A very young Laurence Harvey is the greedy and twisted pianist Francis Merryman who wants the family inheritance and the house all to himself! When he murders the violinist’s father John Merryman (Alexander Archdale) it seems to place a curse on the house in particular over Francis who descends into madness! The film also co-stars Leslie Brook. Directed by Oswald Mitchell of the Old Mother Riley series. Very nice touches that make this a pleasing little dark tale of greed and things that go bump in the night!
The ghost of John comes back as a shadow on the wall, his accompanying Francis on Violin! Well done, Spooky stuff!
Director Lesley Selander (The Fatal Witness 1945, Catman of Paris 1945) In a small village near an African port, John Abbottplays a 400-year Vampire Webb Fallon who runs a seedy bar and scares the hell out of the surrounding villagers. This is a very well-paced and viable contribution to the vampire archetype. Charles Gordon is Roy Hendrick who falls under his control… the film also co-stars Peggy Stewart and Adele Mara as Lisa.
Another taut and well-done tale of horror/suspense directed by Lesley Selander. There’s a vicious killer stalking Paris in 1896. Is he insane or can it truly be a supernatural cat that turns into a man with fangs and claws?
Meow!!!! Lenore Aubert (Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein 1948) plays the incredibly beautiful Marie Audet in love with writer Charles Regnier (Carl Esmond) who has just returned from his trip where he might have picked up something supernatural along the way… When the Ministry of Justice bans his book and winds up shredded to death, Inspector Severen (Gerald Mohr) and Fritz Field playing the Prefect of Police turn to Regnier as their lead suspect!
There have been sympathetic monsters that elicit our understanding, who cause you to care about them and their ordeal whether they’re the focus of a rampaging mob of villagers with flaming torches and pick axes or scientists armed with spear guns at the ready as surrogate penises –okay maybe I didn’t think about that surrogate penis thing when I was 9, but I see it so clearly now!
Back in the day of the musty cool matinee theatre’s air smelling of buttered popcorn and old leather shoes, you could slink down in your good ‘n plenty and Milk Dud encrusted red velvet seat and wish that the monster would not only get away… but that just maybe he’d get the girl– instead of the self righteous hyper-science macho hero who objectifies everything! After all, the creature is not the one invading their territory, he’s prevailed in that environment for ions, before these macho nerds came along!
As a little monstergirl I used to think, and still do… just leave the ‘Gill Man’ alone!
We can sympathize with monsters, like Victor Frankenstein’s creation, & The Gill Man from Creature From the Black Lagoon. We can find our involvement (at least I can), as one viewed with empathy toward the monster's predicament. embedded in the narrative is a simultaneous pathos, that permits these monsters to express human desires, and then make sure that those desires are thwarted, frustrated and ultimately destroyed.
Richard Carlson Julie Adams Richard Denning and Whit Bissell as Dr. Edward Thompson study the fossil of an amphibian man found near the Amazon. The crew catches something in their net… and whatever it was… has ripped a giant Gill Man size hole in it leaving behind a claw!
“He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. Is not life a hundred times too short for us to bore ourselves?” -Friedrich Nietzsche
Mr. ‘It’s mine all mine” and Kay and Mr. “But think of the contribution to science!” looking at the poor trapped Gill Man-a lonely prisoner of scientific hubris and egocentric men.The creature trapped in a bamboo cage… floats, quietly thinking deep thoughts–while the three look on pondering what to do with him..
"˜The Outsider Narrative" can be seen so clearly in Jack Arnold’s horror/sci-fi hybrid Creature From The Black Lagoon. Film monsters like The Gill Man form vivid memories for us, as they become icons laying the groundwork for the classic experience of good horror, sci-fi, and fantasy with memorable storytelling and anti-heroes that we ‘outliers’ grew to identify with and feel a fondness for.
As David Skal points out in The Monster Show, he poses that films like Creature From the Black Lagoon …are the “most vivid formative memories of a large section of the {American} population…{…} and that for so many of these narratives they seem to function as “mass cultural rituals.”
Creature From The Black Lagoon is quite a perfect film, as it works on so many different levels of examining human nature and nature as human.
When belligerent scientists and their relentless pursuit of expanding control over the natural world invade a unique creature's habitat, forcing their domination of him- naturally he’s compelled to fight back.
In the midst of this evolves a sort of skewed Romeo and Juliet. The Gill Man never intends to threaten Julie Adam's character Kay Lawrence, he seemingly wants to make her his love object and maybe just maybe (idealizing of course while I imbue the ‘creature’ with a higher consciousness) the Gill Man seeks to free Kay from the dangerous men she is surrounded by. An amphibious knight in scaly armor, a rugged green scaly Adonis with limpid eyes and full lips.
The arrival of the expedition creates chaos and swampy mayhem due to the intrusion of the two opportunistic men who tote phallic harpoons around and fight with each other over questions of ethics, how to conduct scientific research, and naturally who will conquer Kay– acting like spoiled children-the both. Only the Gill Man sees her beauty from a place of primal hunger and desires her above all else, perhaps with an innate sense of possessing her, but without all the cocky male posturing.
THE LOVABLE HUGGABLE GILL MAN!! “I promise to keep my claws trimmed and never come to bed with cold clammy feet!”
"Yes, yes,” said the Beast, “my heart is good, but still I am a monster.” –Among mankind,” says Beauty, “there are many that deserve that name more than you, and I prefer you, just as you are, to those, who, under a human form, hide a treacherous, corrupt, and ungrateful heart."
"•Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont
"What freedom men and women could have, were they not constantly tricked and trapped and enslaved and tortured by their sexuality! The only drawback in that freedom is that without it one would not be a human. One would be a monster."
"• John Steinbeck, East of Eden
In trying to capture the amphibian man he is driven out of his home in the mysterious upper Amazon by these otherizing anthropologists. And so the Gill Man–being shot at by spears and besieged by sweaty men in bourgeois khakis and unfashionable swim trunks blech! –must defend his realm.
He who is just lazing around, dreaming through the sun’s rays which sparkle upon the surface of the water amongst the little fishes and coral… bothering no one. Suddenly surrounded by intruders with weapons and nets, poison, and cages.
But wait, one of them is leggy and soft and looks divine in her one-piece bathing suit designed by Rosemary Odell... (Brute Force 1947, It Came from Outer Space 1953, This Island Earth 1955, To Kill a Mockingbird 1962) and what a pair of eyes!
The Gill Man goes on a mission to get the girl and so endures his attackers because he has fallen for the simple beauty of Kay Lawrence (Julie Adams.)
Though his world has become disordered, the presence of the beautiful Kay Lawrence (Julie Adams) it has awakened his sexual desire.
The film starsRichard Carlsonas David Reed and Richard Denning as Mark Williams. The two men invade The Gill Man's quiet life and argue about what should be done with the subject of their research findings, to exploit, study, or bring back to the states to gain notoriety and get paid lots of clams! without an ethical thought in their curly scientific brains, forcing themselves on the creature and making him an object of entrapment & exhibition.
“I think I love you so what am I so afraid of? I’m afraid that I’m not sure of a love there is no cure for I think I love you isn’t that what life is made of? Though it worries me to say that I’ve never felt this way”— Insert music from The Partridge Family –“There’s just something about an Aqua Velva Gill Man!”
The Gill Man watches from below the surface, as Kay Lawrence casually smokes a cigarette, taking long sensual puffs and throwing the butts upon the lagoon like trinkets for him to worship. He feels compelled to reach out to her but decides to be a voyeur for a bit longer.
Later the Gill Man sees Kay on the beach, the camera catches a notable deep sigh when he lays those deep green eyes on her. He moves closer. She lets out the obligatory monster movie scream queen shriek, that siren squeal, you know the kind, with the carefully place hands cupping her face in shock.
One of the men from the expedition takes a machete and tries to attack the creature, and he gets killed for his efforts. Dave and Mark hear Kay scream and approach just in time for the knock-out powder they’ve placed in the lagoon to finally take effect and subdue the creature who is now out cold. He falls flat on his green gilled face down in the sand.
Kay passes out. the Gill Man places her down gently on the sand...Mark (Richard Denning) can’t wait to beat the fish guts out of the creature!
David (Carlson) has to intervene before Mark (Denning) bashes the creature’s head in “Stop you’ll kill him!…”
Once Williams (Denning) sees that the Gill Man has fallen down, he says “Got him!”then begins brutally smashing at him with his rifle, until David (Carlson) tells him to stop before he kills him. They throw a net over the unconscious creature. The scene shows the level of ferocity that man is capable of, and with this violent over-kill we on the other side of the evolutionary scale become monsters as well. It is a not-so-subtle contrast with the main character who is considered the ‘creature.’
Ricou Browning portrayed the creature in the underwater scenes, and Ben Chapman played the creature on land. There’s wonderfully engaging cinematography by William E. Snyder. (Flying Leathernecks 1951, Beyond a Reasonable Doubt 1956)
The Gill Man has dwelt in the warm existential depths of the water"¦ the lagoon his endless cycle of existence, thriving until he is invaded by scientific hubris. While in the lagoon he is connected to the creator of his world, remaining bound to a body of water that is symbolic of the eternal maternal womb. He is then forced out of his quiet habitual life where he then becomes "˜otherized'. With an "˜Outsider' narrative the familiar then becomes monstrous.
Our perceptions are focused on how this "˜creature' shatters the mold of normalcy. He transforms the ordinary world into something provocative and forces the outside world to define him, once again as with Frankenstein’s monster, he is perceived as a thing… a creature.
