A young scientist saves an attractive married woman from a suicide attempt, becomes romantically involved with her, plots to kill her husband, and then fakes insanity to escape the murder charge.
The first Five minutes of Brainstorm 1965 set the slick and sinister vibe in motion on a dark and desolate noir highway against George Duning’s snazzy score, where Jim Graham (Hunter) stumbles upon Lorrie Benson (Francis) trying to commit suicide by train! He manages to get into the car and move it moments before the train comes hurling itself right behind them. The moment is dark and frenetic and possesses so much of what makes some of the best Noir/Psychological thrillers of the 60s so enigmatic…!
Reaching in through the broken window to unlock the car, moments before the impending train! A beautifully framed shot in Film Noir style…
Swedish-born actress Lindfors (Whom I consider to be one of the most underrated actresses, and one of my favorites as well.)plays Dr. Elizabeth Larstadt whose testimony keeps Grayam out of jail and sent to a sanitarium instead. Andrews plays Cort Benson, Lorrie’s Beverly Hills millionaire husband. With Michael Pate and Strother Martin, it is always a treat to see both character actors in anything trashy or classy.
Here’s a clip from Brainstorm 1965
There are thousands of films in my little collection, this is just one of them! Say, I just had a brainstorm… see it for yourself!-MonsterGirl
In the past few months I have been experiencing technical difficulties due to an issue with my music mash ups and Youtube. The problem has now been corrected, so I am inviting all to revisit posts from The Film Score Freak that feature movie/music mash ups that I conjured myself to pay tribute to some timeless masterpieces as well as tout little ole me’s singer/songwriting chops….
Thanks for your patience…
So now, without any further empty popcorn boxes in the aisles and pink glops of chewing gum under your theatre seats! I welcome you back to !!!!
Released by Universal in 1943 Flesh and Fantasy is by brilliant director Julien Duvivier, and co-produced by CharlesBoyer, and still remains an obscure forgotten horror gem.
Fatalistic, philosophical, Impressionistic, and hauntingly romantic, it dabbles in destiny and the dynamism of fate’s meddling hand in our lives. Are we all free souls, or is life predetermined for us? Part social commentary with an edge of ironic charm, utilizing elements of the supernatural to drive the narrative.
The film revolves around 3 vignettes, the first written by Eliis St. Joseph, the second adapted from Oscar Wilde, and the third written by László Vadnay.
Turning out a collection of eerie stories told by Gentlemen at their club. The stories are framed by Robert Benchley as Doakes and David Hoffman as Davis.
The first stars Betty Field as Henrietta a dowdy woman who comes upon a mysterious mask during Mardis Gras and then goes to a party festooned with regalia, turbulence, and a romantic game of cat-and-mouse with the handsome Michael (Robert Cummings) A beautifully tragic tale of loneliness and the essence of what beauty is. The use of masks creates a nightmarish landscape of human disconnection.
The shop of mysterious masks.
The second vignette is an adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s, Lord Arthur Saville’s Crime, which stars Edward G. Robinson as Marshall Tyler, a lawyer who is told by a Fortune Teller Septimus Podgers (Thomas Mitchell) that he is going to kill someone. Also at the affair is Dame May Whitty as Lady Pamela Hardwick and C. Aubrey Smithas the Dean of Norwalk.
Playing out the obsessive victim, Tyler devolves ever increasingly into a world of malefic paranoia in that way that Robinson is so good at. He spirals into madness as he is surrounded by reflections and warning shadows, and an impending dread, that creates a sense of the film being a Horror/Noir hybrid. The use of shadow does invoke a bit of Jacques Tourneur’sstyle as well.
In the third installment, Charles Boyer plays an acrobat in the circus named Paul Gaspar, who has a premonition of fatal consequences surrounding his high-wire act. Gaspar has a dream one night before his performance that he falls to his death, and so he decides to take a cruise, where he meets the woman from his dream, Joan Stanley played by Barbara Stanwyck, who was the one person he could still hear screaming as he plunges to his death! This episode concludes the film with a dreamy and grim set of atmospherics.
Impressionism in Nightmares-Symbolism-and the fear of falling…
the woman in dreams, is she as unattainable in real life?
THE GREAT GASPAR: that drunken gentleman of the tightrope will walk 75ft. in the air without a net!
Flesh and Fantasy predate by two years another wonderfully suspenseful ensemble of ghostly stories, Dead of Night 1945 starring Michael Redgrave in the iconic short tale of the ventriloquist and his frightening dummy sidekick!
Never trust a guy who’s made of wood and lets you stick your hand up his shirt for no money!
There are thousands of wonderful obscurities in my collection, this is just one of them!
Nils Asther (Night Monster 1942, Bluebeard 1944) plays Dr. Julian Karell a 120-year-old scientist who has found a way to prolong life. Julian falls madly in love with Eve Brandon (Helen WalkerNightmare Alley 1947, Call Northside 777 1948) Unfortunately he needs new glands in order to survive, and not head toward decrepitude and die!
Eve Brandon: “I’ll share your madness because there’s grandeur in it. And I have faith – and love.”
