No Way To Treat a Lady 1968 & Man On a Swing 1974: All the World’s a Stage: Of Motherhood, Madness, Lipstick, trances and ESP

No Way To Treat A Lady 1968

MPW-24365

Directed by Jack Smight (Harper 1966, The Illustrated Man 1969, Airport 1975 (1974) plus various work on television dramas and anthology series) John Gay wrote the screenplay based on William Goldman’s novel (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid 1969, screenplay for The Stepford Wives, Marathon Man ’76, Magic ’78, The Princess Bride. Smight shows us sensationalist traces of The Boston Strangler killings to underpin his black satire.

Lee Remick George Segal & Eileen Heckart on the set of No Way To Treat A Lady (1968)
Lee Remick, George Segal & Eileen Heckart on the set of No Way To Treat A Lady (1968).

No Way To Treat a Lady 1968  Stars Rod Steiger, George Segal, Eileen Heckart, Lee Remick, Murray Hamilton, David Doyle, Val Bisoglio, Michael Dunn, Val Avery and the ladies… Martine Bartlett, Barbara Baxley, Irene Daily, Doris Roberts Ruth White and Kim August as Sadie the transvestite, a female impersonator who was a featured performer at a Manhattan cabaret.

The film has it’s gruesome, grotesque and transgressive set pieces of women splayed with lipstick kisses on their foreheads. Director Jack Smight’s and writer William Goldman’s vision is outrageously dark, sardonic, satirical penetrating and contemptuous of motherhood and humanity in general.

From “Ed Gein and the figure of the transgendered serial killer” by K.E. Sullivan “NO WAY TO TREAT A LADY a story about a serial killer who was psychologically abused by his mother and kills women to get revenge upon her. The killer is most likely based on William Hierans (The Lipstick Killer),yet the narrative foregrounds cross-dressing as part of the murderer’s technique, despite the fact that Hierans did not cross-dress.”

CapturFiles_61

The dynamic Rod Steiger enlivens the screen as lady killer Christopher Gill, living in the shadow of his famous theatrical mother. He impersonates different characters in order to gain access to his victim’s homes, where he then strangles them, leaving his mark a red lipstick kiss on their foreheads. Gill begins a game of cat and mouse with police detective Morris Brummel (George Segal) who lives at home with his domineering mother.

There is an aspect of the film that is rooted in the ongoing thrills of watching Rod Steiger don his disguises as a sex killer. But what evolves through the witty narrative is the moral confrontation between the antagonist and protagonist surrounding their conflicting values and class backgrounds. The one psychological thread that runs through their lives is the parallel and sexual neurosis both have because of their dominating mother figures.

The opening scene… Christopher Gill impersonating Father McDowall (Steiger) is walking down the street viewed with a long shot, he’s whistling a ‘sardonic’ tune… in the vein of “the ants go marching” alongside The East River. Present, is the activity of cars passing by on the East Side Highway.

CapturFiles_2

CapturFiles_3

CapturFiles_6

CapturFiles_8

As he comes closer into the camera’s view we can see he’s wearing a priest’s frock.

We hear the city noises, the sounds of cars honking, young children plowing into him as they run by, and a young girl in a short lime green dress greets him as he continues to walk along the sidewalk.

As Gill passes Kate Palmer (Lee Remick) descending the stairs of the apartment house, he says “Top of the morning to you young lady!”

CapturFiles_16

CapturFiles_19

Kate is wearing in a smart yellow dress (Theoni V Aldredge ) she says “Hello father” As he continues to whistle his tune, she stops and looks up the stairs after him, the camera does a close-up on her lovely face. He stops at apt 2B knocks and calls out for Mrs. Mulloy. It’s father McDowall, asking if she can spare a moment of her time. Sounding a bit suspicious she asks if he’s new to the neighborhood, but he smiles and says that it’ll be a pleasure to serve to such as the like as herself. “I Just need a minute of your life,” he says and that’s pretty telling… since that’s true. Mrs. Mulloy sounds like she’s making a hard decision to open the door, but we hear the latch click…

Martine Bartlett (Sybil’s mother yikes!) opens the door as Alma Mulloy, the very simple Irish Catholic widow.

Alma Mulloy lets him in, after all, he’s a priest. He remarks on what a lovely place she has. She prides herself on her vocabulary. He delights in a word she uses. “habitable” She’s been taking a self-improvement course… She offers him a cup of tea. He asks for something a might bit stronger. She offers him some port. Splendid…

CapturFiles_24

CapturFiles_25

CapturFiles

CapturFiles_1

CapturFiles_2

CapturFiles_3

CapturFiles_1a

We don’t know what to expect in terms of how graphic the murder sequence will become. It is already quite disturbing how it begins to evolve, as the violence is simple and quite literal, it is the subtle psychological mechanisms that are turning within the narrative that make it all the more uneasy to watch.

This is his first kill. He sits back in the rocking chair contemplative. Perhaps a moment of Guilt? perhaps. Gill puts the lifeless body of Mrs. Mulloy in the bathroom – Stanley Myers’ (The Night of the Following Day ’68, The Devil’s Widow ’70 with Ava Gardner, X Y and Z ’72, House of Whipcord ’74, The Deerhunter ’78, The Watcher in the Woods ’80) soundtrack creates a layer of vocalize which is a flutter of sopranos, like Anglican chants, nuns doing canticles or vespers. The frailty and holiness of their voices underlying the freakishly morbid ritual of Gill laying out the body and adding the fetishistic red lips on their forehead is provocative. This image has stayed with me for years.

CapturFiles_1

CapturFiles_3

CapturFiles_5

It’s a haunting backdrop to a very disturbing opening sequence… once the piano and voices are through.. Gill turns from the door frame and blows the dead woman a kiss… utterly macabre…

Switch scene to Detective Morris Brummel’s (Segal) mother yelling at him that his eggs are cooking. She starts picking at him… The banter begins, the cliched Jewish mother/ son relationship unfolds. Morris asks for toast, she pushes the Latkas- he says it’s a bit heavy for breakfast.

CapturFiles_1

CapturFiles_3

CapturFiles_4

“So take a good look at yourself, a skeleton without a closet… hows the eggs?” she complains about people starving then adds. So why do I feed you? Tell me…ha Tell me, how much money are you gonna make today?… Should I tell you how much your brother Franklin’s gonna make today, maybe a thousand maybe two thousand in one day.”

Morris tells her, “He deserves it mother he’s a very fine doctor.”

“Oh no not fine… THE BEST!! B.E.S.T. do you know what that means to be the best lung surgeon in all Manhattan, Queens, and the Bronx!… and he’s not even 40 yet” Her Semitic hand gestures are a vital part of the conversation.

“Well, he’s older give me time..” She answers him, “Ha you… time, a hundred years I give and you still can’t tie your shoe laces.”

CapturFiles_8

I could continue with the hilarious dialogue that satirically pins down beautifully the essence of the mother/son relationship between New York Jews. Heckart does a splendid job of capturing the needling ‘pick pick pick’ nature, in the guise of love, protectiveness, worry, pride, and disappointment all rolled into a swift set of words and not-so-subtle hand gestures…

CapturFiles_5

CapturFiles_6

Lieutenant Dawson (David Doyle) calls Morris and asks how his mother is and tells him that he’s on the Mulloy homicide. Morris starts to leave… putting his gun on his belt.

“Look at you with that thing… a Jewish cop. When everybody knows if you’re not Irish, you’re a nobody if you’re a cop.”

His mother starts flailing her hands at him while he’s trying to tie his tie. She needles him about not getting a diploma from a city university not to mention giving her grandchildren, his brother Franklin has three grand children already… pick pick pick.

CapturFiles_8

“What do I get from you… but heartbreak.” She slaps her heart. Morris says so long mashe chases after him, “Oh that’s right, leave,  leave me… don’t come back…”

He tells her she’s over doing it a bit. She calms down, her voice softens, She calls his name wistfully, Morris… He looks down at his shoes, He needs to tie them… She calls him darling… they’re having Kreplach for dinner, he should stop by for the Flanken… He kisses her on the cheek. And the dynamic comes full circle. Love through food and needling…

CapturFiles_9

CapturFiles_9

CapturFiles_10

CapturFiles_10

Scene cuts to Christopher Gill’s opulent Gothic-adorned apartment house interior. He’s humming that sardonic tune again, wearing a black silk bathrobe. He fixes a candle stick that isn’t quite straight on the side table. He is a control freak and a fastidious man. Sits down to a lovely breakfast set out for him by Miss Fitts (Irene Dailey) She gives him the morning paper. He ruffles through the newspaper looking for signs of the murder, and is angered that it isn’t on the front page. All there is, is a small paragraph under WIDOW SLAIN amidst the other news about floods and fireworks.

He calls the newspaper to ask why the story was buried, they tell him that they didn’t have time to get all the facts, when they ask who’s calling he hangs up.

CapturFiles_12

CapturFiles_13

CapturFiles_12

CapturFiles_13
“Miss Palmer, did he say anything to you?”

CapturFiles_14

CapturFiles_15
“Oh yeah as a matter of fact he said something kinda funny… He said Top of the morning.” Morris looks puzzled, “That’s funny?” Kate clears up the confusion, “It was afternoon.”

CapturFiles_16

Morris arrives at the Mulloy crime scene. Asks the super who saw the priest. He tells Morris, 3E Katherine Palmer.
He asks for a description of the priest. Kate is still groggy from sleeping. She flirts with Morris. “That’s kind of a sweet nose you got there, it’s not handsome exactly I didn’t say handsome… just kinda sweet, especially for a cop.”

“Oh yeah as a matter of fact he said something kinda funny… He said Top of the morning.” Morris looks puzzled, “That’s funny” Kate clears up the confusion, “It was afternoon.”

Morris leaves but Kate tells him to come back some other time. A voice-over of Mrs Brummel begins…

CapturFiles_17

“Lunatics, lunatics (she’s now framed sitting in a chair on the phone talking to Morris) you got now… Stranglers!!! Morris, I tell you, I’m ashamed. You know… you know. I am sickened at heart when my own son goes looking at dead women’s naked bodies. I tell you, Morris… it’s no way to treat a lady!”

Now Gill arrives at Mrs. Himmel’s (Ruth White) apartment dressed as a plumber. He looks through the old photo albums of Germany, and eats strudel. Now he’s using a German accent. After he’s killed poor Mrs. Himmel and left his lipstick mark… he calls Morris while holding the newspaper with a photo of Detective Brummel.

CapturFiles_19

CapturFiles_20

CapturFiles_21

CapturFiles_22

CapturFiles_23

CapturFiles_24

CapturFiles_25

CapturFiles_27

CapturFiles_29

CapturFiles_30

CapturFiles_31

CapturFiles_32

CapturFiles_33

CapturFiles_34

CapturFiles_19

CapturFiles_20

CapturFiles_42

Morris answers, “Yeah this is Detective Morris Brummel speaking?”

“Yeah well this is Hans Schultz, at least I was Hans Schultz all day today, but a week ago last I was Father Kevin McDowall.”
Morris says, “Look I don’t have time to fool around Mister” Gill tells him, “Yeah well don’t hang up on me, just don’t hang up Mr Brummel huh.”
“What do you want… What do you want?”
“Well, I want to tell you that I am in the apartment of Frau Himmel and she’s quite dead.”
“What?”
Gill laughs “Now you’re interested, maybe now I should hang up on you” Morris motions to Detective Monaghan (Val Bisoglio) to start a trace…

CapturFiles_39

“No no don’t hang up just wait a second, hold on, please please don’t hang up.”

“Hehehe, now you say please, say please, then I don’t hang up.”

Morris pleads, “I just said it, please please don’t hang up.”

CapturFiles_37

“You know what I think, I think you put a trace on the call so that’s not gonna work because there is no trace tone on this set and by the time that they check with the switchboard man at the central office and he checks the frames on the crossbar equipment and then they check “ Morris mouths to Monaghan with his hand over the receiver that Gill knows all about tracing. “But by that time Auf Wiedersehen I’m gone see, so I think it’s best I tell you, that I tell you that I am at 520 East 89th street… (Morris scrambles to get a pen to write down the address)
I like what you said in the newspapers about the murder being so well planned and so well executed and I consider that high praise coming from an expert such as yourself. I thank you for that. You hear me?”

“Yeah yeah, I hear ya.”

“Now the other thing I’d like to tell you is that you should come over here and take a look because you’ll find out that I am well up to my previous standards and I would like you to put that in the newspaper. In fact, I insist on it.”

“I’ll try” Morris acts casually, as a way to piss Gill off, but it’s also part of Morris’ jaded, downtrodden personality.

“Don’t try, you do it and know that I’m smarter than you are.”

“You’re smarter than I am?”

“And there’s just one more thing. You see I don’t like I should call you Detective Morris Brummel because that’s too formal so from now on I call you Morris.”

Morris starts to answer “Fine, listen…” then Gill hangs up. Maintaining himself as the one in control…

The way the scene is framed it looks like Gill is lying on the bed making romantic overtures to Morris. Gill has found a relationship that titillates him.

Meanwhile, a relationship is developing between Kate and Morris. Kate comes down to the police station to give a description to a sketch artist of the priest. Morris escorts Kate onto the bus and back home. Unbeknownst to the couple, Gill is wearing his hairdresser disguise and watching the pair… Gill is now fixated on Morris.

CapturFiles_43

CapturFiles_44

CapturFiles_45

CapturFiles_47

CapturFiles_48

CapturFiles_49

CapturFiles_52

CapturFiles_53

CapturFiles_54

CapturFiles_55

The next victim up is Barbara Baxley as the cat lady Belle Poppie. Gill plays a flaming fag hairdresser Dorian Smith with bleached blond hair and perfect lisp and hat boxes filled with bad wigs.

Belle holding one of her felines asks, “Would you like to meet my cats?” she shows him around the immaculate BTW apartment introducing him to the various cats… This scene is perhaps the most hilarious in the film as the whimsical Belle introduces every feline in the apartment. Gill follows her around, repeating the names of the cats in a manner that just made me laugh out loud,  it’s a hysterical scene and Barbara Baxley is spot on in this bit role.

