MonsterGirl’s 150 Days of Classic Horror #111 The Other 1972

SPOILER ALERT!

THE OTHER 1972

When I first saw The Other during its theatrical release in 1972, it left an imprint I’ve never quite shaken. The film washed over me with a beauty so haunting it hurt—a quiet devastation that crept in on the golden light of a sunny yet somber afternoon and lingered long after the credits faded. The film still has that effect on me. There was something almost unbearable in its tenderness, the way innocence unraveled into horror, each frame both a lullaby and a warning. I remember sitting in the dark, feeling as if the screen itself was breathing with sorrow and secrets, the story’s pain blooming inside me until it became somehow my own.

Even now, the memory of that first viewing feels like a bruise you press just to remind yourself it’s real: disturbing, yes, but also mesmerizing, impossible to look away from. It’s a film that compels me to return, to dig deeper, to give it the space it deserves at The Last Drive In—a place where I can finally unravel its strange, poetic ache and share the way it changed the shape of my heart and the essence of horror cinema. I’ll be delving deeper into the hauntingly idyllic yet menacing landscape of The Other in an upcoming piece, stay tuned for a closer look into the secrets of the Perry family farm, where twin boys embody two halves of a haunted whole, two currents swirling in the same dark stream, two reflections in a warped mirror.

In the haunted hush of The Other (1972), Robert Mulligan conjures a psychological horror that unfolds like a lucid dream beneath the golden haze of a Connecticut summer. The film’s surface is all sunlit nostalgia: tire swings, dusty barns, and the slow rhythms of rural life in 1935. But beneath this pastoral veneer, darkness coils and waits, ready to seep through the cracks of innocence. Here, evil is not a thing that comes from outside, but a shadow that grows within—a little boy, a secret twin, a buried grief, and a game that turns deadly.

Thomas Tryon’s work as a writer is marked by a haunting lyricism and a meticulous, almost sculptural attention to detail. After leaving behind a successful acting career (Tryon starred in The Cardinal 1963, directed by Otto Preminger, where he played the lead role of Stephen Fermoyle, a young Catholic priest.. On a lighter note, Tryon brought new meaning to “out-of-this-world romance” in the 1950s sci-fi gem I Married a Monster from Outer Space 1958—proving that sometimes, the real mystery is what your husband’s hiding in the spaceship out in the woods!) Thomas Tryon turned to fiction with a focus on psychological horror and the Gothic, crafting stories that linger at the edge of the everyday and the uncanny.

His prose is richly descriptive, conjuring vivid landscapes, whether the sun-drenched Connecticut countryside of The Other or the secretive, ritual-laden villages of Harvest Home, and suffusing them with a sense of unease and hidden menace. The latter, The Dark Secret of Harvest Home, a two-part miniseries aired on NBC on January 23 and 24, 1978, adapts Thomas Tryon’s chilling novel for television, with Bette Davis delivering one of her most commanding late-career performances as the enigmatic Widow Fortune—the iron-willed herbalist and matriarch whose presence anchors the secretive, ritual-bound village of Cornwall Coombe. Harvest Home delves into the dark undercurrents of small-town life, blending neo-pagan folklore with psychological suspense in a way that would influence later writers and filmmakers. His collection Crowned Heads turns a similarly unflinching eye to the glamour and secrets of Hollywood, revealing the masks and duplicity beneath the surface.

Tryon’s novels often explore themes of identity, duality, loss, and the corruption of innocence. In The Other, the fragile boundary between reality and imagination becomes a source of dread, as the young Nile’s internal struggle manifests in the world around him.

Stylistically, Tryon’s writing is atmospheric, precise, and deeply psychological. He builds tension slowly, favoring suggestion and implication over shock, and his stories are often suffused with a sense of nostalgia tinged with a creeping darkness. Critics have noted his ability to juggle large casts of characters with internal consistency and to imbue even minor figures with memorable detail. His work is also confessional, sometimes drawing on his own experiences and inner conflicts, and can be read as part of the American Gothic tradition, where the fear of losing one’s sense of self is ever-present.

In the landscape of 1970s horror, Tryon stands out for his elegant restraint and psychological depth. His novels are not just stories of terror, but meditations on the secrets we keep, the selves we hide, and the darkness that can bloom in the most familiar, ordinary places.

