Category: Classic Horror

Val Lewton’s Curse of The Cat People (1944) “God should use a Rose Amber Spot!” Seeing the darkness thru the ‘Fearing Child’ and ‘The Monstrous Feminine’ Part II

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This post is continued from Part 1: at the link above!

And now Part II

From page 112 Chapter 7 J.P Telotte Dreams of Darkness

FANTASY as REALITY, REALTY as FANTASY

The Curse of the Cat People (1944)

-The child per se makes us uneasy, ambivalent ; we are anxious about the human propensities concentrated by the child symbol. It evokes too much of what has been left out or is unknown, becoming easily associated with the primitive, mad and mystical. – James Hillman ” Abandoning the Child” in Loose Ends–

The evil little girl in Master of the Macabre Mario Bava’s Kill Baby Kill (1966)
The embodiment of evil in a little blonde girl from Federico Fellini’s segment Toby Dammit of 1968’s Spirits of The Dead
In stark contrast to those 2 iconic evil imps of horror (above), Amy Reed is not supposed evil incarnate, but she does threaten the equilibrium of the ‘normal’ world her father inhabits.

To continue with this blog post about one of Lewton’s very precious stories, less darker than his others, and dealing with childhood, the fears of and by children.

All of Lewton’s works dealt with subject matters that forced us to push the boundaries of ‘the familiar’ and challenged us to face a darker more mysterious reality of the natural world, and the incomprehensible landscape of the human psyche.

Curse of the Cat People (1944) acts as a cinematic continuum to Lewton’s Cat People 1942, featuring Simone Simon once again as the alluring, and sensual Irena Dubrovna Reed, who may or may not have belonged to a race of beings that could shape shift into the physical form of a large cat or black panther, when sexually aroused.

The symbol of Irena synthesized the fear of women’s sexuality, sexual freedom, the women’s body, and often the correlation that is made with women’s emotional existence and madness. What is engendered in Cat People (1942) is far less about a woman who can morph into a predatory feline, and more about the collective fear of ‘The Monstrous Feminine.’

Amy lashes out at the little boy who has crushed her beautiful friend, the butterfly. Fear the woman/child.

While Amy is not Irena’s biological daughter. Amy is truly more of a progeny to Irena and the mystique she embodies, because they are both alienated figures who are frustrated and misunderstood. Who stand outside the social community which is pumped from the veins of ‘rational’, normative thoughts and behaviors. Amy is the figure of ‘The Fearing Child’, an innocent who not only has ‘power’ she can wreak havoc in our ‘normal’ world.

Both characters are imaginative, and rely on their senses. They are more connected to the natural world, to the darkness which is associated with the feminine energy and less intellectual which is considered a masculine marker. They are considered emotional, irrational and dangerously unpredictable. Oliver Reed is just as frightened and moreover threatened by his six year old little girl as he was of his beautiful and tragic wife Irena, who was more a victim than ever the ‘monster’ she was perceived to be.

In Cat People, Curse of the Cat People, I Walked With A Zombie, The Leopard Man, The 7th Victim and Isle of The Dead there aren’t concrete Monsters as in Universal films as in Frankenstein’s creation, Dracula or The Wolf Man.

Universal’s Bride of Frankenstein 1935 Literal monsters in a corporeal world.

RKO studio heads had a mistrust of Lewton’s creative vision, his unconventional approach to some esoteric subject matter or volatile subjects such as a woman’s sexual desires. Lewton, rather than using literal lumbering, fanged or hairy monsters, used the powers of suggestion and shadow to tell the story.

Irena emerging from Lewton’s shadow world in Cat People 1942
Little Amy lost within the emerging shadows of the old dark house in Lewton’s Curse of The Cat People 1944
Barbara Ferran always placed by a door like a bystander, she is bombarded by Lewton’s shadows.

Lewton disliked mask like faces, that were hardly human, the kinds of images that were expected from the horror genre he was infiltrating. Lewton liked to reveal the monsters that were lurking in the subconscious primitive recesses of our own imaginations. Shadows become the monster in these films, they are the mysterious layer that surfaces in world that only makes sense in the light of day. And Amy draws the shadows to her…

They do not have scary faces, they are quite human and in fact ordinary. He takes the ‘familiar’ and inverts it, subverts it, rattles the soundness of an accepted experience, and turns it into either an illusion, a nightmare, or a fit of paranoia. He taps into our childhood fears, and sets those fears on the frightened characters in his shadow plays. Usually because the thing they fear, is uprooting of their own personal desires and the fear of coming face to face with them.

The tragic and tormented Irena in Cat People 1942

Oliver couldn’t handle Irena’s sexual desires, nor her desirability, it triggered too much of his own primal urges, and so he demonized her, a fragile girl in a foreign country who believed in folklore from her very ancient set of beliefs handed down for centuries.

Oliver Reed has a fear of foreign Objects!-Cat People 1942

A story which quite often itself was ambiguous as to whether the threat was real or imagined. RKO wanted to be in competition with Universal, so they added footage of a menacing Panther which was inserted into several scenes of Cat People.

Continue reading “Val Lewton’s Curse of The Cat People (1944) “God should use a Rose Amber Spot!” Seeing the darkness thru the ‘Fearing Child’ and ‘The Monstrous Feminine’ Part II” →

Begin ‘The Bagheeta’: Val Lewton’s fantasy/ reality world of Curse of The Cat People: fearing the female/feline monster and the engendering child. Part I

Val Lewton –Master of Shadow

Val Lewton’s short story ‘The Bagheeta’ appeared in Farnsworth Wright’s July 1930 issue of Weird Tales Magazine. Lewton was dabbling in concepts of terror, before he even got to RKO.

The story takes place in the Ukraine (from which MonsterGirl’s people come!) and is a coming of age story about a 16 year old boy named Kolya who helps his Uncle forge armor. Someone comes into the village with a slaughtered sheep, who claims to have seen a Bagheeta, a monstrous black leopard that can change it’s form into a beautiful woman. Only one person can kill a Bagheeta,  and that is a virgin male, for he needs to be able to resist her seductive powers. If he is seduced, the woman will change back into the black leopard and kill the boy and eat him! Lewton would eventually adapt and produce his story for RKO  in the form of Cat People  in 1942 starring Simone Simon  the suggested embodiment of a Bagheeta.

The Panther

His vision, from the constantly passing bars,
has grown so weary that it cannot hold
anything else. It seems to him there are
a thousand bars; and behind the bars, no world.