CapturFiles_57

CapturFiles_59

CapturFiles_60

CapturFiles_63

CapturFiles_65

CapturFiles_66

CapturFiles_67

CapturFiles_68

His plan is foiled when her sister Sylvia played by the equally hilarious character actress (Doris Roberts) comes home. He pretends that the wig isn’t free after, so he can get out there. As he’s leaving Sylvia calls him a homo, and he snaps back quickly. Sylvia Poppie- “Is that one of your own wigs you’re wearing? Gill- “You don’t look like Cleopatra, honey.” Belle Poppie-“Don’t raise your voice!” Sylvia gets mean- “You homo!”

You Homo... Well that doesn't mean you're a bad person (lisp)

Gill as he’s halfway out the door. “Doesn’t mean you’re a bad person.” 

Back at the Brummel apartment, Mother Brummel is torturing Morris again…

CapturFiles

CapturFiles_2

CapturFiles_3

Mrs. Brummel: “So, what do you, what do you do with her, go to mass?
Morris Brummel: “No, we just… we walk and we talk.”
Mrs. Brummel: “Oh, please, please. I don’t want to hear another word. Already I won’t sleep another wink tonight. Please, don’t say another word.” she pauses.
Mrs. Brummel: “Morris…”
Morris Brummel: “I thought you didn’t want to hear anymore?”
Mrs. Brummel:Aw, you think I want to? You think I want… I’m in agony. I… I… It’s my duty. Go on, go on.
Morris Brummel: “Well, she… her, her name is Katherine. Katherine Palmer.”
Mrs. Brummel: “Short, blonde, beautiful?”
Morris Brummel: “No, she’s, er, she’s, she’s tall and er, she’s only got one eye right in the middle of her forehead.”
Mrs. Brummel:Of course. Of course. She’ll break your heart!”

There’s a bowl of assorted fruit in the fine crystal and the Challah bread sits on a silver platter decorating the table. The details of the film’s spaces are perfect. From Kate’s mod apartment to the Brummel’s home, to each individual apartment of the various female victims, to the NYC bars, including Gill’s own opulent apartment. The atmospheres are envisioned perfectly.

CapturFiles_24

CapturFiles_8

CapturFiles_12

CapturFiles_14

CapturFiles_16

CapturFiles_17

CapturFiles_11

Again like a form of masturbation, Gill calls and taunts Morris as the flaming hairdresser Dorian…

As Gill asks to speak to Morris Brummel the camera frames the dead woman to the left of the screen as Gill is lensed to the far right, standing by the phone. He found his third victim. Morris says, “Speaking” Gill answers, “Morris, this is Dorian (still in character) Dorian, Dorian Smith.”

“Ha, I’m sorry I think you got the wrong number.”

“I don’t have the wrong number this is Dorian, Dorian Smith. Tell me you haven’t forgotten me already sweetheart. “ Morris says, “No no I haven’t forgotten you.”
Sarcastic chuckle, “Well I didn’t think so Sweetheart, I didn’t think so. Now look, (he stammers for a bit) I’m very sorry if I”m disturbing you at home.”

“How’d you get my number?”

“Sweetheart, How many Morris Brummels are in the phone book?”

“What do you want?”

Gill looks insulted that Morris seems abrupt and uninterested, and looks over at the dead woman. Her head rested on the cold porcelain toilet lid. Her forehead was tattooed with bright red lips.

“Oh Morris I’ve been a bad boy again. yes… (he explodes) What do you mean yes… just don’t say yes show some interest. Can’t  you notice that my voice is completely different?”
“Yes, I noticed that.”
“Alright, you should have heard my Father McDowall it was sensational. (Steiger’s voice changes on a dime and an all together malefic tone emerges in the midst of his rant “Don’t you think I’m clever?”
Morris comments, “Yeah, you’re a wizard.”

“Then You should hear my W.C Fields sometimes it’s absolutely uncanny” ( he goes into his WC Fields impersonation- “My boy you are engaged in a conversation with the great WC Fields himself concerning the degeneracy, debauchery, and murder involving one infantile detective called Morris Brummel boy detective. How’d ya like that one Morris?”

“Alright alright but can’t we talk this over from one human being to another?”

“No no no no no no no you don’t, you don’t (Deep sigh) you gotta find that out for yourself, you see it’s not fair I told you where I was last time. So you’ll have to find out this time for yourself.” He hangs up the phone.

Gill says out loud to himself Ciao, Ciao Ciao Bambino… He holds the last vowel and hums on it like a mantra which turns into a whimpering sob as he looks away crying like a small child, he chokes the tears back and puts a gold handkerchief over his mouth. He is sickened by his actions. Obviously struggling with Oedipal psychosis, ambivalent and disturbed. He even called himself a “bad boy” to Morris…

His body shakes and shivers. Yet again another layer of a stunning performance by Steiger. We hear the heavenly soprano voices in the background, it’s an eerie moment that plugs into the disorientation and grotesquery of the film’s narrative. One that also makes this antagonist a bit more sympathetic, as he is aware that he is sick…

CapturFiles_21

CapturFiles_22

CapturFiles_23
Morris has to cancel the dinner date with Kate…
CapturFiles_24
“You know what she said…She told me to be careful…”- it must be love.
CapturFiles_25
Gill looking for his name in the headlines.

CapturFiles_27

CapturFiles_28

CapturFiles_32

CapturFiles_34

CapturFiles_35
Gill putting back the wigs in the prop department of the theater.

Morris and Katherine continue to date. We see Gill at his mother’s theater. He is directing a production of Othello. One of the names on the theater roster is William Pratt an homage to Boris Karloff’s real name.

Gill is trying to live up to the expectation of his famous mother. His masquerading to murder is put on for her benefit. To attain the notoriety she had back in the day. The strata of Steiger’s performance is chilling as it is stunning. Going in and out of his central character Christopher Gill to one of his guises back into the wounded child within Christopher Gill, the very sick man, the mama’s boy, he balances three separate performances in one when he is aroused to anger on the phone. He is an outstanding actor, and in No Way To Treat A Lady, he gives a tour de force…

CapturFiles_53

CapturFiles_54

CapturFiles_86

CapturFiles_88

CapturFiles_90

A very memorable scene in the film is when Michael Dunn comes to the police station and tries to confess to the murders. As Mr Kupperman (Michael Dunn) turns himself into Brummel as ‘The strangler,’ “Yeah I killed every one of them” Morris asks, “You, you killed them?“With my bare hands” “Why’d you do it?” “Hostility.” Mr.Kupperman warns Morris that he’s sensitive. But Morris has to bring it up because it bares on the case. “You’re a midget” “Lots of people are midgets!” “He was taller than you..” “You see how I fooled them I’m a master of disguise.”

Morris gets the idea to plant a fake 6th victim. He suggests this idea to Murray Hamilton as Inspector Haines.
They got the body from the east river, a suicide. Morris is disgusted that they even added lipstick to the corpse.

CapturFiles_36

CapturFiles_37

CapturFiles_38

CapturFiles_39

CapturFiles_40

CapturFiles_41

CapturFiles_42

CapturFiles_43

CapturFiles_44

CapturFiles_45

CapturFiles_46

CapturFiles_26

CapturFiles_29

CapturFiles_33

At Gill’s home, he sits down at the piano remarking about the flowers that Mrs Fitts puts on the grand piano. He tells her they’re lovely, “Romance Mrs Fitts, romance is the magic that makes men whole and women bold.”

Mrs Fitts-“You read the newspapers nowadays there’s not much love in it… not with all the rioting and wars and with all these murders. It’s getting so that I’m afraid to step out onto the street. Imagine one man killing six women.”

Gill is confused and asks what she means he didn’t kill six women. Morris’ plan works, the news unwittingly has planted a fake story to lure him out.

Mrs. Fitts tells him, “Victim number six and killed the same way with the lipstick across her forehead and everything. Imagine Mr. Gill six women!!!!”  He asks Mrs. Fitts for his tea. Then gets into a phone booth and calls the police station.

CapturFiles_38

CapturFiles_36
Gill-“I didn’t do it, I didn’t you hear me. Somebody else did, I did not kill that woman you must listen to me
listen to me.”
Morris-“I am listening to you what can I say.”
Gill begs insistently- “Say you believe me, say it.” Morris calmly-“I can’t say that because I don’t believe you.”
“I didn’t do it.” Gill is using his German persona this time.
Morris argues, “You did it, you did it alright.”
Gill desperate-“Can’t you understand it’s somebody else, somebody who is a copycat. I did everything up til now. Somebody comes along now and he wants to take all the credit and it’s not fair.”
CapturFiles_37
Morris bates Gill-“Look this is getting a little too weird for me I think I’ll
hang up now.”
Gill gets angry “Don’t you hang up on me…don’t you hang up on me or I’ll kill a hundred women I promise you that.”
Morris says, “Go on.”
“A little common sense will tell you that it is a copycat. Did he call you on the phone? Did he tell you where the body was?”
Morris tells him, “Neither did you the first and fourth time.”

CapturFiles_45

CapturFiles_47

CapturFiles_50

CapturFiles_51

“Ah, but you forget something Mr Brummel, I have given you my word of honor that I’ll stop… I don’t tell lies what kind of a person do you think I am?”

“What do I think you are… a malignancy, a cancer the cesspool of the world that’s just for openers.”

“I see, hhm well why can’t I make you believe it!”

Morris starts yelling into the phone “You don’t have to, you don’t have to… we got a full description of you this time, somebody who saw you last night at the murder” “But that’s impossible, it was not me.”

“You’re very short, you have blonde hair wide nose, and bushy eyebrows.”

“hahaha that’s very funny you see cause first of all, I have brown eyes, I have brown hair I am approximately 6 feet tall. (he pauses) and you are clever.”

“What’d you say?”

“Oh Mr Brummel you’re very clever, very clever.” he gets off the phone, “yes clever but not clever enough.”

And so the elaborate game of cat and mouse continues between the theatrically psychotic Christopher Gill and the smothered downtrodden Jewish cop Morris Brummel. I’ll stop here… See it to its thrilling conclusion!

CapturFiles_57

CapturFiles_58

CapturFiles_59
“A rather striking portrait of my mother don’t you think?… Have you ever seen her on the stage?”

CapturFiles_60

Gills sees Morris admiring the imposing painting of his mother-“A rather striking portrait of my mother don’t you think?… Have you ever seen her on the stage?”

In Cinema and Classical Texts: Apollo’s New Light by Martin M. Winkler he mentions how the killer (Rod Steiger)
feels overshadowed by his late mother, and so strangles these middle-aged women- He owns a large bronze statue by German sculptor Gerhard Marcks of Antigone leading her blind father in which killer Christopher Gill makes the revealing comment “I like its strength.”

 

Ed Gein and the figure of the transgendered serial killer by K.E. Sullivan
“In the world of Krafft-Ebing, there is no such thing as benign sexual variation. Everyone who departs from reproductive, monogamous, male-dominant heterosexuality is described as criminally insane.”
According to Vito Russo in The Celluloid Closet “In the 1960s, lesbians and gay men were pathological, predatory and dangerous; villains and fools, but never heroes.” I just watched Richard Chamberlain who portrays a wife beater struggling with his bourgeois 60’s existence suppressing his attraction for little boys in Petulia 1968. Rod Steiger played a closeted homosexual who winds up killing himself with a bullet to the head after kissing the divine John Phillip Law in The Sergeant 1968. Carson McCullers Reflections in a Golden Eye 1967 has Marlon Brando’s macho exterior as an impotent army officer finally destroying the object of his desire lingerie sniffing Robert Foster who rides a horse naked throughout the film just to antagonize Brando’s latent homosexuality. In 1961 Shirley McClaine hangs herself for the love of Audrey Hepburn in Lillian Hellman’s The Children’s Hour and Sandy Dennis has a large tree fall on top of her in, if I remember correctly symbolically falling between her legs. The giant phallus she needed to smash out the lesbianism she suffered from in The Fox 1967. And a post I did a while back that combined The Devouring Mother and The Oedipal Son in Tennessee William’s Suddenly, Last Summer 1959 where the specter of Sebastian, a predatory homosexual is eventually devoured literally in front of poor Elizabeth Taylor by a group of young local boys he had been soliciting. And that’s just to mention a few, Ultimately cinematic homosexuals and lesbians –all had to be killed or kill themselves. These are just a drop in the queer bucket of cinematic history.
This is why I’ve got a working draft of Queers and Dykes in the Dark. Noir Cinema’s Coded Gay Characters: The Idolizing/Objectifying Male, and the Obsessive/Psychotic Woman sitting in WordPress waiting for me to publish it! The sub-context fascinates me to no end…
While Christopher Gill (Rod Steiger) was a transvestite and not transexual the prototype for these kinds of gender-bending killers could be located throughout the 70s. As K.E. Sullivan cites.
“The second version of transvestism in contemporary media also involves discovery about the “truth” of a character’s body. Such revelation, however, is not comic but horrific. Here the guise of femininity does not hide or empower a clever heterosexual man but reveals a monstrous gender- and sexual-deviant: a man in “gender distress.”‘ If a character has a transgender body, this detail usually is tied to some dark and horrible secret in the narrative, and the revelation about the “truth” of the body” "” that a woman has a penis or a man is a transvestite/ transsexual "” typically is revealed simultaneously with the revelation of another “secret” "” that the person is a killer. Indeed, monstrosity or deviance almost exclusively mark images of transgender individuals, allowing for little if any sympathy from spectators.”
 

CapturFiles_52

CapturFiles_53

CapturFiles_54
A drag queen walks into a bar and orders a pink squirrel…

CapturFiles_56

CapturFiles_58

CapturFiles_61

CapturFiles_62
“There haven’t been seven victims?”
CapturFiles_64
“There are now!”

CapturFiles_65

CapturFiles_66

CapturFiles_67

CapturFiles_68

CapturFiles_69

CapturFiles_75

CapturFiles_76

CapturFiles_77
The onlooking neighbors spout biblical put-downs and curse words at the dead transvestite… a bit of the moralizing that challenges Morris’ old-fashioned yet compassionate nature.

CapturFiles_78

CapturFiles_79

CapturFiles_82
Gill calls Morris from Sardi’s.

