MonsterGirl’s 13 Days of Halloween: Obscure Films Better Than Candy Corn!

13 Days of schlock, shock…horror and some truly authentic moments of terror…it’s my pre-celebratory Halloween viewing schedule which could change at any time, given a whim or access to a long coveted obscure gem!

No doubt AMC and TCM will be running a slew of gems from the archives of Horror films to celebrate this coming Halloween! Films we LOVE and could watch over and over never tiring of them at all…

For my 13 days of Halloween, I thought I might watch a mix of obscure little gems, some vintage horror & Sci-Fi, film noir, and mystery/thriller. Halloween is a day to celebrate masterpieces like The Haunting, The Tingler, House on Haunted Hill, Curse of The Demon, Pit and The Pendulum, Let’s Scare Jessica To Death, and Psycho just to name a few favorites.

But the days leading up to this fine night of film consumption should be tempered with rare and weird beauties filled with a great cast of actors and actresses. Films that repulse and mystify, part oddity and partly plain delicious fun. Somewhat like Candy Corn is…for me!

I’ll be adding my own stills in a bit!…so stay tuned and watch a few of these for yourselves!

The Witch Who Came From The Sea 1976

Millie Perkins bravely plays a very disturbed woman who goes on a gruesome killing spree, culminating from years of abuse from her drunken brute of a father. Very surreal and disturbing, Perkins is a perfect delusional waif who is bare-breasted most of the time.

Ghost Story/Circle of Fear: Television Anthology series

5 episodes-

The Phantom of Herald Square stars David Soul as a man who remains ageless, sort of.

House of Evil, starring Melvin Douglas as a vindictive grandpa who uses the power of telepathy to communicate with his only granddaughter (Jodie Foster) Judy who is a deaf-mute. Beware the creepy muffin people.

A Touch of Madness, stars Rip Torn and Geraldine Page and the lovely Lynn Loring. Nothing is as it seems in the old family mansion. Is it madness that runs in the family or unsettled ghosts?

Bad Connection stars Karen Black as a woman haunted by her dead husband’s ghost.

The Dead We Leave Behind stars, Jason Robards and Stella Stevens. Do the dead rise up if you don’t bury them in time, and can they speak through a simple television set?

Night Warning 1983

Susan Tyrrell plays Aunt Cheryl to Jimmy McNichol’s Billy, a boy who lost his parents at age 3 in a bad car wreck leaving him to be raised by his nutty Aunt. Billy’s on the verge of turning 17 and planning on leaving the sickly clutches of doting Aunt Cheryl and she’ll kill anyone who gets in the way of keeping her beloved boy with her always…Tyrrell is soooo good at being sleazy, she could almost join the Baby Jane club of Grande Dame Hag Cinema, making Bette Davis’s Baby Jane seem wholesome in comparison.

Also known as Butcher Baker Nightmare Maker...

Murder By Natural Causes (1979 Made for TV movie)

Written by Richard Levinson and William Link the geniuses who gave us Columbo, this film is a masterpiece in cat and mouse. Wonderfully acted by veteran players, Hal Holbrook, Katherine Ross and Richard Anderson, and Barry Bostwick. Holbrook plays a famous mentalist, and his cheating wife has plans to kill him.

Tension 1949

from IMDb -A meek pharmacist creates an alternate identity under which he plans to murder the bullying liquor salesman who has become his wife’s lover. Starring Richard Basehart, Audrey Totter, Cyd Charisse, and Barry Sullivan

Messiah of Evil aka Dead People 1973

A girl arrives on the California coast looking for her father, only to learn that he’s disappeared. The town is filled with eerie people and a strange atmosphere of dread. She hooks up with a drifter and they both uncover the true nature of the weird locals and what they’re up to. They learn the horrific secret about the townspeople…This film is very atmospheric and quite an original moody piece. Starring Marianna Hill, Michael Greer, Joy Bang, and Elisha Cook Jr.