As he paces in cramped circles, over and over,
the movement of his powerful soft strides
is like a ritual dance around a center
in which a mighty will stands paralyzed.

Only at times, the curtain of the pupils
lifts, quietly–. An image enters in,
rushes down through the tensed, arrested muscles,
plunges into the heart and is gone.

-Rainer Maria Rilke

Panther at the zoo, caged in Cat People 1942

CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE 1944

Produced by Val Lewton and directed by Robert Wise and Gunther von Fritsch, scripted by DeWitt Bodeen, and stars Simone Simon as the ghost of Irena, Kent Smith as Oliver Reed, Jane Randolph as Alice Reed, Eve March as Miss Callahan, Julia Dean as Mrs. Julia Farren, Elizabeth Russell as Barbara Farren, Sir Lancelot as Edward, and Ann Carter as Amy Reed.

Ann Carter played Beatrice Carroll in the riveting noir classic  The Two Mrs. Carrolls (1947) with Humphrey Bogart and Barbara Stanwyck.

Curse of the Cat People is filled with poignant original music by Roy Webb and with Cinematography by Nicholas Musuraca (Cat People 1942, The Fallen Sparrow 1943, The 7th Victim 1943, The Spiral Staircase 1945 Bedlam 1946 and Out of The Past 1947) It’s no wonder Curse of The Cat People has many of the elements of a classic film noir piece.

CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE (1944) – A synopsis

After the tragic death of his wife Irena, played by the beautiful Simone Simon, Oliver Reed once again played by Kent Smtih has remarried his co-worker Alice (Jane Randolph). They now have a very serious , yet gentle six year old little girl named Amy (Ann Carter) who is taken to day-dreaming and being a loner.

She does not mix in well with the other children at school who do not understand her sensitivity or her private world of fantasy that she has built around her as a survival mechanism.

“My beautiful friend”

Symbolic of Amy’s free spirit, the little boy captures her ‘beautiful friend’ and crushes it. Thinking that this would make her happy, he destroys the very thing that symbolizes her own spirit and her connection to the natural world.
Amy is framed here in absolute alienation from the rest of the world.

Amy’s father, Oliver, is constantly wielding an authoritative criticism of his daughters day-dreaming, and wants her to play with the other children, and exist in the ‘real’ world. Amy has a birthday party for which she invites the children in her class, but no one shows up that day, and Oliver discovers that she has mailed out the invitations by placing them in the magic wishing-tree, which is a hollowed out knot of the large tree out behind the house.

waiting for her classmates to share her birthday wishes. But no one ever comes….

Oliver reaches into the wishing-tree and pulls out the birthday invitations…

.

Amy is admonished once again for believing that the tree was a real wishing-tree. Something he himself had told her not too long ago…

Oliver had told Amy this was a magic spot when she was younger, and she remembers it,understanding it to be true because her father told her it was. She was taught to believe in magic and then without preparation, is expected to denounce all things wondrous without any serious provocation on her part. She is only six years old after all.

Saddened by the absence of her classmates at her party, Oliver, Alice and Edward the manservant from Jamaica throw Amy a smaller party instead, equip with a birthday cake decorated with 6 little candles.

Amy is told to make a wish, but not to tell anyone what it is or it won’t come true. Again, Amy is conflicted by the mixed messages the adults in her life are giving her. She tells her father, that wishes don’t come true. Oliver tells her “some do.” And her mother Alice embellishes by saying that you just can’t say it out loud or it will nullify the magic wish.

Once again, there is a suspension of disbelief on their terms, disavowing Amy and her ability to develop a clearly defined sense of fantasy and reality. How can she properly order her world.

The children at school are furious with Amy for not inviting them as promised. As they shun her, they lead her to an old sinister looking mansion, where someone calls to her from the window. A voice calls out to her to come closer. Amy looks around and the unseen person throws down a white handkerchief threading a gold ring.

Continue reading “Begin ‘The Bagheeta’: Val Lewton’s fantasy/ reality world of Curse of The Cat People: fearing the female/feline monster and the engendering child. Part I” →

Postcards From Shadowland No.5

A Cry in The Night (1956) Directed by Frank Tuttle, and starring Natalie Wood, Edmond O’Brien and Brian Donlevy
Curse of The Cat People 1944 directed by Robert Wise, produced by Val Lewton, and starring Simone Simon, Kent Smith and Ann Carter
The Sea Beast 1926 directed by Millard Webb, written by Herman Melville and starring Dolores Costello and John Barrymore.
La Belle et la Bête 1946 directed by Jean Cocteau starring Jean Marais and Josette Day.
The Big Heat (1953) directed by Fritz Lang and Starring Gloria Grahame, Glenn Ford and Jocelyn Brando.
Body and Soul 1947 directed by Robert Rossen, starring John Garfield, Lilli Palmer and Hazel Brooks
Bury Me Dead (1947) directed by Bernard Vorhaus starring Cathy O’Donnell, June Lockart and Hugh Beaumont.
Curse of The Cat People 1944 directed by Robert Wise, and produced by Val Lewton. Starring Simone Simon, Kent Smith and Ann Carter.
Dead of Night (1945) directed by Alberto Cavalcanti,Charles Crichton, Basil Dearden and Robert Hamer. With stories by H.G.Wells, E.F.Benson, John Baines and Angus MacPhail.
Dracula’s Daughter 1936 directed by Lambert Hillyer, and starring Otto Kruger, Gloria Holden, Marguerite Churchill and Edward Van Sloan.
The Penalty 1920 directed by Wallace Worsley and starring Lon Chaney as Blizzard. With Charles Clary, Doris Pawn, Jim Mason and Ethel Grey Terry.
Eye of The Devil 1966 directed by J.Lee Thompson and starring Deborah Kerr, David Niven, Sharon Tate, Donald Pleasance, Flora Robson and David Hemmings.
Each Dawn I Die (1939) directed by William Keighley and starring George Raft and James Cagney.
Horror Hotel (1960) aka City of The Dead directed by John Llewellyn Moxey and starring Christopher Lee, Patricia Jessel, Dennis Lotis and Betta St. John
The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927) directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and starring Ivor Novello as the mysterious Lodger.
I Wake Up Screaming (1941) directed by H.Bruce Humberstone and starring Victor Mature, Betty Grable and Carol Landis.
Robert Aldrich’s 1955 Film Noir Kiss Me Deadly starring Ralph Meeker as Mike Hammer.
MAD LOVE (1935) directed by Karl Freund starring Peter Lorre, Frances Drake and Colin Clive.
The Man Who Laughs 1928 directed by Paul Leni and starring Conrad Veidt as Gwynplaine, and Mary Philbin as Dea.
Fritz Lang’s German Expressionist masterpiece of futuristic entropy blending element of Sci-Fi and hints of Film Noir to come. Metropolis (1927) Starring Brigitte Helm and Alfred Abel.
William Castle’s The Night Walker (1964) starring Barbara Stanwyck, Robert Taylor, Judi Meredith, Lloyd Bochner and Marjorie Bennett.

