Directed by the silent film era auteur Maurice Tourneur, (father of Jacques Tourneur Curse of the Demon 1957, Cat People 1942, I Walked With a Zombie 1943, Out of the Past 1947 ) this fantasy- horror film creates a tumultuous Mephistophelean voyage of surreal and striking imagery. This film has fast become one of my favorite fantasy/horror films…
Carnival of Sinners or La Main Du Diable (The Devil’s Hand) is a brilliant and hilariously dark morality play about being careful what you wish for and what is the meaning of life and the pursuit of physical pleasure and earthly desires, if you must lose your eternal soul in the end.
With an incredible score by Roger Dumas, that lends a magical soundtrack to the story!
As synchronicity often rears its playful head when I do companion posts Carnival of Sinners also frames a gathering of people, much like the later post’s ‘angry women villagers’ who set the tenor for both films as something fantastical.
It opens with a small village tavern filled with people who have been detained by an avalanche. These characters are comical and colorful as they all want to eat, and are suspicious of Roland, who we haven’t been introduced to yet. As they wait to be fed, a strange man dressed in black carrying a wrapped package under his left arm, his immovable hand gloved in stiff black leather storms into the tavern with a gust of secrets and urgency at his back. They immediately mistrust this man, as he is not amiable and does not wish to mix with them at all. He acts as if he is being pursued by the devil himself.
Well, maybe he is… him. He is called on the phone by someone asking for him by name. Once at the phone, the lights go out, and when they come back on and the chaos settles, the package is missing. He panics of course.
As it is a tradition at this tavern to be told unbelievable stories by Monsieur Notary. They plead with Roland Brissot to tell them what has brought him here. And so he begins to relate an incredible story…
Brissot goes to a palm reader who immediately sees that he is damned… She insists that he leave… never to return.
A peculiar little man (Le petit homme– who is wonderfully enacted by Palau(Children of Paradise 1945, The Devil in the Flesh 1947, Le Corbeau 1943) is actually the devil himself who has been offering this deal for quite a while now and since it has been a year to the day that Roland made the wager of his immortal soul for the Talisman, he has come to collect.
From the moment Roland obtains the Talisman, women flock to him, his dog runs away in fear, and Irène cannot resist him to the point that he no longer can stand for her smothering love by the end.
The little man shadows his every move, playing little tricks on Roland so that he couldn’t possibly buy back his soul. He changes the time on the clock, he steals money so that Roland must scramble to put the fee together which doubles with every day that it’s come due. His life falls apart, his wife becomes less desirable to him and they become strangers, and all he wants is to be free of his left hand which is the harbinger of doom for him.
Will Roland Brissot find the next sinner to buy the Talisman from him… or will the Devil get his due?
As he relates his story, it unfolds as a marvelous dark fairytale, lensed with visual splendor dipped in a wonderful folkloric narrative and marvelous characters… including the other souls who lost their left hands and formed a special chain in the links of fate.
We, the links in the chain-Joined like the fingers of a hand.
Roland’s journey is whimsical and harrowing, beautifully filmed by Arman Thirard who photographed such masterpieces as Henri Georges Clouzot’sDiabolique 1955 and The Wages of Fear 1953 two of the best thrillers of all time!
Carnival of Sinners 1943 belongs with some of the great fixtures of ‘wagering your soul to the devil’, with William Dieterle’s The Devil and Daniel Webster 1941, and F. W. Murnau’s Faust 1926,
Roland has an enormous painting of Goya’s nightmarish diversion into hell hanging in his palatial mansion. It is the one of Colossus devouring his son. You would have to watch this film several times to catch all the wonderful details and devilish black humor!
IT’S HERE AGAIN… THAT TINGLING ON THE BACK OF YOUR NECK BECAUSE THERE’S FOUL DEEDS AND MURDEROUS MACHINATIONS AFOOT…HOSTED BY SPEAKEASY… SHADOWS & SATIN… AND SILVER SCREENINGS… THE GREAT VILLAIN BLOGATHON OF 2015!
Vincent Price -had said- “I don’t play monsters. I play men besieged by fate and out for revenge…”
Vincent Price is perhaps one of THE sexiest men in the film. Eventually, type cast albeit an icon of the horror film industry… enough of us are aware of his range of talent and his sophisticated manner. If I were to have met him, I would have swooned… and that’s not a lie. He possessed a unique sensuality both tragic and dynamic that just drew you in.
Price always could play ONE of the most cultivated, enigmatic, and beguiling villains at any time…
-Secret thoughts… That led to secret love… That led to rapture and terror!-
Vincent Price as Nicholas Van Ryn: “I believe in myself, and I am answerable to myself! I will not live according to printed mottoes like the directions on a medicine bottle!”
The chemistry between Price and Tierney is authentic and captivating. When Miranda Wells feels humiliated by the gaggle of high-class snobbish debutantes because she's from the wrong end of the river, not from the Hudson but The Connecticut River bottom, Nicholas tells her she's better than all of them and asks her to dance. He seems so gentle and human"¦ but he has a dark and villainous side!
“You couldn’t help yourself any more than I” – Nicholas
“What makes you think you’re so much better than I am!”
DRAGONWYCK 1946 was Vincent Price's18th film, after having appeared in The House of the Seven Gables 1940 as Shelby Carpenter opposite Gene Tierney in Laura 1944, Leave Her to Heaven 1945, right after he appeared as the cold-blooded Dr. Richard Cross in Shock 1946.
Produced by Ernst Lubitsch uncredited and overseen by one of my favs– Writer/Director Joseph L Mankiewicz. This Gothic & dark romance is based on the novel by Anya Seton"¦ With cinematography by Arthur C. Miller (The Ox Bow Incident 1943, The Razor’s Edge 1946, Whirlpool 1949, The Prowler 1951), Art Direction by Lyle Wheeler and Russell Spencer, Set Direction by the great Thomas Little. The lighting alone is a mixture of noir chiaroscuro and offers dramatic shadings of the best classical elements of horror. The narrative speaks of familial secrets, and twisted vengefulness, not unlike Lewis Allen’s spooky debut masterpiece The Uninvited 1944.
Added to the moodiness is the eerily haunting score by Alfred Newman with Orchestral arrangements by Edward B Powell. Edited by the keen eyes of Dorothy Spencer (Stagecoach 1939, The House Across the Bay 1940, Lifeboat 1944, The Ghost and Mrs.Muir, The Snake Pit 1948.)Â
Costumes by Rene Hubert and Makeup by Ben Nye. The film bares shades of Hitchcock/de Maurier’s Rebecca 1940 and Robert Stevenson’s/Charlotte Brontë‘sJane Eyre1943. Even a bit of de Maurier’s tautly suspenseful My Cousin Rachel 1952 directed by Henry Koster and starring Olivia de Havilland and Richard Burton. The book is a hell of a good read if you enjoy Gothic melodrama.
Gene Tierney and Vincent Price reunite after having appeared in Otto Premingers‘ memorable film noir masterpiece Laura in 1944.
Otto Preminger brings together these two fine actors in his noir masterpiece Laura 1944.
Here-Gene Tierney plays Miranda Wells, and Walter Huston is her devoutly Christian working-class father-Ephram Wells.
