NO TIME TO BE YOUNG (1957)
“I feel like smashing something”
-MonsterGirl
Month: December 2012
From The Vault: Picture Mommy Dead (1966)
“who hated Jessica enough to kill her “that” way?”
Picture Mommy Dead 1966
Susan Gordon plays Susan Shelley a demented child not unlike Jan Brady, just released from a convent/ institution run by nuns…where she’s been placed after suffering from the shock of seeing her mother, (the flamboyant Zsa Zsa Gabor) Jessica Flagmore Shelley be consumed by flames in her opulent bedroom.
Susan still traumatized by the haunting memories of her mother’s horrific death and surrounded by some of the creepiest toys in all tarnation, comes home to the palatial hearth with father Don Ameche as Edward Shelley and his new lusty, conniving second wife Francene played by sexy Martha Hyer. Edward is so blinded by his desire for Francene that he’d sell out the whole estate contents and all to give his conspiring hussy all the money, vacations, and furs she wants.
Francene starts sneaking around again with brother-in-law Anthony Flagmore played by Maxwell Reed. Flagmore’s face has been charred from that fateful night when Mommy went up in flames. His odd presence and faithfulness to his pet hawk, add an air of the macabre to the already heady script.
The brazen couple plot to drive little Susan over the edge, while trying to get her to reveal the whereabouts of her mother’s missing diamond necklace.
This Grande Dame horror film is a little gem from the vintage 60s, by director Bert I Gordon, and also boasts a great supporting cast with, Wendell Corey, Signe Hasso, and Anna Lee. It’s creepy, it’s campy and a wonderfully colorful psychosomatic romp. Cinematography by Ellsworth Fredericks, who was director of photography on Invasion of The Body Snatchers 1956 and the sublime Mister Buddwing 1966 which I’ll be writing about soon) The soundtrack includes The Hearse Song sung by Gordon…‘The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out.’
Hedy Lamarr gets passed over by Bert I. Gordon.
“Through a Child’s Eyes You Will See Torment … Murder … And Flaming Passion!”
Be nice to mother now!- MonsterGirl
From The Vault: The Long Dark Hall (1951)
Directed by Reginald Beck, and Anthony Bushell. Written by Nunnally Johnson, Edgar Lustgarten is based on his book “A Case To Answer” and W.E. Fairchild. With cinematography by Wilkie Cooper (Stage Fright 1950, Jason and The Argonauts 1963), granting wisps of shadowy montages that are equally noirish, suspenseful, and simply splendid.
Yielding and obsessive Rex Harrison plays Arthur Groome a London gentleman married to the devoted and lovely Mary (Lilli Palmer.)Unfortunately, Arthur becomes consumed by a flirtatious showgirl Rose Mallory (Patricia Cutts), who winds up being brutally knifed in her boarding house room, and left for the credulous Groome to become suspect one. First gets the splatter of Rose’s blood on his jacket, but then fails to prove his innocence in a sea of circumstantial evidence.
Condemned to hang, this allows the real serial killer played by the tall and eerie Anthony Dawson who looks frightened all the time, a destroyer of wanton women who sees himself as ‘an instrument of justice‘, still lurking about, first at the trial spouting off about his obvious philosophy on sexually independent women, and then creepily shadowing poor Mrs. Groome, whom he idealizes as the perfect woman.
I’ll be up the long dark hall til next time! -Yours always- MonsterGirl
Fiend of The Day! Hope Emerson as Matron Evelyn Harper: in the prison-noir classic Caged (1950)
“You may be just a number to them, but you’re more than that to me…here pull up a chair it’s nice and roomy.”
CAGED (1950)
Writer Virginia Kellogg (White Heat 1949) offers us a doozy with this story directed by John Cromwell (Dead Reckoning 1947)
Eleanor Parker is Maria Allen, thrust into the prison system run by a well-meaning warden Ruth Benton played by the inimitable Agnes Moorehead. As in any good women in prison flick, it requires the sadistic matron to roil the exploitation brew with lots of dehumanizing antics like a good head shaving or dare I mention it, a kitten killing. So here’s to Hope Emerson’s mean-spirited Evelyn Harper, kitten killing, bon bon eating, Midnight Romance reading, prison caboose with a mean on, that makes Ida Lupino look like Saint Joan. Also starring one of my new favorites and a staple to these great gritty noirs the sprite Jan Sterling, Betty Garde, Ellen Corby, and Jane Darwell.