Devil Times Five aka Peopletoys 1974

This film is a very unsettling ride about a busload of extremely psychopathic children who escape after their transport bus crashes. Finding their way to a lodge, they are taken in by the vacationing adults and are eventually terrorized by these really sick kids. Claustrophobic and disturbing. Stars Sorrell Booke, Gene Evans. Leif Garrett plays one of the violently homicidal kids.

The Night Digger 1971

Starring the great Patricia Neal, this is based on the Joy Cowley novel and penned with Cowley for the screen by the wonderfully dark Roald Dahl, Neal’s husband at the time.

From IMDb -Effective psychological love story with a macabre twist not found in the original Joy Cowley novel. The dreary existence of middle-aged spinster Maura Prince takes an unexpected turn with the arrival of young handyman Billy Jarvis, but there is more to Billy than meets the eye. This well-crafted film, full of sexual tension and Gothic flavor, was Patricia Neal’s second after her return to acting, her real-life stroke worked deftly into the story by then-husband Roald Dahl. Written by Shane Pitkin

They Call It Murder (1971 Made for TV movie)

A small-town district attorney has his hands filled with several major investigations, including a gambler’s murder and a possible insurance scam. Starring Jim Hutton, Lloyd Bochner, Leslie Nielsen, Ed Asner and Jo Anne Pflug

A Knife For The Ladies 1974

Starring Ruth Roman and Jack Elam, there is a jack the ripper-like killer terrorizing this small Southwest town. Most all the victims are prostitutes. A power struggle ensues between the town’s Sheriff and Investigator Burns who tries to solve the murders.

Born To Kill 1947

Directed by the amazing Robert Wise ( The Haunting, West Side Story, Day The Earth Stood Still )this exploration into brutal noir is perhaps one of the most darkly brooding films of the genre. Starring that notorious bad guy of cinema Lawrence Tierney who plays Sam Wild, of all things, a violent man who has already killed a girl he liked and her boyfriend. He hops a train to San Francisco where he meets Helen played by Claire Trevor who is immediately drawn to this dangerous man.

The Strangler 1964

Starring the inimitably imposing Victor Buono, who plays mama’s ( Ellen Corby/Grandma Walton) boy Leo Kroll, a psychopathic misogynous serial killer, under the thumb of his emasculating mother. Kroll’s got a doll fetish and a fever for strangling young women with their own pantyhose. The opening scene is chilling as we watch only Buono’s facial expressions as he masturbates while stripping one of the dolls nude by his last victim’s body. Part police procedural, this is a fascinating film, and Buono is riveting as Leo Kroll a psycho-sexual fetish killer who is really destroying his mother each time he murders another young woman. Really cool film by Allied Artist

Murder Once Removed (1971 made for tv movie)

A doctor and the wife of one of his wealthy patients hatch a plot to get rid of her husband so they can be together and get his money. Starring John Forsythe, Richard Kiley, and Barbara Bain.

Scream Pretty Peggy (1973 made for tv movie)

This stars Bette Davis who plays Mrs. Elliot. Ted Bessell plays her son Jeffrey Elliot a sculptor who hires young women to take care of his elderly mother and his insane sister who both live in the family mansion with him. Also stars Sian Barbara Allen. What can I say? I love Bette Davis in anything, specially made for tv movies, where something isn’t quite right with the family dynamic. Lots of vintage fun directed by Gordon Hessler

The Man Who Cheated Himself 1950

A veteran homicide detective witnesses his socialite girlfriend kill her husband. Then what ensues is his inexperienced brother is assigned to the case. Starring Lee J. Cobb, Jane Wyatt, and John Dall.

The Flying Serpent 1946

Classic horror/sci-fi flick that just doesn’t get the attention it deserves. Almost as fun as The Killer Shrews.  Starring veteran actor George Zucco

The Pyjama Girl Case 1977

This more obscure Giallo film was directed by Flavio Mogherini and starred one of my favorite actors Ray Milland, Also starred Mel Ferrer and the beautiful model/actress Delilah Di Lazzaro. I’ve left my passion for Giallo films in the dust these days, but I decided to watch one that was a little off the beaten track.