Walter Huston as Ephram Wells reading from his bible to Miranda.Miranda takes a drink of wine. Her father reproaches her-“I thought so, it’s got spirits in it. A little bit. Even a little bit of evil cannot be good Miranda”– Her stifling life with her religious father pushes her further into the arms of Nicholas Van Ryn.
This scene foreshadows the dangerous path Miranda is willing to wander through, as she starts to break free of her puritanical upbringing and reach for a life of being a free spirit. Believing that Nicholas represents that freedom. But there is a hint of evil that her father can sense.
Vincent Price once again manifests a passionate yet conflicted antagonist Nicholas Van Ryn with a magnetism you cannot escape, yet you may despise his cruelty and his self-indulgent murderous arrogance.
“I must not feel like my life is finished as long as you are with me”-Nicholas“You must never be afraid when you’re with me, Miranda.”
Glenn Langan is the handsome yet vanilla Dr Jeff Turner, Anne Revere adds a depth of nurture as Abigail Wells-Miranda’s mother who is weary of her daughter’s intentions to marry such a powerful man.
Spring Byington is one of the maids-Magda. Connie Marshall is the young melancholy Katrina Van Ryn, Henry Morgan is Bleeker one of the farmers who challenges Van Ryn and fights back against the antiquated laws.
Vivienne Osborne plays wife Johanna Van Ryn. Jessica Tandy gives a marvelous performance as Miranda’s maid the feisty Peggy O'Malley. Trudy Marshall is Elizabeth Van Borden. Reinhold Schunzel is Count de Grenier, Jane Nigh is Tabitha. Ruth Ford is Cornelia Van Borden, David Ballard is Obadiah. Scott Elliot is Tom Wells and Boyd Irwin is Tompkins.
DRAGONWYCK is a Gothic suspense melodrama in the grand classical style. It even brushes against the edges of the classic horror film not only because of the way it’s filmed but there are certain disturbing elements to the story. The shadows and darkness that are part of the psychological climate work are almost reminiscent of a Val Lewton piece. There’s even a pale reference to that of a ghost story that is concealed or I should say unrevealed, with the first Mrs.Van Ryn’s spirit playing the harpsichord, and the eerie phantom chords that add to the mystery and gloom that hang over the manor house.
Katrine-“I don’t like it now The singing’s getting louder now, I’m afraid I’m afraid.”
With swells of atmospheric tension and darkly embroidered romance, there’s just the right tinges of shadows and danger. A lush and fervent tale that combines tragic Gothic romantic melodrama with the legitimate themes of social class struggle wrapped within dark secrets and suspense.
As always, Price conveys a tragic pathos even as the story’s villain, he is a man who manifests layers upon layers of feeling. Brooding, charming, sensual, intellectual, menacing, passionate, conflicted, self-loathing, and ego-maniacal all at once.
One of my favorite roles will always be his embodiment of Corman/Poe's Roderick Usher in House of Usher 1960.
The film also offers us the sublime acting skill and divine beauty of- Gene Tierneyas the heroine or damsel in peril, a simple farm girl living near Greenwich Connecticut, who dreams of the finer things in life, swept up by the allure of a fairy tale existence only to find out that her dream has become a nightmare.
Once Miranda receives a letter inviting her to come and visit Dragonwyck, she is perhaps at once young and naive when she arrives at the austere place to be a companion to Van Ryn’s despondent daughter Katrine, a lonely sort of isolated child. First triangulated by Van Ryn’s over-indulgent wife Johanna, after her death, the two begin a whirlwind romance that leads Miranda to marry the imposing Nicholas Van Ryn.
Almost in the style of a Universal monster movie, the central focus is the mysterious mansion, surrounded by volatile thunderstorms and restless villagers who want to take action against their oppressors. The film works as a period piece seeming to possess an added heaviness due to the provincial settings and underpinnings of class unrest, which lends itself to the bleak mood.
DRAGONWYCK'S villain or very human boogeyman is the inimitable & urbane Vincent Pricewho holds sway over the locals as the patroon–lord of the land, as well as master of all he surveys, and of course his new wife. Driven by his obsession to have a son. He is a brooding dark figure whose dissent into drug addicted madness comes to light like a demon who has escaped from a bottle.
Van Ryn is vain and contemptuous, scornful, condescending, and cruel. Eventually driven by his immense pride, love, and desire… to murder his first wife who is in the way of his ultimate legacy.
DRAGONWYCK is an interesting film that belies any one genre. And as I’ve pointed out, beyond the dark melodramatic suspense elements, it’s every bit a horror film. And it is also the directorial debut of Joseph L. Mankiewicz.
Set during the Nineteenth Century when parts of New York were still founded as feudal Estates. It’s a fascinating portrayal of the history of the 19th century Upstate New York Dutch colonies and their struggles between the rich and poor against the reigning yet dying tradition of aristocratic rule over the small family farms which were overseen by "˜Patroons'Â A Patroon is the owner of the large land grants along the Hudson River. They are descendants of the original Dutch patroons"¦ “and they're terribly rich and elegant." -Miranda
Yet as in the case of Nicholas, they can be brutal and self-opportunistic landlords who collected the rent from these hard-working, exploited, and poor farmers.
This is what first impresses Miranda about Nicholas, his power and station in life. Tibby her sister tells her that she's not anxious to leave home.
Miranda says "That's not fair, you know that I love you and Pa, all of you and my home it's just that I try to be like everyone else"¦ and want what I'm supposed to want. But then I start thinking about people I've never known and places I've never been. Maybe if the letter hadn't come I'd"¦. Oh, I don't know I must be loony."
Nicholas Van Ryn is a brooding and powerful aristocratic patroon who runs all matters with an iron hand. In the Nineteenth Century, the upstate New York counties were still dealing with a system run by these Patroons. There began a social uprising of the surrounding farmers who wanted more power over their land and a rule that would abolish the aristocracy that was a tribute to a dying past practice. Soon there would be an end to these ruling Estates.
As seen in Van Ryn’s maniacal demonstration of his being seated in an elaborate throne he remains poised while collecting the farmer’s rent. Henry Morgan plays the tough and prideful farmer Klaus who has brought nothing with him. “Not rent– nor tribute.”
“I’m a free citizen I take my hat off for no one.”
When Nicholas’ first wife cannot bare him a son as heir to carry on the Van Ryn name, the wealthy and wicked Nicholas Van Ryn secretly plans to poison her with the help of an Oleander plant. Setting his sights on the younger, more beautiful cousin Miranda.
He then invites Miranda (Gene Tierney just naturally exudes a uniquely dreamy-eyed splendor) to come and visit Dragonwyck. She is an innocent girl fascinated by the urbane Nicholas but by the film’s climax, she becomes entrapped in the foreboding and bleak atmosphere of Dragonwyck, a place of secrets, sadness, and insanity.
Nicholas-“The Breeze must feel wonderful indeed on a face as beautiful as yours I imagine."
Miranda is so taken with the idea of dancing the waltz and how fine a gentleman cousin Nicholas seems. Her father always read passages from the bible, she hungers for adventure. Miranda craves the freedom to experience a better life.
Vincent Price is incredibly handsome as Nicholas. Mysterious, his deep blue eyes crystallize through the stark black and white film. He has a strong jawline, and possesses vitality"¦ at first, he is so charming. Nicholas-“The Breeze must feel wonderful indeed on a face as beautiful as yours I imagine."