The Other orbits Niles and Holland Perry, identical twins whose bond is so close it seems supernatural. Their world is shaped by loss: a father dead in a cellar accident, a mother (Diana Muldaur) bedridden by grief, and a grandmother, Ada (Uta Hagen), whose Russian mysticism and gentle wisdom offer Niles a fragile anchor. Ada teaches Niles an arcane ritual called “the game”—a kind of astral projection that lets him slip into the lives of others, even birds in flight, a gift that becomes a curse as the summer’s tragedies mount. The twins, played with eerie naturalism by Chris and Martin Udvarnoky, move through fields and orchards with cherubic faces yet a feral grace, their matching blonde hair and secret glances hinting at a world only they can see.

Accidents begin to haunt the Perry farm: a cousin impaled on a pitchfork, a neighbor dead of fright, a baby drowned in a wine barrel. Mulligan, best known for To Kill a Mockingbird 1963 and Summer of ’42 (1971), directs with a poet’s restraint, letting horror bloom in the margins. The camera lingers on wind-stirred curtains, sun-dappled grass, and the slow drift of dust motes in an empty barn; it also quietly tracks the secretive movements of a boy in the bloom of childhood as he slips, unseen, through the hidden corners of the Perry farm and the broader pastoral landscape that embraces the nearby farms and their neighbors.

Robert Mulligan’s direction in The Other elevates the film into a psychological masterpiece by masterfully blending the innocence of nostalgia with a mounting sense of dread. Much like he did in To Kill a Mockingbird, Mulligan brings a gentle, observational style to The Other, using the rhythms of everyday life and a child’s perspective to let innocence and menace quietly intertwine.

Rather than leaning into overt horror tropes, Mulligan crafts a world that, on its surface, evokes the gentle rhythms of a Depression-era coming-of-age tale—sunlit fields, boys at play, and the warmth of family routines. But this idyllic veneer is a deliberate misdirection: Mulligan uses it to lull us into a false sense of security, only to reveal the darkness festering beneath gradually.

His approach is subtle and deeply psychological. Mulligan’s camera lingers on the ordinary—games in the barn, quiet moments with the grandmother, the stillness of the farmhouse, inviting us to inhabit the emotional world of young Niles. Mulligan’s restraint is key: he resists sensationalism, instead letting tension build through suggestion, silence, and the uneasy interplay between characters. The result is a pervasive sense of unease, as we become attuned to the small cracks in the film’s nostalgic façade

Mulligan’s greatest achievement is how he externalizes the film’s central psychological conflict. He draws natural, unaffected performances from the Udvarnoky twins, making the “good twin/bad twin” dynamic feel heartbreakingly real. Scenes unfold with a quiet intimacy that makes the eventual revelations all the more devastating. The director’s use of ‘on-screen’ sound—simple, natural noises like wind, footsteps, and distant voices—heightens the isolation and internal turmoil of the characters, especially as the story’s supernatural undertones begin to surface.

Ultimately, with his careful, understated guidance, Mulligan’s direction of The Other offers us not just a chilling film but a haunting exploration of hidden truths, a study in contrasts: sunlight and shadow, innocence and guilt, reality and delusion. By refusing to romanticize his characters or the era, he creates a claustrophobic atmosphere where the true horror is psychological, rooted in grief, repression, and the blurred boundaries between self and other.

Cinematographer Robert Surtees bathes the film in a luminous melancholy, every frame a study in contrasts—light and shadow, innocence and guilt, the living and the dead. Surtees was known for his innovative use of lighting and camera techniques, adapting his style to suit each film’s needs, whether lush Technicolor epics, gritty black-and-white dramas, or modern widescreen productions. His work is marked by a painterly attention to color, light, and composition—he could evoke sweeping grandeur in films like Ben-Hur and King Solomon’s Mines, or intimate psychological tension in The Graduate and The Last Picture Show. Surtees won three Academy Awards (Oscars) for Best Cinematography during his career. He received Oscars for his work on King Solomon’s Mines (1950), The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), and Ben-Hur (1959).

He was a master of both spectacle and subtlety, able to create immersive, atmospheric visuals that served the story above all else. Surtees’s style is often described as chameleon-like: he brought a distinct visual identity to each project, whether through lavish location photography, expressive use of negative space, or nuanced lighting that heightened mood and character.