A film like Creature from the Black Lagooncan suggest to us the recognition of our notions of conventional sexuality and gender as well. The Gill Man is similar to a frog yet walks upright and has the stance of a man and possesses that archetypal ogling that shows he has sexual designs on our heroine Kay.
Kay Lawrence: “And I thought the Mississippi was something.”
While he is placed in a role that sees Kay as the "˜object' of his affection, he's sort of an androgynous amphibian, and yet he suggests that “alternatives can exist which may be more desirable”-Mark Jancovich Rational Fears American Horror in the 1950s.Jancovich goes on to say that the film is “unremittingly sexual”The film has sexual symbolism throughout, as the outside world intrudes on an ambiguous sexual being living in the womb of the water, now unleashed as a sexual peril to women. The water scenes between the water ballet swimming Kay unaware that the creature is also swimming very near to her–are absolutely visual foreplay.
Sweaty men baring their chests, wielding shotguns and Phallic harpoons as much as possible.
Need I say more???
The most significant scene of the film is when The Gill Man swims a slight distance away from Kay, under the murky lagoon while Kay unaware, simultaneously moves through the water embracing its import with pleasure and liberation. She whirls above him, barely hinting at an erotic intimacy between the two.
Under the water the creature is not a threat to Kay, he's almost shy, as he barely touches her leg, he swims away as if he's conflicted with uncertainty about this new experience. William E Snyder is responsible for the striking underwater footage, that creates an erotic spacial world of shimmering light.
It’s almost a type of Eden, that those pesky aggressive scientific males spoil…
We know that the creature shows a fascination toward Kay, but she sort of shares a kind of bond with him, as both are threatened by the domination of the two male scientists Mark and David. She tells the men to leave the creature alone, that it won't bother them. Mark wants to capture the creature as proof of his discovery, rather than just study him in his own habitat. Mark also wants to possess Kay, both of them are treated as ‘objects’. There are several scenes where Kay and the creature stare at each other as if they see something in common within themselves. Harry Essex wrote the screenplay, but hated the script at first so he added the Beauty and the Beasttheme, to give the creature more of a sense of humanity.
The Creature from the Black Lagoon is relentlessly sexual. Inhabited by mostly male characters, scientists have traveled to the deep Amazon in search of undiscovered animal life. What they find instead of more fossils is the Gill Man who refuses to give up his freedom. And why shouldn’t the creature react violently to their intrusion into his quiet domain? What’s more interesting is how he quickly becomes attracted to the gorgeous Julie Adams and her gutsy character Kay, the only female on the expedition who once again looks smashing in a one-piece white bathing suit and swims like she's in the water follies. Jancovich quotes Biskind from his Seeing is Believing – claiming that the creature is “driven into a frenzy by the proximity of Julie Adams in a one-piece bathing suit.” That sounds about right to me!
The Gill Man evokes our sympathy who has become an "˜object' to be controlled, dominated and assaulted by the outside world. It's the ‘men doing science’ who become the "˜aliens' the bad guys, the human monsters, and the creature another existential anti-hero who we identify with. It’s just a different slant on the theme of unrequited love in the lagoon…
Directed by the silent film era auteur Maurice Tourneur, (father of Jacques Tourneur Curse of the Demon 1957, Cat People 1942, I Walked With a Zombie 1943, Out of the Past 1947 ) this fantasy- horror film creates a tumultuous Mephistophelean voyage of surreal and striking imagery. This film has fast become one of my favorite fantasy/horror films…
Carnival of Sinners or La Main Du Diable (The Devil’s Hand) is a brilliant and hilariously dark morality play about being careful what you wish for and what is the meaning of life and the pursuit of physical pleasure and earthly desires, if you must lose your eternal soul in the end.
With an incredible score by Roger Dumas, that lends a magical soundtrack to the story!
As synchronicity often rears its playful head when I do companion posts Carnival of Sinners also frames a gathering of people, much like the later post’s ‘angry women villagers’ who set the tenor for both films as something fantastical.
It opens with a small village tavern filled with people who have been detained by an avalanche. These characters are comical and colorful as they all want to eat, and are suspicious of Roland, who we haven’t been introduced to yet. As they wait to be fed, a strange man dressed in black carrying a wrapped package under his left arm, his immovable hand gloved in stiff black leather storms into the tavern with a gust of secrets and urgency at his back. They immediately mistrust this man, as he is not amiable and does not wish to mix with them at all. He acts as if he is being pursued by the devil himself.
Well, maybe he is… him. He is called on the phone by someone asking for him by name. Once at the phone, the lights go out, and when they come back on and the chaos settles, the package is missing. He panics of course.
As it is a tradition at this tavern to be told unbelievable stories by Monsieur Notary. They plead with Roland Brissot to tell them what has brought him here. And so he begins to relate an incredible story…
Brissot goes to a palm reader who immediately sees that he is damned… She insists that he leave… never to return.
A peculiar little man (Le petit homme– who is wonderfully enacted by Palau(Children of Paradise 1945, The Devil in the Flesh 1947, Le Corbeau 1943) is actually the devil himself who has been offering this deal for quite a while now and since it has been a year to the day that Roland made the wager of his immortal soul for the Talisman, he has come to collect.
From the moment Roland obtains the Talisman, women flock to him, his dog runs away in fear, and Irène cannot resist him to the point that he no longer can stand for her smothering love by the end.
The little man shadows his every move, playing little tricks on Roland so that he couldn’t possibly buy back his soul. He changes the time on the clock, he steals money so that Roland must scramble to put the fee together which doubles with every day that it’s come due. His life falls apart, his wife becomes less desirable to him and they become strangers, and all he wants is to be free of his left hand which is the harbinger of doom for him.
Will Roland Brissot find the next sinner to buy the Talisman from him… or will the Devil get his due?
As he relates his story, it unfolds as a marvelous dark fairytale, lensed with visual splendor dipped in a wonderful folkloric narrative and marvelous characters… including the other souls who lost their left hands and formed a special chain in the links of fate.
We, the links in the chain-Joined like the fingers of a hand.
Roland’s journey is whimsical and harrowing, beautifully filmed by Arman Thirard who photographed such masterpieces as Henri Georges Clouzot’sDiabolique 1955 and The Wages of Fear 1953 two of the best thrillers of all time!
Carnival of Sinners 1943 belongs with some of the great fixtures of ‘wagering your soul to the devil’, with William Dieterle’s The Devil and Daniel Webster 1941, and F. W. Murnau’s Faust 1926,
Roland has an enormous painting of Goya’s nightmarish diversion into hell hanging in his palatial mansion. It is the one of Colossus devouring his son. You would have to watch this film several times to catch all the wonderful details and devilish black humor!
IT’S HERE AGAIN… THAT TINGLING ON THE BACK OF YOUR NECK BECAUSE THERE’S FOUL DEEDS AND MURDEROUS MACHINATIONS AFOOT…HOSTED BY SPEAKEASY… SHADOWS & SATIN… AND SILVER SCREENINGS… THE GREAT VILLAIN BLOGATHON OF 2015!
Vincent Price -had said- “I don’t play monsters. I play men besieged by fate and out for revenge…”
Vincent Price is perhaps one of THE sexiest men in the film. Eventually, type cast albeit an icon of the horror film industry… enough of us are aware of his range of talent and his sophisticated manner. If I were to have met him, I would have swooned… and that’s not a lie. He possessed a unique sensuality both tragic and dynamic that just drew you in.
Price always could play ONE of the most cultivated, enigmatic, and beguiling villains at any time…
-Secret thoughts… That led to secret love… That led to rapture and terror!-
Vincent Price as Nicholas Van Ryn: “I believe in myself, and I am answerable to myself! I will not live according to printed mottoes like the directions on a medicine bottle!”
The chemistry between Price and Tierney is authentic and captivating. When Miranda Wells feels humiliated by the gaggle of high-class snobbish debutantes because she's from the wrong end of the river, not from the Hudson but The Connecticut River bottom, Nicholas tells her she's better than all of them and asks her to dance. He seems so gentle and human"¦ but he has a dark and villainous side!
“You couldn’t help yourself any more than I” – Nicholas
“What makes you think you’re so much better than I am!”
DRAGONWYCK 1946 was Vincent Price's18th film, after having appeared in The House of the Seven Gables 1940 as Shelby Carpenter opposite Gene Tierney in Laura 1944, Leave Her to Heaven 1945, right after he appeared as the cold-blooded Dr. Richard Cross in Shock 1946.
Produced by Ernst Lubitsch uncredited and overseen by one of my favs– Writer/Director Joseph L Mankiewicz. This Gothic & dark romance is based on the novel by Anya Seton"¦ With cinematography by Arthur C. Miller (The Ox Bow Incident 1943, The Razor’s Edge 1946, Whirlpool 1949, The Prowler 1951), Art Direction by Lyle Wheeler and Russell Spencer, Set Direction by the great Thomas Little. The lighting alone is a mixture of noir chiaroscuro and offers dramatic shadings of the best classical elements of horror. The narrative speaks of familial secrets, and twisted vengefulness, not unlike Lewis Allen’s spooky debut masterpiece The Uninvited 1944.