The first meal at Dragonwyck is a grotesque scene in which his wife Johanna (Vivienne Osborne) shows herself to be a lugubrious sow, a glutton, and a spoiled child who now bores and disgusts her husband. He tells Miranda, “To my wife, promptness at meals is the greatest human virtue."Â
Nicholas is already starting to reveal his cutting tongue by commenting on how his wife overeats and is not refined. A hint of his cruel nature.
“I think I’ll have the bonbons before going to bed.”Look at the detail of this frame. It’s almost the perfection of a Late 19th-century painting.
Miranda meets the despondent Katrine… a hapless child.
At dinner, Johanna begins to nag him about bringing home the pastries from New York, the Napoleons, she appears to be a glutton, and though very pretty, a most unattractive portrayal of her character is given for the narrative’s purpose of Nicholas justifiably ridding himself of her so that he might pursue Miranda. In contrast to Johanna’s piggishness, Miranda is given a clear bowl of broth for her supper. the scene is set up so we feel a bit of sympathy toward Nicholas.
As Johanna shoves another bonbon into her mouth…
Cinematographer Arthur C. Millerframes the shot as Johanna is placed in between Nicholas and Miranda. His wife Johanna appears like a fairy tale character–the over-exaggerated plump wife who gorges herself on sweets while Nicholas and Miranda talk of love and loss. Miranda is wildly curious. He is withdrawn and pensive.
Nicholas plays the harpsichord. Miranda listens contentedly and then asks who the woman in the painting is. He tells her it's his grandmother Aziel –"That's a strange name"¦ she looks like a frightened child."
Miranda asks him to tell her more about his grandmother. Was it love at first sight?
Nicholas-"No Van Ryn does anything at first sight" Miranda-"Oh but she must have been happy to live here" Miranda smiles, her face a glow. Nicholas adds, "As it turned out it didn't matter, soon after her son was born she died. She brought this harpsichord with her from her home. She played it always."
Johanna “If you listen to the servants they'll have you believe she still does!"she laughs. But Nicholas quickly turns around to look at her, a dark shadow creeps along his brow. His eyes raised.
Nicholas-"Fortunately we don't listen to either the servants or their superstitions."
Magda (Spring Byington) tells Miranda about Nicholas’ grandmother from New Orleans, the woman in the portrait. That his grandfather never loved her, he never wanted her at all. he wanted their son. he kept her from him… He forbid her to sing and play. He broke her heart. And drove her"¦.” Magda stops short"¦. "She prayed for disaster to come to the Van Ryns and she swore that when it came she'd always be here to sing and play"¦ She killed herself in this room."
Magda asks-"Miss Wells why have you come here? Do you think Katrine is in need of a companion? Miranda answers her, "Well that would be for her father and her mother to decide."
Magda says, "Don't you think she's in need of a father and a mother"¦ that was a silly question wasn't it?"Â
The meddling maid pierces Miranda’s innocence with her honesty like venom–causing a bit of shock on Miranda’s face that usually seems as tranquil as a quiet lake of sparkling water.
“You like it here?" Miranda answers–"Of course, I do" Magda comments- "Course you do, you like being waited on, I could see tonight it was the first time. You like peaches out of season. You like the feel of silk sheets against your young body. Then one day, with all your heart you'll wish you'd never come to Dragonwyck"¦”
The handsome young Dr. Turner (Glenn Langan) comes to take care of Johanna who has taken sick to her bed.
He and Miranda sit and talk by the fire. He tries to imply that living at Dragonwyck has changed her, he tells her that the last time he met her he felt like they had so much in common. "Frankly right now I doubt you have any idea about the slightest thing to talk to me about."
Johanna’s illness gets worse, of course, we know Nicholas has poisoned her. Lying in bed she tells him that sometimes she thinks he hates her, but asks if they can go away together once she's better. He says yes because he knows she'll never get better. In fact, she will never leave that bed alive.
“Have you ever noticed it… for some reason you want to feel completely out of step with the rest of the world, the only thing to do is sit around a cocktail lounge for the afternoon?”-Lizabeth Scott’s Mona Stevens to Dick Powell’s John Forbes in Pitfall (1948)
Pitfall stars Dick Powell as John Forbes a disaffected insurance agent working for Olympic Mutual Insurance who needs more umph in his life when the daily grind begins to get to him. He’s married to Jane Wyatt who needs more than just his boring kiss on the cheek. But she’s the good wife in this crime story!
Lizabeth Scott is one of the ultimate noir femme fatales. In Pitfall she plays the sultry Mona Stevens –And when Forbes comes to recover the embezzled loot that her boyfriend bad boy Bill Smiley (Byron Barr) absconded with and lavished on her, she tells Forbes- “You’re a little man with a briefcase.”
Next thing you know it’s late afternoon and Mona’s sobbing in her gin at the dimly lit cocktail lounge, and Johnny Forbes is just a sucker for those dreamy eyes and that wispy voice of hers…
Boyfriend Smiley’s got pinched and is spending a year in the slammer thinking that Mona’s gonna wait for him but she and Forbes begin spending time together. She even tells him about the motorboat Smiley gave her, and it get’s conveniently omitted from his report. I mean after that sea sprayed, whirling, bumpy, ride with her blonde hair blowing alongside the mighty wakes from her untamed steering style, it seems to get him just a bit unraveled– I’m surprised he didn’t lose his hat!
But Mona’s not all fatal and when she finds out he’s married she lets him off easy telling him though she’s the kinda girl he’s always dreamed of she’s gonna let him go ‘without an angle… I could be nasty, but I’m not going to be.”
And besides he doesn’t want to tempt fate any more than he already has…
BUT!!!!!
Raymond Burr who plays the sinister private detective J.B. MacDonald who, Forbes hired to find Mona in the first place, is a tad unstable. He’s got a growing psychotic fixation on Mona and starts stalking her in the shadows. When Forbes confronts MacDonald– he wants revenge, so he visits Smiley in jail and tells him that the two are having an affair setting in motion an even bigger pitfall!
Watch out for those pitfalls… Your EverLovin’ MonsterGirl
"Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways."
"• Sigmund Freud
"Ladies and gentlemen- welcome to violence; the word and the act. While violence cloaks itself in a plethora of disguises, its favorite mantle still remains sex." "” Narrator from Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965).
THE DARK PAGES NEWSLETTERÂ a condensed article was featured in The Dark Pages: You can click on the link for all back issues or to sign up for upcoming issues to this wonderful newsletter for all your noir needs!
Patricia Morán as Rita Ugalde: The Exterminating Angel 1962:“I believe the common people, the lower class people, are less sensitive to pain. Haven’t you ever seen a wounded bull? Not a trace of pain.”
Ann Baxter as Teresina Vidaverri Walk on the Wild Side 1962—“When People are Kind to each other why do they have to find a dirty word for it.”
The Naked Venus 1959–"I repeat she is a gold digger! Europe's full of them, they're tramps"¦ they'll do anything to get a man. They even pose in the NUDE!!!!”
Baby Boy Franky Buono-Blast of Silence (1961)“The targets names is Troiano, you know the type, second string syndicate boss with too much ambition and a mustache to hide the facts he’s got lips like a woman… the kind of face you hate!”