CapturFiles_84

CapturFiles_55

Rod Steiger is superb as Christopher Gill the Oedipal well-educated upper-class dandy thespian lady killer who disguises himself as various characters in order to gain entry to unsuspecting women’s apartments where he proceeds to strangle them. George Segal is marvelous as Morris Brummel… Gill’s new fixation/adversary as he begins to phone and taunt Brummel like a lover. Brummel also has issues with his own domineering mother portrayed by the wonderful character actress Eileen Heckart.

CapturFiles_95

CapturFiles_96

CapturFiles_97
Kate tells Mrs Brummel-“I love your home it’s so Jewish!”... the Jews only have the best things she tells her- The pretty blonde shiksa starts to work her charms on her future mother in law…

Lee Remick is perfect as Kate Palmer the shiksa in Morris’ life who has a pretty wild side herself, confessing that she used to swing with all the beautiful people when she first moved to NYC.  The film also co-stars Murray Hamilton as Inspector Haines. Then there’s a delicious bit by Michael Dunn as Mr. Kupperman who has a hilarious cameo in which he shows up at Morris Brummel’s police station confessing to the murders. The always droll Val Bisoglio plays Detective Monaghan.

And the fine character actors who are lined up to be Gill’s victims- Martine Bartlett as Alma Mulloy, Barbara Baxley ( who I love!) as the cat-loving Belle Poppie, Doris Roberts as sister Sylvia Poppie, Irene Daily as Mrs Fitts, Ruth White as the nice German house frau Mrs. Himmel.

Stanley Myers is responsible for the fabulous musical score and the engaging cinematography is by Jack Priestley   (Who’s on location realist and gritty photography can be found in some of the best episodes of The Naked City series, Where’s Poppa 1970, & Across 110th Street (1972). Priestley captures the rhythm of NYC perfectly. And George Jenkins (All the President’s Men 1976) adds detail and flare to his art & set direction. His use of color brings the palate of the film to a vibrant level of verisimilitude. Cinematographer Jack Priestly and art director George Jenkins chose very vibrant colors- a familiar richness in tone common to films of the 60s and add a sense of pageantry of the grotesque because the killer is playing out some murderous theater.

Theoni V. Aldredge’s costuming and wardrobe for Lee Remick and Eileen Heckart are fabulous, but even as much detail is spent on the lady victims of the story. Adding a dimension of realism and intimacy as a character study within the narrative.

CapturFiles_100

A descendent from the Alfred Hitchcock/Robert Bloch -Norman Bates generation of psycho flicks No Way To Treat A Lady acts as a wonderful hybrid suspense piece synthesizing all the best parts of black comedy & crime thriller, with a bit of police procedural and psycho-sexual drama centered on a flamboyant actor with an Oedipal fixation who kills women, leaves a lipstick kiss as his calling card on their foreheads and taunts a Jewish cop who is also dominated by his stereotypical Jewish mother.

Here as in Psycho the monster is not drawn from the supernatural, or divined by historic mythic lore, they are very real psychotic individuals who commit acts of violence. The antagonist is presented as an ‘object’ of horror, like Norman Bates, Hannibal Lecter, Terence Stamp in The Collector ’65, or even Catherine Deneuve’s insane disorientation in Repulsion ’65.

According to Leslie H. AbramsonMovies and the Failure of Nostalgia in American Cinema of the 1960s edited by Barry Keith Grant. 1968 was rife for movies to exploit the American nightmare. The Vietnam War peaked in ’68, civil unrest, anti-establishment sentiment was rampant, there were political, social and domestic clashes everywhere, so that these turbulent times manifested a very contemplative lens in film. Jack Valenti president of Motion Picture Association of America tried to attain film’s independents and self protection by  creating the rating system instead of the Production Code that existed earlier. This was meant to appease critics. So amidst all the reality of shocking news headlines “In cinema as well, manifesting not only social trauma and upheaval but the public’s new commitment to confronting its own demons, the year’s releases reflected upon domestic culture as one of appalling violence, violation and struggle. An index of the increasing pervasiveness of psychic and graphic mortification as well as the huge for its containment, both the independent and studio sectors nostalgically encoded contemporary anxiety in the horror film, reinvigorating the classical genre with Night of the Living Dead and Rosemary’s Baby. Both films envisioned the nightmarish emergence of the ghastly from within and among patriarchy, a preoccupation of the year’s multiple releases representing the murderer as lone assassin: The Boston Strangler, Targets, and No Way To Treat a Lady.” 

Abramson seems to be making the argument that these films cynically portray the disparity between a vastly dysfunctional social pathology and a corrupt institution of laws. Presenting the archetypal outsider, the anti-hero figure who is capable of shedding a truthful light on the decadence or irredeemable vexations of our culture.

Also made monstrous within the film’s narrative is Morris’ castrating Jewish mother, who is running parallel to the specter of Gil’s deceased but ever-present imposing theatrical mother. What makes this a clíche is what Kaja Silverman in Re-Vision: Essays in Feminist Film Criticism claims that the character (in this case every female presence in the film) only knows her own identity by the language that is used. This is how she knows herself. Brummel’s mother, one of the main women in the film, is merely defined by her being an overbearing Jewish mother with no other qualifying marker of identity. As Silverman states, “Whereas the male subject has privileges conferred upon him by his relationship to discourse, the female subject is insufficient through hers.”

So neither Kate Palmer (Lee Remick), Mrs. Brummel (Eileen Heckart) nor the various female victims have a strong identifying individuality other than, ‘mother’, ‘object of desire’, or ‘victim’. The film truly focuses on the relationship between Morris Brummel and Christopher Gill which acts as the central pinion for the larger narrative.

An interesting fun fact that I read from IMDb is that one of Rod Steiger's theatrical and campy impersonations was that of comedian W.C. Fields. In (1976) Steiger would inhabit the role of the red-faced wisecracker in Arthur Hiller’s W.C. Fields and Me.

Director Hiller with Rod Steiger on the set of WC Field and Me
Director Arthur Hiller with Rod Steiger on the set of WC Field and Me 1976

Curiously Rod Steiger was the one who was approached at first to play the mama's boy cop Morris Brummel. And he probably would have been fabulous at it, since he's quite good in any role. But what a stroke of genius for him to choose the part of a psychopath, transvestite, and all-around chameleon, his over-the-top performance truly brought the film to life. In fact, Christopher Gill was not as prominent in William Goldman’s novel but had been elaborated on in greater detail for the film, making him the narrative’s focal point as both the antagonist and anti-hero.

Steiger felt the role of the killer would be the one that would gain the audiences’ attention as well as the critic’s eye, stealing the show as the flamboyant frustrated thespian with a mother complex and a fetish for red lipstick.

Also, a little homage that is close to my heart, is the poster outside the theater using the name William Pratt which happens to be the name given at birth to my beloved grandfather Boris Karloff. Okay okay… he's not really my Grandpa, but if I did have my wish, he sure would have been the one to read me stories at night with a nice cup of cocoa. And not the kind laced with K9 Liniment as used in that Henry Slesar teleplay for The Alfred Hitchcock Hour– ‘What Really Happened.’

Here’s what film critic Vincent Canby had to say back in 1968 upon the film’s release in movie theaters. colorfully articulated, insightful yet a bit harsh & scathing, taking the film a bit too seriously IMHO.

No Way to Treat a Lady (1968) Screen: Farcical Exercise in Murder:Logic Loses in ‘No Way to Treat a Lady’ Segal and Steiger Play Hunter and Quarry
By VINCENT CANBY
Published: March 21, 1968

Buried beneath all the outrageous make-up, hairpieces, disguises and belly laughs in “No Way to Treat a Lady,” there is a curious and ironic comment about the land of stifling mother love that once so alarmed Sidney Howard that he wrote “The Silver Cord.” The comment seems to be that whatever makes one man into a psychotic killer may make another into a nice Jewish cop.
So much for what passes as sweet reason.
That commodity is in conspicuously short supply in the farcical melodrama that opened here yesterday at the Forum and Tower East theaters. However, anybody who has been entertained by “Psycho”"”or even “Twelfth Night”"”knows that sweet reason often has as much to do with entertainment as goodness had to do with Mae West’s diamonds.
Although “No Way to Treat a Lady” has the shape of a conventional suspense tale, the film is at its most entertaining"”and, in fact, is only acceptable"”as a series of macabre, sometimes broadly funny confrontations of caricatures, all dominated by the presence of Rod Steiger. Here is a dream role for the actor, permitting him a half-dozen masquerades as everything from a garrulous Irish priest, with a platitude for every occasion, to a fearful lady barfly, as full of tears as she is of booze.
Mr. Steiger gives a beautifully uninhibited performance as a hammy. Mom-haunted Broadway producer who undertakes “his own bizarre solution to the problem of New York’s growing population of lonely ladies"”maiden, widowed and divorced. Dressed in a variety of disguises, he gains admittance to their apartments, where he promptly strangles them and then calls the police to brag about his handiwork.
Playing mouse to Steiger’s cat is George Segal, the detective assigned to solve the mystery of the stranglings and who is, oddly, as much of a caricature as the flamboyant killer who taunts him. Fresh from his role as a Jewish intellectual in “Bye, Bye, Braverman,” Segal is seen here as a middle-class nebish, dominated by a Jewish mother so extravagantly played by Eileen Heckart that she might drive Georgie Jessel to seek asylum in Syria"”and her son to matricide.
John Gay’s script, adapted from the William Goldman novel, makes nothing much of this Oedipean hang-up common to both cat and mouse nor does it offer more than the sketchiest motivations for anything that happens. Instead, Mr. Gay has written an exposition-free, gag-filled cartoon, which is the manner in which Jack Smight directs it. “No Way to Treat a Lady” is all contemporary surface action, with quick cuts between scenes of murder and comedy and sometimes between scenes that combine both. Luckily, despite the fact that it was beautifully photographed in color entirely in New York, it has absolutely no reality.
There is nothing wrong with this sort of sheer sensation for its own sake as long as the gags and Steiger’s masquerades maintain their bold effrontery. When they don’t, however, as happens with increasing frequency toward the end, the mind begins to wander.
One simply must not question why Steiger, apparently a normal, maladjusted. Broadway producer until the film starts, suddenly commences his reign of terror. Nor why Lee Remick, the Minnie Mouse of the cartoon"”a beautiful blonde with no visible means of support, a self-described former swinger and the kind of girl who sleeps in her false eyelashes"”should fall for the clod detective. (Unless, of course, she is actually the castrating putdown artist she humorously affects to be in her first meeting with Segal’s harridan-mother.)
There is also the peculiar casting of someone who is obviously a female impersonator as one of Steiger’s victims, although nothing is made of this in the plot.
In addition to the wild, eyeball-rolling, lip-smacking, rococo-gestured performance of Steiger, who employs more accents than you might have heard in a year of vaudeville, Smight has got some fine performances from his supporting players, including Barbara Baxley, Martine Bartlett, Ruth White and Michael Dunn.
Dunn is seen as a pint-sized creep who tries to confess to the crimes. “You’d believe me,” he tells the detective waspishly, “if I weren’t a midget!” As with the film itself, there is something both funny and oddly disturbing in this aggressive lack of logic.

No Way To Treat A Lady opens with the unsuspecting woman in peril Martine Bartlett as Alma answers the door to an Irish Priest. The queasiness we feel, the anxiousness, and empathy because she is an older lady. The victims could be our own mother, aunt, or grandmother and not the evaluated, penalized, sexualized, and typified film ‘tramp’ who has somehow brought this wrath down upon herself making the murders particularly vicious. One of the more interesting victims is Sadie, a drag queen who sees Gill dressed in drag himself crying into a hanky in a bar and is scorned by the other patrons contending with nasty homophobic comments. Has Gill chosen this particular victim as a way to destroy the latent homosexuality within himself?

Rod-Steiger---No-Way-To-Treat-A-Lady---film-USA---1968_
Rod Steiger in makeup on the set of No Way To Treat a Lady 1968 Ernest Adler ..hair style supervisor and Bob O’Bradovich -makeup supervisor

After each murder, Gill meticulously traces the lips of each victim with red lipstick and brands his kiss on their foreheads!

The symbol used as the ‘red lips’ is the hyper representation of female sexuality. The co-opting of this image as a weapon is really interesting as it is telling…

various disguises Rod Steiger

The Illustrated Man poster

The Illustrated Man rod steiger
Rod Steiger has never shied away from challenging roles. He is an outstanding actor. Here he is in Ray Bradbury’s-The Illustrated Man.

Steiger as FlamingDorian

Rod Steiger, perhaps one of the most versatile actors, brings to life the flamboyant Christopher Gill who begins his assault on middle-aged women in the unsafe jungle of NYC. His chosen victims are most representative of the dear old mother. Steiger’s assorted guises that he dons in order to gain each lady’s trust are not only compelling but darkly funny as his performance which is never superfluous but totally campy psycho candy for the brain. Gill is like a supervillain who disguises himself as a parish Irish priest befits with an ideal brogue, he's a German plumber perhaps a nod to the killings attributed to that man in Boston who strangled his innocent female victims. He plays a flaming hairdresser using the ploy that they have won a wig in a giveaway. He becomes a chef and a police officer, and at one point, he eventually does turn up in drag. – He incorporates various accents masterfully, among them he uses the voice of W.C. Fields.

All guises that will draw upon his designated victim's wish fulfillment. Speaking German to Mrs. Himmel (Ruth White) bringing back her nostalgia for the old country, he enjoys eating her strudel.

Ironically enlisted to help track down and capture this deranged killer of defenseless women is Morris Brummel (George Segal) who is perfect for the part of a man who needs to break free of his cliched Jewish mother's love… once again I’ll mention portrayed by the marvelous Eileen Heckart.

Morris is under his mother’s thumb, get’s flustered a lot whenever he’s at home or near beautiful women and gets phoned and taunted by the crazed Gill while trying to woo his new waspy girlfriend. Lee Remick plays the blonde shicksa a free-spirited liberated woman who used to swing with the beautiful people in Manhattan and now gives museum tours. She's sexy and classy and just what Morris needs to shake things up in his claustrophobic life. Heckart is wonderfully overbearing to the point of pushing my own Jewish mother’s buttons. Pick, pick pick!