Robert Surtees’ cinematography in The Other does more than capture the surface beauty of rural Connecticut—it’s deeply psychological and emotionally charged, shaping how we experience the story’s innocence and dread. His lens bathes the landscape in a nostalgic, sunlit glow, evoking the wistfulness of childhood memories and the illusion of safety. But beneath this golden veneer, Surtees subtly unsettles us: the camera lingers just a little too long on empty fields or quiet spaces, making the familiar feel uncanny and hinting at the darkness threading through everyone’s lives.

Jerry Goldsmith stands alone as my favorite composer—his music doesn’t just stir emotion; it resonates with me on a deeper, more elusive frequency, moving me beyond sentiment into something profound and ineffable. His melodies linger in my psyche, awakening feelings that words can’t quite reach.

For The Other, Goldsmith’s score is a minor-key lullaby, its gentle unease winding through the film like a half-remembered nursery rhyme. Each note seems to hang in the air like mist over a golden summer field—beautiful, yes, but edged with sorrow, as if the music itself is mourning something it cannot name. In The Other, Goldsmith doesn’t just underscore the narrative; he breathes life into its shadows, weaving a spell of longing and liminal otherworldliness. His music is the film’s secret language—evocative, haunting, and utterly inescapable.

The acting is quietly devastating. Uta Hagen, in one of her rare film roles, brings warmth and gravity as Ada, her love for Niles tinged with anguish and forboding as she begins to glimpse the truth. The twins are remarkable: Chris Udvarnoky’s Niles is all wide-eyed vulnerability, while Martin’s Holland flickers at the edge of the frame, a phantom of mischief and malice. The supporting cast includes Victor French, John Ritter, Jenny Sullivan, and Lou Frizzell, not to mention Diana Muldaur, who brings a quiet, aching vulnerability to the role of Alexandra, the twins’ incapacitated mother, grounding the story in a lived-in reality, their performances understated but deeply felt.

Key scenes unfold with a kind of dream logic: the twins’ secret rituals in the barn, the grandmother’s desperate attempt to save Niles from himself, the final conflagration that leaves the family farm blackened and cursed. The film’s great twist—that Holland has been dead since spring, and Niles, unable to bear the loss, has kept his brother alive through “the game”—arrives not as a cheap shock, but as a slow, dawning horror. The revelation is less about the supernatural than about the wounds of grief and the perilous power of imagination.

The Other intentionally leaves the question of the supernatural ambiguous. The narrative blurs the line between psychological disturbance and genuine supernatural influence, never fully revealing whether Niles is simply taking on Holland’s malevolent nature as a coping mechanism for grief and trauma or if he is actually channeling his dead twin’s spirit through “the game” taught by Ada.

Throughout the film, Niles commits a series of increasingly disturbing acts, attributing them to Holland, much like a dissociative split or a child’s desperate attempt to avoid facing his own actions. The story is told entirely from Niles’s perspective, which is itself unreliable, further complicating the truth of what’s happening. The presence of “the game”—a form of astral projection or psychic play—adds a layer of supernatural possibility, but the film never confirms whether this is real or simply the product of Niles’s imagination and psychological unraveling.

There are specific moments, such as Ada’s confrontation with Niles at Holland’s grave and the surreal, dreamlike tone of the final scenes, that reinforce this ambiguity. We are is left to wonder: Is Niles possessed, delusional, or both? Is Holland’s influence a literal haunting, or the manifestation of Niles’s fractured psyche?

In the end, the film’s refusal to provide a clear answer is part of what makes it so haunting and enduring. The horror lingers precisely because it is unresolved, leaving us to grapple with the possibility that the true evil may lie within, or just beyond the veil of reality.

Mulligan’s film stands apart from the more sensational horror of its era. It eschews gore and jump scares for something quieter and more insidious: the terror of what we carry inside, the violence that can bloom in the most beautiful places. In the landscape of 1970s horror, it is an underappreciated outlier—a film that draws its power from suggestion, atmosphere, and the ache of loss. Its images linger: a ring wrapped in a handkerchief, a boy’s face reflected in a well, a barn consumed by fire. By the end, the sunlit fields are stripped of innocence, the pastoral dream transformed into a nightmarish reverie.