Added to the moodiness is the eerily haunting score by Alfred Newman with Orchestral arrangements by Edward B Powell. Edited by the keen eyes of Dorothy Spencer (Stagecoach 1939, The House Across the Bay 1940, Lifeboat 1944, The Ghost and Mrs.Muir, The Snake Pit 1948.)Â
Costumes by Rene Hubert and Makeup by Ben Nye. The film bares shades of Hitchcock/de Maurier’s Rebecca 1940 and Robert Stevenson’s/Charlotte Brontë‘sJane Eyre1943. Even a bit of de Maurier’s tautly suspenseful My Cousin Rachel 1952 directed by Henry Koster and starring Olivia de Havilland and Richard Burton. The book is a hell of a good read if you enjoy Gothic melodrama.
Gene Tierney and Vincent Price reunite after having appeared in Otto Premingers‘ memorable film noir masterpiece Laura in 1944.
Otto Preminger brings together these two fine actors in his noir masterpiece Laura 1944.
Here-Gene Tierney plays Miranda Wells, and Walter Huston is her devoutly Christian working-class father-Ephram Wells.
Walter Huston as Ephram Wells reading from his bible to Miranda.Miranda takes a drink of wine. Her father reproaches her-“I thought so, it’s got spirits in it. A little bit. Even a little bit of evil cannot be good Miranda”– Her stifling life with her religious father pushes her further into the arms of Nicholas Van Ryn.
This scene foreshadows the dangerous path Miranda is willing to wander through, as she starts to break free of her puritanical upbringing and reach for a life of being a free spirit. Believing that Nicholas represents that freedom. But there is a hint of evil that her father can sense.
Vincent Price once again manifests a passionate yet conflicted antagonist Nicholas Van Ryn with a magnetism you cannot escape, yet you may despise his cruelty and his self-indulgent murderous arrogance.
“I must not feel like my life is finished as long as you are with me”-Nicholas“You must never be afraid when you’re with me, Miranda.”
Glenn Langan is the handsome yet vanilla Dr Jeff Turner, Anne Revere adds a depth of nurture as Abigail Wells-Miranda’s mother who is weary of her daughter’s intentions to marry such a powerful man.
Spring Byington is one of the maids-Magda. Connie Marshall is the young melancholy Katrina Van Ryn, Henry Morgan is Bleeker one of the farmers who challenges Van Ryn and fights back against the antiquated laws.
Vivienne Osborne plays wife Johanna Van Ryn. Jessica Tandy gives a marvelous performance as Miranda’s maid the feisty Peggy O'Malley. Trudy Marshall is Elizabeth Van Borden. Reinhold Schunzel is Count de Grenier, Jane Nigh is Tabitha. Ruth Ford is Cornelia Van Borden, David Ballard is Obadiah. Scott Elliot is Tom Wells and Boyd Irwin is Tompkins.
DRAGONWYCK is a Gothic suspense melodrama in the grand classical style. It even brushes against the edges of the classic horror film not only because of the way it’s filmed but there are certain disturbing elements to the story. The shadows and darkness that are part of the psychological climate work are almost reminiscent of a Val Lewton piece. There’s even a pale reference to that of a ghost story that is concealed or I should say unrevealed, with the first Mrs.Van Ryn’s spirit playing the harpsichord, and the eerie phantom chords that add to the mystery and gloom that hang over the manor house.
Katrine-“I don’t like it now The singing’s getting louder now, I’m afraid I’m afraid.”
With swells of atmospheric tension and darkly embroidered romance, there’s just the right tinges of shadows and danger. A lush and fervent tale that combines tragic Gothic romantic melodrama with the legitimate themes of social class struggle wrapped within dark secrets and suspense.
As always, Price conveys a tragic pathos even as the story’s villain, he is a man who manifests layers upon layers of feeling. Brooding, charming, sensual, intellectual, menacing, passionate, conflicted, self-loathing, and ego-maniacal all at once.
One of my favorite roles will always be his embodiment of Corman/Poe's Roderick Usher in House of Usher 1960.
The film also offers us the sublime acting skill and divine beauty of- Gene Tierneyas the heroine or damsel in peril, a simple farm girl living near Greenwich Connecticut, who dreams of the finer things in life, swept up by the allure of a fairy tale existence only to find out that her dream has become a nightmare.
Once Miranda receives a letter inviting her to come and visit Dragonwyck, she is perhaps at once young and naive when she arrives at the austere place to be a companion to Van Ryn’s despondent daughter Katrine, a lonely sort of isolated child. First triangulated by Van Ryn’s over-indulgent wife Johanna, after her death, the two begin a whirlwind romance that leads Miranda to marry the imposing Nicholas Van Ryn.
Almost in the style of a Universal monster movie, the central focus is the mysterious mansion, surrounded by volatile thunderstorms and restless villagers who want to take action against their oppressors. The film works as a period piece seeming to possess an added heaviness due to the provincial settings and underpinnings of class unrest, which lends itself to the bleak mood.
DRAGONWYCK'S villain or very human boogeyman is the inimitable & urbane Vincent Pricewho holds sway over the locals as the patroon–lord of the land, as well as master of all he surveys, and of course his new wife. Driven by his obsession to have a son. He is a brooding dark figure whose dissent into drug addicted madness comes to light like a demon who has escaped from a bottle.
Van Ryn is vain and contemptuous, scornful, condescending, and cruel. Eventually driven by his immense pride, love, and desire… to murder his first wife who is in the way of his ultimate legacy.
DRAGONWYCK is an interesting film that belies any one genre. And as I’ve pointed out, beyond the dark melodramatic suspense elements, it’s every bit a horror film. And it is also the directorial debut of Joseph L. Mankiewicz.
Set during the Nineteenth Century when parts of New York were still founded as feudal Estates. It’s a fascinating portrayal of the history of the 19th century Upstate New York Dutch colonies and their struggles between the rich and poor against the reigning yet dying tradition of aristocratic rule over the small family farms which were overseen by "˜Patroons'Â A Patroon is the owner of the large land grants along the Hudson River. They are descendants of the original Dutch patroons"¦ “and they're terribly rich and elegant." -Miranda
Yet as in the case of Nicholas, they can be brutal and self-opportunistic landlords who collected the rent from these hard-working, exploited, and poor farmers.
This is what first impresses Miranda about Nicholas, his power and station in life. Tibby her sister tells her that she's not anxious to leave home.
Miranda says "That's not fair, you know that I love you and Pa, all of you and my home it's just that I try to be like everyone else"¦ and want what I'm supposed to want. But then I start thinking about people I've never known and places I've never been. Maybe if the letter hadn't come I'd"¦. Oh, I don't know I must be loony."
Nicholas Van Ryn is a brooding and powerful aristocratic patroon who runs all matters with an iron hand. In the Nineteenth Century, the upstate New York counties were still dealing with a system run by these Patroons. There began a social uprising of the surrounding farmers who wanted more power over their land and a rule that would abolish the aristocracy that was a tribute to a dying past practice. Soon there would be an end to these ruling Estates.
As seen in Van Ryn’s maniacal demonstration of his being seated in an elaborate throne he remains poised while collecting the farmer’s rent. Henry Morgan plays the tough and prideful farmer Klaus who has brought nothing with him. “Not rent– nor tribute.”
“I’m a free citizen I take my hat off for no one.”
When Nicholas’ first wife cannot bare him a son as heir to carry on the Van Ryn name, the wealthy and wicked Nicholas Van Ryn secretly plans to poison her with the help of an Oleander plant. Setting his sights on the younger, more beautiful cousin Miranda.
He then invites Miranda (Gene Tierney just naturally exudes a uniquely dreamy-eyed splendor) to come and visit Dragonwyck. She is an innocent girl fascinated by the urbane Nicholas but by the film’s climax, she becomes entrapped in the foreboding and bleak atmosphere of Dragonwyck, a place of secrets, sadness, and insanity.
Nicholas-“The Breeze must feel wonderful indeed on a face as beautiful as yours I imagine."
Miranda is so taken with the idea of dancing the waltz and how fine a gentleman cousin Nicholas seems. Her father always read passages from the bible, she hungers for adventure. Miranda craves the freedom to experience a better life.
Vincent Price is incredibly handsome as Nicholas. Mysterious, his deep blue eyes crystallize through the stark black and white film. He has a strong jawline, and possesses vitality"¦ at first, he is so charming. Nicholas-“The Breeze must feel wonderful indeed on a face as beautiful as yours I imagine."
The first meal at Dragonwyck is a grotesque scene in which his wife Johanna (Vivienne Osborne) shows herself to be a lugubrious sow, a glutton, and a spoiled child who now bores and disgusts her husband. He tells Miranda, “To my wife, promptness at meals is the greatest human virtue."Â
Nicholas is already starting to reveal his cutting tongue by commenting on how his wife overeats and is not refined. A hint of his cruel nature.
“I think I’ll have the bonbons before going to bed.”Look at the detail of this frame. It’s almost the perfection of a Late 19th-century painting.
Miranda meets the despondent Katrine… a hapless child.
At dinner, Johanna begins to nag him about bringing home the pastries from New York, the Napoleons, she appears to be a glutton, and though very pretty, a most unattractive portrayal of her character is given for the narrative’s purpose of Nicholas justifiably ridding himself of her so that he might pursue Miranda. In contrast to Johanna’s piggishness, Miranda is given a clear bowl of broth for her supper. the scene is set up so we feel a bit of sympathy toward Nicholas.
As Johanna shoves another bonbon into her mouth…
Cinematographer Arthur C. Millerframes the shot as Johanna is placed in between Nicholas and Miranda. His wife Johanna appears like a fairy tale character–the over-exaggerated plump wife who gorges herself on sweets while Nicholas and Miranda talk of love and loss. Miranda is wildly curious. He is withdrawn and pensive.