Lorna (1964)-“Thy form is fair to look upon, but thy heart is filled with carcasses and dead man’s bones.”
Glen or Glenda (1953)– “Give this man satin undies, a dress, a sweater and a skirt, or even a lounging outfit and he’s the happiest individual in the world.”
Ed Wood’s Glen or Glenda 1953
Johnny Cash as Johnny Cabot in Five Minutes to Live (1961):“I like a messy bed.”
Dr. Moreau (Charles Laughton) Island of Lost Souls:“Do you know what it means to feel like God?”
The Snake Pit (1948): Jacqueline deWit as Celia Sommerville “And we’re so crowded already. I just don’t know where it’s all gonna end!” Olivia de Havilland as Virginia Stuart Cunningham“I’ll tell you where it’s gonna end, Miss Somerville… When there are more sick ones than well ones, the sick ones will lock the well ones up.”
Delphine Seyrig as Countess Bathoryin Daughters of Darkness (1971)– “Aren’t those crimes horrifying. And yet -so fascinating!”
Julien Gulomar as Bishop Daisy to the Barber (Michel Serrault) King of Hearts (1966)–“I was so young. I already knew that to love the world you have to get away from it.”
Susannah York (right) with Beryl Reid in The Killing of Sister George Susannah York and Beryl Reid in Robert Aldrich’s The Killing of Sister George 1960.
The Lickerish Quartet (1970)–“You can’t get blood out of an illusion.”
THE SWEET SOUND OF DEATH (1965)– Dominique-“I’m attracted” Pablo-” To Bullfights?” Dominique-” No, I meant to death. I’ve always thought it… The state of perfection for all men.”
Peter O’Toole asSir Charles Ferguson Brotherly Love (1970): “Remember the nice things. Reared in exile by a card-cheating, scandal ruined daddy. A mummy who gave us gin for milk. Ours was such a beautifully disgusting childhood.”
Euripides 425 B.C.–“Whom God wishes to destroy… he first makes mad.”
Bette Davis and Joan Crawford bring to life two of the most outrageously memorable characters in Robert Aldrich’s What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? 1962.
WHAT DOES PSYCHOTRONIC MEAN?
psychotronic|ˌsīkəˈtränik| adjective denoting or relating to a genre of movies, typically with a science fiction, horror, or fantasy theme, that were made on a low budget or poorly received by critics. [the 1980s: coined in this sense by Michael Weldon, who edited a weekly New York guide to the best and worst films on local television.] Source: Wikipedia
In the scope of these transitioning often radical films, where once, men and women aspired for the moon and the stars and the whole ball of wax. in the newer scheme of things they aspired for you know"¦ "kicks" Yes that word comes up in every film from the 50s and 60s"¦ I'd like to have a buck for every time a character opines that collective craving… from juvenile delinquent to smarmy jet setter!
FILM NOIR HAD AN INEVITABLE TRAJECTORY…
THE ECCENTRIC & OFTEN GUTSY STYLE OF FILM NOIR HAD NOWHERE ELSE TO GO… BUT TO REACH FOR EVEN MORE OFF-BEAT, DEVIANT– ENDLESSLY RISKY & TABOO ORIENTED SET OF NARRATIVES FOUND IN THE SUBVERSIVE AND EXPLOITATIVE CULT FILMS OF THE MID TO LATE 50s through the 60s and into the early 70s!
I just got myself this collection of goodies from Something Weird!
There’s even this dvd that points to the connection between the two genres – Here it’s labeled WEIRD. I like transgressive… They all sort of have a whiff of noir.Grayson Hall -Satan in High Heels 1962.Gerd Oswald adapts Fredrick Brown’s titillating novel — bringing to the screen the gorgeous Anita Ekberg, Phillip Carey, Gypsy Rose Lee, and Harry Townes in the sensational, obscure, and psycho-sexual thriller Screaming Mimi 1958.Victor Buono is a deranged mama’s boy in Burt Topper’s fabulous The Strangler 1964.Catherine Deneuve is extraordinary as the unhinged nymph in Roman Polanski’s psycho-sexual tale of growing madness in Repulsion 1965.
Directed by J. Lee Thompson (Blonde Sinner 1956, Tiger Bay 1959, Cape Fear 1962, The Reincarnation of Peter Proud 1975) the outre surreptitious Eye of the Devil (1966) is an atmospheric smorgasbord of uncanny & haunting images encircled by the air of clandestine and provocative underlying forcefulness. With ease, the film pulls you into an esoteric world of ancient rites and beliefs and primal fears and urges to prevail against or more aptly in honor of the pagan notion of the rule & reign of the old ways, and the dominant elementals. It’s a bit of a cryptic occult meditation on reverence, immortality, sacrifice, and reaping what you sow.
Niven is urbane and resolute in his stature as Patriarch of the French family who comes home to the ancestral chateau to tend to the vineyards, (the past season’s crop has suffered) and take his rightful place during the rites of the ceremonial harvest. Phillipe must not only observe the deadly family secrets that have survived for centuries but more horrifying than that, it must continue to be passed down to his children.
Philippe’s Aunt Countess Estell “ Christian Caray is a very wicked boy and his sister Odile is no better”
Eye of the Devil works so well to capture our ideologies by the throat partly because of the convincing performances by the enormously talented cast who inhabit this secret world, Deborah Kerr, David Niven, Flora Robson (Beast in the Cellar 1970 ) as Phillipe’s Great Aunt Countess Estell, Donald Pleasence as a malefic cleric Pere Dominic with a shaved head and solemnity, David Hemmings, Sharon Tate, and Emlyn Williams.
Both Sharon Tate and David Hemmings play two beautiful yet sinister figures lurking about. David Hemmings went on to do Michelangelo Antonioni‘s Blow Up (1966) and Sharon Tate whose first movie this was, went on to do Roman Polanski’s originally called Dance with The Vampires, now called The Fearless Vampire Killers, a comedic romp through the classical vampire story, though a little numbing possessed a few hilarious moments.Â
The film is an adaptation of Philip Lorain’s novel Day of the Arrow.
Once again absolutely stunning visuals frame the picture by cinematographer Erwin Hillier.
Erwin Hilliercombined with director J. Lee Thompson’s directing style is a tense and well-focused gaze creating a closed world of authentic dis-ease. Beautifully photographed with slight suggestions of The Wicker Man. There is an intoxicating ambiance perfectly underscored by the simplistic yet alluring music by composer Gary McFarland. Hillier’s close-ups capture fertile images of evil & arcane sensuality.
David Niven is the Marquis Philippe de Montfaucon who is the owner of a historic Vineyard. When a dry season hits the harvest he is summoned to the castle Bellenac. Deborah Kerr plays his wife-Catherine de Montfaucon who is told to remain in Paris with the children, but she follows him anyway. And for her trouble, she is assailed in the woods by very ominous figures in hoods which make for a very potent scene… which does not cease even up to the end’s shocking climactic conclusion.
The opening frames are quick cuts that utilize the sound of a speeding train, cut away frames between reveal shots of a sharp arrow, we hear the train sirens, a lavish cocktail party in high society, an old world-looking bearded man on the train, the arrow is raised- it pierces the heart of a white dove, the woods are filled with hazy black hooded figures, eerie and ominous they stand by the trees. A cross of branches is set on fire. Close up on Sharon Tate then close up on Hemmings then the screen goes black and the credits roll"¦..