The Other is a film of haunted silences and poisoned summers, a story where evil wears the face of a child and the greatest horrors are the ones we cannot see. It is a minor-key masterpiece, as beautiful as it is disturbing—a ghost story whispered in broad daylight, and a reminder that sometimes the scariest monsters are those we invent to survive.

#111 down, 39 to go! Your EverLovin’ Joey formally & affectionately known as MonsterGirl!

Under the Radar: The Unseen Side of Film Noir – Part 1

Dennis O’Keefe and Marsha Hunt in Anthony Mann’s Raw Deal 1948.

While iconic film noirs grab our attention, films like Out of the Past, where Jeff Bailey’s (Robert Mitchum) past catches up with him lured by the complex and dangerous Kathie Moffet (Jane Greer), and while there’s nothing hotter than the steamy affair between Frank and Cora (Garfield and Turner) in The Postman Always Rings Twice, or watching Walter Neff’s (Fred MacMurray) descent into murder and deception lured by the wiley Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) in Double Indemnity. It’s no wonder these masterpieces have rightfully earned their place in cinematic history, yet there’s a whole alleyway of shadows, both literally and figuratively, that have flown under the radar. Well worth watching, these lesser-known noir gems are waiting to be discovered.

Films like The Sniper (1952), Raw Deal (1948), and Act of Violence (1948) offer gritty and challenging narratives and are begging for a bit of attention. These overlooked classics showcase the genre’s versatility, exploring themes of psychological torment, moral ambiguity, and the consequences of violence. The Sniper delves into the twisted psyche of a disturbed war veteran turned killer. Raw Deal presents a gritty tale of escaping the past, desire in flux, and redemption.  Act of Violence examines the lasting impact of wartime choices on civilian life. These underappreciated noirs prove that the genre’s shadowy allure extends far beyond its most celebrated titles. I wanted to celebrate Noirvember by peering into the more obscure corners of the genre!

SPOILER ALERT ?

1-The Sniper 1952


The Sniper is a dark psychological film noir that explores the troubling story of Eddie Miller, a disturbed delivery man with a deep-seated hatred of women. Directed by Edward Dmytryk and shot on location in San Francisco, particularly in the Telegraph Hill area, the film was written by Harry Brown and based on a story by Edna and Edward Anhalt. The cast features Adolphe Menjou, Arthur Franz, Gerald Mohr, and one of noir’s finest femme fatales – Marie Windsor, who Eddie thinks played him for a poor sucker.

The Sniper unfolds like a fever dream in the burning, daylit streets, and shadowy streets of 1950s San Francisco. It is a haunting exploration of a fractured psyche teetering on the edge of madness and the manhunt that ensues.

Arthur Franz plays the unbalanced Eddie Miller, who feels compelled to kill women. When he tries to get help for himself, he is met with a lack of interest and sent back out into the world. Miller is a man whose inner demons have twisted his view of women and, evidently, a mother who is hinted at as someone he despises so severely that he finally breaks down and begins a killing spree, targeting them from rooftops throughout the city.

Adolph Menjou plays Lt. Kafka, a gruff and unmerciful policeman who is assigned to the case. As he investigates the killings, Lt. Kafka begins to see the full picture as he tracks down the troubled Miller, figuring out that the murders are not just sexually motivated but stem from a profound psychological fracture and a desperate cry from a mind splintering under the weight of unresolved trauma. Finally, cornering Miller in a cheap hotel, the cops close in. They force their way into his lightly barricaded room and find him surrounded by a small arsenal of weapons. The look on his face shows that he’s relieved it’s finally over. Dmytryck shows his visual flare reminiscent of his earlier noirs, including Murder My Sweet 1944, Cornered 1945, and Crossfire 1947.

Edward Dmytryk’s obscure noir masterpiece plunges us into the tortured world of veteran Miller, who harbors a darkness that threatens to consume him. His voyeuristic gaze, windows to a soul in turmoil, flickers with barely contained rage when he glimpses couples in intimate moments It’s as if their happiness is a personal affront; each romantic glance is itself a gunshot wound to his fragile ego. He perceives every woman he comes in contact with as being untrustworthy and brash.

In a moment of anguished self-awareness, Miller presses his hand to an electric stove, a desperate attempt to cauterize the emotional wounds that fester within and keep himself from projecting his rage outward. But the pain of other’s apathy only fuels his descent into madness, and soon, the city trembles under the shadow of his M1 carbine. As bodies fall and panic grips the streets, Miller’s twisted game of cat-and-mouse with his anonymous notes sent to the police takes on a surreal quality as he begs to be caught before he commits more murders, aware of his sins but powerless to stop himself.