Nicholas plays the harpsichord. Miranda listens contentedly and then asks who the woman in the painting is. He tells her it's his grandmother Aziel –"That's a strange name"¦ she looks like a frightened child."
Miranda asks him to tell her more about his grandmother. Was it love at first sight?
Nicholas-"No Van Ryn does anything at first sight" Miranda-"Oh but she must have been happy to live here" Miranda smiles, her face a glow. Nicholas adds, "As it turned out it didn't matter, soon after her son was born she died. She brought this harpsichord with her from her home. She played it always."
Johanna “If you listen to the servants they'll have you believe she still does!"she laughs. But Nicholas quickly turns around to look at her, a dark shadow creeps along his brow. His eyes raised.
Nicholas-"Fortunately we don't listen to either the servants or their superstitions."
Magda (Spring Byington) tells Miranda about Nicholas’ grandmother from New Orleans, the woman in the portrait. That his grandfather never loved her, he never wanted her at all. he wanted their son. he kept her from him… He forbid her to sing and play. He broke her heart. And drove her"¦.” Magda stops short"¦. "She prayed for disaster to come to the Van Ryns and she swore that when it came she'd always be here to sing and play"¦ She killed herself in this room."
Magda asks-"Miss Wells why have you come here? Do you think Katrine is in need of a companion? Miranda answers her, "Well that would be for her father and her mother to decide."
Magda says, "Don't you think she's in need of a father and a mother"¦ that was a silly question wasn't it?"Â
The meddling maid pierces Miranda’s innocence with her honesty like venom–causing a bit of shock on Miranda’s face that usually seems as tranquil as a quiet lake of sparkling water.
“You like it here?" Miranda answers–"Of course, I do" Magda comments- "Course you do, you like being waited on, I could see tonight it was the first time. You like peaches out of season. You like the feel of silk sheets against your young body. Then one day, with all your heart you'll wish you'd never come to Dragonwyck"¦”
The handsome young Dr. Turner (Glenn Langan) comes to take care of Johanna who has taken sick to her bed.
He and Miranda sit and talk by the fire. He tries to imply that living at Dragonwyck has changed her, he tells her that the last time he met her he felt like they had so much in common. "Frankly right now I doubt you have any idea about the slightest thing to talk to me about."
Johanna’s illness gets worse, of course, we know Nicholas has poisoned her. Lying in bed she tells him that sometimes she thinks he hates her, but asks if they can go away together once she's better. He says yes because he knows she'll never get better. In fact, she will never leave that bed alive.
“Have you ever noticed it… for some reason you want to feel completely out of step with the rest of the world, the only thing to do is sit around a cocktail lounge for the afternoon?”-Lizabeth Scott’s Mona Stevens to Dick Powell’s John Forbes in Pitfall (1948)
Pitfall stars Dick Powell as John Forbes a disaffected insurance agent working for Olympic Mutual Insurance who needs more umph in his life when the daily grind begins to get to him. He’s married to Jane Wyatt who needs more than just his boring kiss on the cheek. But she’s the good wife in this crime story!
Lizabeth Scott is one of the ultimate noir femme fatales. In Pitfall she plays the sultry Mona Stevens –And when Forbes comes to recover the embezzled loot that her boyfriend bad boy Bill Smiley (Byron Barr) absconded with and lavished on her, she tells Forbes- “You’re a little man with a briefcase.”
Next thing you know it’s late afternoon and Mona’s sobbing in her gin at the dimly lit cocktail lounge, and Johnny Forbes is just a sucker for those dreamy eyes and that wispy voice of hers…
Boyfriend Smiley’s got pinched and is spending a year in the slammer thinking that Mona’s gonna wait for him but she and Forbes begin spending time together. She even tells him about the motorboat Smiley gave her, and it get’s conveniently omitted from his report. I mean after that sea sprayed, whirling, bumpy, ride with her blonde hair blowing alongside the mighty wakes from her untamed steering style, it seems to get him just a bit unraveled– I’m surprised he didn’t lose his hat!
But Mona’s not all fatal and when she finds out he’s married she lets him off easy telling him though she’s the kinda girl he’s always dreamed of she’s gonna let him go ‘without an angle… I could be nasty, but I’m not going to be.”
And besides he doesn’t want to tempt fate any more than he already has…
BUT!!!!!
Raymond Burr who plays the sinister private detective J.B. MacDonald who, Forbes hired to find Mona in the first place, is a tad unstable. He’s got a growing psychotic fixation on Mona and starts stalking her in the shadows. When Forbes confronts MacDonald– he wants revenge, so he visits Smiley in jail and tells him that the two are having an affair setting in motion an even bigger pitfall!
Watch out for those pitfalls… Your EverLovin’ MonsterGirl
Rachel Cameron:“I’m exactly in the middle of my life. This is my last… ascending summer. Everything else from now on is just rolling downhill into my grave.”
Joanne Woodwardis the dowdy-looking emotional time bomb Rachel a 35-year-old school teacher who lives with her mother and needs to either break free or break down. Kate Harringtonis fabulous as her mother, James Olsonwho was often cast as the male figure of desire in the 60s & early 70s psycho-sexual thrillers plays her lover Nick. The marvelous Estelle Parsonsis her well-intentioned misguided friend Calla who has a budding lesbian attraction for her and Donald Moffat plays her dad.
I almost included this film with my compendium of cult films, though it is more melodrama than a crossing of noir, or psycho-sexual horror. The film works on the underlying premise that establishment culture has become like a sort of imprisonment to Rachel, reinforcing a repressive landscape and marginalizing the character of Rachel thus creating her own counter-culture reflecting the eroding of the American Dream and crumbling Idealism. (source American Cinema of the 1960s Themes and Variations Edited by Barry Keith Grant).
Rachel is the archetype of the repressed New England girl from a small town. Where everyone knows your business and it becomes impossible to breathe. One reviewer on IMDb called it “deep-level collective cultural phantoms”I particularly like that phrase. A suffocating lifestyle or stasis of life more aptly, Rachel is trapped by caring for her overbearing mother. and pulled to one side by the desire she has for Nick. Haunted by memories and collected damage over the years, she carries her emotional baggage til it is too heavy to bear.
Kate Harrington in Rachel, Rachel.
A few very memorable scenes come to mind. Of course when Calla has the awkward revelation that she is in love with Rachel. But there is the bizarre church scene and several flashbacks that allude to her childhood trauma.
Will Rachel decide to free herself from the shackles of stifling conformity and become a liberated individual?
The film also co-stars the great Geraldine Fitzgerald as Rev. Wood.
Who was she? Sometimes she was a child skipping rope. Sometimes she was a woman with a passionate hunger. And one day the woman and the child came together…
who cares about a 35-year-old virgin?
Joanne Woodward and James Olson in Rachel Rachel 1968.
In Istanbul, a jazz trumpeter Jimmy Logan (James Darren) finds the corpse of a beautiful woman named Wanda Reed (Maria Rohm–House of 1,000 Dolls 1967. The Blood of Fu Manchu 1968, Eugenie… Her Story into Perversion 1970, Count Dracula 1970) washed up on the beach.
Jimmy remembers her from the night before when he saw her at a party and then later as she was assaulted by the party’s host and two of his friends.
He winds up in Rio where he hooks up with Rita, played by Barbara McNair a singer who invites him to live with her and help him shake the nightmare off and stop thinking of Wanda.
Jimmy Logan: “She was beautiful, even though she was dead.”
Suddenly a woman appears who looks exactly like Wanda. Jimmy becomes obsessed and pursues her trying to get to the bottom of this mysterious woman.
The woman returns from the dead to take revenge on the group of wealthy sadists responsible for her death. The film also stars Margaret Lee,Dennis Price, and Klaus Kinski.
Frenzied, dream-like colorful excursion into the psycho-sexual mind of Jess Franco.
Driven by jealousy, Diane McBainplays Shayne the jilted leader of a female motorcycle gang whose sociopathic and ruthless nature instigates a sadistic reign of terror against her ex-lover Rodeo Cowboy Jeff Logan and his new bride Connie (Sherry Jackson)
Stars Jeremy Slate, Diane McBain, Sherry Jackson, Patty McCormack, and Harry Dean Stanton.
Diane McBain plays Shayne the head of The Mini Skirt Mob Patty McCormack plays her little sis… and the ruthless Shayne only has eyes for Jeff Logan (Ross Hagen).
They’re hog-straddling female animals on the prowl.
Patty McCormack not beating a little boy to death with her tap shoe.
Set in the atmosphere of the mod 60s of London —Boris Karloff is a subtly imposing looking more time-worn elderly Professor Marcus Monserrat scientist and hypnotist extraordinaire who has discovered the secret of mind control, and the ability to become empathic with the object of their desire.
Monserrat and his wife Estelle (Catherine Lacey-stage actress who was a regular performer with the Old Vic Company from 1951-went on to play eccentric spinsters-) can literally share sensations, thoughts, and feelings of the subjects they wish to control.
Ian Ogilvy is the shady swinger Mike Roscoe who falls into their trap and allows them the excitement of experiencing what he does, virtually enjoying the self-indulgence of being young again. But as usual, power corrupts and greedy Estelle begins to crave devouring Roscoe and the pleasure it gives her. Roscoe begins to lose control of himself, mind, and body as the battle of wills ensues with the power-hungry old bird trying to experience ‘kicks’ vicariously through the unlucky chap. Co-stars Elizabeth Ercy and Susan George.