Morris and Mother Brummel

It’s no accident that there is a correlation between the two character’s mothers. One, domineering and relentless in her nagging Morris for not being more successful than his lung surgeon brother. While the dead Grande Dame mother of Gills looms largely over him, shown in austere portraits at the theater, having been a great actress herself in the day. A torch her son must carry in order to be as substantial as she was, and why he enacts different personae while he murders her repeatedly in re-enactments, these are his victims, middle-aged women who are signifying his mother.

What creates the great interplay between the flamboyant fiend and underdog cop is that they are both outliers, who somehow find each other and give their lives it's meaning for that time. A game of cat and mouse. An oddball commiseration, one giving purpose to the other. A struggle of wills and morals.

Morris Brummel

Steiger another disguise-the chef

Christopher Gill begins another fixation aside from his middle-aged female victims, now with his pursuer Morris Brummel. Perhaps he feels a kindred spirit in him. But something about their banter on the phone titillates Gill, it's almost homoerotic, and as we can see by the animosity toward middle-aged women, although he worships the memory of his grande dame mama, he does have deep-rooted mother issues. Why else would he be re-killing her over and over again?

Gill is also a classic narcissist. Checking the newspapers constantly to make sure that they are printing the story about him. All the world's a stage… Gill's mother was a great thespian. "¨"¨He deals with his repressed homosexuality and his engorging Oedipal Complex. The homoerotic fixation that he has on dressing up and using, lipstick as a fetish, suggests again that he has a strong anti-mother sentiment. The use of lipstick turns a symbol of womanhood against them.

CapturFiles_4

The film is a pervasive torch song of psycho-sexual prompts as Christopher Gill’s masculinity is challenged, destroying his mother, the devouring mother with each victim of his baleful masquerade.

We sense both men’s alienation Gil and Brummel as they are governed by mothers with a tight and suffocating grip. It’s a macabre classy thriller, polished and well acted even with the stereotypes and remnants of homophobia the 70s film that hadn’t been shaken from their villains or bit characters who were either downright crazy, unstable, or destined to be a victim of murder or suicide themselves.

In Cynthia A Freeland and Thomas E Wartenberg’s Philosophy & Film chapter The Politics of Interpretation, they cite as I like to, once again Kristeva’s theory of abjection of the maternal body from Powers of Horror. Abjection…

“Is an extremely strong feeling which is at once somatic and symbolic and which is above all a revolt of the person against an external menace from which one wants to keep oneself at a distance, but of which one has the impression that it is not only an external menace but that it may menace us from inside. So it is a desire for separation, for becoming autonomous and also the feeling of an impossibility of doing so.”

Kristeva’s notion of abjection is taken to an extreme level, where it is not sufficient enough to annihilate the maternal body seeing it as abject, in order for the child to be free of the maternal restraints. Even on an imaginary level where the maternal body must be killed so that the child will not kill itself. Kristeva suggests that this leads to matricide. And why Christopher Gill must constantly kill his mother in the form of various middle age women, over and over again, yet his psychosis will not allow him to be set free. He is surrounded by her memory. It is as if she is still alive and reigning over his life. He has a portrait of his mother, who is a prominent presence in the theater watching over her son.

The portrait of Mrs. Gill comes across with the power of a Sphynx. A monster with the body of a beast and the head of a woman. Perhaps even a bit like a gorgon. Her piercing eyes and outre-defined red lips tell of a menacing woman who commanded an audience, especially her son…

From The Sexual SubjectStephen Heath’s chapter-Difference “The historical positions of patriarchy society tell us that ‘women’ are constantly identified as the central focus of oppression constructed and justified in its terms.”

“Woman as sphinx confronting Oedipus and the Oedipus is always underlying. the eternal feminine which menaces the subject, either male or woman.”

CapturFiles_62

Continue reading “No Way To Treat a Lady 1968 & Man On a Swing 1974: All the World’s a Stage: Of Motherhood, Madness, Lipstick, trances and ESP”

Concerto Sinostro- The Alfred Hitchcock Hour- Seven Exceptional Episodes

alfred_hitchcock-hour

THIS PIECE HAS BEEN UPDATED AND REVISED TO BE MORE EXTENSIVE: DOES NOT INCLUDE ALL OF THE EPISODES BELOW-PLEASE VISIT THESE LINKS INSTEAD AS PART OF MY ONGOING SERIES FOR THE ALFRED HITCHCOCK HOUR.

PART ONE:

Boris Karloff’s anthology tv series: It’s a THRILLER!

PART TWO:

The Film Score Freak recognizes Lyn Murray composer of the heart obscurely

PART THREE:

THE BEACH PARTY BLOGATHON- CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON (1954) & Night Tide (1961) : Gills-A LOVE STORY!!!

As sure as my name is MonsterGirl, this is a Boris Karloff Thriller! “The Storm”

WITH PART 5 TO FOLLOW...

———————————————-

I’ve chosen these particular episodes for various reasons. I’m very fond of the actors portraying these very nuanced roles. The stories directed by some of the best, themselves are quite compelling, and the musical compositions by Lyn Murray just left a poignant hole in my heart afterward. I hope you get to see at least a few of them. Very special, very fraught with edge-of-your-seat thrills, and some outstanding performances by some of your favorites who deserve to be showcased here! Without any further adieu —Good Evening…!

Carol Lynley
Carol Lynley
ruth
Ruth Roman
anne-francis
Anne Francis
Dina Merrill
Dina Merrill
Charity Grace
Charity Grace
tim o'connor-banacek
Tim O’Connor
Eileen Barrel
Eileen Baral
franchot_tone
Franchot Tone
gary-merrill-2-sized
Gary Merrill
Gena Rowlands
Gena Rowlands
clu gulager
Clu Gulager
Glady Cooper
Gladys Cooper
Isobel Elsom Monseur Verdoux
Isobel Elsom
Joan Fontaine
Joan Fontaine
Joyce van Patten
Joyce van Patten
Juanita Moore Back Street with Lana Turner
Juanita Moore
margaret leighton
Margaret Leighton
Nancy Kelly from The Bad Seed
Nancy Kelly
Roger Perry
Roger Perry
RG Armstrong
R. G. Armstrong
Jesslyn-Fax
Jesslyn Fax

Peter Falk

Peter Falk

patricia+collinge
Patricia Collinge

Final Vow  (25 Oct. 1962)

William Downey-“Have all your prayers been answered, sister?”

Sister Pamela- “Prayers aren’t business deals Mr. Downey, they can’t be judged by successes or failures.”

CapturFiles_1

CapturFiles_2 Oh sister not tears again... you've cried a whole river these past weeks
Sister Gem tells Sister Pamela “Oh sister… not tears again… you’ve cried a whole river these past weeks.”

CapturFiles_13

CapturFiles_3 i want you to see what faith adn prayer will do
Sister Lydia says ” I want you to see what faith and prayer will do.”

CapturFiles_3

CapturFiles_6

CapturFiles_22

CapturFiles_7

CapturFiles_8

CapturFiles_9

CapturFiles_10

Norman Lloyd directs this Henry Slesar story starring the lovely Carol Lynley who plays Sister Pamela Wiley, a gentle soul who has come to the crossroads of her faith. It is a simplistically beautiful tale about faith and finding one’s place on Earth.

The Reverend Mother portrayed by the wonderful Isobel Elsom believes that Sister Pamela’s crisis will disappear in time. Sister Pamela is sent on a very special mission to meet the once young hooligan named William Downey from the parochial school she’d tried to change for the better. He has invited sister Lydia to his mansion after thirty years of silence to give her a very special statue of St Francis. It’s a gesture of thank you and a very sacred piece of art. On the way back to the convent the statue is stolen at the train station.

CapturFiles_11 some people retreat to god and not advance toward him, and that's what i have done
Sister Pamela- “some people retreat to god and not advance toward him, and that’s what i have done.”
CapturFiles_11
Isobel Elsom as the commanding Reverend Mother
CapturFiles_12
Sister Pamela tries on her new clothes, looking in the mirror she sees a pretty young lady and not a sister of the convent anymore. She is struck still.
CapturFiles_14
Pamela takes a job as a secretary where Jimmy the no-good thief works on the loading docks as part of his parole. Now she’s just one of the girls…

CapturFiles_15

CapturFiles_16

CapturFiles_20

CapturFiles_21
Pamela finds the statue of St Francis at a Pawn shop.

The bronze statue falls into the wrong hands by a petty thief (Clu Gulager as schemer Jimmy Bresson) and so Sister Pamela puts herself in harm’s way in order to set things right!

With Sara Taft as Sister Lydia and Charity Grace as Sister Gem (Jennifer Morrison from Andy Griffith’s Alcohol & Old Lace), Clu Gulager is perfect as the ruthless Jimmy K Bresson and R.G. Armstrong as the imposing William Downey.

Bonfire  (13 Dec. 1962)

Laura- “Would you mind opening a window, this house smells of…” Robbie breaks in “Death!” Laura-“No, the past, which is even worse!”

CapturFiles

CapturFiles_1

CapturFiles_2

CapturFiles_3

CapturFiles_4

CapturFiles_6

CapturFiles_7

Cinematographer William Margulies (The Girl in Black Stockings 1957) photographs Falk’s murderous fevers by somehow closing in around his face with a dark aureole that speaks of madness.

The wonderful Patricia Collinge  ( The Little Foxes 1941, Shadow of a Doubt 1943) plays an old-fashioned lady Naomi Freshwater, who has been befriended by a fire & brimstone preacher spouting scripture who charms Naomi with doting affection. The enigmatic Peter Falk is the cab-driving preacher Robbie Evans who comes from the coal mines of Pennsylvania, had a revelatory vision during a cave-in that changed his womanizing ways. Did he possibly kill his wife who wanted to force him back into the mines?…

Now as a seemingly kind companion to sweet old Naomi, he spends time with her reading bible verses and hoping to gain her trust so he can build his grand temple on the money she’ll leave him in her will. The dear and sheltered Naomi has a bad heart and suffers a fatal heart attack one night when Robbie forces her to dance too rigorously. She collapses on the settee begging for her little pills as Robbie coldly watches her die. The scene is absolutely brutal in its heartlessness. Quite a powerful scene for just a one-hour anthology show. I myself was left speechless and stunned by its ruthlessness. Adding to the grisly atmosphere was the nonstop record spinning a bedazzling swing melody while the tortured old woman clutches at her chest. I don’t know if it was the lighting or just Falk’s cold-blooded unwavering expression that left me chilled to the bone.

CapturFiles_11

CapturFiles_12

CapturFiles_13

CapturFiles_14

CapturFiles_17

CapturFiles_18

CapturFiles_19

CapturFiles_23

CapturFiles_24

CapturFiles_25

CapturFiles_26

CapturFiles_27

CapturFiles_30

CapturFiles_31

Falk plays the perfect sociopath, with only one nearly over-the-top performance during a bible-thumping sermon under the tent. When the classy worldly niece Laura (Dina Merrill) shows up, Robbie tries to woo her into marriage hoping to hang onto the old Victorian mansion that he feels is owed to him. Laura hires Robbie to clean out the attic and create a big old bonfire to burn the remnants of her life there.

At first, Laura believes his ‘Man of God’ acts as Naomi did, but Laura is a wild roaming sort who doesn’t wish to be tied down. This brings out the psychopath in Robbie, as he relates in detail how his first wife tried to hold him back, she was a sinner and he had the calling.

Does Merrill wind up in that trunk? it’s a real tent stomper of a mystery, with a twisted psycho-sexual undercurrent, delusional religious fanaticism, unspoken old-style misogyny, and plenty of menacing mayhem afoot lead by an all-star cast of actors. Bonfire is directed by Joseph Pevney and based on a story by V.S. Pritchett as published in The New Yorker.

The evocative score by the great Pete Rugulo helps the entire episode come together to create one hell of a grand mystery hour.

Continue reading “Concerto Sinostro- The Alfred Hitchcock Hour- Seven Exceptional Episodes”

A Trailer a day keeps the Boogeyman away! Playgirl Killer (1967)

PLAYGIRL KILLER 1967

“Artist or killer? Temptress or playgirl?”

Please don’t move or he’ll kill you!!!!!

e002414810-v8

“It’s a fascinating eerie story of a mad killer, who loved to paint beautiful women and then…and then murder them only because they moved!”

CapturFiles

CapturFiles_1

CapturFiles_2

This exploitation film is directed by Erick Santamaria. And stars William Kerwin as Bill an unstable artist who is haunted by nightmares and driven to kill his female models when they move while posing. He’s obsessed by an unattainable beauty that he can’t seem to capture. He finally loses it and goes on a rampage, creating a collection of macabre trophies from his kills. As the tagline says–Playgirl Killer…paint it red for passion, red for rage, and red for his beautiful but bloodied victims. The film also stars Jean Christopher as Arlene, Andree Champagne as Nikki, who knew Neil Sedaka as Bob perhaps singing in the rain with the one he loves, and Linda Christopher as Betty.

Insane artist Bill: “They… always… move!”

Don’t you move a muscle, I’ll be back–your ever lovin’ MonsterGirl

 

A Trailer a Day Keeps the Boogeyman Away! The Sniper (1952)

THE SNIPER 1952

“Hungrily, he watched her walk down the street…and then he squeezed the trigger!”

The Sniper

There’s a crazed sniper picking off brunettes, as the police scramble to try and profile the psychology of the killer on the loose!

CapturFiles_2

Gritty psycho-sexual film noir based on a story by Edna & Edward Anhalt. Screenplay by Harry Brown (A Place in the Sun ’51, The Man on the Eiffel Tower ’49) Director of Photography is the great Burnett Guffey (From Here To Eternity ’53, Private Hell 36, NIghtfall ’57, The Strange One ’57, Screaming Mimi ’58) With music by George Antheil (uncredited stock music compose)And film editing by the great Aaron Stell (Human Desire ’54, Beginning of the End ’57, Touch of Evil ’58, Lonelyhearts ’58, The Giant Gila Monster & The Killer Shrews ’59, To Kill A Mockingbird 1962).

Directed by Edward Dmytryk  marking his return to Hollywood after he was named on the blacklist and served time in jail for contempt of court.

Starring Adolphe Menjou as Police Lt. Frank Kafka, Arthur Franz as Eddie Miller, Gerald Mohr as Police Sgt. Joe Ferris. Noir’s sassy Marie Windsor as Jean Darr, and Mabel Paige as the landlady.