From IMDb- Two seemingly separate stories in New South Wales: a burned, murdered body of a young woman is found on the beach, and a retired inspector makes inquiries; also, Linda, a waitress and ferry attendant, has several lovers and marries one, but continues seeing the others. The police have a suspect in the murder, but the retired inspector is convinced they’re wrong; he continues a methodical investigation. Linda and her husband separate, and there are complications. Will the stories cross or are they already twisted together? Written by <jhailey@hotmail.com>

Cul-de Sac 1966

Directed by Roman Polanski starring Donald Pleasance and  Françoise Dorléac as Teresa

A wounded criminal and his dying partner take refuge in a seaside castle inhabited by a cowardly Englishman and his strong-willed French wife. A bizarre dynamic unfolds as this eccentric couple once captives of the criminals at first, their relationship strangely begins to evolve into something else.

Dr Tarr’s Terror Dungeon aka Mansion of Madness 1973

This is a mysterious and nightmarish excursion into the “the inmates have taken over the asylum” theme. Based upon Edgar Allan Poe’s The System of Dr. Tarr and Professor Feather

Blue Sunshine 1978

Three women are murdered at a party. the wrong man is accused of the crimes. yet still more brutal killings continue throughout the town. What is the shocking truth behind this bizarre epidemic of …people losing their hair and turning into violent psychopaths?

Homebodies 1974

Starring Peter Brocco, Francis Fuller, William Hanson, the adorable Ruth McDevitt, Ian Wolfe, and Paula Trueman playing elderly tenants who first try to thwart by rigging accidents, a group of developers from tearing down their building. Old homes and old people…It turns into murder! This is a wonderfully campy 70s-stylized black comedy/horror film. I love Ruth McDevitt as Miss Emily in Kolchak: The Night Stalker series.

The ensemble cast is brilliantly droll and subtly gruesome as they try to stave off the impending eviction and relocation to the institutional prison life of a cold nursing home facility.

A modern Gothic commentary on Urban Sprawl, the side effects of Capitalism on the elderly and their dust-covered dreams, and the fine balance between reverence for the past, and the inevitability of modernity.

The jaunty music by Bernardo Segáll and lyrics by Jeremy Kronsberg for “Sassafras Sundays” is fabulous!

The Evictors 1979

Directed by Charles B. Pierce whose style has somewhat of a documentary feel ( The Town That Dreaded  Sundown 1976 Legend of Boggy Creek 1972) This film has a very stark and dreading tone. Starring one of my favorite unsung naturally beautiful actresses, Jessica Harper ( Suspiria, Love and Death, Stardust Memories, and the muse Pheonix in DePalma’s Faustian musical Phantom of The Paradise ) and another great actor Michael Parks. A young couple Ruth and Ben Watkins move into a beautiful old farmhouse in a small town in Louisiana. The house has a violent past, and things start happening that evoke fear and dread for the newlyweds. Are the townspeople trying to drive them out, or is there something more nefarious at work? Very atmospheric and quietly brutal at times. Also stars Vic Morrow

Jennifer 1953

Starring Ida Lupino and Howard Duff. Agnes Langsley gets a job as a caretaker of an old estate. The last occupant was the owner’s cousin Jennifer who has mysteriously disappeared. Agnes starts to believe that Jennifer might have been murdered. Is Jim Hollis the man whom she is now in love with… responsible?

Lured 1947

Directed by Douglas Sirk and starring Lucille Ball, George Sanders, and my beloved Boris Karloff!

There is a serial killer in London, who lures his young female victims through the personal ads. He taunts the police by sending cryptic notes right before he is about to murder again. The great cast includes Cedric Hardwicke, George Zucco, and Charles Coburn...