It's a post-modern and riveting way to open a film with an esoteric narrative "¦the film’s title is set against the speeding to train its windows like eyes themselves staring back at us.
When Phillippe the Marquis arrives in Bellenac the villagers all seem to revere him, lifted their hats to him, head downward, humbled and proud. He meets up with the cleric Pere Dominic (Donald Pleasence) the mood and furnishings give one the idea of an Orthodox Christian sect.
Some thought he would not return to Bellenac the butler knew he would return"¦ Phillippe asks how about your father?
"I’ve never doubted the path you have chosen" Phillippe-"What makes you think I've chosen it?"
Pere Dominic-"You came back didn't you."
The priest places an elaborate amulet on the table. Phillippe picks up the amulet Dominic tells him "I think you have chosen it Phillippe, my son."
Family friend Jean-Claude Ibert (Edward Mulhare) sits by the fireplace in Paris talking about Phillippe’s trip back to Bellenac. Catherine tells him the first time she was there after their wedding she says it was the most frightening place almost as though they were back in the Middle Ages. Jean-Claude tells her that Phillippe had always been obsessed with the place as if he was trying to solve its diabolical secret.
Once at the castle, Philippe seems distant as if he is following a mysterious compulsion guided by the pervading force of a cult that recognizes ancient pagan rituals, and perhaps sacrificing his own life in order to save the vineyard. Catherine can do nothing to change her somnolent husband’s mind to leave and come back with her and the children to Paris.
Both Sharon Tate as the luminous Odile de Caray and David Hemmings as the impish Christian de Caray play two beautiful yet otherworldly and sinister figures lurking about with bows and arrows. Turns toads into doves, and is fixated on the children.
Odile mesmerizes both Jacques and Antoinette. She asks if they believe in magic, then she demonstrates her powers by changing a frog on a lily pad into a dove. Could she be using the art of hypnosis to create an illusion?
Catherine does not want her brother Christian to kill any more doves on the property and isn’t happy to see her influence over her children. It begins to rain. But Odile tells her that they are not life-giving clouds and that they will pass quickly. Catherine asks why she is at Bellenac. Odile tells her that she and her brother come there often… Then Christian appears and shoots an arrow into a tree right next to Catherine. The siblings wander through the landscape like other-worldly minions.
Phillippe begins to pull away consciously from his wife and children, he tells her to take them and leave. She pleads with him to come home with her and that she can help him. In a sense, it’s all begun and even if she tries to make a fuss afterward, no one will either believe her or come forward to help her.
She says he must be mad, that he’s dying for nothing, walk away from this stupid evil.
“I’m dying for what I believe.”
“No one can help me, not even you. You don't understand you could never understand”
He is preparing for a glorious pilgrimage of the soul. He is beyond being reached. He is prepared for the festival of ‘The Thirteen Days” or rather The Thirteen Dancers…
Alain de Montfaucon (Emlyn Williams) tells Catherine that he expects to be a living God and that Pere Dominic is more than part of it… He is all of it. He is a Pagan. And Bellenac is… A Fortress of Heresy…
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IMDb fun fact:
Originally Kim Novak was cast in the role of Catherine de Montfaucon. Filming began in the fall of 1965 in France. Near every scene had been filmed when Kim Novak fell from a horse and wasn’t able to complete her scenes. Deborah Kerr was hired to take over and every scene that featured Miss Novak had to be re-shot with her replacement.
The film’s opening credits read-Introducing Sharon TateJ. Lee Thompson on the set with Sharon Tate
HAVE A SO-REAL SUNDAY NITE- FROM YOUR EVERLOVIN’ MONSTERGIRL!
Very dark satire with a screenplay by Clifford Odets. This is a Film Noirmasterpiece directed by Alexander Mackendrick (The Lady Killers 1955)
Starring the enigmatic Burt Lancaster as J.J. Hunsecker… a power-hungry columnist whose unethical practices and megalomania make him a force to be reckoned with. Tony Curtis plays the smarmy climber– press agent always on the make–Sid Falco. He’s J.J.’s wingman who has to clean up the wake of the destruction he leaves behind with his brutal and persuasive influence. It’s a dark and sinister condemnation of the world of entertainment, publishing, nightclubs, social circles… the works!
The film also stars Martin Milner as Steve Dallas a jazz musician who wants to marry J.J.’s younger sister Susan (Susan Harrison) There’s a very strong undercurrent of incestuous fixation on the part of J.J. toward his sister, as he controls her every move and tries to destroy the young woman’s relationship with Steve. Fantastic dialogue throughout and James Wong Howe’scinematography is exquisitely framed for the dark and intriguing atmosphere of New York City’s nite life. Elmer Bernstein adds his wonderful score to this urban morality play.
I love Barbara Nichols as Rita the cigarette girl…
Always sweet here at The last Drive In-Your EverLovin’ MonsterGirl!
Anne Bancroft is a lady who lunches and listens to gossip in The Pumpkin Eater – being held hostage by the intensely neurotic Yootha Joyce a lonely housewife sitting next to her while trapped under the hair dryer of life… The woman at the hairdresser-“It’s like I told you, my life is an empty place!” Jo-“Well what do you want me to do about it?”
"The question isn't who's going to let me; it's who is going to stop me."– Ayn Rand
Cognition–ËŒkägˈniSHÉ™n| (noun) the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses. "¢ a result of this; a perception, sensation, notion, or intuition.
These 4 particular films seem to be part of a trend of films that deal with either women’s brewing emotional turmoil or in the case of Jean Seberg’s Lilith- a creeping organic madness, perhaps from childhood trauma that is not delved into.Â
Let’s consider women either in distress or the oft-used “hysterical’ trademark that summons every neurotic ill associated with women. With these 4 films it's the same root problem: Why should society determine what counts as an emotional problem? This is especially true for women as if she was the engendering source of a specific kind of female mayhem, the creator of the tumult itself… Capable of giving birth, does she also give birth to a certain kind of madness directed inwardly or aimed outward at society and its unyielding ethical questions?
It’s not that I think Barbara Barrie is troubled because she falls in love with a black man. It's that the world is troubled by her decision. Because of her choice -a society inherently cruelly punishes her by taking away the one thing she had personal power over, to remove her child from her life. Although, she has a wonderful relationship with Frank both are being judged and condemned.
The judge awards custody of her little girl to the biological father even though he is not the better parent. Not too long ago, women could be hospitalized just for being menopausal, based on what their husbands said.
Women were at the mercy of white male society's judgment. So if a white woman loves and marries a black man in the volatile climate of the civil rights 60s it would absolutely cause turmoil and quite the commotion.
All these women experience cognitive commotion but are not necessarily crazy. One Potato Two Potato is about the societal impositions forced upon an interracial couple and the strain of a child custody battle forcing her to qualify herself as a good mother. The sentiments of the time, the courts, and society, in general, are disempowering Julie through her motherhood.