CapturFiles_18
Richard Kiley as Doctor James G. Kent “I’d look for somebody that’s been getting tough with women from the very beginning… maybe he started small slugging them on a dark street or something like that… maybe some woman did something mean to him when he was a kid. Whoever it was, he’s been killing her over and over again!

CapturFiles_3

CapturFiles_7

CapturFiles_15

CapturFiles_5

CapturFiles_9

CapturFiles_19

Eternally Yours-MonsterGirl

Saturday Nite Sublime: The Baby (1973)

THE BABY 1973

The Baby film poster

The poster for The Baby alone is disturbing in it’s ability to create an instant queasy feeling and queer flutter that hits your senses due to the inappropriate visual environment. A crib with a large pair of legs hanging over the edge. The hands holding an axe and a sexualized young female holding a teddy bear. So let’s just get these words out of the way for starters…

DISTURBING, repulsive, odd, subversive PERVERSE, TRANSGRESSIVE, unnatural, deviant provocative DEGENERATE immoral warped twisted wicked KINKY inflammatory abhorrent, repugnant offensive objectionable, vile, NASTY, sickening stomach turning, detestable, abominable, monstrous horrendous awful dreadful unsavory unpleasant, GROTESQUE ghastly horrid flagrant audacious unpalatable unwholesome baleful, improper immoral indecent DEPRAVED salacious iniquitous criminal nefarious REPREHENSIBLE scandalous disgraceful deplorable shameful morally corrupt, obscene unsettling disquieting dismaying alarming frightful sinister WEIRD menacing threatening freakish sensationalist, violating breach of decency straying from the norm, awkward unethical reactionary QUEASY inappropriate improper unorthodox taboo malapropos unseemly strange tawdry psycho-sexual lunatic madness sleazy bizarre peculiar, curious queer controversial offbeat outre abnormal outlandish shocking and sick…?

Touching on so many taboos and cultural deviance is director Ted Post’s shocker The Baby 1973. starring the mighty Ruth Roman.

Ruth Roman
Look at that sensual face… what a beauty Ruth Roman
Strangers on a Train
Still of Ruth Roman and Robert Walker in Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train (1951)

Day of the Animals 1977, Look in Any Window 1961, Bitter Victory 1957, Strangers on a Train noir thriller Down Three Dark Streets 1954, The Window 1949, various television performances The Naked City’s ‘The Human Trap’ Climax!, Dr. Kildare, The Outer Limits, Burke’s Law, The Name of the Game, I Spy, Marcus Welby M.D, Mannix, Ironside, Gunsmoke, The Sixth Sense, Mod Squad and more!

And I’ve got to mention that Anjanette Comer is an excellent rival to play the ‘outsider’ antagonist against Ruth Roman in this battle of wills.

Anjanette Comer Five Desperate Women
Anjanette Comer stars in the ABC movie of the week’s Women-in-Peril feature film FIVE DESPERATE WOMEN 1971…

Directed by Ted Post who gave us Beneath the Planet of the Apes 1970, perhaps my favorite of the ‘ape’ films after the original. Saw each of the series during their theatrical release. Sadly Ted Post passed away just this past August 2013.

beneath the planet of the apes
James Franciscus in Ted Post’s Beneath the Planet of the Apes 1970
Ted Post and Clint Eastwood
Clint Eastwood & Ted Post collaborating on the set of Magnum Force
He directed television for years beginning in the 50s.  I love the TV movie also starring Beneath the Planet of the Apes blond hunk James Franciscus… who co-starred with the fabulous Lee Grant in Night Slaves (1970) and Dr. Cook’s Garden 1971 with a murderous Bing Crosby. And hey while I”m touting made-for-TV movies how bout Five Desperate Women 1971 where he most likely met Anjanette Comer? He’s also responsible for several episodes of Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone (1959-1964), including “Mr. Garrity and the Graves” and “The Fear.”  Post also directed two episodes of the Boris Karloff horror anthology show you know I truly love, Thriller (1961-1962), The Specialists & Papa Benjamin. And geez Columbo ’75-’76, A Matter of Honor and A Case of Immunity. Most people probably cite him for Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry vehicle Magnum Force 1973 or Good Guys Wear Black 1978. Ted Post knows how to put together a thriller!

The Baby’s screenplay was penned by Abe Polsky  (The Rebel Rousers 1970, The Gay Deceivers 1969)According to IMDb trivia, it took almost a year for Polsky to convince Post to direct the film because Post found the topic too ‘dark.’ While in retrospect the film must have ruffled many feathers, and the themes are truly disturbing, there isn’t anything in there that hasn’t been done in a contemporary film in some way, and ideas that force us to think are a good thing. Especially when it’s wearing 70s clothes, and showcasing groovy genre character actors.

The seventies were rife with psycho-sexual theatre that showcased really uncomfortable themes, but somehow managed to create an atmosphere of low-budget art. Consider this, haven’t you seen episodes of Law & Order SVU, Criminal Minds, & CSI where some of the most brutal acts of inhumanity and grotesque forms of torture and abuse are highlighted in graphic detail?  In the 70s it was more nuanced, bathed in muted lighting gels amidst experimental cinematic framing and absolutely moving musical scores.

So on one level refer to the litany of words above and assign your favorite one to The Baby, yet on another level, let’s look at this film and ‘react’ to it and recognize its power.

Baby's photo anthropological in the way it shows his captivity bars of crib
Baby’s photograph is lensed in an ‘anthropological’ way as it shows him in captivity-the bars of his crib symbolically like the bars of a prison

Continue reading “Saturday Nite Sublime: The Baby (1973)”

From the Vault- Russ Meyer’s The Seven Minutes 1971

THE SEVEN MINUTES 1971

seven_minutes_poster_02

The Seven Minutes 1971 is based on a novel by Irving Wallace. Directed by provocateur Russ Meyer (Lorna 1964), Faster, Pussycat, Kill! Kill! & Mudhoney(1965) with a screenplay by Richard Warren Lewis and an uncredited Manny Diez. This film comes on the heels of his hit at FOX with Beyond the Valley of the Dolls 1970. (Dolls with a screenplay by Roger Ebert) Meyer and Fred Mandl (Checkmate, The Munsters, The Twilight Zone, The Fugitive) create a great visual romp with the cinematography. The opening titles roll over the first almost seven minutes of the film as we hear the ticking of a clock…

????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

With a very unusual cast of character actors starring Wayne Maunder as Mike Barrett, and Marianne McAndrew  (Hello Dolly 1969, The Bat People 1974) as Maggie Russell. Philip Carey (I’ve always been amazed at how much he reminds me of Charlton Heston) as District Attorney Elmo Duncan.

CapturFiles_67
Phillip Carey has always reminded me of Charlton Heston in stature and mannerism- a great underrated character actor…

The awesome Jay C. Flippen as Luther Yerkes, Edy Williams as Faye Osborn, Lyle Bettger as Frank Giffith, Stanley Adams as Irwin, Jackie Gayle as pornographer Norman Quandt, Ron Randell, Charles Drake, Olan Soule and John Carradine as Sean O’Flanagan, Harold J. Stone and Yvonne De Carlo as Constance Cumberland.

Boris Karloff’s Thriller The Remarkable Mrs Hawk: A Modern Re-telling of Homer’s Odyssey, Circean Poison with a Side of Bacon.

John Carradine
the ubiquitous John Carradine. I could watch him in anything… he tickles me…
YVonne
the beautiful Yvonne de Carlo here as Constance Cumberland movie actress.
Yvonne de Carlo
love love love that Yvonne de Carlo- a kindly beauty (I met her on the set of Laugh-In at the Westbury Music Fair in the 70s while taping the show live… She was an absolute gem, warm-hearted and filled with tangible grace.)

Music by Stu Phillips (Quincy M.E.) with Lionel Newman supervising. BB King sings Seven Minutes.

‘The Seven Minutes’ refers to an artistically erotic banned book published thirty-five years ago in Paris, that essentially opens up the floodgates for the public discourse about pornography, censorship, violence against women, and the dual standards during a time when morality was ambiguous. You know, just like today.

the titles

CapturFiles_1

CapturFiles

CapturFiles_2
Argo Book Stores clerk played by Robert Maloney… arrested for knowingly selling smut… convenient scapegoat for the cause.
CapturFiles_3
Charles Drake plays vice cop Kellogg entrapping the poor Mr. Fremont book seller for being a clerk where an allegedly filthy book is being sold.

CapturFiles_4

A bookstore clerk is indicted for selling obscene material which leads to a court trial. There is also the question as to whether this licentious book actually led to the rape of a young girl. The film is part trial based as the defense lawyers try to hunt down any clues that would prove the author of the book was not a smut merchant but trying to express an artistic viewpoint that can not be silenced by censorship.

CapturFiles_58
Wayne Maundy as Michael Barrett’s defense attorney for bookseller Fremont

The author and the mystery surrounding their identity are key to the plot. Meyers does a high-spirited job of developing this narrative with engrossing scenes that portray a society of zealots and self-serving neophytes in turmoil with themselves. All amidst a groovy 70s palate that’s nostalgic and filled with a colorful verisimilitude.

The film opens with some great 70s devil may care by composer Stu Phillips. At first, we see a beauty chasing her dog passed a small storefront. The story reveals that the vice bureau is staking out the ARGUS bookstore, as Sgt Kellogg (Charles Drake) walks in with his cigarette box tape recorder ready to entrap the clerk for selling smut. He asks the young bookseller for something ‘brand new -unusual, ‘something you wouldn’t find in an ordinary library.’ The clerk (Robert Maloney) just tells him to look around, the jackets tell the story pretty well.

Kellogg casually asks for one particular book on display The Seven Minutes by JJ Jadway and the bookseller repeats the title ‘Oh yeah” Kellogg remarks, “That’s a pretty sexy cover ain’t it?” As Kellogg ogles the pretty blonde talking to the young clerk who tells him she’ll see him later.

Sargent Kellogg (Charles Drake) “You read it?” Clerk -“The new addition at least… the first one was banned thirty-five years ago.” Kellogg- “How come it was banned?” Clerk– “Cause it was considered obscene” Kellogg- “Do you think the book’s obscene?” Clerk– “Why don’t you buy the book and find out for yourself.” “How much is it?” ” $7.30 with the tax.”

“Wrap it up… You the manager around here?” Clerk-“Yeah, the day manager.” Kellogg-“Who do I bring it back to if I don’t like it” The clerk answers– “Fremont, Ben Fremont.” Kellogg waves.

Kellogg’s partner is tape-recording the conversation from the car. “Took you long enough.” “Literary conversations take a little doing, we better start comparing, same jacket same title, same publisher, same publishing date, and copyright… Let’s pay Mr. Fremont another visit.”

They arrest him for knowingly selling obscene matter which is a misdemeanor in the state of California. And this starts the ball rolling in this film. As the powers that be, seek out district attorney Duncan who feels that The Seven Minutes would be found obscene if taken to court.

seven_minutes mike and faye
Mike and Faye Osborne are bed pals. She’s the spoiled daughter of an influential father.
CapturFiles_12
Cars the way they used to look… oh those were the days.
CapturFiles_11
never had one of these… but I know people who did! cool…70s memorabilia. Even the brown striped sheets.

CapturFiles_14

CapturFiles_63
the hair and the groovy chick appear later on at a funky club but I couldn’t resist putting her in the visual time capsule with the Volkswagon bug and the phone and Selleck…teehee.
CapturFiles_15
Mr Selleck don’t you look fine! He plays the publisher’s son Phil Sanford of Sanford Publishing. 

Check out that cherry Volkswagon and Corvette, check out that cool 70s phallus phone, Check out that really young Tom Selleck as the publishing guy… who calls hot shot attorney Michael Barrett (a very cool Wayne Maunder) who is representing the publisher Phil Sanford (Tom Selleck) who’s in a panic about the book clerk Fremont going to jail for selling one of Sanford House’s books.

The tower of self-righteousness Elmo Duncan the D.A. (Phillip Carey) wants to be propelled into the Senatorial seat in California. The powers that be who want him to become Senator conspire to exploit this contrived issue of corruption & decency so Duncan has a powerful platform to run on. This elite cabal wants to build a state-wide case in which Elmo Duncan can fight the ‘Smut Merchants.’

CapturFiles_17
Defense Attorney Mike Barrett tries to appeal to district attorney Duncan.
CapturFiles_18
District Attorney Duncan looms large as the figure of ethical fortitude.
CapturFiles_28
the secret cabal setting up the scenario for Duncan to influence public opinion and win the election. Stanely Adams, Olan Soule & Jay C. Flippen

They have a political agenda to stamp all youthful violence incited by salacious material in reading matter and films, and so this cause has become the lynchpin with which they hope to win an election, making ‘The Seven Minutes’ the subject of their campaign.

Meanwhile, a violent rape takes place involving the son Jerry (John Sarno) of a wealthy advertising tycoon Frank Griffith (Lyle Bettger) who owns a copy of The Seven Minutes and was present at the time of the assault committed by his psychotic friend, the one who actually commits the brutal rape.

CapturFiles_30

CapturFiles_31

CapturFiles_32

CapturFiles_33

CapturFiles_34

CapturFiles_35

CapturFiles_37

CapturFiles_41

CapturFiles_43

The rape scene is handled with quick cuts interwoven with Wolf Man Jack doing his thing on the air. It’s all very frenetic as the soundtrack “love train” is sung by Don Reed.

The prevailing secret surrounding pathetic Jerry Griffith (John Sarno) is that he’s been emasculated by his domineering father and now can’t get it up, so he’s impotent sexually and in helping Sheri Moore (Yvonne D’Angers) while she’s being attacked by his violent friend.

Jerry takes the blame for the rape and refuses to talk about it, thereby implicating himself as an impotent sissy and allowing the lynch mob and voyeurs to assert that Jerry would not have committed such an act if The Seven Minutes hadn’t been available to him. Duncan is now convinced that a clean boy wouldn’t have done the crime if it weren’t for the availability of the dirty book.