The Devil’s in The Details: 36 film flavors of a devilsh nature!

Häxan (1926)

1-Eye of The Devil (1966)

David Niven is the Marquis Philippe de Montfaucon who is called back to his castle Bellenac because the dry season is destroying his vineyards. He reluctantly lets his wife (Deborah Kerr) and children join him. de Montfaucon has a superstitious secret, as the people surrounding him hold pagan rituals, for his legacy is connected to a great sacrifice…also stars Sharon Tate, Donald Pleasance, and David Hemmings. Directed by J. Lee Thompson.

2-The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941)

A 19th Century New Hampshire farmer who makes a compact with the Devil for economic success enlists Daniel Webster to extract him from his contract. Stars Edward Arnold, Walter Houston as you know who, and Jane Darwell. Directed by William Dieterle

3-The Devil’s Partner (1961)

An old man sells his soul to the devil and turns into a young man. He then uses witchcraft and black magic to win a woman from his rival. Stars Ed Nelson, Edgar Buchanan, Jean Allison, and Richard Crane.

4-The Devil’s Hand (1962)

A man is haunted by visions of a beautiful woman. When he finally meets her, he winds up involved in a satanic cult. Stars Robert Alda and Linda Christian.

5-The Devil’s Hand aka Carnival of Sinners (1943)

Roland Brissot bought a nickel a talisman that gives him love, fame, and wealth. The talisman is a cut left hand..directed by Maurice Tourneur

6-The Devil’s Daughter (1939)

Sylvia Walton returns from Harlem to take over a Jamaican plantation from her vindictive half-sister, amid the growing sound of drums. Stars Nina Mae McKinney, Jack Carter, and Ida James.

7-The Devil’s Daughter (1973)

A young girl whose mother had sold her soul to Satan when she was born is told by Satan that she must marry a fellow demon. Directed by Jeannot Szwarc and starring Shelley Winters and Belinda Montgomery. The 70s made for tv movie!

8-Race With The Devil (1975)

Two couples vacationing together in an R.V. from Texas to Colorado are terrorized after they witness a murder during a Satanic ritual. Starring Peter Fonda, Warren Oates, Loretta Swit, Lara Parker, and R.G. Armstrong.

9-The Devil’s Rain (1975)

A bunch of Satanists in the American rural landscape have terrible powers which enable them to melt their victims. However one of the children of an earlier victim vows to destroy them. Stars Ernest Borgnine, Ida Lupino, William Shatner and Eddie Albert. Directed by Robert Fuest.

10-The Devil’s Wedding Night (1973)

Lady Dracula uses Dracula’s ring to lure beautiful girls to her castle, where she murders them so she can bathe in their blood. Starring Mark Damon and Rosalba Neri.

11-The Devil Rides Out (1968)

Christopher Lee is Nicholas the Duc de Richleau who travels to England to visit a friend and discovers a satanic cult! Also stars Charles Gray and is directed by Terence Fisher.

12-To The Devil, A Daughter (1976)

An American occult novelist battles to save the soul of a young girl from a group of Satanists, led by an excommunicated priest, who plans on using her as the representative of the Devil on Earth. Stars Christopher Lee, Richard Widmark, Honor Blackman, Denholm Elliot and Nastassja Kinski.

13-The Devil and Miss Sarah (1971)

A notorious outlaw being escorted to prison by a homesteader and his wife turns out to have satanic powers. He uses them on the man’s wife to try to possess her and help him escape. ABC movie of the week starring Janice Rule and Gene Barry.

14-The Doctor and The Devils (1985)

Grave robbers supply a doctor with bodies. Based on Burke and Hare. Directed by Freddie Francis and starred Timothy Dalton, Jonathan Pryce, Julian Sands, and Twiggy.

15-The Devil’s Backbone (2001)

a 12-year-old whose father has died in the Spanish Civil War arrives at an ominous boy’s orphanage he discovers the school is haunted and has many dark secrets that he must uncover. Guillermo del Toro’s hauntingly beautiful film.

16-Dust Devil (1992)

A woman on the run from her abusive husband encounters a mysterious hitchhiker. Stars Robert John Burke, Chelsea Field, and Zakes Mokae.

17-The Devil Doll (1936)

An escaped Devil’s Island convict uses miniaturized humans to wreak vengeance on those that framed him. Story by Tod Browning and uncredited for his directing it stars Lionel Barrymore as Paul Lavond/Madame Mandilip, and Maureen O’Sullivan as the daughter he is cheated of.

18-Sinthia: The Devil’s Doll (1970)

Cynthia Kyle murders her parents while having sex. Eights years later she is plagued with nightmares! Directed by Ray Dennis Steckler

19-Devil Doll (1964)

An evil hypnotist/ventriloquist plots to gain an heiress’ millions. 

20-Devil Dog- The Hound of Hell (1978)

A dog that is a minion of Satan terrorizes a suburban family. Oh well, not one of Curtis Harrington’s shining moments. Stars Richard Crenna Yvette Mimieux and Kim Richards. Another ABC Movie of the Week from the 70s!

21-The Devil’s Own 1966 aka The Witches

Following a horrifying experience with the occult in Africa, a schoolteacher moves to a small English village, only to discover that black magic resides there as well. Stars Joan Fontaine, Kay Walsh, and Alec McCowen.

22-The Devil and Max Devlin (1981)

When Max dies in an accident, he winds up in hell. But the devil Barney makes him an offer: if he can get three innocent youths to sell him their souls, Max can go back to earth. Stars Bill Cosby as Barney Satin and Elliot Gould as Max Devlin.

23-She Devil (1957)

A GORGEOUS DEMON! They created an inhuman being who destroyed everything she touched! The woman they couldn’t kill! Directed by Kurt Neumann and starring Mari Blanchard and Albert Dekker.