This inflicts an agonizing torture on Barbara Barrie’s character Julie. Barrie’s performance as well as Bernie Hamilton as a man whose own masculinity is tested, tears me up inside…
A white woman, Julie Cullen falls in love with Frank Richards, a black man, against the will of everyone around them, including his parents who think he should stick with his own kind. Eventually, Frank’s mother and father come around and embrace Julie and her daughter who considers Martha and William her grandparents.
Julie has a son with Frank…and suddenly is being faced with a white judge deciding on who will gain custody of her little girl from a previous marriage to a man Joe Cullen who abandoned them years ago. Not til he finds out that she is being raised by a black man does he rise to take action and gain custody of his daughter.
This is a courageous story to relate to in 1964. Barrie’s anguish is one that is not self-inflicted, there is no mental disorder or neurotic dilemma yet it would challenge anyone who dares to be truthful and follow their heart in a world where many people must hide who they are. A beautiful love story that becomes tainted by the stain of ingrained hatred and ignorance. And causes ruination to a happy family.
Barbara Barrie’s performance as Julie Cullen Richards is nothing short of intuitively astounding.
Just for funzies, I wanted to paint some contrast into the mix, therefore pointing to films that truly deal with women and mental illness.More than cognitive commotion, they’re unstable, noncompos mentis, deranged, knife-wielding, murderous femmes, traumatized, delusional dames… or all out CRAZY NUTS!!!!!!!!!
And…
I’ll probably write about all these films mentioned–the women on the verge of a nervous breakdown or already on the shoulder of the weary road of life with all four tires flat at some point. I’ll Consider Charles Vidor’sLadies in Retirement 1941where Ida Lupino has to take care of her two dotty sisters Elsa Lanchester and Edith Barrett as the Creed sisters… They’re wonderfully Cukoo!!! I did a little piece on this gem a while back…
Robert Siodmak’sThe Dark Mirror 1946 with Olivia de Havilland playing twins Terry & Ruth Collins, Gene Tierney gorgeous yet cunningly homicidal in Leave her To Heaven 1945, Laraine Day is totally unhinged in The Locket 1946, Joan Crawford as Louise Howell has a nightmare filled flashback in Curtis Burnhardt’sPossessed 1947.
“she is shown as alienated and stricken with psychological torture”– {source Marlisa Santos The Dark Mirror; Psychiatry and Film NoirÂ
Then again in Anatole Litvak’s story actually set in a mental institution with Olivia de Havilland stuck in The Snake Pit 1948, Vivien Leigh is the consummate delusional Blanche Dubois in Tennessee Williams’A Streetcar Named Desire 1951… Marilyn Monroe gives a riveting performance as the deranged babysitter–(oh god kid just be quiet for Nell) in Roy Ward Baker’sDon’t Bother to Knock 1952, Joanne Woodward is in emotional conflict with three different personalities all herself…in The Three Faces of Eve 1957.
Eleanor Parker gives a stunning portrayal of multiple personality disorder in Hugo Haas’Lizzie 1957, I’ve written about Liz Taylor almost getting her frontal lobe sucked out at the request of her domineering Aunt -(Katherine Hepburn) just to hide her son’s sordid secret life in Suddenly, Last Summer 1959, Jean Simmons tries to find happiness in a loveless marriage that isn’t her fault in the engrossing Home Before Dark 1958, Ingmar Bergman’s Striking minimalist piece about mental turmoil in his beautifully photographed Through a Glass Darkly 1961, William Castle’s groundbreaking gender-bending Homicidal 1961.
Woodward in The Three Faces of Eve 1957.
Joan Marshall is Homicidal in 1961 in William Castle’s answer to Psycho.
Carroll Baker is a traumatized rape survivor in Something Wild 1961 and what I found to be a misogynist romp wasting several wonderful actresses who were offered these humiliating roles in The Chapman Report. In particular, Clare Bloom deserved better with her talent -as a nymphomaniac struggling with her sexual desires until she ultimately commits suicide in The Chapman Report 1962 and good old William Castle’s once again with his Strait-Jacket 1964 starring one of the ultimate Grande Dames Joan Crawford this time wielding an axe in addition to her nightmarish flashbacks.
Now… none of the 4 women I am covering here are homicidal or dangerous, all these women are experiencing a psychic struggle with issues that speak from their place in the world as women… who are defining somehow in their own way, what their identity means to them… Well, perhaps Lilith is a bit more volatile in terms of how she wields her sexuality and influences men & women! But she is a divine innocent albeit-nymphomaniac living in a dreamy world of her own –not a homicidal vamp who devours men and spits them out… She is innocent without malice. The men do the damage to themselves…
“And her eye has become accustomed to obvious ‘truths’ that actually hide what she is seeking. It is the very shadow of her gaze that must be explored”--Luce Irigaray
Max von Sydow,, Harriet Andersson, and Gunnar Bjormstrand in -(1961)-Through the Glass Darkly directed by Ingmar Bergman.
Kim Stanley gives an unnerving performance as a delusional and dangerous woman who plots to kidnap a child so she can claim her psychic powers and then locate her…
And of course the two titans of Grande Dame Guignol fêtes courtesy of Robert Aldrich…
Roman Polanski’s very post-modern almost Brechtian/Picassoesque ode to insanity starring Catherine Deneuve in his Repulsion 1965 –
There’s always Hitchcock’s Marnie (1964) showcasing an unstable female in distress brought on by childhood trauma. Considering Hitch’s lavish colors, and overt psychological embellishments that have created a pulpy romanticized landscape, that at times obfuscates the mental turbulence rather than letting it surface on its own. I chose to set this film aside and instead include the more off-the-beaten-path of psychological leaning-‘women’s pictures.’ 1964 seemed to be one hell of a year for Women in Distress by virtue of the female psychological crisis, once again to reiterate -not the ‘hysteria’ kind, mind you.”
Tippie Hedren and Louise Latham in Hitchcock’s Marnie (1964)
“From the socially conservative 1950s to the permissive 1970s, this project explores the ways in which insanity in women has been linked to their femininity and the expression or repression of their sexuality. An analysis of films from Hollywood's post-classical period (The Three Faces of Eve (1957), Lizzie (1957), Lilith (1964), Repulsion (1965),Images (1972) and 3 Women (1977)) demonstrates the societal tendency to label a woman's behavior as mad when it does not fit within the patriarchal mold of how a woman should behave. In addition to discussing the social changes and diagnostic trends in the mental health
profession that define "appropriate" female behavior, each chapter also traces how the decline of the studio system and rise of the individual filmmaker impacted the films' ideologies with regard to mental illness and femininity.”
— from FRAMING FEMININITY AS INSANITY: RE PRESENTATIONS OF MENTAL ILLNESS IN WOMEN IN POST-CLASSICAL HOLLYWOOD by Kelly Kretschmar
WOMEN ON THE VERGE… OF A BREAKTHROUGH!
Curt Jurgens carries Samantha Eggar after she has fallen off her horse. There is more going on than Patricia Neal’s blind eye can see.
Ann Bancroft and Peter Finch are a married couple in crisis. Having perpetually popped out a myriad of children she is yet again pregnant. Will this keep him home this time…? The Pumpkin Eater (1964).
Barbara Barrie falls in love and marries Bernie Hamilton. Once her ex-husband realizes that his child is being brought up by a black man, times get even tougher for the couple.
