient for a minister’s son. So this is not entirely a good father vs bad father set-up, because Nader clearly struggles with the fatherly role - one effective scene shows that he finds it easier to mentor a boy not his own.