24-Blood of The Man Devil (1965) aka House of the Black Death

Two brothers, both of whom are warlocks, use their powers and the covens of witches to battle over the family fortune. Stars Lon Chaney Jr., John Carradine, and Andrea King.

25-Devils of Darkness (1965)

A secret vampire cult, which has its headquarters beneath the town cemetery, searches for victims for its human sacrifice rituals. Stars William Sylvester and Carole Gray. Directed by Lance Comfort.

26-Night of The Devils 1972

The patriarch of a wealthy family fears that he will show up one day in vampire form. Should this happen, he warns his family not to let him back in his house, no matter how much he begs them. Stars Giani Garko and Agostina Belli.

27-Devil’s Possessed (1974)

An evil ruler uses witchcraft and evil spirits to keep his subjects in line, but his reign of terror prompts the people to revolt. Stars Paul Naschy and Norma Sebre

28-She Devil’s on Wheels 1968

An all-female motorcycle gang, called ‘The Maneaters’ holds motorcycle races, as well as terrorize the residents of a small Florida town, and clashes off against an all-male rival gang of hot-riders. Directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis.

29-The Devils (1971)

In 17th-century France, Father Urbain Grandier seeks to protect the city of Loudun from the corrupt establishment of Cardinal Richelieu. Hysteria occurs within the city when he is accused of witchcraft by a sexually repressed nun. Ken Russell’s vigorous take on the true story of The Devils of Loudun. Starring Vanessa Redgrave and Oliver Reed.

30-The Devil Has Seven Faces 1971

Euro-Exploitation thriller starring Carroll Baker, George Hilton, and Stephen Boyd. It’s got Carroll Baker nuf said!

31-Devil In Miss Jones 1973

Adult/Fantasy about Miss Justine Jones who is tired of her life and commits suicide. Will she end up in Heaven or Hell? Starring Georgina Spelvin as Justine Jones. Directed by Gerard Damiano.

32-The House of The Devil (2009)

Ti West directs this contemporary horror flick that looks like it was truly made In the 1980s. College student Samantha Hughes (Jocelyn Donahue)takes a strange babysitting job that coincides with a full lunar eclipse. She slowly realizes her clients Tom Noonan and Mary Woronov plan to use her in a satanic ritual.

33-The Devil’s Messenger (1961)

In this feature version of the Swedish TV series “13 Demon Street,” a 50,000-year-old woman is found frozen in an ice field, and a man’s death is foretold in dreams. Narrated by Lon Chaney Jr.

34-The Devil’s Widow aka Tam Lin (1970)

Based on an ancient Scottish folk song, an older woman uses witchcraft to keep her young jet-set friends. Directed by Roddy McDowall starring the amazing Ava Gardner, Ian McShane, Stephanie Beacham, and Cyril Cusack.

35-Diablolique (1955)

The wife of a cruel headmaster and his mistress conspire to kill him, but after the murder is committed, his body disappears, and strange events begin to plague the two women. Henri-Georges Cluzot’s macabre masterpiece starring Simone Signoret, Vera Cluzot, and Paul Meurisse.

36-LISA AND THE DEVIL (1974)

Elke Sommer is Lisa a tourist in an ancient city, who stumbles onto an old mansion and soon becomes the victim of a diabolical evil. Also starring Telly Savalas as Leandro a devil! and Alida Vali as the countess. Directed by the master of Gothic horror-Mario Bava.

The Devil made me do this post!-MonsterGirl !

MonsterGirl's 13 Days of Halloween: Obscure Films Better Than Candy Corn! is back!

Double Exposure 1983

A photographer for a men’s magazine is disturbed by a recurring dream he has that he is killing his models by various gruesome means…Directed by William Byron Hillman and stars Michael Callan and Joanna Pettet.

Death Scream Made for Tv (1975)

A young woman is stabbed to death in an alley. The crime is heard and seen by some of the residents of a nearby apartment building, but not one of them tried to help and now they refuse to get involved with the police during the investigation.

Based on actual events. Directed by Richard T.Heffron with a stellar cast, including Raul Julia, John P Ryan, Edward Asner, Luci Arnez, Art Carney, Diahann Carroll, Kate Jackson, Cloris Leachman, Tina Louise, and Nancy Walker.

Neither The Sea Nor The Sand (1972) aka The Exorcism of Hugh

A troubled wife is having a midlife crisis. She meets a lighthouse keeper and they become lovers. They run off to Scotland. While making love on a beach, the lighthouse keeper dies, and that’s where the true story begins. True love never dies, Hugh comes back from the dead, to Anna’s wanting arms, but he’s not quite the same, and he’s decomposing! Directed by Fred Burnley, and starring Susan Hampshire, Frank Finlay, and Michael Petrovitch.

Anatomy of a Psycho (1961)

The crazed brother of a condemned killer sent to the gas chamber swears vengeance on those he holds responsible for his brother’s execution. Directed by Boris Petroff, and starring Ronnie Burns, Pamela Lincoln, and Darrell Howe.

36 Hours aka Terror Street (1953)

An American pilot AWOL from the States is framed for his wife’s murder and has just 36 hours to prove his innocence. Directed by Montgomery Tully, and starring Dan Duryea, Elsie Albin, and Gudrun Ure.

Trauma 1962

Emmaline, who, as a teenager, discovered the drowned body of her aunt (Lynn Bari), returns to the family mansion as a married woman. Eventually, she falls for the caretaker’s nephew and remembers who the real killer was. Directed by Robert M.Young, and starring Lynn Bari, John Conte, and Lorrie Richards.

The Exterminating Angel (1962)

The guests at an upper-class dinner party find themselves unable to leave. Everything starts to devolve as their pretenses fall away, and they start acting like desperate animals.

Directed by Luis Bunuel and starring Sylvia Pinal, Jacqueline Andere, Enrique Rambal, Claudio Brook,

Mirrors (1978)

A newlywed couple checks into an old hotel, and soon the wife finds herself having hallucinations and wandering the halls aimlessly. A voodoo priest has put a curse on Marianne and now wants to take her soul.

Directed by Noel Black and starring Kitty Winn and Peter Donat.

Madame Death 1969

Mad scientist teams with an evil, disfigured woman to kidnap and operate on young women to make them look beautiful again. Directed by Jaime Salvador starring John Carradine, Regine Torne, and Elsa Cardenas. Great Mexican horror thriller!