 Boris Karloff, He Turns Them On…He Turns Them Off…to live…love…die or KILL!
When a mentally disturbed young man Dennis Pitt (Anthony Perkins) tells a pretty girl that he’s a secret agent, she believes him and murder and mayhem ensue. Anthony Perkins’s character of Dennis Pitt is every bit more of an emotional enigma as the young man with a pathological imagination who is an outlier in society. Released from an institution he gets a regular job at a lumber yard. But he meets the All-American Cheerleader squeaky clean blonde apple pie Sue Ann Stepaneck (Tuesday Weld) who just might be even more disturbed than Dennis. He informs her that he’s working undercover for the CIA and enlists her in helping him on his case. Dennis cannot help but live in his fantasy world. She is a stone-cold sociopath with ulterior motives.
As she manipulates his vulnerabilities into committing acts of dangerous vandalism and eventually murder, she is in control of this Folie à deux
Co-stars Beverly Garland as Sue Ann’s Mama.
She’s such a sweet girl. He’s such a nice boy. They’ll scare the hell out of you.
Did you ever see two kids like Dennis and Sue Ann? We think not…
…Wait till you see what they did to his aunt – the night watchman – to her mother.
What brought a nice kid like Sue Ann to a shocking moment like this?
Powell had been known for his very barbed visual style.
The background story behind Mark Lewis’ madness/murder compulsion.
Mark Lewis-focus puller on Arthur Baden’s new film The Walls Are Closing In-he also moonlights as a photographer of racy pictures on the West End. He is smitten with 21-year-old Helen Stephens (Anna Massey) and they are carrying on a very civil and sweet courtship. Almost child-like which is probably what kept Helen safe from Mark’s darker side.
What Helen doesn’t know is that Mark has a blade hidden in the armature of his tripod, and stabs the object of his desire, filming their deaths, as a surrogate for his past abuse. When he was a young boy his father, a biologist researching the effects of fear on children, ‘the physiology of fear’ used to film Mark continuously like a mouse in a maze, throughout his childhood, subjecting him to various fear-inducing incidents as his experimentation.
Voyeurism and psycho-sexual compulsion drive this very startling horror/suspense film starring Karl Böhm, as Mark Lewis who works as a cameraman at a British film studio. His fetish is to kill women with his camera tripod while filming their death. It’s not hard to envision that the tripod is a surrogate for his phallus, and the act of stabbing them with it is his act of penetration. A mirror is fixed to the tripod so that the women can see the expression on their own faces right before death, to witness their own fear.
Unfortunately in the way, Psycho with its subversive themes propelled Hitchcock’s status to auteur, the controversial Peeping Tom ended Michael Powell’s career with all the reviled reviews.
Nothing, nothing nothing… has left me with such a feeling of nausea and depression as I got this week while sitting through a new British film called Peeping Tom… Mr Michael Powell (Who once made such outstanding films as Black Narcissus and A Matter of Life and Death) produced and directed Peeping Tom and I think he ought to be ashamed of himself. The acting is good. The photography is fine. But what is the result? Sadism, sex and the exploitation of human degradation- Daily Express
Mark has had a very traumatic upbringing by his father who used his own son in experiments of the effects of fear and self-loathing. Well, they produced a son who is a sexual sadist who makes his female victims watch their own deaths-specifically the expression of terror on their faces right before death. Co-stars Moira Shearer, Anna Massey, and Brenda Bruce as Dora. Absolutely chilling for 1960. Bohm’s Mark Lewis almost elicits sympathy due to his childhood psycho-trauma. Much like Anthony Perkins’ Norman Bates and his fateful childhood.
The gist of why this film shook up the British film industry at a time when they were trying to tone it down was the idea of this gruesome ‘snuff’ filmmaker getting off on sublimating his own sexual impotence by finding victims to penetrate with his camera or gaze. The way Otto Heller sets up our participation as voyeurs make it doubly uncomfortable to watch the killings. For example. Mark takes a red-bloused prostitute up to her room. His camera with its several lensed eyes like an insect about to prey is concealed, the whirring is cloaked inside his duffel bag. See they even had kill bags back then. As she leads him upstairs he throws an empty box of Kodak film in the garbage. Not cigarettes, or a box of condoms, but still the very sexual instrument in his mode of arousal + fixtion+ object/spectacle +gaze =murder. Also turning their own destroyed images back on themselves is quite disturbing–It’s a kinky and interesting little detail. Otto Heller also added a wonderful detail to the film as Mark’s private ‘viewing room’ was bathed in a sanguinary red tone.
Director of Photography was Otto Heller, Art Director- Arthur Lawson, and Editor Noreen Ackland.
Anna Massey plays Helen Stephens, Maxine Audley is Helen’s mother Mrs Stephens who while blind senses that there is something off about Mark, Moira Shearer is Vivian, and Nigel Davenport is Sergeant Miller.
Can you see yourself in this picture? Can you imagine yourself facing the terror of a diabolical killer? Can you guess how you’d look? You’ll live that kind of excitement, suspense, and horror when you watch “Peeping Tom”.
Karl Böhm and Anna Massey in the skin-crawling thriller Peeping Tom 1960 directed by Michael Powell.
Oh, those silly Colonialist white dudes get to have all the fun — feeding young native girls to those flesh-eating plants!
A mad scientist Doctor Moran (George Coulouris) captures women and feeds them to his carnivorous tree with tentacle-like branches that only have a taste for the ladies preferably young ones, this in turn gives him a serum that helps bring the dead back to life.
Because the tree gets fed its nourishment, it provides the evil doctor with a liquid that restores life to the dead. So naturally the first woman you would want to be resuscitated would be a good housekeeper, right? No… She goes all Rochester’s crazy wife Bertha on the place, you know the violently insane first wife of Edward Rochester; moved to Thornfield and locked in the attic and eventually commits suicide after setting fire to Thornfield Hall in Jane Eyre., that sort of way! and ruins everything…
It’s really just a silly B movie from the 50s that finds unique ways to destroy beautiful women by way of mad science or mad obsession.
The film also stars Robert MacKenzie, Norman Claridge, and Marpessa Dawn as a ‘native’ girl. Jimmy Vaughn as Tanga, Sarah Leighton as Susan Curtis, and Vera Day as Sally.
Vera Day in The Woman Eater 1958.
“No Beautiful Woman is Safe!
See the nerve-shattering Dance of Death!
See the Woman Eater ensnare the beauties of two continents!
See the hideous arms devour them in a death embrace?”
Your Everlovin’ MonsterGirl saying hope you stay on the good side of the camera and watch out for those strange large plants at Home Depot!
"Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways."
"• Sigmund Freud
"Ladies and gentlemen- welcome to violence; the word and the act. While violence cloaks itself in a plethora of disguises, its favorite mantle still remains sex." "” Narrator from Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965).
THE DARK PAGES NEWSLETTERÂ a condensed article was featured in The Dark Pages: You can click on the link for all back issues or to sign up for upcoming issues to this wonderful newsletter for all your noir needs!
Patricia Morán as Rita Ugalde: The Exterminating Angel 1962:“I believe the common people, the lower class people, are less sensitive to pain. Haven’t you ever seen a wounded bull? Not a trace of pain.”
Ann Baxter as Teresina Vidaverri Walk on the Wild Side 1962—“When People are Kind to each other why do they have to find a dirty word for it.”
The Naked Venus 1959–"I repeat she is a gold digger! Europe's full of them, they're tramps"¦ they'll do anything to get a man. They even pose in the NUDE!!!!”
Baby Boy Franky Buono-Blast of Silence (1961)“The targets names is Troiano, you know the type, second string syndicate boss with too much ambition and a mustache to hide the facts he’s got lips like a woman… the kind of face you hate!”
Lorna (1964)-“Thy form is fair to look upon, but thy heart is filled with carcasses and dead man’s bones.”
Glen or Glenda (1953)– “Give this man satin undies, a dress, a sweater and a skirt, or even a lounging outfit and he’s the happiest individual in the world.”
Ed Wood’s Glen or Glenda 1953
Johnny Cash as Johnny Cabot in Five Minutes to Live (1961):“I like a messy bed.”
Dr. Moreau (Charles Laughton) Island of Lost Souls:“Do you know what it means to feel like God?”
The Snake Pit (1948): Jacqueline deWit as Celia Sommerville “And we’re so crowded already. I just don’t know where it’s all gonna end!” Olivia de Havilland as Virginia Stuart Cunningham“I’ll tell you where it’s gonna end, Miss Somerville… When there are more sick ones than well ones, the sick ones will lock the well ones up.”
Delphine Seyrig as Countess Bathoryin Daughters of Darkness (1971)– “Aren’t those crimes horrifying. And yet -so fascinating!”
Julien Gulomar as Bishop Daisy to the Barber (Michel Serrault) King of Hearts (1966)–“I was so young. I already knew that to love the world you have to get away from it.”
Susannah York (right) with Beryl Reid in The Killing of Sister George Susannah York and Beryl Reid in Robert Aldrich’s The Killing of Sister George 1960.
The Lickerish Quartet (1970)–“You can’t get blood out of an illusion.”
THE SWEET SOUND OF DEATH (1965)– Dominique-“I’m attracted” Pablo-” To Bullfights?” Dominique-” No, I meant to death. I’ve always thought it… The state of perfection for all men.”