Love From A Stranger 1947

A newly married woman begins to suspect that her husband is a killer and that she is soon to be his next victim. Starring John Hodiak and Sylvia Sidney

Savage Weekend 1979

Several couples head upstate to the country and are stalked by a murderer behind a ghoulish mask.

The Beguiled 1971

Directed by the great Don Siegel ( Invasion of The Body Snatchers 1956, The Killers 1964 Dirty Harry 1971 This stars Clint Eastwood, Geraldine Page and Elizabeth Hartman. Eastwood plays John McBurney who is a Union soldier imprisoned in a Confederate girls boarding school.  A very slow yet tautly drawn web of psycho-sexual unease forms as he works his charms on each of these lonely women’s psyche.

The Mad Doctor of Market Street 1942

An old-forgotten classic horror, starring Lionel Atwill and Una Merkel. Atwill plays A mad scientist forced out of society when his experiments are discovered. He winds up on a tropical island, there by holding the locals hostage by controlling and terrorizing them.

The Man Who Changed His Mind original title (The Man Who Lived Again) 1936

Directed by Robert Stevenson. Starring my favorite of all Boris Karloff, and Anna Lee of Bedlam

Karloff plays Dr. Laurence, a once-respected scientist who begins to delve into the origins of the mind and soul connection.

Like any good classic mad scientist film, the science community rejects him, and so he risks losing everything for which he has worked, shunned by the scientific community he continues to experiment and further his research, but at what cost!…

The Monster Maker 1944

This stars J. Carrol Naish and Ralph Morgan. Naish plays Dr Igor Markoff who injects his enemies with the virus that causes Acromegaly, a deformity that enlarges the head and facial structures of his victims.

The Pyx 1973

I love Karen Black and not just because she let herself be chased by that evil Zuni doll in Trilogy of Terror or dressed up like Mrs Allardice in Burnt Offerings. She’s been in so many memorable films, in particular for me from the 70s. Here she plays Elizabeth Lucy a woman who might have fallen victim to a devil cult. Christopher Plummer plays Detective Sgt. Jim Henderson investigating the death of this heroin-addicted prostitute. The story is told using the device of flashback to tell Elizabeth’s story.

Five Minutes To Live 1961

Johnny Cash, the immortal man in black, plays the very unstable Johnny Cabot, who is part of a gang of thugs who terrorize a small town. This is a low-budget thriller later released as Door to Door Maniac. I could listen to Cash tune his guitar while drinking warm beer and I’d be satisfied, the man just gives me chills. Swooning little me…….!

The Psychic 1977

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In this more obscure EuroShocker, a clairvoyant… the gorgeous Jennifer O’Neill, suffers from visions, which inspire her to smash open a section of wall in her husband’s home where she discovers a skeleton behind it.

She sets out to find the truth about how the victim wound up there, and if there’s a connection between their death and her fate as well!

Too Scared To Scream 1985

Directed by actor Tony Lo Bianco A killer is brutally attacking several tenants that live in a high-rise apartment building in New York City. Mike Connors stars as Detective Lt. Alex Dinardo who investigates the killings. Also stars another unsung actress, Anne Archer, Leon Isaac Kennedy, and Ian McShane

Violent Midnight 1963

An axe murderer is running loose in a New England town! Also known as Psychomania not to be confused with the fabulous British film of devil-worshiping bikers who come back to life starring Beryl Reid. This film features Dick Van Patten, Sylvia Miles, James Farentino, and Sheppard Strudwick. It’s got it’s own creepy little pace going for it.

When Worlds Collide 1951

Another classic sci-fi world is headed toward destruction film, that I remember from my childhood. Starring Barbara Rush and John Hoyt, two of my favorite character actors. It’s a lot of fun to watch and a well-made film that’s off the beaten path from… Forbidden Planet and War of The Worlds.