Master of Horror 1965

A trilogy of the Edgar Allen Poe stories, “The Case Of Mr. Valdemar,” “The Cask Of Amontillado” and “The Tell-Tale Heart.” It starts with the housemaid sitting down to read some stories on a stormy night. Directed by Enrique Carreras, with a screenplay by the great Narciso Ibáñez Serrador (The House That Screamed 1069).

Starring Narciso Ibanez Menta, Osvoldo Pacheco and Ines Moreno.

THE BLOODSUCKER LEADS THE DANCE 1975

Directed by Alfredo Rizzo and starring the gorgeous Femi Benussi and Krista Nell, with Giacomo Rossi-Stuart

An obscure Gothic horror about a man who invites a theatrical troupe to his mansion, and of course the women start turning up dead.

QUINTET 1979

It is the future ice age, humanity is dying off.  So the survivors play a game called “Quintet” For one small group, this obsession is not enough; they play the game with living pieces … and only the winner survives. Robert Altman directed this sci-fi thriller, starring Paul Newman, Vittorio Gassman, Fernando Rey, Brigitte Fossey, and Bibi Anderson.

Scream Baby Scream 1965

A psycho-artist kidnaps models and slices up their faces to create his own grotesque form of art.

Directed by Joseph Adler, and starring Ross Harris, Eugenie Wingate, Chris Martell, Suzanne Stuart, and Larry Swanson. Written by Larry Cohen!

The Third Secret 1964

A prominent London Psychologist seems to have taken his own life, causing stunned disbelief amongst his colleagues and patients. Directed by Charles Crichton and starring Stephen Boyd, Jack Hawkins, Richard Attenborough, and Pamela Franklin.

The Strange One 1957

Ben Gazzara plays Jocko De Paris, a sociopathic cadet lead in a Southern military academy. He manipulates several of the people into various stages of duress, in particular a cadet that Jocko terrorizes into dating a girl from the town named Rosebud…hhm? Directed by Jack Garfein and also starring Pat Hingle, Peter Mark Richman, Paul Richards, and Julie Wilson as ‘Rosebud’

The Witch aka L Strega in Amore 1966

A historian goes to a castle library to translate some ancient erotic literature. While there he discovers what he believes to be supernatural forces at work. Directed by Damiano Damiani and starring Richard Johnson, Rosanna Schiaffino, and Gian Maria Volonte.

The Snorkel 1958

Although the police have termed her mother’s death a suicide, a teenage girl believes her step-father murdered her. Directed by Guy Green and a screenplay by Jimmy Sangster. Starring Peter Van Eyck and Betta St. John.

vij 1967

This is a Russian horror/fantasy film about a young priest who is ordered to watch over the wake of a witch in a small old wooden church in a remote village. He must spend three nights alone with the corpse with only his faith to protect him. Based on a story by Nikolai Gogol.

Bluebeard 1972

This is a 70s version of the infamous tale of Bluebeard. A World War I pilot Kurt Von Sepper (Richard Burton) whom everybody envies as a “ladykiller” actually is one – after he beds the women he’s after, he murders them. Directed by Edward Dmytryk, and starring Richard Burton, Raquel Welch, Verna Lisi, Natalie Delon, Agostina Belli, Sybil Danning, and Joey Heatherton.

Criminally Insane 1975

An obese woman recently released from an insane asylum kills anyone who attempts to get her to stop eating. Director Nick Millard casts Priscilla Alden as Ethel Janowski who lives with her Grandmother, and doesn’t want anyone taking away her food!

HEX 1973 aka The Shrieking

The film takes place in rural Nebraska after WW1, six veterans head out together on their motorcycles and ride into the little town of Bingo. When one of them beats a local kid in a drag race, they are driven out of town.

They hide out at a farmhouse run by two sisters. One of them tries to rape one of the girls, who is part Native American, and now her sister wants revenge by casting a hex on them!

Directed by Leo Garen and starring Christina Raines, Hilary Thompson, Keith Carradine, Mike Combs, Scott Glenn, Gary Busey, and Robert Walker Jr.

Sometimes Aunt Martha Does Dreadful Things 1971

Stanley and Paul are hiding out from the law, so they rent a house in the suburbs and decide that Paul should dress in drag, pretending to be Stanley’s Aunt Martha. Stanley brings a girl home one night, and since Paul is crazy and violent, he murders her. Now, Aunt Martha is a dangerous woman to approach! Directed by Thomas Casey and starring Abe Zwick as Paul and Wayne Crawford as Stanley.

Necromancy 1972

Orson Welles plays Mr. Cato, the head of a witches coven in the town of Lilith, where he needs the powers of Pamela Franklin to raise his son from the dead. Directed by the fun Bert I. Gordon. Also starring Lee Purcell and Michael Ontkean

Old Dracula 1973

A faulty blood transfusion turns Dracula’s wife black. Directed by Clive Donner and starring David Niven, Teresa Graves, Peter Bayliss, and Veronica Carlson.

Poor Pretty Eddie 1975

A wrong turn on a jazz singer’s road trip results in her car breaking down near an isolated lodge run by a faded starlet and a young, homicidal Elvis impersonator. Directed by Richard Robinson and David Worth, the film stars Leslie Uggams, Shelley Winters, Michael Christian, Ted Cassidy, Dub Taylor, and Slim Pickens.

The Mafu Cage 1978

Two strange sisters played by Lee Grant and Carol Kane, live in a decaying mansion where they keep their father’s pet ape locked in a cage. One of the sisters is descending into violent madness.

Directed by Karen Arthur also stars Will Geer.

Scalpel aka False Face 1977

A psychopathic plastic surgeon transforms a young accident victim into the spitting image of his missing daughter. Directed by John Grissmer and starring Robert Lansing and Judith Chapman. An interesting thriller in the ‘surgical horror’ genre.

The Flower in His Mouth 1975

A female school teacher is implicated in a murder in a Sicilian town only hours after her arrival. The dead man insulted her on the bus on the way into town. Directed by Luigi Zampa and starring the beautiful Jennifer O’Neill, sexy Franco Nero, and James Mason.
“”””

The Terminal Man 1974

Hoping to cure his violent seizures, a man agrees to a series of experimental microcomputers inserted into his brain but inadvertently discovers that violence now triggers a pleasurable response in his brain. Directed by Mike Hodges and starring George Segal, Joan Hackett, and Richard Dysart.

The Woman Who Came Back 1940

After a bus accident, a woman comes to believe that she’s actually a 300-year-old witch. Stars John Loder, Nancy Kelly, and Otto Kruger.

