What really goes on in Manhattan's exclusive high-rise apartments? Only the doormen know for sure. But who watches the doormen? That's the question posed by Too Scared To Scream (originally titled The Doorman), a 1985 thriller that peers into the secret world of doormen and discovers eccentric fans of Franco-Armenian superstar Charles Aznavour. As Aznavour's not-so-beloved late-period song "I'll Be There" plays over the opening credits, doorman Ian McShane prepares for another night watching the door of an apartment building that's home to models, high-class call-girls, and other eccentric types, including lecherous old lady Ruth Ford, who repeatedly tries to lure him from his post with the promise of cake and PBS. But when a rich man's mistress turns up dead after a gratuitous shower scene, even McShane's attention to his duties isn't enough to keep him above suspicion. Not hesitating to play an ace, the NYPD quickly sends Mannix star (and Too Scared To Scream producer) Mike Connors to investigate the death. Even with Connors on the case, the body count rises. After McShane rejects her offer of tea and readings from Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets For The Portuguese, Ford learns the hard way whether she "shall love thee better after death," when she turns up the next day in several pieces. Turning his attention to the doorman, Connors discovers that McShane's creepy life has been spent tending to a catatonic mother, wearing makeup, and shouting selections from Shakespeare to an empty room. Unable to arrest him for weirdness, Connors instead sends Anne Archer to live in the building and attract McShane's attention by engaging in provocative sessions of aerobic dancing to nondescript synth-pop. The plan works, more or less, but a film-ending revelation shows the true killer to be not the obvious suspect, but a peripheral character played by Chet Doherty–who, in a twist sure to chill high-rise-dwellers to the bone, also turns out to be a doorman.
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