All The Kind Strangers  (1974 made for tv film)

Starring Stacy Keach, Sammantha Eggar, John Savage, and Robby Benson

A couple traveling through a backwoods area is held hostage by a group of orphan children who want them to be their parents. Whenever an adult refuses to participate in the delusion, they are killed. Great disturbing made for tv movie.

The Todd Killings 1971

Directed by Barry Shear and stars Robert F. Lyons as Skipper Todd, a very sociopathic young man who holds sway over his younger followers like a modern-day Svengali. Also starring Richard Thomas, Belinda Montgomery, and the great Barbara Bel Geddes as Skipper’s mother who takes care of the elderly.

From IMDb-“Based on the true story of ’60s thrill-killer Charles Schmidt (“The Pied Piper of Tucson”), Skipper Todd (Robert F. Lyons) is a charismatic 23-year old who charms his way into the lives of high school kids in a small California town. Girls find him attractive and are only too willing to accompany him to a nearby desert area to be his “girl for the night.” Not all of them return, however. Featuring Richard Thomas as his loyal hanger-on and a colorful assortment of familiar actors in vivid character roles including Barbara Bel Geddes, Gloria Grahame, Edward Asner, Fay Spain, James Broderick, and Michael Conrad.” Written by alfiehitchie

This film has a slow-burning brutality that creates a disturbing atmosphere of social and cultural imprisonment by complacency and the pressure to conform, even with the non-conformists.

Todd almost gets away with several murders, as the people around him idolize him as a hero, and not the ruthless manipulating psychopathic killer that he is. Frighteningly stunning at times. One death scene, in particular, is absolutely chilling in his handling of realism balanced with a psychedelic lens. This film is truly disturbing for it’s realism and for a 1971 release.

To Kill A Clown 1972

Starring Alan Alda and Blythe Danner. Danner and Heath Lamberts play a young hippie couple who couple rent a secluded cabin so that they can try and reconnect and save their marriage.

Alan Alda plays Maj. Evelyn Ritchie the man who owns the property and who is also a military-raised- sociopath who has two vicious dogs that he uses as an extension of his madness and anger.

 

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? 1962: Objects In The Mirror

Robert Aldrich’s Masterpiece in Gothic Grand Dame Cinema starring Bette Davis and Joan Crawford.

Jo Gabriel’s song “Objects In The Mirror” appears on my album Hunting Down The Ceremony Vol

I dedicate this video to Bette Davis for I adore and worship her more than mere words can ever express!

MonsterGirl (jogabriel)

Bette Davis appears on The Andy Williams Show

Grande Dame/Guignol Cinema: Robert Aldrich’s Hag Cinema Part 5 conclusion: Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte 1964 “Ruined finery…that’s all I have left”

THE VISUAL NARRATIVE “Ruined Finery.”

Continue reading “Grande Dame/Guignol Cinema: Robert Aldrich’s Hag Cinema Part 5 conclusion: Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte 1964 “Ruined finery…that’s all I have left””

Grande Dame/Guignol Cinema: Robert Aldrich’s Hag Cinema Part 4: Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte 1964 “You’re my favorite living mystery” “Have you ever solved me?”

“From Belle to Outcast: Blood, Blame, and the Burden of Womanhood
Aging, Scandal, and the Specter of the ‘Hystericized Woman’ in Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte”

Grande Dame/Guignol Cinema: Aldrich’s Hag Cinema: Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte 1964 Part 3 “Murder starts in the heart and it’s first weapon is a vicious tongue”

Miriam is back on screen, she’s looking around as if searching for something. The tinkling flutters of incorporeal music still tipping back and forth. We are suspended in some kind of time frame ourselves. Captive. Again, as in Baby Jane? We, as spectators, are being held within the constructs of the visual narrative as much as the characters themselves. Aldrich uses his shadows to constrict our visual movement. So much of the plot is drenched in the mysterious cloaking of shadow that it obliterates our senses. The shadows formulate the environment to feel obstructive.