A Taste for Women 1964 Aimez-vous les femmes

Directed by Jean Leon, this French black comedy thriller Roman Polanski has written another dark kinky story about cannibalism. It stars Sophie Daumier and comes across as a piece of Film Noir.

Lorna -a film by Russ Meyer (1964)

Starring Lorna Maitland, who’s married to Jim (James Rucker)but isn’t satisfied sexually. While Jim’s at work in the salt mine, she is raped by an escaped convict. (Mark Bradley) Strangely she finds him fascinating, as he has brought out her lustful side. One of Meyer’s best films! The cinematography is so starkly beautiful.

Home Before Dark 1958

Director Mervyn LeRoy’s darkly psychological drama starring the incredible Jean Simmons as Charlotte a woman recovering from a nervous breakdown. Once she leaves the safe hospital environment, she must return home to face the same demons that were haunting her there from the beginning. Also stars Dan O’Herlihy, Rhonda Fleming, Efrem Zimbalist Jr.and Marjorie Bennett.

Monsieur Verdoux (1947)

A suave but cynical man supports his family by marrying and murdering rich women for their money, but the job has some occupational hazards. Directed and starring Charlie Chaplin, Mady Correll, Allison Roddan, Robert Lewis, Audrey Betz, Martha Raye, Ada May, and Marjorie Bennett.

The Unseen aka Fear 1945

Directed by Lewis Allen and starring Joel McCrea, Gail Russell, Herbert Marshall, and Norman Lloyd. A mysterious figure is viciously killing people in a shadowy alley. Russell plays a Governess haunted by mysterious goings-on. Scripted by Raymond Chandler and Hagar Wilde. Gail Russell also played Stella in the wonderful ghost story directed by Allen, The Uninvited…

The Cat Creeps 1946

A black cat is suspected of being possessed by the spirit of a dead girl. Directed by Erie C. Kenton, starring Noah Beery Jr., Lois Collier, Fred Brady, Paul Kelly, Douglass Dumbrille, and Rose Hobart…

-MonsterGirl

A Trailer a day keeps the Boogeyman away! Back From The Dead (1957)

BACK FROM THE DEAD (1957)

A newly married young woman is possessed by the evil spirit of her husband’s deceased first wife. The possession turns her into a scheming killer who will stop at nothing to get what she wants.

Directed by Charles Marquis Warren starring Peggie Castle, Arthur Franz and Marsha Hunt.

“Did she come back to LOVE or KILL? His First Wife In His Second Wife’s Body!”

I’ll be back too! MonsterGirl!

Postcards From Shadowland No.4

BAD BLONDE (1953) directed by Reginald Le Borg starring Barbara Payton, Frederick Valk and John Slater.
Directed by Julien Duviveir – FLESH AND FANTASY(1943) starring Betty Field, Edward G.Robinson, Barbara Stanwyck, Charles Boyer, Robert Cummings, Anna Lee, Dame May Whitty and C.Aubrey Smith
Cast A Dark Shadow (1955) directed by Lewis Gilbert and starring Dirk Bogarde, Margaret Lockwood and Kay Walsh
The Hitch-Hiker (1953) Directed by Ida Lupino and starring Edmond O’Brien, Frank Lovejoy and William Talman
Night of The Eagle aka Burn Witch Burn (1962) directed by Sidney Hayers, written for the screen by Charles Beaumont, and starring Peter Wyngarde , Janet Blair and Margaret Johnston.
Panic In The Streets (1950) directed by Elia Kazan and starring Jack Palance, Richard Widmark, Paul Douglas and Barbara Bel Geddes
M (1931) Directed by Fritz Lang and starring Peter Lorre
The Queen of Spades (1949) Directed by Thorold Dickinson and starring starring Anton Walbrook, Edith Evans and Yvonne Mitchell
ROPE OF SAND (1949) Directed by William Dieterle and starring Burt Lancaster, Paul Henried, Claude Rains, Peter Lorre and Corinne Calvet.
Edge of Doom (1950) directed Mark Robson and starring Farley Granger, Dana Andrews and Joan Evans.
Joe Sarno’s Sin In The Suburbs (1964)
Stranger on The 3rd Floor (1940) Directed by Boris Ingster and starring Peter Lorre, John McGuire and Margaret Tallichet.
Strangers on a Train (1951) Directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Farley Granger, Robert Walker and Ruth Roman.
The 39 Steps (1935) Directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Robert Donat, Madeleine Carroll, Lucie Mannheim and Peggy Ashcroft.
The Dark Corner (1946) directed by Henry Hathaway and starring Lucille Ball, Mark Stevens, Clifton Webb and William Bendix.
Director Robert Siodmak’s masterpiece of film noir adapted from Ernest Hemingway, 1946 The Killers. Starring Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner, Edmond O’Brien and Albert Dekker.
Director Robert Aldrich’s Kiss Me Deadly (1955) Starring Ralph Meeker as Mike Hammer. Featuring a young Cloris Leachman…
A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) Director Elia Kazan’s exploration into Tennessee Williams’ iconic characters. Starring Vivien Leigh as Blanche Duboise, Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski, Kim Hunter as Stella…and Karl Malden as Mitch.
The World, The Flesh and The Devil (1959) Directed by Ranald MacDougall, starring Harry Belafonte, Inger Stevens and Mel Ferrer.

The She Creature (1956) Bridey Murphy’s Reincarnation meets Beulah the Busty Crusty ‘She Creature’ from Paul Blaisdell’s imagination.

“Hypnotized! Reincarnated as a monster from hell!”

THE SHE CREATURE 1956

In 1952 the world celebrated the famous Bridey Murphy regression case. It began when one Morey Bernstein hypnotized a Colorado housewife named Ruth Simmons. Under a trance, emerged the personality of Bridey Murphy an 18th Century Irish woman.

from the film The Search For Bridey Murphy

In 1956 Bernstein published his book The Search For Bridey Murphy. Eventually the story made it onto the screen by Paramount Pictures, starring Teresa Wright and Louis Hayward, a film which is on my short list of things to watch.

And if you have a guilty pleasure for musicals as I do, you’ll see the story retold in Vincente Minneli’s On A Clear Day You Can See Forever 1971 starring musical diva Barbara Streisand, Yves Montand and Jack Nicholson. With some of the BEST music by Burton Lane and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner.