Dmytryk, fresh from his own battles with the Hollywood blacklist, testifying before the House Un-American Activities Committee, infuses the film with a palpable sense of paranoia and urban alienation.

Miller’s crimes reflect the moral ambiguity of a society grappling with hidden threats. The Sniper  delves into the murky waters of criminal psychology, pioneering profiling techniques that would become staples of the genre. Yet it’s the film’s unconventional ending that truly subverts expectations with the after-the impact of its structured violence and ends with the non-violent denouement of Miller’s surrender and society maintaining the status quo. More than just a thriller, The Sniper stands as a chilling indictment of a society ill-equipped to deal with mental illness, its streets teeming with walking wounded like Miller, in the shadows of post-war America in the 1950s.

“The characters found in The Sniper exist in a netherworld that permits humanitarian speculation to surface through scenes of humiliation and angst.” – (from Film Noir an Encyclopedia Reference to the American Style edited by Silver & Ward)

Los Angeles was experiencing their own version of a lone male ‘phantom sniper’ Evan Charles Thomas, stalking female victims, targeting them at random from a sniper’s vantage point the previous summer.

This must have heightened audiences’ fears when watching an eerily similar serial killer-themed film noir. While The Sniper was not directly inspired by the Thomas case, its release coincided with a real-life sniper incident in Los Angeles, creating an eerie parallel. The film’s story had been acquired by Stanley Kramer Productions from writers Edna and Edward Anhalt several months before Thomas began his shooting spree. Interestingly, Arthur Franz was cast as the sniper on August 27, 1951, the same day as Thomas’s first shooting. Despite the film’s independent origin, its producers recognized the potential to leverage the public’s interest in the ongoing sniper case. They capitalized on this coincidence in their marketing efforts, emphasizing the film’s relevance to recent events.

This strategy, aimed at drawing audiences by highlighting the film’s timeliness and apparent realism, was too close for comfort even though its conception predated the actual crimes.

“L.A. saw it happen!” the local ad for the film blared. Chief of Police Bill Parker was said to have signed a letter praising the film’s realism in its “handling of intensive methods” to track down the killer. In his review, Scheuer noted, “The parallel is too close for comfort, but even without the similarity between Eddie Miller and an alleged local “sniper” the picture would be distasteful.” (Source J.H.Graham)

E.R. doctor: Were you ever in a mental hospital?
Edward Miller: Only when I was in prison.

 

Police Lt. Frank Kafka: All I have to do is catch him.
Dr. James G. Kent: You’ll catch ’em, and they’ll kill ’em, and everyone will forget about it. . . that is until the next one comes along. Then it will start all over again.

Continue reading “Under the Radar: The Unseen Side of Film Noir – Part 1”

Quote of the Day! Sweet Charity (1969) Fun, Laughs Good times!

SWEET CHARITY (1969)

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Shirley MacLaine  is Charity Hope Valentine a dance hall girl who always seems to get the short end of everything or as she puts it… the fickle finger of fate…

But she never loses faith that she will meet the right guy to take her away from her dreadful life. Based on Federico Fellini’s sublime Nights of Cabiria 1957 starring Giulietta Masina.

The lush colors and masterful photography by Robert Surtees (The Graduate 1967, The Last Picture Show 1971) create a visual kaleidoscope, surrounded by the incredible choreography by Bob Fosse who also directed the film. With memorable music by Cy Coleman and lyrics by Dorothy Fields.

Sweet Charity is a musical dream dressed up in Edith Head’s stunning and stand-out fashions.

The film also stars the wonderful Paula Kelly as Helene, and Chita Rivera as Nickie… the dance numbers are just too smokin’, and there’s a particular mod party dance sequence that is probably the closest thing for me to dropping acid… phantasmagorically chic…

Nickie (Chita Rivera) to Charity-“You know what your problem is… You run your heart like a hotel"¦ You got guys checking in and out all the time.”

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One of the best moments of the film: Enter Sammy Davis Jr and The Rhythm of Life!

May the fickle finger of fate never find you! Your EverLovin’ MonsterGirl