Alison Crawford (Patricia Neal) –“Love has to stop somewhere along the line otherwise it's almost like"¦ like committing suicide “
PSYCHE 59 (1964) –Alexander Singer (A Cold Wind in August 1961 with Lola Albright and Scott Marlowe) directs the remarkable Patricia Nealas Alison Crawford, a woman struck down with a form of psychosomatic or hysterical blindness. Alison is aware that the affliction is all in her mind since the doctors can’t find anything organically wrong with her sight. Her ‘hysterical blindness’and memory loss of the events leading up to her accident follows a fall down the stairs while she is pregnant. When she awakens she is unable to see.
Alison “My Brain won't accept the images that my eyes make.”
What is happening for Alison is that she is subconsciously blocking out the truth about her husband and her younger, coquettish sister Robin.
She is now living a very quaint life with her husband played by the austere Curd Jürgens(I love him as the devilishly urbane concert pianist Duncan Mowbray Ely in The Mephisto Waltz 1971).
Aside from her intense husband Eric, Alison’s very sexually charged sister Robin (Samantha Eggar) has now come to live with the couple after a divorce. Robin hovers very close to Eric like a carrion bird waiting to pick the bones of Alison’s troubled marriage. While Alison doesn’t have any cognitive memory of what led up to her fall, it’s obvious to us that she can sense the strong attraction between her husband and younger sister. At one time, her younger sister Robin and Eric and been involved before Alison caught and married him. Robin hasn’t stopped lusting after him. Slowly Alison’s memory comes back as the flashes and images of what she experienced right before she lost her sight literally come into view.
Singer builds the tension in the air slowly, methodically until it all comes to a headset against the skillfully contained cinematography by Walter Lassally(The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner 1962, Zorba the Greek 1964, To Kill a Clown 1972).
IMDb tidbit-Patricia Neal was offered the lead in The Pumpkin Eater, but it was not 100% confirmed she would get the role. She then opted, to her later regret, to make Psyche 59 (1964) instead, since it was an official offer.
Neal gives a restrained yet powerful performance of a woman who is trapped in self-imposed darkness by her fear of the truth…
There is very subtle theme of self-brutality that exists for each of the characters, Alison’s self-imposed sightlessness, Eric’s indignant stoicism is palpable as he walks through the story like a trapped stray dog, He is agitated by Robin’s presence because he can not resist her.
Robin, her younger sister who must have been quite young at the time of her relationship with Eric begs the question of appropriate behavior on his part. Robin is constantly asserting a seductive influence on Eric right in front of the disadvantaged Alison.
She is both a hyper-sexual narcissist and a bit self-destructive at the same time, either way, she gets off on playing the seductress torturing Eric, right in front of her sister, dark sunglasses and delicate pout. Although Alison suffers from blindness, she maintains a certain dignity that although as all three characters seem like she is, one of the trapped animals in a psycho-melodramatic forest, we get a sense that she will one day regain her freedom and spread her wings and fly away from it all truth in hand.
Alison “We must be near the marshes” Robin “We just passed it "¦ Coming to the old windmill soon"¦ it’s still turning.. nothing's changed” Alison “There's a factory there now, Don't protect me, Robby. Don't makeup windmills.”
Based on the novel by Françoise des Ligneris, with a screenplay by Julian Zimet (who wrote Horror Express 1972 and one of the best atmospheric little horror obscurities The Death Wheelers 1973 formally called Psychomaniaabout a group of British motorcycle thugs and their pretty birds who dabble in the occult. Beryl Reid and George Sanders being one of their relatives, learn the secret of immortality. But you have to die first to obtain it.)
Psyche 59 is an interesting psychological mood piece, almost post-modernly impressionistic with its stark and polished black and white photo work. And Patricia Neal who had just won an Oscar for her role as Alma Brown in Hud 1963and gave a command performance in 1957 as Marcia Jeffries in A Face in the Crowdis just exceptional as Alison who is trying to navigate the dark world surrounding her.
The film is strange and at times subtly cruel yet Neal’s character relies on our visual journey which becomes quite painful at times yet beautiful as she begins to emerge. In the film, PatriciaNeal’srelationship with Curd Jürgens has an eerie parallel to real-life marriage to writer/spy Roald Dahl, but I don’t want to get into the sensationalized tidbits of public people’s wreckage.
The Film also stars Ian Bannen as Robin’s poor befuddled boyfriend, Elspeth March, and Beatrix Lehmann plays Alison’s staunch and science fiction reading grandmother-wish I had one of those!
Miriam Hopkins has a luminous, quiet dreamy beauty.
Born in Savannah Georgia Oct. 18th, 1902 she died Oct 9, 1972-a chorus girl in New York City at the age of 20 she made her first motion picture after signing with Paramount Pictures called Fast and Loose (1930).
In 1931, she raised some eyebrows in 1931’s horror thriller Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde directed by Rouben Mamoulian.
InDr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931),Miriam Hopkins portrayed the character Ivy Pearson, a prostitute who becomes mesmerized by Jekyll and Hyde a tale of sexuality in revolt. Though many of her scenes were cut from the film she still managed to get rave reviews for the mere 5 minutes she spent on the screen.
Frederick March walked away with the Oscar for Best Leading Man in that horror gem. Miriam Hopkins had been up for the part of Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Windbeing that she was an authentic Southern lady, but the part… of course went to Vivien Leigh… “As God as my witness, they’re not going to lick me”
Miriam would make three pictures with Ernst Lubitsch,The Smiling Lieutenant 1931, Trouble in Paradise 1932, and Design for Living 1933.Design for Living is my favorite!
William Wylerrevising the film release of The Children’s Hour 1961, had been based on his original theatrical presentation with Hopkin’s in what was called These Three (1936). In the remake, she plays Aunt Lily Mortar to Shirley MacLaine’s troubled Martha, stepping into the role that Hopkins once portrayed.
These Three (1936) starring Joel McCrea, Merle Oberon, and our Miriam Hopkins as Martha Dobie in William Wyler’s toned-down version of the Lillian Hellman play.
IMDb trivia: William Wyler cut several scenes hinting at Martha’s homosexuality for fear of not receiving the seal of approval from the Motion Picture Production Code. At the time, any story about homosexuality was forbidden by the production code. Â
Directed by William Wyler, cinematography by Franz Planer(Criss Cross 1949, Breakfast at Tiffany’s 1961) working with Wyler they used effective mood changes with his lighting, creating an often provocative atmosphere. The film showcases some truly great performances by the entire cast, Audrey Hepburn,Shirley MacLaine, and James Garner (who sadly passed away on July 19th of this year.) Including Veronica Cartwright and Fay Bainter. Miriam Hopkins mixes a sad yet infuriating empathy toward her flighty judgmental and often elusive tie to the theatre she harkens back to. She is incapable of being there for her tormented niece.
The story concerns the struggle of two young and independent women trying to make a go of it by running a private boarding school for adolescent girls. The intrusion of a lie, ultimately founded on a malicious rumor concocted by the spoiled young niece Mary Tilford (Karen Balkin) begins to spread like deadly poison that Karen (Hepburn) and Martha (Maclean) are having a lesbian relationship. And the lie proceeds to ruin Karen’s engagement to Joe, worried parents flood to the school to pull out their children at risk of being exposed to that ‘love that dare not speak its name!’ and basically causes the ruination of Karen and Martha’s dream.