Barbara Streisand as Daisy Gamble in Vincente Minneli’s 1970 On A Clear Day You Can See Forever.

Now in 1956 when A.I.P was churning out goodies like It Conquered The World 1956  for Roger Corman, the idea of past life regression became of some interest to producer Alex Gordon.

The She Creature incorporated the concept of a lovely girl harboring a past soul or souls, but due to the fact that A.I.P. wanted monsters in their pictures, they used the best of both worlds and mixed an unconventional idea that was all the rage at that time, and threw in an ancient busty crusty beastie that rose from the sea, whenever the girl was in a trance.

So you have it, a girl from the 20th century inhabited by a female creature from the primordial edges of time’s beginning. Schlocky fun from Samuel Z. Arkoff, Alex Gordon and one of my favorite directors who can take a b-movie sci-fi/horror picture and bring a bit of grimy noir sensibility to it the great Edward L. Cahn.

Jerry Zigmond’s contribution was coming up with the title THE SHE CREATURE and the screenplay was written by Lou Rusoff. The film stars Chester Morris as Dr Carlo Lombardi, Marla English as his subject Andrea, good ole Tom Conway as Timothy Chappel, Cathy Downes as Dorothy Chappel, Ron Randell as Lt. Ed James, Lance Fuller as Dr. Ted Erickson Frieda Inescort as Mrs Chappel and of course Paul Blaisdell as Beulah!

Chester Morris (Alibi 1929, The Big House 1930, Five Came Back 1939) plays the smarmy Dr. Carlo Lombardi, carnival hypnotist and prognosticator extraordinaire. Morris brings smarmy to a whole new level here, that it even makes Jack Cassidy‘s villains’ seem Christ like. Lombardi travels around rich circles impressing the affluent patrons, with his ability to regress his female hostage, oops I mean patient back in time, probing old memories of their past lives, thereby proving that reincarnation is real.

Another nifty trick is the claim that he can summon forth the incorporeal spirit or soul from the past and manifest it into a physical form.

It starts out on the desolate beach at night where the mustachioed mad hypnotist Lombardi is standing in silhouette , then walking along the shore, dressed in black like a villain from a silent movie, about to tie a maiden to the train tracks. He’s staring out at the sea, a distant shape is forming in and out of the breaking tides.

Dr. Carlos Lombardi communing with the ancient she creature that is waiting out in the misty turbulent ocean.

“Now on This very night I have called into the unknown depths of time itself. She is here. And with her coming, the world will never be as it was. Neither man nor animal will be the same. This, I, Dr. Carlo Lombardi have brought into being!”

Suddenly the camera focuses on a monstrous invisible foot print in the sand. The moment is broken when King the loyal dog of Dorothy Chappel, starts barking and breaks Lombardi’s concentration. Dorothy’s father Timothy Chappel a promoter, is hosting a party this particular weekend at their fancy beach house. Invited to the party is Dorothy’s boyfriend Dr. Ted Erickson who is a notable expert on the subject of psychic research. He’s not comfortable mingling with the idle rich, he’s basically just a ‘farm boy’ and just doesn’t fit in with Dorothy’s father’s crowd.

Mrs.Chappel believes in the powers of the supernatural She tries to convince her husband that Lomardi’s prediction that something terrible is going to happen along this part of the coast tonight, they’ll be ‘a visitation from the occult world’ and tells him seriously that he must meet him. Tim Chappel laughs at his wife, and remarks, that “Some women keeps pets, or grow roses for kicks, my wife supports quack occultists.”

Mrs.Chappel tells her husband that he puts this girl in a deep trance and sends her back over 300 years. When she was a girl in England. ” I tell you it’s uncanny!” Mrs.Chappel is vehement!

Continue reading “The She Creature (1956) Bridey Murphy’s Reincarnation meets Beulah the Busty Crusty ‘She Creature’ from Paul Blaisdell’s imagination.” →

Postcards From Shadowland No.3

A Cry in The Night 1956 directed by Frank Tuttle, starring Edmund O’Brien, Brian Donlevy and Natalie Wood.
Among The Living (1941) directed by Stuart Heisler and starring Albert Dekker, Susan Hayward and Frances Farmer
BRUTE FORCE (1947) directed by Jules Dassin and starring Burt Lancaster, Hume Cronyn and Charles Bickford
Roman Polanski’s CHINATOWN (1974) starring Faye Dunaway, Jack Nicholson and John Huston.
COMPULSION (1959) directed by Richard Fleischer and starring Dean Stockwell, Bradford Dillman and Orson Welles.
He Walked By Night (1948) starring Richard Basehart, Scott Brady and Roy Roberts.
I Bury The Living (1958) directed by Albert Band and Starring Richard Boone and Theodore Bikel
IN COLD BLOOD (1967) directed by Richard Brooks and starring Robert Blake, Scott Wilson and John Forsythe.
NIGHTMARE ALLEY (1947) Directed by Edmund Goulding, starring Tyrone Power, Joan Blondell, Coleen Gray and Helen Walker.
Director Joseph Sarno’s exploitation film from (1964) Sin In The Suburbs stars Judy Young, W.B.Parker and Audrey Campbell
The Prowler (1951) directed by Joseph Losey and Starring Van Heflin, Evelyn Keyes and John Maxwell.
THE KILLERS (1946) directed by Robert Siodmak and starring Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner and Edmund O’Brien
The Two Mrs. Carrolls (1947) directed by Peter Godfrey and starring Barbara Stanwyck, Humphrey Bogart and Alexis Smith
The Uninvited (1944) directed by Lewis Allen starring Ray Milland and Ruth Hussey and Gail Russell
The Unsuspected (1947) directed by Michael Curtiz and Starring Claude Rains, Joan Caulfield and Audrey Totter.
Once again Claude Rains in the suspenseful The Unsuspected (1947)
Nicholas Ray’s They Live By Night (1949)starring Farley Granger, Cathy O’Donnell and Howard Da Silva
Charles Laughton’s masterpiece Night of The Hunter (1955) Starring Robert Mitchum, Lillian Gish and Shelley Winters.

From The Vault: The Queen of Spades (1949)

“The Dead Shall Give Up Their Secrets!”

THE QUEEN OF SPADES 1949

The Queen of Spades is a masterpiece if ever I saw one. Associate Producer Jack Clayton was on board for this film, directed by Thorold Dickinson (Gaslight 1940) who came onto the project last minute. Adapted to the screen by Rodney Ackland and Arthur Boys from the story written by Alexander Pushkin. The story could have easily been dreamt up by Aleksei Tolstoy,  Ivan Chekhov -(The Drop of Water) Nikolai Gogol  or even Oscar Wilde.