Once again, the blackest bar of shadow cuts across Miriam’s figure, casting an ominous 2nd Miriam luring behind herself. Throughout Charlotte, the camera/shadows have aggressively dissected the woman’s bodies in various parts. In advertising, there has been criticism aimed at Ads depicting women’s body parts being cut off as if to dehumanize them. I don’t think Aldrich’s intention was to dehumanize these female characters, but rather to show the fracturing of their ambivalent personalities.

The Manifest meaning behind the shadows could be as simple as framing these female characters in mystery, the ultimate question is one of the Latent meanings, in which we might as spectators come to understand the characters’ principal personalities and the underlying motivating forces that drive them.

And I’d like to think that the camera lens didn’t develop a bit of Acrotomophilia, the amputee fetish that sadly some people suffer from. Still, I found that it is something worth noting to observe how these shadows frame the female body in both films.

Even the plant seems to cut across Miriam’s torso.

Miriam knocks on Charlotte’s door. There is a quick jump cut; Charlotte is on the other side of the door. Miriam knocks once more and then walks away. She shuts the lights out and throws us into yet even more darkness than before. She walks over to the silky lace-covered windows. The dog is still barking outside near the graveyard.

A flute flutters the scales in an almost Middle Eastern mixed Phrygian mode, an exotic, mysterious motif, as Miriam peers through the curtains yet looks back behind her. She turns away and walks back into the room.

 

We hear a creaking door. It’s the large Armour as the door swings open to show that Miriam’s sequined dress has been slashed. With the use of an inner monologue we hear Miriam say, “My dress, somebody’s slashed my dress.” She stares at it. Again we see her in profile. the little pipe flutterings play again as she walks toward the shredded dress. Slowly ever so slowly build the tension.

The fluttering is now almost childlike. Is this to represent that a regressive childish acting out is responsible for this destructive behavior? Miriam’s head is in complete shadow, surrounded by the shiny sequins, dangling like torn fish gills and silk. She begins to handle the ruined fabric, the music still with us. The strings come in strident. Finally, we see Miriam in full face. She looks contained but shocked at the same time. Continue reading “Grande Dame/Guignol Cinema: Robert Aldrich’s Hag Cinema Part 4: Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte 1964 “You’re my favorite living mystery” “Have you ever solved me?””

Grande Dame/Guignol Cinema: Aldrich’s Hag Cinema: Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte 1964 Part 3 “Murder starts in the heart and it’s first weapon is a vicious tongue”

READ PART 2 HERE:

Grande Dame/Guignol Cinema: Robert Aldrich’s Hag Cinema Part 2 Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte 1964 “He’ll Love You Til He Dies”

HUSH…HUSH, SWEET CHARLOTTE (1964) – Continued

Charlotte is sipping her coffee and hears a car pull up. She’s holding her shotgun. She sets the china cup down and starts to get up, moving toward the door. We hear a small bird chirping, then the police vehicle comes up the drive, encircled by glorious oak trees. Charlotte closes the door and runs to the great hall, calling “Velma!” Velma comes to the top of the banister, looking through the wooden slats down at Charlotte. She hangs over the edge, “What?” in a long, drawn-out suspension of the word.

Velma is unpretentious and could be perceived as a crude woman. She’s like an unmade bed or someone who looks like she just rolled out of one, and she doesn’t throw away her words. She is strong, sensible, and reliable. Velma, disheveled, unkempt by the years of working as a caretaker to her Miss Charlotte, is misleadingly simple, yet she is sturdy and obviously faithful to her mistress. Continue reading “Grande Dame/Guignol Cinema: Aldrich’s Hag Cinema: Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte 1964 Part 3 “Murder starts in the heart and it’s first weapon is a vicious tongue””

Grande Dames/ Guignol Cinema: Robert Aldrich’s Hag Cinema “But you *are* Blanche, you *are in that chair” Part I

Read Part 2 HERE:

Grande Dame/Guignol Cinema: Robert Aldrich’s Hag Cinema Part 2 Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte 1964 “He’ll Love You Til He Dies”

What Ever Happen To Baby Jane (1962)

Aldrich’s film really became the turning point in pictures that synthesizes the golden age of Hollywood in theory – that imposes a tragic, painful disjunction for actresses who age out of their prime function as desirable movie stars. What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? gave rise to an entire movement on screen that featured Hollywood’s most essential women paraded out either as emblems of archaic desire or in the case of Baby Jane Hudson, a pageantry of the grotesque. Bravo to Bette Davis for taking on the myth and using dark satire to flip it on its head.

At the start of Baby Jane, the screen is pitch black, we can hear a child sobbing. The 1st prologue begins in 1917. The screen still blacked out, we hear a man’s voice say “Don’t you want to see it again, little girl?” This is setting up an eerily invasive narrative as we do not know yet if it is something sinister making the child cry. The male voice adds “It shouldn’t frighten you” then a quick jump cut and we are able to see a Jack in the Box toy popping up, causing terror in the child. Now we actually see the little girl staring at the toy with tear-soaked cheeks as she gasps for air. The toy has disturbed her with its quick movements and odd expression. There is a shot of its peculiar face which has an uncanny shedding of tears down its tin cheeks. The use of children’s toys in horror films has often been used as a mechanism to evoke fear or otherworldly dread in us as if they might embody some incarnate evil. Here is a great link to Horror Film History’s website.

http://www.horrorfilmhistory.com/index.php?pageID=childsp

Next, we hear vaudeville music and see Baby Jane Hudson’s name up in lights on the marquee of the theater. The theater is sold out, Jane is tap dancing in the spotlight, to Stephen Foster’s “Swanee River” in front of a packed house. Her father is waiting off-stage with Blanche and their mother. He is rallying her with encouragement from the wings while the wife looks solemnly at him, simultaneously young Blanche is looking at him with resentment. Both figures are feeling left out. Young Blanche is played by Julie Allred who was marvelous as little Priscilla in the Boris Karloff Thriller episode Mr.George.

Mr Ray Hudson, played by Dave Willock, comes out to a cheering audience holding a banjo and tells the crowd Okay, folks, one final request. A little freckle-faced boy stands up and requests, “I’ve Written A Letter To Daddy.” And so the lights dim and father sits at the piano to accompany his little girl on this very popular tune. The voice has such a warbling vibrato that it makes little Jane sound bizarre and incongruous (no offense to the singer Debbie Burton) as a child’s voice. She sings with such a sugary exaggeration. Jane’s got the affected style of performer down to all the overreaching body gestures indicative of a ham. Holding the letter to her heart, kissing it, looking upward toward the ceiling, sky. “And wish you were here with us to love.” As she sings this line, she wraps her arms around herself, clinging as if the embrace is for a lover but meant for her father.

Mr Hudson, Jane’s daddy comes out from behind the piano and joins his daughter in a dance, which makes them appear as if a romantic couple. From the side of the stage, we see the expressions on Mrs. Hudson’s face and young Blanche, there is obviously no room in the father and Jane’s relationship for either sister Blanche or the mother.

After the performance, a little boy runs on stage and hands Jane a replica Baby Jane doll of her very own. Jane’s daddy is a showman all the way, “folk’s have you ever seen such a lovely doll” (he in fact has objectified his daughter, as well as exploited her for profit, “a genuine Baby Jane” doll. “And kids remember you can tell your moms that each and every one of these genuine beautiful great big dolls is an exact replica of your own Baby Jane Hudson.” Continue reading “Grande Dames/ Guignol Cinema: Robert Aldrich’s Hag Cinema “But you *are* Blanche, you *are in that chair” Part I”

MonsterGirl’s Quote of The Day! What Ever Happened To Baby Jane

” But you are Blanche ; You are in that chair”-Bette Davis, What Ever Happened To Baby Jane