Whether the idea is true or not, the wake of the devastation of all the lives involved leads to poetic & unfortunate tragedy.
Martha and Karen's quite independent business relationship and personal friendship seemed to challenge very conventional standards of a woman's role, creating an uncomfortable pall over the town, the school, and the women involved in the scandal, and we sense this dis-ease on film. This all seems to feed the accessibility of suspicion when Mary makes her accusation, fueled by things she’s overheard Aunt Lily recklessly say about Martha.
Mrs. Lily Mortar–“Friendship between women, yes. But not this insane devotion! Why, it’s unnatural. Just as unnatural as can be.”
Mrs. Lily Mortar:Any day that he’s in the house is a bad day. You can’t stand them being together and you’re taking out on me. You’ve always had a jealous, possessive nature even as a child. If you had a friend, you’d be upset if she liked anybody else. And that’s what’s happening now. And it’s unnatural. It’s just as unnatural as it can be.
Miriam Hopkins is an added unpleasant moral eccentric and parasite who feeds off Karen and her niece Martha who have always had an apparently strained relationship because she’s money-grubbing, spineless, and a user right from the beginning.
Miriam Hopkin’s Aunt Lily glides through the film like narcissus’ secretary waiting for that great part that is never coming. Supposedly on tour with a drama company, or just avoiding the scandal, when she could have cleared the women’s reputations and saved the school from being shut down.
At times’s she histrionic, over-theatrical, melodramatic, and a relic of bygone days. Like an obsolete thespian Harpy who lingers around the house, tormenting poor Martha who is struggling with her own inner demons that Aunt Lily seems all too well to recognize.
Aunt Lily trying to stir up dramaturgical dust while teaching her pupil’s elocution, shows herself to be out of fashion, a bit of an outcast, and as dried up as the dead flowers, the young conniving and at times socio-pathic Mary steals from the garbage to give to Lily as a ruse for being late to class.
Aunt Lily is needful, maneuvering, and scheming as she insinuates herself into the lives of Karen (Audrey Hepburn) and her niece Martha (Shirley MacLaine) A nonstop know it all"¦ with a showy flare for dramatics.
At the school, Aunt Lily teaches the girl elocution lessons, music, and theatre which is perfect for her narcissistic compulsion to inflate her own ego while pushing her highfalutin ideas of breeding “Breeding is everything”. Lily is materialistic, money hungry, and will use Martha for whatever she can get out of her.
After Lily accuses Martha's relationship with Karen as being "˜unnatural' And how her mood changes whenever Joe, Karen’s fiance (James Garner) is in the house. Martha throws her out. Paying her off so she'll stay away. Hopkins does a truly perfect job of being the parasitic opportunist who offers nothing but grief.
I loved Miriam Hopkins as the gutsy Mrs. Shipton -‘ The Duchess’ in The Outcasts of Poker Flats 1952.
Until 1970 when like most great screen sirens, who seemed to inevitably get handed that part of Grande Dame Guignol caricature of the fading Hollywood star. Hopkin’s last film was the brutally disturbing Strange Intruder in 1970. She playing the recluse Katharine Parker, who is befriended by a psychopathic woman hater, then terrorized by him- John David Garfield (Yes son of the great John Garfield). Gale Sondergaard plays her companion Leslie who staunchly remains at her side to no avail.
WhileMiriam Hopkinswho played Martha in the original filmThese Three (1936) agreed to play the part of Martha’s Aunt Lily, Merle Oberon, who played Karen in the original film, turned down the part of Mrs. Tilford.
Mr. Happy… Bosley Crowther once again fangs the performances of The Children’s Hour with his serpentine wit. Published in The New York Times review March 15th, 1962.
“But here it is, fidgeting and fuming, like some dotty old doll in bombazine with her mouth sagging open in shocked amazement at the batedly whispered hint that a couple of female schoolteachers could be attached to each other by an “unnatural” love.
If you remember the stage play, that was its delicate point, and it was handled even then with a degree of reticence that was a little behind the sophistication of the times. (Of course, the film made from the stage play in 1936 and called “These Three” avoided that dark hint altogether; it went for scandal down a commoner avenue.)
But here in this new film version, directed and produced by the same William Wyler who directed the precautionary “These Three,” the hint is intruded with such astonishment and it is made to seem such a shattering thing (even without evidence to support it) that it becomes socially absurd. It is incredable that educated people living in an urban American community today would react as violently and cruelly to a questionable innuendo as they are made to do in this film.
And that is not the only incredible thing in it. More incredible is its assumption of human credulity. It asks us to believe that the parents of all twenty pupils in a private school for girls would yank them out in a matter of hours on the slanderously spread advice of the grandmother of one of the pupils that two young teachers in the school were “unnatural.”
It asks us to believe the grandmother would have been convinced of this by what she hears from her 12-year-old granddaughter, who is a dubious little darling at best. And, most provokingly, it asks us to imagine that an American court of law would not protect the innocent victims of such a slander when all the evidence it had to go upon was the word of two children and the failure of a key witness to appear.
In short, there are several glaring holes in the fabric of the plot, and obviously Miss Hellman, who did the adaptation, and John Michael Hayes, who wrote the script, knew they were there, for they have plainly sidestepped the biggest of them. They have not let us know what the youngster whispered to the grandmother that made her hoot with startled indignation and go rushing to the telephone. Was it something that a 12-year-old girl could have conceivably made up out of her imagination (which is what she was doing in this scene)?
And they have not let us into the courtroom where the critical suit for slander was tried. They have only reported the trial and the verdict in one quickly tossed off line.
So this drama that was supposed to be so novel and daring because of its muted theme is really quite unrealistic and scandalous in a prim and priggish way. What’s more, it is not too well acted, except by Audrey Hepburn in the role of the younger of the school teachers. She gives the impression of being sensitive and pure.
Shirley MacLaine as the older school teacher, the one who eventually admits in a final scene with her companion that she did have a yen for her, inclines to be too kittenish in some scenes and do too much vocal hand-wringing toward the end.
Based on Davis Grubb’s novel and James Agee’s screenplay, Charles Laughton directs this visual masterpiece that plays like a dark fairy tale about children in danger being pursued by a relentless human monster.
Robert Mitchum is a sublime drifter Harry Powella bible-spouting psychopath with the words LOVE & HATE tattooed on each knuckle of both hands. Having been cellmate to Ben Harper (Peter Graves ) who committed a robbery and stashed the money with his two little children John (Billy Chapin) and Pearl (Sally Jane Bruce)
Powell first moves in on their mother Willa Harper (Shelley Winters) but John sees right through his righteous facade very quickly.
Powell marries their mother (Shelley Winters) and murders her after she overhears him asking Pearl about the money, and then proceeds to hunt and terrorize the children across a nightmarish yet beautifully shot landscape by cinematographer Stanley Cortez (The Three Faces of Eve 1957, Back Street 1961, Shock Corridor 1963, The Naked Kiss 1964)
Featuring wonderful performances by James Gleason as Birdie Steptoe, and Evelyn Varden as Icey Spoon.
In the midst of this allegorical mayhem, Lillian Gish as Rachel Cooper supplants all adults like a fairy godmother protecting street children with her wise and fearless resolve…