My partner Wendy even mentioned Edgar Allan Poe as she watched along with me. It brought to my mind, his short story Never Bet The Devil Your Head. Which of course was brought to life by Frederico Fellini in the segment of Spirits of The Dead 1968 called Toby Dammit, featuring the work of actor Terence Stamp.

Terence Stamp as Toby Dammit in the segment of the same name as part of Spirits of The Dead. Directed by Frederico Fellini 1968 Based on the short story by Poe, Never Bet The Devil Your Head.
From Mario Bava’s Black Sabbath 1963 vignette The Drop of Water based on a story by Chekhov.
Boris Karloff stars in an adaptation of Tolstoy’s story in the segment about The Wurdelak.

It’s clear that Russians are very good at telling Ghost stories and notorious for telling tales about selling your soul to the Devil!

The Queen of Spades, stars Anton Walbrook, Edith Evans, Yvonne Mitchell and Ronald Howard.

The gorgeous music scored by Georges Auric   (Beauty and The Beast (1946), The Innocents (1961), and Wages of Fear 1953 just to mention a very few!) is as heart wrenching as it is heroic, drawing out the exquisite melody and chord changes to reach the soul and twist it into knots while it lingers.

What can I say about the gorgeous cinematography by Otto Heller.The odd camera angles are reminiscent of the great German Expressionist movement, something from Fritz Lang or the use of light and darkly dreamy angles like that of Carl Theodor Dreyer.

Even without any sound, the story would have emerged from the screen as a powerful cautionary tale, rife with grotesque and compelling characters.

The film is an arresting fairytale, that’s dreamy, and haunting in it’s imagery and perhaps, yes perhaps as visually stunning as I dare say Jean Cocteau’s  La Belle et la Bête 1946 or Julian Duvivier’s Flesh and Fantasy 1943 and collaborative efforts of Alberto Cavalcanti, Charles Crichton, Basil Dearden and Robert Hamer’s Dead of Night 1945.

Betty Fields and the mysterious mask salesman in Flesh and Fantasy
Michael Redgrave and his dummy in Dead of Night

There are frames so masterfully conjured in shadow, that you might even think you’re watching Film Noir or an obscure Val Lewton production. Either way, The Queen of Spades sort of defies being labelled a specific genre.

It has it’s own melancholy fantasy that draws from many elements of  the mystery/suspense crime/noir and supernatural horror gems of that golden age, when visual structure was as essential to the narrative as was the character development and dialogue.

Anton Walbrook is wonderful as Moira Shearer’s domineering impresario Boris Lermontov in Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s The Red Shoes 1948

Anton Walbrook  plays the bitter and venomous Capt.Herman Suvorin an army engineer, who is so poisoned by his resentments toward the ruling aristocracy , that he wants to gain his own wealth, and punish those around him who have benefited by their birthright and title. Suvorin does not want to take life as it comes, he wants to “Grab life by the throat and force it to give him what he wants!”-Suvorin.

This he conspires to do by trying to learn the secret of winning at a card game named Faro, from the Old Countess Ranevskaya, played by Edith Evans.

The marvelous British actress Dame Edith Evans
It’s always a bad omen to draw The Queen of Spades!

After a frustrating night of watching a few of his fellow army officers play Faro, taunting Herman as if he was not of the same class, he bursts out of his room in a self absorbed rage, and wanders onto the streets and into a dusty old book store, first picking up a book about Napoleon Bonaparte whom he admires (his portrait hangs in Herman’s humble room) because Napoleon came into his power at age 26!

Herman Suvorin possess a similar intensely maniacal quality that makes him a very unapproachable,manipulative and unlikable man. Looking at him was like “looking into the eyes of Satan!”

Fatefully placed next to Napoleon’s book is another book, suddenly and with a creepy alacrity, the old bookshop owner picks up the ancient bound leather and starts relating it’s contents to Herman, as if he’d been chosen the messenger… warning Suvorin about the secrets and dangers of tampering with the universe. The old man told Herman that he’d either wind up having riches… or lose his eternal soul!

“You might wind up gaining a fortune or losing your precious soul!”

In terms of appearance and demeanor I thought of Riffraff from Rocky Horror Picture Show, and wondered if this little bookish crypt keeper was an inspiration for Richard O Brien!

Herman purchases the book for 3 rubles, and starts reading aloud to us. This mysterious book, about people making deals with the Devil, and a certain mysterious Count d. Saint Germaine who lived in an isolated palace and molded wax images of his chosen victims, thereby trapping their souls forever in his power.

Herman Suvorin slowly and thoughtfully recites to us from the book:

Containing the true stories of people who sold their souls in return for wealth, power or influence"¦ Chapter IV The Secret of The Cards
Countess R"¦(Countess Ranevskaya )
In the year seventeen hundred and forty six, (60 years ago)
The Count d. Saint Germain arrived in St. Petersburg.
He chose for his residence, a palace on the outskirts of the city.
and soon there were strange rumors, about the weird dwelling and it’s mysterious occupant. It was certainly true that in the vaults of the palace. he had a curious collection of wax figures, which, so it was whispered, contained the souls of those who had fallen under his evil influence. He would derive intense please from modeling the wax figures from his intended victims, each one of whom was chosen.
with deliberate appreciation. Thus the countess Ranevskaya, acknowledged as the most beautiful woman in Russia came to excite his attention. He learned that in spite of a jealous husband, all the men had vied for her favors.

Sleeping with a handsome stranger, gets The Countess into grave trouble!
This stranger warns the Countess of having amorous encounters, then robs her of her jealous husband’s money!

When the last of the guests had left. the countess went down the secret stairway.. To admits the young stranger she had promised to meet. She alone had the key to the hidden door. They had an amorous meeting. He was a cad and threatened her with scandal. Taking all her money. She was haunted by the fear of scandal. She needed to replace the money. In her despair she remembered the message from Saint Germain. she had no alternative but to answer the mysterious summons.  She would sell her soul"¦ anything  to save herself…

Is Saint d. Germain really The Devil?

Germain’s messenger tells the young Countess to meet him at his palace!

In Saint Germain’s vault of waxworks, just before the darkness closes in, and the Countess screams off screen…

Continue reading “From The Vault: The Queen of Spades (1949)” →