CapturFiles_27
this is Shawn ‘baby doll’ Devereaux -well it sure ain’t Tennessee Williams and Elia Kazan’s vision of Carroll Baker is it…

These hypocritical old cronies have young girls of their own on the side, watching pornography while salivating at the mouth. Yerkes has a girlfriend he calls ‘baby doll’ who dances provocatively for these guys. She’s got ample boobs (It is a Russ Meyer film after all) hanging out of her 70’s style yellow hot pants. Amidst the interesting subject matter Shawn ‘Baby Doll’ Devereaux gyrates and inserts herself into the frame to show us the hypocrisy of these old farts who condemn others for their own personal agenda all the while being the worst kind of purveyors of sinful behavior.

CapturFiles_66
the wealthy Frank Griffith that wants all this smut taken out of the reach of impressionable teens like his son. What’s carefully framed by Meyers playing in the background is a porn film that the men have been reviewing and enjoying way too much-we witness the HYPOCRISY.

Russ Meyer had his own dealings with censorship so the subject is probably of very personal substance for him. He does a fantastic job of pointing out the duality of persuasions. And he builds the story really well here. Showing the belligerence by equal sides of the coin toward a moral center and a society ripping at the shreds of personal freedom to express, create and destroy.

Wayne Maunder The Seven Minutes

Whether you’re an avid Russ Meyers fan or just think you might like to venture into the complex questions the film evokes, presented in that real 70s style The Last Drive In weeps for most days, it’s a film worth watching, even just to spot the few character actors that pop up on the screen like baby doll’s and Faye Osborne’s (Yvonne & Edy) eh hems… well you know… the cleavage shot!

What appears on the surface as a controversy surrounding a banned book that contains alleged salacious material-The defense evokes some good examples of Henry Miller’sTropic of Capricorn’ or, D.H. Lawrence’s ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’, etc.

What manifests is an interesting commentary on censorship, masculinity, and the spurious connection between perceived immoral content and violence in society.

CapturFiles_60

CapturFiles_40

Manhood and masculinity is a texture that is not necessarily used as the theme in the story, but let me tell you it is all-pervasive with images of Duncan heaving his heavyweights as he sweats and works out in front of Mike, spouting his holier-than-thou rhetoric. It was almost masturbatory.

He gave Michael that “politician’s holier than thou number” Duncan was hostile while he pumped weights in front of the intellectual Mike Barrett. Dueling of masculinity and the question of causality with pornography and violence against women.

Duncan talks to a church official about ‘freedom’ Duncan– “We only want to penalize those who would corrupt it.”

Duncan and his reprehensible comrades belong to a group called Strength Through Decency.

CapturFiles_59

The acronym STD... was this intentional? Probably. It’s hilarious as these types of organizations do spread like a social disease. They’re against lust, motorcycles, homosexuals, and lesbians. All the factors that made the 70s so dangerous of course. Those lustful lesbians on motorcycles riding down 5th Avenue in NYC wreaking havoc with our delicate morality. Why I’m surprised we all survived it…

So as much as the words “smut merchants’ are bandied around, and the question of censorship takes priority in full view, the underlying sub-context is the posturing of masculinity and the double standard of sexism & classism and who gets to play and who must obey.

CapturFiles_48

CapturFiles_51

CapturFiles_52

CapturFiles_53

CapturFiles_65

orange orbs
Marianne McAndrews is fabulous as Maggie Griffith. I really dig those orange orbs… truly the light fixtures I mean…

yvonnedecarlo courtroom

I won’t get into the story behind the mystery or the trial, the story behind Jerry’s impotence, the elitism, or the ultimate reveal about the author of The Seven Minutes. The media frenzy that occurs feeds on the sensationalism of the situation who condemn the book but want to hear about the details of rape victim Sherri’s violation.

Is The Seven Minutes a beautiful novel about a woman’s awakening or really filthy trash? You’ll have to find out… but I’ll say that Russ Meyer’s The Seven Minutes is a great addition to the socially conscious sexually charged films of the late 60s & 70s like Roger Vadim’s Pretty Maids All In a Row, and Robert Thom’s  Angel, Angel Down We Go 1969…

Your ever-loving MonsterGirl.

Sunday Nite Surreal-A Reflection of Fear-William Fraker’s Directorial Foray Beyond The Outer Limits into a Psycho-Sexual Miasma

A REFLECTION OF FEAR 1973

Reflection+of+Fear

If a movie lingers, if it stays with you for hours, days, then it has done something right. I think this film is perhaps as uniquely disturbing as it is underrated & thoughtfully done. The subject matter is perverse and a potent yet slightly murky thriller. A provocative, revolting little psychodrama. One with an eerie, queasy moodiness amidst the ornate set design and restrained performances.

A Reflection of Fear Locke

The ’70s were so good for giving us these kinds of surreal, sinisterly captivating, and unsettling themes. The House That Screamed 1963, Let’s Scare Jessica to Death 1971, Silent Night, Bloody Night 1972, Lemora” A Child’s Tale of the Supernatural 1973, Blood and Lace 1971, What’s The Matter With Helen 1971, so many, too many to mention. Narratives rife with taboos, power struggles, psychosis, ritual murders, and deviance.

Directed by William Fraker (cinematographer on Rosemary’s Baby 1968, Bullitt 1968 uncredited on Incubus 1966 for Roger Corman, and The Day of The Dolphin 1973, Looking for Mr Goodbar 1977).

A Reflection of Fear 1973 was hacked to pieces in order to receive a PG rating for Columbia Pictures. Fraker made his feature debut as cinematographer on one of my favorite psychological thrillers – Curtis Harrington’s cat and mouse thriller GAMES 1967 with Simone Signoret. He was the camera operator for my beloved fantasy ’60s series The Outer Limits TV series 1963-1965. No wonder that this film’s atmosphere is a hazy, dreamy landscape that transcends the outward appearance of reality.

There is nothing wrong with your television set… Do not attempt to adjust the picture, we are controlling transmission: The Transendental Heartbeat of The Outer Limits 1963-1965

László Kovács (Easy Rider ’69, That Cold Day in the Park ’69) enhances the look and feel of the film as director of Photography. A Reflection of Fear is based on a novel by Stanton Forbes called Go To Thy Deathbed with a screenplay by Lewis John Carlino (Seconds 1966, The Mechanic 1972, The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea 1976).

Blogger David Furtado from his fabulous Wand’rin’ Star cites in a post from Sondra Locke’s autobiography The Good, The Bad and The Very Ugly- A Hollywood Journey

“Then came a film which was a landmark, professionally and personally: A Reflection of Fear, directed by promising filmmaker William A. Fraker, who had been nominated for several Oscars as a director of photography, and who had directed Monte Walsh with Lee Marvin and Jeanne Moreau, one of the last great and underestimated westerns. Sondra Locke plays the mysterious and unbalanced “ ˜Marguerite’, a girl of sixteen.

As Marguerite in A Reflection of Fear (released in 1973).

“Once again, Gordon and her plotted a scheme to get Fraker interested, since they both thought the role was almost perfect for her. Gordon Anderson even played the “voice” of “˜Aaron’, Marguerite’s alter-ego. Unfortunately, the film was butchered by Columbia since it dealt with themes deemed too strong for the general public. Locke found the attitude ridiculous, even more so because, at that time, “audiences were enthralled with the young girl in The Exorcist, spewing vomit and masturbating with crucifixes”. Nonetheless, she became longtime friends with the director and his future wife Denise, who was very supportive when Locke had serious health problems.”

This is the first film of underrated cult star Sandra Locke. She was perfectly unorthodox, as the odd Agatha Jackson alongside Colleen Camp in DEATH GAME 1977, where they held actor Seymour Cassel hostage and played mind games with him. As Marguerite, she is perfectly chilling in her debut.

Sandra Locke is the captivating young sylph, Marguerite, and Robert Shaw portrays her estranged father, Michael. Mary Ure  (Shaw’s real-life wife at the time) plays her mother, Katherine. Swedish actress Signe Hasso lurks as Marguerite’s sinister grandmother, Julia. This harpy-like matron seems to be the locus of the askew matriarchy that treats Marguerite like a sickly princess caught in a closed universe. It plays like a dark fairy tale where, initially, she appears to be at the mercy of wicked women.

CapturFiles_1

Mary Ure is absolutely gorgeous, seductive, and refined. Signe Hasso is a marvelous actress I’ve admired for a while now; she’s elegant and quite regal though imposing as her character called for. Both Ure & Hasso exude an unsavory perfume.

Look Back in Anger with Richard Burton & Mary Ure
Richard Burton and Mary Ure in Look Back In Anger, 1959

Quirky and affable Sally Kellerman plays Michael’s fiancé, Anne, who worked with Fraker on The Bellero Shield with Martin Landau, airing on Feb. 10th, 1964—one of my favorite The Outer Limits episodes with the Bifrost alien. Fraker also worked on the set with Signe Hasso on The Outer Limits  Production and Decay of Strange Particles, which is yet another superb entry in the short-lived yet transcendently brilliant series.

The Bellero Shield
Chita Rivera, Sally Kellerman, and Martin Landau in The Bellero Shield- The Outer Limits- William Fraker was on the camera crew.
Hasso & George Macready in The Outer LImits
George Macready and Signe Hasso in Production and Decay of Strange Particles -as part of  The Outer Limits 60s TV series.

Gordon Anderson (also the voice of Ratboy 1986) is the voice in the film of the imperceptible Aaron, doll or boy I won’t tell …

Fred Myrow (Soylent Green 1973, Scarecrow 1973, Phantasm 1979)  is responsible for the haunting musical score that is dizzying with lilting harps and mandolin, low muted French horn, music box shimmer, and eerie wavelengths of noise. Joel Schiller is the art director (Rosemary’s Baby 1968, The Muppet Movie) and Phil Abramson (Bullitt 1968, Close Encounters of the Third Kind 1977 and Raging Bull 1980) does the creepy and suffocating set design which is perfect for the sense of repression, dread, and decay.

A Reflection of Fear has been referred to as a proto-slasher. There is the use of a caped hooded ‘masher.’ Perhaps this film set off a slew of slashers to come, but several reviews have cited a correlation between this film and Hitchcock’s Psycho ’60. Perhaps it’s the bright child with a mother complex who likes horticulture instead of taxidermy. Anyhoo, as an obscure ’70s psycho-sexual thriller, it has its universe to spin in.

If I were to disclose anything because I love a good hint- I could say the closest the film’s storyline comes to is actually an episode of the 1968 TV series  Journey to the Unknown“Miss Belle” with George Maharis and Barbara Jefford, but that’s all I’m sayin’… if you know the episode I mean, I’ve just given you a golden crumb to nibble on.

CapturFiles

CapturFiles_1

The multi-layered narrative surrounds a disturbed and alienated sixteen-year-old girl named Marguerite (Sondra Locke), who exists in a private world of dolls that she talks to and who in voice-over – talks back in the quietude and opulent isolation with her affluent mother (Mary Ure) and grandmother (Signe Hasso) at an exclusive Inn somewhere in Canada. Marguerite is not only held captive by her mother and grandmother but, to my impression, is seemingly a willing recluse who yearns for the love of the father she’s only known by the various books he sends her on art, flowers, etc.

CapturFiles_5

Katharine (Ure) and Grandmother (Hasso) read a letter from Michael.

CapturFiles_6

Grandma Julia-“I hardly think he’s coming again for you my dear she’s his daughter after all” Mother Katherine-“We’ve been so careful Mother” Julia-“A glimpse would perhaps satisfy him for another fifteen years” Katharine-“A glimpse would hardly satisfy Michael of Marguerite” Julia- “Would you stir his curiosity? And… Marguerite seeing Michael might tempt her to certain idolatry of the man.”

CapturFiles_35

Sandra Locke’s intense eyes.

Something is not right within the family dynamic. When Marguerite’s father Michael (Robert Shaw) finally arrives this particular languid summer to ask his wife for a divorce so he can marry Anne (Sally Kellerman), the vitriol comes out as Grandmare “turns the knife in” as Michael exclaims. Mary refuses to set him free unless he agrees to never see Marguerite ever again.

Once Michael sees his wisp of a daughter, whom he’s never known in the flesh, his peculiar gaze becomes transfixes on her. He finds her enchanting. He actually says so several times. Yet he is concerned about the way his wife and mother-in-law are holding the child prisoner. As he considers rescuing the child, the dynamic starts to invade Anne’s future life with Michael, and the brutal murders begin to ensue.

CapturFiles_15

Katharine see Michael again after many years.

CapturFiles_16

Michael returns to meet his daughter.

CapturFiles_17

CapturFiles_19

CapturFiles_22

reflection of fear dinner table

One of the central mysteries is whether Marguerite is being driven mad by her mother and grandmother, is she delusional, or if there truly is an Aaron – her mysterious unseen playmate? Either way, the concept is provocative and malefic. Always lensed in darkness, it adds to the creepiness of the matter at hand. “You keep me cooped up in here like one of the dead dolls in your trunk,”- whispers Aaron a mere shadow.

portrait of Aaron with his killer staff
The painting of the figure in black with a large staff looks similar to the life-size doll of Aaron that Marguerite keeps in her bedroom.

The local police come to investigate. Mitchell Ryan plays the cop who suspects the father, Michael, of the murders. The lovers, Michael and Anne (Kellerman), are to remain close to the crime scene, so they move into the estate as sort of an unspoken house arrest.

CapturFiles_40

Mitchell Ryan interviews Robert Shaw about the murders.

Sondra Locke manages to catch my interest with curiosity at her queer sort of whimsical prettiness, more odd than sensual. Here as childlike, gaunt,and pale as schoolhouse chalk, which works for the character of Marguerite. She carries on creepy Socratic dialogues with her decrepit dolls.

CapturFiles_4

Marguerite’s presence is both disturbing and sympathetic as she plays at being a fay prisoner, kept isolated by her grandmother and mother while exhibiting extraordinary intelligence and a primal burgeoning sexuality.

CapturFiles_23

CapturFiles_24

CapturFiles_25

CapturFiles_26

CapturFiles_27

CapturFiles_33

CapturFiles_36
The image of Aaron slowly arises in the frame in pure shadow- it’s a very powerfully eerie moment in the film.