Peter O’Toole asSir Charles Ferguson Brotherly Love (1970): “Remember the nice things. Reared in exile by a card-cheating, scandal ruined daddy. A mummy who gave us gin for milk. Ours was such a beautifully disgusting childhood.”
Euripides 425 B.C.–“Whom God wishes to destroy… he first makes mad.”
Bette Davis and Joan Crawford bring to life two of the most outrageously memorable characters in Robert Aldrich’s What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? 1962.
WHAT DOES PSYCHOTRONIC MEAN?
psychotronic|ˌsīkəˈtränik| adjective denoting or relating to a genre of movies, typically with a science fiction, horror, or fantasy theme, that were made on a low budget or poorly received by critics. [the 1980s: coined in this sense by Michael Weldon, who edited a weekly New York guide to the best and worst films on local television.] Source: Wikipedia
In the scope of these transitioning often radical films, where once, men and women aspired for the moon and the stars and the whole ball of wax. in the newer scheme of things they aspired for you know"¦ "kicks" Yes that word comes up in every film from the 50s and 60s"¦ I'd like to have a buck for every time a character opines that collective craving… from juvenile delinquent to smarmy jet setter!
FILM NOIR HAD AN INEVITABLE TRAJECTORY…
THE ECCENTRIC & OFTEN GUTSY STYLE OF FILM NOIR HAD NOWHERE ELSE TO GO… BUT TO REACH FOR EVEN MORE OFF-BEAT, DEVIANT– ENDLESSLY RISKY & TABOO ORIENTED SET OF NARRATIVES FOUND IN THE SUBVERSIVE AND EXPLOITATIVE CULT FILMS OF THE MID TO LATE 50s through the 60s and into the early 70s!
I just got myself this collection of goodies from Something Weird!
There’s even this dvd that points to the connection between the two genres – Here it’s labeled WEIRD. I like transgressive… They all sort of have a whiff of noir.Grayson Hall -Satan in High Heels 1962.Gerd Oswald adapts Fredrick Brown’s titillating novel — bringing to the screen the gorgeous Anita Ekberg, Phillip Carey, Gypsy Rose Lee, and Harry Townes in the sensational, obscure, and psycho-sexual thriller Screaming Mimi 1958.Victor Buono is a deranged mama’s boy in Burt Topper’s fabulous The Strangler 1964.Catherine Deneuve is extraordinary as the unhinged nymph in Roman Polanski’s psycho-sexual tale of growing madness in Repulsion 1965.
I have become a huge fan of Anna Magnani ever since I saw her recently in …And The Wild Wild Women (1959) & not to mention The Fugitive Kind 1960 Yet another incredible performance not only by the charismatic Magnani but Marlon Brando their chemistry is combustible!… And…
I’ve always loved Tennessee Williams. Just having finished watching The Rose Tattoo which won Magnani the Oscar for Best Actress in 1955, I felt like sharing one of the myriad of wonderful pieces of dialogue in this deeply emotional yet witty and engaging film directed by Daniel Mann.
The Baroness Serafina Delle Rosa loved her man with a passion that rivaled the sun itself. But he was wild like a Gypsy and when he dies in a police chase smuggling something illegal under the bananas in his truck, Serafina falls apart. She believes her husband was a God and she a mere peasant who worshiped him and so she goes into mourning like a good Sicilian woman hiding herself away and waiting for a sign from the Madonna. She is a deeply faithful woman.
She lives under the delusion that her man was perfect even though everyone else in the village knows that Rosario Delle Rosa was stepping out on his wife with Estelle Hohengarten (Virginia Grey ) who works at a night club in New Orleans.
Serafina makes Seaman Jack Hunter (Ben Cooper) kneel before the Madonna and promise to honor her daughter Rosa’s (Marisa Pavan) Innocence.She asks if her husband told Father Del Leo during confession about the other woman…
Even after the town’s Strega, the priest, the fish wives and everyone else knows Serafina’s husband was unfaithful, she keeps the urn of his ashes on the mantle and lets her heart go to seed.
Then, one day Alvaro Mangiacavallo-(Burt Lancaster) wants to be set up with the widow as he has a good heart but is poor and lonely. He wants a woman who doesn’t have to be beautiful she can be plump, but has her own business and a nice home.
Burt Lancaster is always bigger than life no matter if he’s Elmer Gantry or Ole Swede Anderson in The Killers (1946)
Though he enters the film halfway through, his presence brings the oxygen that Serafina denies herself. She will not believe the lie, that her man was not ‘glorious’. She rants and raves and tears at herself dramatically throughout the story trying to deny what people say, and also denying herself as a sensual woman who deserves to be loved and desired.
I have always been so taken with how much Williams‘ perspective coming from the woman’s point of view is so sympathetic. His characters are usually flawed but very human, and filled with passion, and longing and a need to be desired and believed, and to be seen for who they are.
I am astounded by Magnani’s almost operatic performance as the volatile poignant authentic woman who holds on for as long as she can refusing to believe her ‘fictional’ beautiful man has betrayed her love. Even when she’s causing a commotion in town or shouting in Italian on her own front porch, her pain is palpable and you feel for her. Magnani is a muse for the passion in women that should never be taken for granted…Raw and bare… is Magnani’s Serafina.
But then begins a comical, tumultuous and a bit unorthodox courtship…
Alvaro- “Do you have a bathroom in your house?”
Serafina– “Of course we have a bathroom why”
Alvaro- “We don’t have one at our house and I would like to wash up because I think maybe I smell like a goat, you know…”
Serafina–“Please help yourself”—-He leaves the room
“Oh Madonna Sante… My husband’s body with the head… of a clown (hand gesture) A clown that smells like a goat…”
Your EverLovin Joey saying Oh Madonna Sante, I wish you all well!
Anne Bancroft is a lady who lunches and listens to gossip in The Pumpkin Eater – being held hostage by the intensely neurotic Yootha Joyce a lonely housewife sitting next to her while trapped under the hair dryer of life… The woman at the hairdresser-“It’s like I told you, my life is an empty place!” Jo-“Well what do you want me to do about it?”
"The question isn't who's going to let me; it's who is going to stop me."– Ayn Rand
Cognition–ËŒkägˈniSHÉ™n| (noun) the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses. "¢ a result of this; a perception, sensation, notion, or intuition.
These 4 particular films seem to be part of a trend of films that deal with either women’s brewing emotional turmoil or in the case of Jean Seberg’s Lilith- a creeping organic madness, perhaps from childhood trauma that is not delved into.Â
Let’s consider women either in distress or the oft-used “hysterical’ trademark that summons every neurotic ill associated with women. With these 4 films it's the same root problem: Why should society determine what counts as an emotional problem? This is especially true for women as if she was the engendering source of a specific kind of female mayhem, the creator of the tumult itself… Capable of giving birth, does she also give birth to a certain kind of madness directed inwardly or aimed outward at society and its unyielding ethical questions?
It’s not that I think Barbara Barrie is troubled because she falls in love with a black man. It's that the world is troubled by her decision. Because of her choice -a society inherently cruelly punishes her by taking away the one thing she had personal power over, to remove her child from her life. Although, she has a wonderful relationship with Frank both are being judged and condemned.
The judge awards custody of her little girl to the biological father even though he is not the better parent. Not too long ago, women could be hospitalized just for being menopausal, based on what their husbands said.
Women were at the mercy of white male society's judgment. So if a white woman loves and marries a black man in the volatile climate of the civil rights 60s it would absolutely cause turmoil and quite the commotion.
All these women experience cognitive commotion but are not necessarily crazy. One Potato Two Potato is about the societal impositions forced upon an interracial couple and the strain of a child custody battle forcing her to qualify herself as a good mother. The sentiments of the time, the courts, and society, in general, are disempowering Julie through her motherhood.
This inflicts an agonizing torture on Barbara Barrie’s character Julie. Barrie’s performance as well as Bernie Hamilton as a man whose own masculinity is tested, tears me up inside…
A white woman, Julie Cullen falls in love with Frank Richards, a black man, against the will of everyone around them, including his parents who think he should stick with his own kind. Eventually, Frank’s mother and father come around and embrace Julie and her daughter who considers Martha and William her grandparents.
Julie has a son with Frank…and suddenly is being faced with a white judge deciding on who will gain custody of her little girl from a previous marriage to a man Joe Cullen who abandoned them years ago. Not til he finds out that she is being raised by a black man does he rise to take action and gain custody of his daughter.
This is a courageous story to relate to in 1964. Barrie’s anguish is one that is not self-inflicted, there is no mental disorder or neurotic dilemma yet it would challenge anyone who dares to be truthful and follow their heart in a world where many people must hide who they are. A beautiful love story that becomes tainted by the stain of ingrained hatred and ignorance. And causes ruination to a happy family.
Barbara Barrie’s performance as Julie Cullen Richards is nothing short of intuitively astounding.
Just for funzies, I wanted to paint some contrast into the mix, therefore pointing to films that truly deal with women and mental illness.More than cognitive commotion, they’re unstable, noncompos mentis, deranged, knife-wielding, murderous femmes, traumatized, delusional dames… or all out CRAZY NUTS!!!!!!!!!
