Jim Piersall was a good boy. His father, who loved baseball, never made it to the major leagues, so Jim worked real hard and did it for him. After his nervous breakdown, Jim still insisted, “If it hadn't been for Dad, I wouldn't be where I am today,” and he was right. The story of this young Boston Red Sox outfielder, whose breakdown during a game led to hospitalization and electroshock treatments, was brought to the screen by former television director Robert Mulligan with a kind of stark intensity that serves the drama well. With affecting performances by Karl Malden as the father, and Anthony Perkins as the eager, tormented son, Fear Strikes Out has a quality of honesty shared by a surprising number of dramas from the supposedly placid fifties. If Fear Strikes Out deals a less-than-deadly blow to the success ethic, it is a frightening probe of a taboo subject: the fear and loathing that sometimes passes for love between father and son.