Marguerite lives in a fantasy world, she’s brilliant, owns microscopes, a pond filled with amoebas, has full knowledge of horticulture, stamen and pistils and all that, has rooms filled with a myriad of creepy dolls in tatters and decay, a specie of cannibal fish which she finds quite natural in the natural order of things.

CapturFiles_3

Something that Michael’s girlfriend Anne will invoke when describing how Marguerite is trying to “devour” her father. Consume him, which he allows, as part of the odd liturgy of perverse underpinnings of the narrative. Incest, sexual repression, sexual mutilation, castration anxiety, oedipal lust, castrating females-misandry (women hating men) “Don’t ever let a man touch you, it’ll mean death.” Her mother tells Marguerite in a flashback through voice-over.

CapturFiles_59

Marguerite’s main confidant is a doll… or is he… named Aaron, a very belligerent spirit either way, who is quite possessive of Marguerite and seems to be destructive, antagonistic, and malevolent. Neither the mother nor grandmother believe he is anything more than a doll. Or perhaps they know more than they are willing to disclose to Michael when he comes to visit after 15 years. He wants to marry the lovely Anne, but Marguerite’s mother refuses to give him a divorce as a way of punishing him and using it as a weapon to keep him from seeing his daughter again.

During his visit, the odd relationship is shown, depicting father and daughter in a sexualized framework. It’s painful to watch as Michael doesn’t discourage Marguerite’s advances, not even in front of Anne.

CapturFiles

The cringy relationship between father and daughter.

Aaron begins to become more violent as the father and Anne intrude on the opulent, isolated netherworld these women seem to inhabit. Fraker, who was the director of photography on D.H Lawrence’s story The Fox 1967 directed by Mark Rydell, is really good at capturing the visual sense of place surrounding alienation, repression, and the immortal triangle. A quiet world, when all at once an intruder turns everything into chaos.

CapturFiles_37

Katharine is destroyed by Michael’s presence.

CapturFiles_38

The film is rather brutal and grotesque even within the kaleidoscopic colors and hazy shadows that both Fraker and Kovács manifest to murk and lurk and obscure what we see. This heightens the horror of the thing rather than impinges on it. The incandescent lighting and subdued colors of cinematography by the great László Kovács using filters and gels create a hazy, shadowy landscape that’s as enigmatic as the story.

The murders are savage, phallus-driven mutilations and speak of sexual repression and hatred toward women.

Marguerite is referred to as “enchanting” more than once. Her skin is translucent, and her Alice in Wonderland exterior purposefully dresses her up to look as if she’s falling through the rabbit hole at any minute. This might be a way to draw attention to the underlying turmoil of growing sexual awakening. Once her mother and grandmother are out of the way, she begins to wear more adult clothing. She also injects bottles of what is supposed to be insulin, but the labels have been removed from the bottles: Curiouser and curiouser.

At one point, she asks her father to give her the injection so that it won’t hurt as much. In retrospect, I think this is a pretty clear allusion to Marguerite’s desire to have her father penetrate her.

Sandra Locke’s performance is quite chilling, with her childlike, almost sociopathic lack of affect, it comes across as an eerie sexualized pubescent blonde droid, rather than a child who has been secreted away by the older women in her life, in a clandestine garden paradise with malevolent forces afoot.

Her voice is a frail, wispy spirit with no earthly substance, dressed in little girl finery, spouting factoids about sea life and flowers but bearing no resemblance to a real child of this world. Initially, her dolls have more breadth to them. But Marguerite begins to awaken by the presence of her father.

CapturFiles_50
Marguerite’s dolls represent her closed world; some even mimic the people in her sheltered life… Herself, Grandmare, and Father…

CapturFiles_51

CapturFiles_5

Marguerite’s mother and grandmother are cold and uncommunicative. There’s no sign of nurturing, although her mother calls her chéri.

The two women obviously hate men and have done a good job of keeping little Marguerite from coming in contact with anyone of the male species. Even the male fish get eaten by the stronger female of the species.

Sally Kellerman is the one character that buoys us to the normal ‘outside’ practical world. She sees all the subversive deeds and perversions that are rampant around the old estate but still refuses to walk away from the man she loves. She is the one stable witness to the madness as it unfolds.

CapturFiles_45

William Fraker and screenwriters Edward Hume and Lewis John Carlino (who also wrote the screenplay for The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea in ’76 interesting enough this too dealt with disturbed children with higher intelligence), allow the repulsive sexualized relationship between father and daughter to flourish til we’re as completely uncomfortable as Anne is.

In a very edgy scene where Marguerite, whose room is next to her father and Anne, masturbates while the couple is making love. Marguerite calls out “father’while she climaxes so that the couple can hear her cries. Anne finds this entire experience vile, though by now, she shouldn’t be surprised by the odd child’s behavior and finally almost leaves Michael yet still remains in this sick environment.

CapturFiles_47

CapturFiles_48

Anne and a day at the beach with Michael and Marguerite.

CapturFiles_49

The film is apparently heavily cut due to censorship in order to secure a ‘PG’ rating for its original U.S. theatrical release in the early ’70s. I’d love to see the unedited version someday.

The shocking twist ending was a bit muddled in terms of its visual revelation, but finding out that the film was badly modified due to censorship might explain some of the jagged continuity. I don’t mind the obfuscation of various key scenes as they add to the sense of mystery and concealment. The reveal at the end comes to full fruition like a gut punch.

CapturFiles_57

Sadly, Mary Ure died suddenly in her sleep in 1975 after an accidental overdose of pills and booze. The imposing and ever larger-than-life actor Robert Shaw suffered a massive heart attack in 1978 and so joined her in death.

This film is not for everyone, especially those that find psycho-sexual thrillers objectionable because their pathology is usually based on some kind of subversive wiring in the brain or dysfunctional or arrested development of the family structure. But if you’re like me, who just can’t devour enough obscure 70s dark and delectable lunacy, then try and catch this one night… bring your favorite doll. And if it is your cup of arsenic-laced tea, you might also try Secret Ceremony 1968 starring Elizabeth Taylor, Mia Farrow, and Robert Mitchum. It also promises to disturb!

This has been a reflection of -Your EverLovin’ MonsterGirl

A Symphony of Dark Patches- The Val Lewton Legacy 1943

This post is a feature…As part of the CLASSIC MOVIE HISTORY PROJECT BLOGATHON hosted by the fantastic gang over at- Movies Silently, Silver Screenings & Once Upon a Screen– Visit these wonderful blogs during this historic event and fill your head with a collection of fascinating movie memories.

classic-movie-history-project-the-mummy-banner

tcm-promo-image-lewton-500

From Dreams of Darkness-Fantasy and the films of Val Lewton by J.P. Telotte:
“{The audience} will populate the darkness with more horrors than all the horror writers in Hollywood could think of… if you make the screen dark enough, the mind’s eye will read anything into it you want. We’re great ones for dark patches.” – Val Lewton

Swimming pool scene Cat People '42
Jane Randolph as Alice Moore in Val Lewton’s Cat People 1942 directed by Jacques Tourneur.
Bedlam
A scene from Bedlam (1946) directed by Mark Robson.

During the 1940s Val Lewton and his ‘Lewton Unit’ used the essential vision of fantastic darkness to recreate a very unique style of horror/fantasy genre, one which challenged Hollywood’s notion of the tangible monsters Universal studios had been manufacturing. Lewton, while working at RKO Studios, produced an exquisite, remarkable and limited collection of films that came face to face with a ‘nightworld.’ Lewton used our most deepest darkest psychological and innate fears that dwell within the lattice of shadows of our dreams and secret wish-fulfillment.

RKO_Radio_Pictures_logo

“Our formula is simple. A love story, three scenes of suggested horror and one of actual violence. Fade out” -Val Lewton

Lewton worked at MGM between 1926 and 1932 and then served eight years under David Selznick. He had published nine novels and a number of short stories. In addition he produced regular radio show versions of MGM films. He also had ties in the industry as his aunt was the very influential silent actress Alla Nazimova.

Nazimova 3
the great stage and silent screen actress Alla Nazimova-Val Lewton’s very influential aunt…

But Lewton had left his mark with Selznick and in 1940 rival company RKO was interested in hiring him..It was actually Selznick who negotiated Lewton’s contract.

lewton+life

“My task is to initiate a programme of horror pictures to be made at the comparatively low cost of 125,000 each. Which should compete successfully with Universal horror films. Which cost anywhere from 300,000 to a million dollars. I feel I can do this quite easily and the Universal people spend a lot of money on their horror product. But not much on brains or imagination.”-Val Lewton

Frankenstein-Meets-The-Wolf-Man-1943

Lewton put together a team of collaborators with whom he would work closely. He chose Mark Robson to edit. Robert Wise and Lewton worked together on Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons. DeWitt Bodeen had worked with him during his time with David O’ Selznick was to write the first screenplay for Cat People. His old friend Jacques Tourneur whom he became friends with while working on A Tale of Two Cities. was brought on board to direct. He chose Nicholas Musuraca as his director of photography and Roy Webb to compose the musical scores. They all worked on countless RKO films. It was Lewton’s intention to create quality pictures though he was constrained by a low budget. Jacques Tourneur had said that Lewton was an idealist who had his head up in the clouds and would come up with impossible ideas. However for Tourneur, his feet were planted firmly on the ground, yet somehow they complemented each other perfectly, Tourneur claims it was a very happy time in his life, and that Lewton’s gift to him was the filmic poetry that he was able to carry with him forever.

Jacques Tourneur is perhaps one of my favorite directors, with his use of shadow and all together dreamy lens of the world, he’s responsible for one of THE best classic horror films Curse of the Demon & film noir tour de force Out of the Past.

out-of-the-past-2
Jacques Tourneur directs Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer in Out of the Past 1947.
Niall and Cat
Jacques Tourneur’s moody horror with Niall MacGinnis and cat Curse of the Demon 1957.
Lewton Unit
Part of the Lewton Unit- image from the documentary The Man in the Shadows from top left Roy Webb composer, Val Lewton, Nicholas Musuraca Cinematographer, Mark Robson editing/directing, DeWitt Bodeen writing, and Robert Wise-director.

“Horror is created in the mind of the spectator. It’s necessary to suggest things. In all my films you never saw what caused the horror. I saw people screaming in the theater when there was a young girl in a swimming pool, but you never saw the black leopard. The lights blaze up at the end. And there’s Simone Simon. Something has definitely happened. -Jacques Tourneur

Jacques-Tourneur
Jacques Tourneur looking over the film sketches.
jacques tourneur-on location for berlin express
Jacques Tourneur on location for Berlin Express 1948.

“Lewton gave us something quite different than what’s known as Hollywood craftsmanship you can say that he presented us with a parallel world in which everything feels both real and a little unreal-familiar but strange. The characters and the viewer slip into a mysterious, troubling gray zone. Where real life and dream life come face to face. And where beauty and destruction merge. Lewton and Tourneur really created a new kind of cinematic beauty”-from The Man in the Shadows Val Lewton documentary

The Golden Boy in Bedlam
the golden boy from Bedlam

Learning from his last employer Selznick he made sure to supervise absolutely every aspect of the film’s production, from casting, set design, costumes, direction, and editing. He even rewrote every script himself without taking credit or under a pseudonym. In this way he developed his own visual style of storytelling, having prepared each detail before shooting.

“My feelings are generated, however by more than my gratitude for that first opportunity. They come from the warm and highly stimulating creative experience I had working with Val. He taught me so much about directing and filmmaking in general…Val Lewton was one of that fairly rare species, a truly creative producer. As such, he was able to achieve an outstanding reputation for the high quality, unusual and interesting “B” pictures he produced at RKO Studios starting in the early 1940s” Robert Wise, March 1994

Robert Wise behind the camera
Robert Wise behind the camera
Wise, Robson & Lewton
Robert Wise, Mark Robson & Val Lewton

“I remember him staying up until all hours of the night working on screenplays. He enjoyed having his hand in the writing. I used to that that he went out of his way to pick inept writers so that he’d have to redo their work. He used to write on a Royal typewriter;he used only two fingers but he was very fast. He’d talk out the different parts as he wrote them and, since my bed was just on the other side of the wall, I’d fall asleep listening.”Nina Lewton Druckman from the Reality of Terror by Joel Siegel

Robert Wise was part of the Lewton Unit, one of my favorite directors who would go on to direct some of the most outstanding films in a variety of genres, from musicals like West Side Story 1961, and Sound of Music 1965, to Lewton’s Curse of The Cat People 1944 and The Body Snatcher 1945, noir masterpieces, Born To Kill 1947, The Set Up 1949 and The House of Telegraph Hill 1950, I Want to Live! 1958, Odds Against Tomorrow 1959, to sci-fi and Gothic ghost story masterpieces Day the Earth Stood Still 1951, The Haunting 1963, and The Andromeda Strain 1971.

Day The Earth Stood Still
Michael Rennie and Gort in Robert Wise’s Sci-Fi masterpiece The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
The Set Up
Robert Wise’s boxing noir The Set-Up 1949

Lewton drove himself very hard trying to achieve something beautiful and of high quality. He and his team were given a very small budget, a cast of veritable unknowns, and evocative titles that were sensationalist and lurid in nature and did not truly represent an accurate account of the narrative. There were no gruesome fiends nor even evidence of malevolent forces at work in his ordinary everyday environments. Yet RKO’s studio head Charles Koerner dictated such titles as Cat People 1942, Curse of the Cat People 1944, Bedlam 1946, Isle of the Dead 1946, The Body Snatcher 1945, I Walked With A Zombie, The Ghost Ship, and The Leopard Man in 1943 and The Seventh Victim.

“If you want to get out now, Lewton told Bodeen, I won’t hold it against you.”

Continue reading “A Symphony of Dark Patches- The Val Lewton Legacy 1943”

Heroines & Scream Queens of Classic Horror: the 1940s! A very special Drive In Hall–ween treat!

Evelyn Ankers
promo shot for The Wolf Man- Evelyn Ankers

THE WOMEN OF CLASSIC HORROR: THE 1940S!

You could say that Evelyn Ankers is still the reigning queen of classical 1940s horror fare turned out by studios like RKO, Universal, and Monogram. But there was a host of femme scream tales that populated the silver screen with their unique beauty, quirky style, and/or set of lungs ready to wail, faint, or generally add some great tone and tinge to the eerie atmosphere whenever the mad scientist or monster was afoot. Some were even monstrous themselves…

For this upcoming Halloween, I thought I’d show just a little love to those fabulous ladies who forged a little niche for themselves as the earliest scream queens & screen icons.