And…
I’ll probably write about all these films mentioned–the women on the verge of a nervous breakdown or already on the shoulder of the weary road of life with all four tires flat at some point. I’ll Consider Charles Vidor’sLadies in Retirement 1941where Ida Lupino has to take care of her two dotty sisters Elsa Lanchester and Edith Barrett as the Creed sisters… They’re wonderfully Cukoo!!! I did a little piece on this gem a while back…
Robert Siodmak’sThe Dark Mirror 1946 with Olivia de Havilland playing twins Terry & Ruth Collins, Gene Tierney gorgeous yet cunningly homicidal in Leave her To Heaven 1945, Laraine Day is totally unhinged in The Locket 1946, Joan Crawford as Louise Howell has a nightmare filled flashback in Curtis Burnhardt’sPossessed 1947.
“she is shown as alienated and stricken with psychological torture”– {source Marlisa Santos The Dark Mirror; Psychiatry and Film NoirÂ
Then again in Anatole Litvak’s story actually set in a mental institution with Olivia de Havilland stuck in The Snake Pit 1948, Vivien Leigh is the consummate delusional Blanche Dubois in Tennessee Williams’A Streetcar Named Desire 1951… Marilyn Monroe gives a riveting performance as the deranged babysitter–(oh god kid just be quiet for Nell) in Roy Ward Baker’sDon’t Bother to Knock 1952, Joanne Woodward is in emotional conflict with three different personalities all herself…in The Three Faces of Eve 1957.
Eleanor Parker gives a stunning portrayal of multiple personality disorder in Hugo Haas’Lizzie 1957, I’ve written about Liz Taylor almost getting her frontal lobe sucked out at the request of her domineering Aunt -(Katherine Hepburn) just to hide her son’s sordid secret life in Suddenly, Last Summer 1959, Jean Simmons tries to find happiness in a loveless marriage that isn’t her fault in the engrossing Home Before Dark 1958, Ingmar Bergman’s Striking minimalist piece about mental turmoil in his beautifully photographed Through a Glass Darkly 1961, William Castle’s groundbreaking gender-bending Homicidal 1961.
Woodward in The Three Faces of Eve 1957.
Joan Marshall is Homicidal in 1961 in William Castle’s answer to Psycho.
Carroll Baker is a traumatized rape survivor in Something Wild 1961 and what I found to be a misogynist romp wasting several wonderful actresses who were offered these humiliating roles in The Chapman Report. In particular, Clare Bloom deserved better with her talent -as a nymphomaniac struggling with her sexual desires until she ultimately commits suicide in The Chapman Report 1962 and good old William Castle’s once again with his Strait-Jacket 1964 starring one of the ultimate Grande Dames Joan Crawford this time wielding an axe in addition to her nightmarish flashbacks.
Now… none of the 4 women I am covering here are homicidal or dangerous, all these women are experiencing a psychic struggle with issues that speak from their place in the world as women… who are defining somehow in their own way, what their identity means to them… Well, perhaps Lilith is a bit more volatile in terms of how she wields her sexuality and influences men & women! But she is a divine innocent albeit-nymphomaniac living in a dreamy world of her own –not a homicidal vamp who devours men and spits them out… She is innocent without malice. The men do the damage to themselves…
“And her eye has become accustomed to obvious ‘truths’ that actually hide what she is seeking. It is the very shadow of her gaze that must be explored”--Luce Irigaray
Max von Sydow,, Harriet Andersson, and Gunnar Bjormstrand in -(1961)-Through the Glass Darkly directed by Ingmar Bergman.
Kim Stanley gives an unnerving performance as a delusional and dangerous woman who plots to kidnap a child so she can claim her psychic powers and then locate her…
And of course the two titans of Grande Dame Guignol fêtes courtesy of Robert Aldrich…
Roman Polanski’s very post-modern almost Brechtian/Picassoesque ode to insanity starring Catherine Deneuve in his Repulsion 1965 –
There’s always Hitchcock’s Marnie (1964) showcasing an unstable female in distress brought on by childhood trauma. Considering Hitch’s lavish colors, and overt psychological embellishments that have created a pulpy romanticized landscape, that at times obfuscates the mental turbulence rather than letting it surface on its own. I chose to set this film aside and instead include the more off-the-beaten-path of psychological leaning-‘women’s pictures.’ 1964 seemed to be one hell of a year for Women in Distress by virtue of the female psychological crisis, once again to reiterate -not the ‘hysteria’ kind, mind you.”
Tippie Hedren and Louise Latham in Hitchcock’s Marnie (1964)
“From the socially conservative 1950s to the permissive 1970s, this project explores the ways in which insanity in women has been linked to their femininity and the expression or repression of their sexuality. An analysis of films from Hollywood's post-classical period (The Three Faces of Eve (1957), Lizzie (1957), Lilith (1964), Repulsion (1965),Images (1972) and 3 Women (1977)) demonstrates the societal tendency to label a woman's behavior as mad when it does not fit within the patriarchal mold of how a woman should behave. In addition to discussing the social changes and diagnostic trends in the mental health
profession that define "appropriate" female behavior, each chapter also traces how the decline of the studio system and rise of the individual filmmaker impacted the films' ideologies with regard to mental illness and femininity.”
— from FRAMING FEMININITY AS INSANITY: RE PRESENTATIONS OF MENTAL ILLNESS IN WOMEN IN POST-CLASSICAL HOLLYWOOD by Kelly Kretschmar
WOMEN ON THE VERGE… OF A BREAKTHROUGH!
Curt Jurgens carries Samantha Eggar after she has fallen off her horse. There is more going on than Patricia Neal’s blind eye can see.
Ann Bancroft and Peter Finch are a married couple in crisis. Having perpetually popped out a myriad of children she is yet again pregnant. Will this keep him home this time…? The Pumpkin Eater (1964).
Barbara Barrie falls in love and marries Bernie Hamilton. Once her ex-husband realizes that his child is being brought up by a black man, times get even tougher for the couple.
Alison Crawford (Patricia Neal) –“Love has to stop somewhere along the line otherwise it's almost like"¦ like committing suicide “
PSYCHE 59 (1964) –Alexander Singer (A Cold Wind in August 1961 with Lola Albright and Scott Marlowe) directs the remarkable Patricia Nealas Alison Crawford, a woman struck down with a form of psychosomatic or hysterical blindness. Alison is aware that the affliction is all in her mind since the doctors can’t find anything organically wrong with her sight. Her ‘hysterical blindness’and memory loss of the events leading up to her accident follows a fall down the stairs while she is pregnant. When she awakens she is unable to see.
Alison “My Brain won't accept the images that my eyes make.”
What is happening for Alison is that she is subconsciously blocking out the truth about her husband and her younger, coquettish sister Robin.
She is now living a very quaint life with her husband played by the austere Curd Jürgens(I love him as the devilishly urbane concert pianist Duncan Mowbray Ely in The Mephisto Waltz 1971).
Aside from her intense husband Eric, Alison’s very sexually charged sister Robin (Samantha Eggar) has now come to live with the couple after a divorce. Robin hovers very close to Eric like a carrion bird waiting to pick the bones of Alison’s troubled marriage. While Alison doesn’t have any cognitive memory of what led up to her fall, it’s obvious to us that she can sense the strong attraction between her husband and younger sister. At one time, her younger sister Robin and Eric and been involved before Alison caught and married him. Robin hasn’t stopped lusting after him. Slowly Alison’s memory comes back as the flashes and images of what she experienced right before she lost her sight literally come into view.
Singer builds the tension in the air slowly, methodically until it all comes to a headset against the skillfully contained cinematography by Walter Lassally(The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner 1962, Zorba the Greek 1964, To Kill a Clown 1972).
IMDb tidbit-Patricia Neal was offered the lead in The Pumpkin Eater, but it was not 100% confirmed she would get the role. She then opted, to her later regret, to make Psyche 59 (1964) instead, since it was an official offer.
Neal gives a restrained yet powerful performance of a woman who is trapped in self-imposed darkness by her fear of the truth…
There is very subtle theme of self-brutality that exists for each of the characters, Alison’s self-imposed sightlessness, Eric’s indignant stoicism is palpable as he walks through the story like a trapped stray dog, He is agitated by Robin’s presence because he can not resist her.
Robin, her younger sister who must have been quite young at the time of her relationship with Eric begs the question of appropriate behavior on his part. Robin is constantly asserting a seductive influence on Eric right in front of the disadvantaged Alison.
She is both a hyper-sexual narcissist and a bit self-destructive at the same time, either way, she gets off on playing the seductress torturing Eric, right in front of her sister, dark sunglasses and delicate pout. Although Alison suffers from blindness, she maintains a certain dignity that although as all three characters seem like she is, one of the trapped animals in a psycho-melodramatic forest, we get a sense that she will one day regain her freedom and spread her wings and fly away from it all truth in hand.
Alison “We must be near the marshes” Robin “We just passed it "¦ Coming to the old windmill soon"¦ it’s still turning.. nothing's changed” Alison “There's a factory there now, Don't protect me, Robby. Don't makeup windmills.”
Based on the novel by Françoise des Ligneris, with a screenplay by Julian Zimet (who wrote Horror Express 1972 and one of the best atmospheric little horror obscurities The Death Wheelers 1973 formally called Psychomaniaabout a group of British motorcycle thugs and their pretty birds who dabble in the occult. Beryl Reid and George Sanders being one of their relatives, learn the secret of immortality. But you have to die first to obtain it.)
Psyche 59 is an interesting psychological mood piece, almost post-modernly impressionistic with its stark and polished black and white photo work. And Patricia Neal who had just won an Oscar for her role as Alma Brown in Hud 1963and gave a command performance in 1957 as Marcia Jeffries in A Face in the Crowdis just exceptional as Alison who is trying to navigate the dark world surrounding her.