ELSA LANCHESTER 1902-1986

I’m including Elsa Lanchester because any time I can talk about this deliriously delightful actress I’m gonna do it. Now I know she was the screaming hissing undead bride in the 30s but consider this… in the 40s she co-starred in two seminal thrillers that bordered on shear horror as Mrs. Oates in The Spiral Staircase 1945 and a favorite of mine as one of Ida Lupino’s batty sisters Emily Creed in Ladies in Retirement 1941

I plan on venturing back to the pre-code thirties soon, so I’ll talk about The Bride of Frankenstein, as well as Gloria Holden (Dracula’s Daughter, Frances Dade (Dracula) and Kathleen Burke (Island of Lost Souls) Gloria Stuart and Fay Wray and so many more wonderful actresses of that golden era…

Elsa Lanchester in The Spiral Staircase
Elsa Lanchester as Mrs.Oates in director Robert Siodmak’s The Spiral Staircase 1945
Annex - Lupino, Ida (Ladies in Retirement)_01
The Sister Creed in Ladies in Retirement 1941 starring Elsa Lanchester, Ida Lupino, and the wonderful Edith Barrett (right)

ANNE NAGEL  1915-1956

Anne Nagel
the playfully pretty Anne Nagel.
Anne Nagel & Lon Chaney Man Made Monster Promo photo
Anne Nagel & Lon Chaney Jr in a promo shot for Man Made Monster
Anne Nagel, Lon Chaney & Lionel Atwill Man Made Monster
Anne Nagel was strapped to the slab and at the mercy of the ever-mad Lionel Atwill. Here comes the glowing Lon Chaney Jr! in his electric rubber suit in Man Made Monster!

The depraved mad scientist Lionel Atwill working with electro biology pins gorgeous red-headed Anne Nagel playing June Lawrence, to his operating slab in Man Made Monster 1941. Lon Chaney Jr. comes hulking in all aglow as the ‘Electrical Man’ which was his debut for Universal. He carries Anne Nagel through the countryside all lit up like a lightning bug in rubber armor. Man Made Monster isn’t the only horror shocker that she displayed her tresses & distresses. She also played a night club singer named Sunny Rogers also co-starring our other 40’s horror heroine icon Anne Gwynne in the Karloff/Lugosi pairing Black Friday in 1940.

She played the weeping Mrs.William Saunders, the wife of Lionel Atwill’s first victim in Mad Doctor of Market Street 1942. And then of course she played mad scientist Dr Lorenzo Cameron’s (George Zucco’s) daughter Lenora in The Mad Monster 1942. Dr. Cameron has succeeded with his serum in turning men into hairy wolf-like Neanderthal monsters whom he unleashes on the men who ruined his career.

Anne Nagel and Lionel Atwill Mad Doctor of Market Street
Anne Nagel and Lionel Atwill Mad Doctor of Market Street.

Poor Anne had a very tragic life… Considered that sad girl who was always hysterical. Once Universal dropped her she fell into the Poverty Row limbo of bit parts. Her brief marriage to Ross Alexander ended when he shot himself in the barn in 1937, and Anne became a quiet alcoholic until her death from cancer in 1966.

Anne Nagel Lon Chaney Lobby Card

Lon Chaney Jr and Anne Nagel Man Made Monster

the-mad-monster-glenn-strange-left-everett

anne
Dr. Cameron’s daughter Lenora (Anne Nagel) discovers the wolf-like man in his laboratory in The Mad Monster.
Hairy beast The Mad Monster
Glenn Strange as Petro the Hairy man in The Mad Monster 1942.

black-friday-bela-lugosi-anne-nagel-everett

Annex - Lugosi, Bela (Black Friday)_01

1940 UNIVERSAL
the sultry Anne Nagel and Bela Lugosi in Black Friday 1940 photo courtesy Dr. Macro.

MARTHA VICKERS- 1925-1971

Martha Vickers
the beauty of Martha Vickers.

Martha was in noir favorites The Big Sleep 1946 & Alimony 1949. This beauty played an uncredited Margareta ‘Vazec’s Daughter’along side Ilona Massey as Baroness Elsa Frankenstein and the marvelous older beauty Maria Ouspenskaya as Maleva the gypsy! in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man 1943. Then she played heroine Dorothy Coleman in Captive Wild Woman 1943 and Miss McLean in The Mummy’s Ghost 1944.

Originally Martha MacVickar she started modeling for photographer William Mortenson. David O Selznick contracted the starlet but Universal took over and put in her bit parts as the victim in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man and in other ‘B’ guilty pleasures like Captive Wild Woman & The Mummy’s Ghost. She was also the pin-up girl for WWII magazines.

Martha also starred in other noir features such as Ruthless 1948 and The Big Bluff 1955. She was Mickey Rooney’s third wife.

Annex - Bogart, Humphrey (Big Sleep, The)_04
Martha Vickers and Humphrey Bogart in The Big Sleep photo courtesy of Dr. Macro.
Martha Vickers and Lon Chaney in Frankenstein Meets the wolf man
Martha Vickers and Lon Chaney in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man.
Martha Vickers and John Carradine in Captive Wild Woman
Martha Vickers and John Carradine in Captive Wild Woman
Martha VIckers
I just can’t resist Vicker’s sex appeal here she is again… Wow!

JANICE LOGAN 1915-1965

Though Logan made very few films including Opened By Mistake 1940, her contribution to women who kick-ass in horror films and don’t shrink like violets when there’s a big bald baddie coming after you with a net and a bottle of chloroform, makes you a pretty fierce contender even if you are only 7 inches tall! As Dr. Mary Robinson (Janice Logan), Logan held it all together while the men were scattering like mice from the menacing google eyed Dr. Cyclops played superbly by Albert Dekker.

FAY HELM  1909-2003

johncarradine14
Fay Helm as Nurse Strand with John Carradine in Captive Wild Woman.

Fay Helm played Ann Terry in one of my favorite unsung noir/thriller gems Phantom Lady 1944 where it was all about the ‘hat’ and she co-starred as Nurse Strand alongside John Carradine in Captive Wild Woman. Fay played Mrs. Duval in the Inner Sanctum mystery Calling Dr. Death with Lon Chaney Jr. 1943

Ella Raines and Fay Helm in Phantom Lady
Ella Raines and Fay Helm in Phantom Lady.

Fay Helm plays Jenny Williams in Curt Siodmak’s timeless story directed by George Waggner for Universal and starring son of a thousand faces Lon Chaney Jr in his most iconic role Larry Talbot as The Wolf Man 1941

Fay as Jenny Williams: “Even a man who is pure in heart and says his prayers by night, may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright.”

Fay was in Night Monster 1942. Directed by Ford Beebe the film starred Bela Lugosi as a butler to Lionel Atwill a pompous doctor who falls prey to frightening nocturnal visitations. I particularly love the atmosphere of this little chiller with its swampy surroundings and its metaphysical storyline.

Dr. Lynn Harper (Irene Hervey- Play Misty For Me 1971) a psychologist is called to the mysterious Ingston Mansion, to evaluate the sanity of Margaret Ingston, played by our horror heroine Fay Helm daughter of Kurt Ingston (Ralph Morgan) a recluse who invites the doctors to his eerie mansion who left him in a wheelchair.

Fay gives a terrific performance surrounded by all the ghoulish goings on! She went on to co-star with Bela Lugosi and Jack Haley in the screwball scary comedy One Body Too Many (1944).

night-monster-1

Irene Hervey as Dr. Lynn Harper –Night Monster 1942.

Night Monster
Fay Helm in Night Monster.
Fay Helm with Bela the gypsy in The Wolf Man
Fay Helm with Bela the gypsy in The Wolf Man.

LOUISE CURRIE 1913-2013

ape-man-1943-g

Ape Man Bela and Louise Currie

Ape Man and Louise stairs

Bela Lugosi as half ape half man really needed a shave badly in The Ape Man 1943, and Louise Currie and her wonder whip might have been the gorgeous blonde dish to make him go for the Barbasol. One of the most delicious parts of the film was its racy climax as Emil Van Horn in a spectacle of a gorilla suit rankles the cage bars longing for Currie’s character, Billie Mason the tall blonde beauty. As Bela skulks around the laboratory and Currie snaps her whip in those high heels. The film’s heroine was a classy dame referred to as Monogram’s own Katharine Hepburn! She had a great affection for fellow actor Bela Lugosi and said that she enjoyed making Poverty Row films more than her bit part in Citizen Kane! And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that she appeared in several serials, from both Universal & Republic like The Green Hornet and Captain Marvel.

Tom Weaver in his book Poverty Row HORRORS! described The Ape Man as “a Golden Turkey of the most beloved kind.”

Louise Currie followed up with another sensational title for Monogram as Stella Saunders in Voodoo Man 1944 which again features Lugosi as Dr. Richard Marlowe who blends voodoo with hypnosis in an attempt to bring back his dead wife. The film also co-stars George Zucco as a voodoo high priest and the ubiquitous John Carradine as Toby a bongo-playing half-wit “Don’t hurt her Grego, she’s a pretty one!”

Voodoo Man
Pat McKee as Grego, Louise Currie, John Carradine, and Bela Lugosi in Monogram’s Voodoo Man 1944.
Voodoo Man
the outrageous Voodoo Man 1944

Continue reading “Heroines & Scream Queens of Classic Horror: the 1940s! A very special Drive In Hall–ween treat!”

Postcards From Shadowland No.13

Act of Violence
Act of Violence 1948 directed by Fred Zinnemann and starring Van Heflin, Robert Ryan and Janet Leigh
Chaney Hunchback
Lon Chaney in Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame 1923
Baby Jane
What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? 1962 Directed by Robert Aldrich and starring Bette Davis and Joan Crawford
bedlam-1946-001-boris-karloff
Bedlam 1946 directed by Mark Robson Produced by Val Lewton and starring Boris Karloff and Anna Lee
Bette Davis in Dead-Ringer
Bette Davis and Bette Davis in Dead Ringer (1964) directed by Paul Henreid and co-starring Karl Malden and Peter Lawford
Blondell and Tyrone Nightmare Alley
Joan Blondell and Tyrone Power in Nightmare Alley 1947 written by Jules Furthman for the screen and directed by Edmund Goulding
CabinInTheSky
Cabin in the Sky 1943 directed by Vincente Minnelli and starring Lena Horne and Ethel Waters
crossfire postcards
Crossfire 1947 directed by Edward Dmytryk starring the Roberts- Robert Young, Robert Mitchum and Robert Ryan
Day the Earth Stood Still
The Day the Earth Stood Still 1951 directed by Robert Wise and starring Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal and Hugh Marlowe
Devil Commands
The Devil Commands 1941 directed by Edward Dmytryk and starring Boris Karloff and Anne Revere written for the screen by Robert Hardy Andrews
Title: OLD DARK HOUSE, THE (1932) "¢ Pers: STUART, GLORIA "¢ Year: 1932 "¢ Dir: WHALE, JAMES "¢ Ref: OLD005AA "¢ Credit: [ UNIVERSAL / THE KOBAL COLLECTION ]
THE OLD DARK HOUSE, THE (1932) GLORIA STUART and BORIS KARLOFF Dir: JAMES WHALE
dr-jekyll-and-mr-hyde
Dr JEKYLL AND MR HYDE 1931starring Frederick March & Miriam Hopkins and directed by Rouben Mamoulian
Farley andThey Live By Night
They Live By Night starring Farley Granger and Cathy O’Donnell. Directed by Nicholas Ray
Fontaine and Anderson Rebecca
Joan Fontaine and Judith Anderson in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca 1940
CapturFiles
Phantom of the Opera 1925 starring Lon Chaney and Mary Philbin
freaks
Tod Brownings Freaks 1932
Gloria Odds Against Tomorrow
Gloria Grahame Odds Against Tomorrow 1959 directed by Robert Wise
Josette Day Beauty
Josette Day in Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast 1946
Judith Anderson Rebecca
Judith Anderson in Rebecca 1940
Leigh and Thaxter Act of Violence
Janet Leigh and Phyllis Thaxter in Act of Violence 1948
Louis Calhern Marlon Brando Julius Caesar 1953
Joseph L. Mankiewitz directs Louis Calhern & Marlon Brando in  Julius Caesar 1953
Ls metropolis
Fritz Langs’ Metropolis 1927
M castle's sardonicus
William Castle’s Mr Sardonicus 1961 Starring Guy Rolfe and Audrey Dalton
Maclean the children's hou
William Wyler directs Shirley McClaine in Lillian Hellman’s The Children’s Hour 1961co-starring Audrey Hepburn and James Garner
Mary Astor and Van Heflin Act of Violence
Mary Astor and Van Heflin Act of Violence 1948
Odds Against Tomorrow Shelley Winters and Robert Ryan
Odds Against Tomorrow Shelley Winters and Robert Ryan 1959
Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird
Gregory Peck in Robert Mulligan’s To Kill a Mockingbird 1962 written by Harper Lee with a screenplay by Horton Foote
Robert Ryan The Set-Up
Robert Ryan in Robert Wise’s The Set-Up 1949
Sam Fuller's The Naked Kiss, Constance Towers
Sam Fuller’s The Naked Kiss 1964 starring Constance Towers
Samson and Delilah-Hedy Lamarr
Cecil B DeMille’s Samson and Delilah 1949 -starring Hedy Lamarr and Victor Mature
Taylor and Jane Eyre
Robert Stevenson directed Bronte’s Jane Eyre 1943 starring a young Elizabeth Taylor and Peggy Ann Garner
The Children's Hour
The Children’s Hour Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine
The Haunting
Julie Harris and Claire Bloom in Robert Wise’s The Haunting 1963
the night_of_the_living_dead_3
George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead 1968
Walk on the Wild Side barbara Stanwyck
Barbara Stanwyk as Jo in Walk on the Wild Side 1962 directed by Edward Dmytryk
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane Bette
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? 1962 Bette Davis and Victor Buono

HAPPY FRIDAY THE 13th- Hope you have a truly lucky day-MonsterGirl