The film is strange and at times subtly cruel yet Neal’s character relies on our visual journey which becomes quite painful at times yet beautiful as she begins to emerge. In the film, PatriciaNeal’srelationship with Curd Jürgens has an eerie parallel to real-life marriage to writer/spy Roald Dahl, but I don’t want to get into the sensationalized tidbits of public people’s wreckage.
The Film also stars Ian Bannen as Robin’s poor befuddled boyfriend, Elspeth March, and Beatrix Lehmann plays Alison’s staunch and science fiction reading grandmother-wish I had one of those!
“TEACH HER TO TAKE CARE OF ME LIKE YOU DO” — Luis talking to his mother ‘Madame Fourneau‘
Before there were shows like Criminal Minds, CSI or Dexter where I learned about dis-articulation, the graphic motif used in the human marionette themed Season 8 episode 10Â of Criminal Minds ‘The Lesson’ directed by Matthew Gray Gubler (Meow!) not only for me, the most adorable, desirable nice guy, and brilliant quirky actor but outstanding director as well. Just watch Mosely Lane or the afore mentioned episode starring the equally brilliant"¦.Brad Dourif as Adam Rain the Marionette Master who creates living puppets to re-enact a childhood trauma. I never heard of ‘Enucleation’- or removing the eyes with a highly sharpened melon baller until Criminal Minds.
“The Lesson” episode of Criminal Minds directed by Matthew Gray Gubler. Starring Brad Dourif one of THE mostunderrated actors… It doesn’t get more jaw-tightening than this-!
This is all the stuff that gives me… yes me!!!!, MonsterGirlthe heebies, the pip, and the whim whams and perpetually horrific nightmares for days, months even. BUT!
Before there was such contemporary graphic violence pouring forth from the television screen, or feature scare films deemed ‘torture porn’... that it could almost wear your psyche down to its raw unsheathed fibers… there was a beautiful elegant, and mind-bending kind of psychological horror.
With The House That Screamed, the fear and anguish mixed with the exquisitely restrained performances by the ensemble of actors is more powerful than movies like Wolf Creek and Hostel which merely brings you excruciatingly close to realism and as violent as a trip to the slaughterhouse.
There ARE certain films that remain a haunting experience… but in a way that serves as an emotional release not a shock to your sympathetic nervous system.
One film, in particular, will always be one of my favorite classical horror films of all time. The House that Screamed (1969) directed by Narciso Ibáñez Serrador starring IMHO one of the finest actresses Lilli Palmer is rife with so many social taboos yet still maintains its elegance. Filled with images of Sado-Masochism -the archetypal Devouring Motherhood, the effects of repression, and young nubile beauties’ whose libidos are firing off sparks all over the boarding school. The untenable gap between adults and children, a brutal secret society of Sapphic sadists, an Oedipal complex brought to an eventual disturbing climax fit for modern screening.
“This is a boarding school, not a prison"¦” Madame Fourneau ” If it isn't one, we'll make it one.”
Lilli Palmer is wearing Revlon’s “repressive salmon’ lipstick–that special color that just says–Yes I’m a ball buster and a closet lesbian to boot!
“Don't you understand that none of these girls are any good? By the time they bring them to me, they're already marked"¦ Or they've done worse things and then they hand them over to me"¦{…} In time Luis, in time you'll find the right girl, and you'll marry her. You'll have your own home. These girls are poison"¦ You need a woman like me who will love you, take care of you, protect you. We'll find her"¦ you'll see"¦ you'll see."
Lilli Palmer's (Body and Soul 1947, Mädchen in Uniform (1958), and The Boys from Brazil 1978) are about Madame Fourneau, the headmistress of an all-female school for ‘troubled’ or ‘unwanted girls’.
Lilli Palmer as teacher Maria Rohmer in Mädchen in Uniform, had a heady lesbian theme running through its narrative which here is reprised in a Spanish horror film that reaches back to Grand Guignol.Â
The rigid and stale institutionalized environment of The House that Screamedmolds ‘good girls’. This repressive sexual confinement, it bursts wide open into a sensationalist breeding ground for the lesbian as predator trope. The repressed older woman is taken in by the beautiful innocence of a wild girl who defies her rules, pushing back against Palmer’s obvious infatuation, she makes Palmer’s character suffer as a voyeur as she awakens out of the nubile young adolescent into her sexual primacy as a seductive maiden. Palmer’s pain is exquisite.Â
Her son Luis is played by the eternally cherubic looking if not eerily handsome John Moulder-Brown.(known for his stint in a few 70s psycho-sexual thrillers like Deep End 1970 & Forbidden Love Game 1975 directed by another underrated Spanish director Eloy de la Iglesia.
John Moulder-Brown.The film also co-stars Mary Maude whose natural earthy beauty reminds me of Barbara Hershey as Irene ( Crucible of Terror 1971, Scorpio 1973).The lovely Maribel Martin... will she escape the finishing school? Here is Martin as Isabelle she also starred in (The Blood Spattered Bride 1972.Ironically, it is Madame Forneau’s rigid obsession with controlling everything around her (as she glides through the school in her starched white blouses-a facade to her self-constraint) that creates the grisly puzzle to the plot, which I will not divulge here.
The House that Screamed is epiphanic of the thing that dreams and beautiful nightmares are made of… not these latest hellish journeys through graphic violations of the mind, body and soul, obliterating, annihilating any patch of humanity left to detect, without a purpose, a meaning nor cathartic release…
This film is an elegant horrifying waltz, textural, voyeuristic Spanish thriller, and timeless late 60s horror film… an absolute masterwork of art. From the acting, cinematography, Neo-Gothic art & set direction, the incredible use of lighting, music, and sound design (each frame exists with its own individual cue that marks the scenes with a spine-chilling ambiance, a chorus of whimperings & glossolalia) and the fabulous period wardrobe designed by VÃctor MarÃa Cortezo.
Cristina Galbó as Teresa arrives at the finishing school and is greeted by Madame Fourneau.
The film begins with Teresa (Cristina Galbó What Have You Done To Solange? 1972) being dropped off at a remote, finishing school for said "problem" girls run by the severely domineering Madame Fourneau (Lilli Palmer), whose impish son, Luis (John Moulder-Brown) is held captive himself, by his mother's doting maternal iron hand. (Moulder's outre boyish expression is creepy in and of itself.) Yet it bares out the ironic theme of pure evil laying in wait behind the mask of purity. Luis is left to scour the perimeters of the school, voyeuristically gazing through small peepholes observing and befriending certain girls, like a rat who scurries behind the walls, he manages to arrange clandestine rendezvous with certain of the nymphs he chooses, while watching them during their weekly shower ritual–nightgown on–nudity is NOT an option unless you beg the wrath from the headmistress! (It throws her into a hypnotic-homophobic/homoerotic fugue).
There are several disappearances assumed to be a case of the girls being runaways as they are known for their sexual liaisons with delivery men, but there is something much more sinister lurking at ‘Le Residencia’- The Finishing School the alternate title to The House that Screamed 1969.
The narrative, the film’s oxygen is apprehensive. As tautly wound as one of Teresa’s mother’s (the prostitute) corsets. Driven by the beauty of a frightening impressionist painting, the cinematography, (Godofredo Pacheco & Manuel Berenguer ) and the applied use of color, conjuring the film's atmosphere like a Gothic masterpiece of terror. Colors are also very emblematic of the works of Mario Bava having given his films a lush surreal dream-like quality to them, making work like Black Sabbath 1963 a memorable walk through a lush nightmare. The House That Screamed evokes a world of repression, decay, and an unseen menacing eye that is brushed with vibrant liquid-like colors.
The rigid yet pulsing tempo of the pace that is leading us to the horrifying conclusion, the haunting exquisiteness of the score by Waldo de los RÃos, its beautiful simplicity which leaves me humming for days… the visual perspective that allows us to participate in the claustrophobic, repressive quality of tristesse about the school. The eroticism is so very self-contained. It's this type of eroticism that I find more compelling than any literal sexual exploitation and B nudie flick unless the point is ‘exploitation’ (which I’m a complete fan of )and beauty is not the operative function. The psycho-sexual elements and the horror story are not overstated, they are trembling below the surface waiting to hyperventilate from all the tension. This is one gorgeous horror film that never gets old for me.
Guillermo Del Toro who is probably the only auteur I think could attempt a re-make having used a similar eye with Pan’s Labyrinth 2006 and The Devil’s Backbone 2001 which had that sensibility that allows the horror to appear beautiful. As of late, I’ve become a fan of Eloy de la Iglesia and his style of storytelling. I’ve given these kinds of films the more powerful title of "Fable horror" The stunning and quiet sensuality brings you just to the edge but does not indulge your fight or flight response.
If you haven’t seen The House That Screamed and are curious about a film that led the 60s out with an elegant scream, and if you’re a fan of Lilli Palmer then take a stab at this one. Oops sorry for the ironic cliche there. I think you’ll be able to watch it without one hand over your face and no threat of night terrors either… If you want nightmares, just watch Criminal Minds while eating a large bowl of pasta at 10 pm then go straight to bed… I promise it’ll be far worse than anything you’ll experience from Serrador’s incredibleThe House That Screamed!
It’s been Sunday Nite Surreal… Have a light-hearted Sunday Nite from your EverLovin’ MonsterGirl