Directed by Andrew L. Stone, this noir thriller stars, Doris Daywho plays Julie Benton, whose unstable musician husband Lyle Benton played by Louis Jourdan confesses that he killed Julie’s first husband. Lyle is incredibly possessive and wouldn’t rather see her dead than be in the arms of another man. Julie seeks out the help of friend Cliff Henderson (Barry Sullivan) This is a woman in peril thriller, that has the police closing in on Lyle, but not before the climatic ending, where Julie boards a plane, returning to her work as a stewardess, not realizing that Lyle is also on board!
The film also co-stars veteran noir actor Frank Lovejoy as Det. Lt. Pringle.
Julie is being stalked by Lyle!
There are thousands of films in my collection, this is just one of them!-See it for yourself-MonsterGirl
If you’ve been following my blog for a while you might have picked up on the fact that I adore Claude Rains, and any film his wonderful presence has graced. Masterpiece or B-grade picture, he brings an inimitable style to any movie! Here: Claude Rainsplays a mild-mannered clerk named Kees Popinga who discovers that his boss Julius de Koster, Jr. (Herbert Lom) has wiped out the company funds, while under the influence of a beautiful Parisian girl, Michele Rozier played by Marta Toren.
Popinga takes the money and goes on the lam after killing de Koster, while the police are in hot pursuit.
Also starring the lovely Anouk Aimee as Jeanne the prostitute.
The immortal Joan Crawford is Lynn Markham, a widow who longs to be left alone at her beach house, where the previous tenant, Eloise Crandall (Judith Evelyn), had fallen to her death. Lynn’s neighbor turns out to be the gorgeous male specimen in the form of Jeff Chandler, playing Drummond Hall (Drummy), who might have had something to do with Eloise’s fatal fall off the porch. Of course, Drummy starts to move in on Lynn. Along for the ride are the marvelous duo of Natalie Schafer and Cecil Kellaway, who play Drummy’s crafty aunt and uncle, Osbert and Queenie Sorenson. And then there are the frequent visitations by realtor Amy Rawlinson, played by the always effervescent Jan Sterling, who is, of course, gaga over Drummy, the slick and sleazy gigolo with a rough past. Directed by Joseph Pevney (prolific in great television series spanning the 1960s-80s, not to mention the taut psycho-sexual drama THE STRANGE DOOR 1951, andPLAYGIRL 1956starring the bigger than life – Shelley Winters.
The film is filled with the right amount of 50s kitsch and camp and delicious vulgarity under the sensationalized surface. It is an obscure Crawford goodie that enthusiasts of the actress and genre should add to their ‘must-see’ list!
Lynn: ” I have a nasty imagination, and I’d like to be left alone with it!”
Lynn: “You must go with the house… like plumbing.”
“I don’t hate women, I just hate the way they are.”Amy Rawlinson was played by the always-effervescent Jan Sterling.
There are thousands of films in my collection. This is just one of them! See it for yourself!-MonsterGirl
Susan Hayward plays Christine Allison a physician prosecuted for euthanizing a patient. Peter Finch plays Stephen Dane the attorney who successfully put Allison in prison and now employs her to take charge of his mentally disturbed wife Liane, played by Diane Cilento.Â
The film also co-stars Cyril Cusack as Captain Ferris and Kieron Moore as Roscoe and is directed by Robert Stevens. (Suspense 1949, Never Love A Stranger 1958.
“Love can make a killer out of a woman… and a fool out of any man!”
In a small Texas town, M. Emmett Walsh plays the ruthless and unsavory cowboy hat wearing, cigarette flickin’ Loren Visser, the Private ‘Dick’ who surly club owner Julian Marty (Dan Hedaya) hires to shadow his unfaithful wife Abby played by Francis McDormand. Abby’s been stepping out with quiet, soft spoken bar tender Ray played by John Getz.
Jealousy, human cruelty, repressive machismo, and a lack of morality send the players into a whirlwind of stunning events. Ethan and Joel Coen wrote, produced, and directed this starkly gripping Neo Noirish thriller with a streak of mucky black humor and fine performances, that manages to paint an environment of alienation and passionless rage. The film creates a disturbing atmosphere of an Americana hell.
A quiet little masterpiece of suspense and mayhem, from the prolific brothers Coen!
Walsh is masterful as the sweaty, pale, and flabby lurking beast who manages to attract flies to his sweat-beaded forehead, and has the self-composure to not even swat them away. The impression is that he is human garbage that attracts flies, yet is comfortable understanding his place in this world. His cool and sardonic demeanor begins to unwind as the events spiral out of control, and the unrestrained beast within starts to emerge. Visser is truly a memorable fiend of the film!
A night of tension… a moment of madness… and now he is at the edge of fury.
Michael Higgins plays a very disturbed young man named Richard Barrie who after being released from an institution, insinuates himself into the Hackett family. Edge of Fury is a very taut and disturbing thriller based on the book “Wisteria Cottage” by Robert Coates. Higgins plays a remorseless young beachcomber with psychopathic tendencies who assumes the guise of a friend to a mother and her two daughters who reside in their summer cottage.
“Edge of Fury” (1958) is a crime /noir film that takes viewers on a twisted journey into the mind of a psychopathic young man named Richard, brilliantly portrayed by Michael Higgins. who is a beachcomber with a troubled past, cunningly befriends a mother and her two daughters who are enjoying their summer at a picturesque seaside home.
Under the guise of friendship, Richard insinuates himself into their lives, gradually revealing his sinister intentions. As his true nature begins to surface, tensions rise, and a deadly game of manipulation ensues. The once-idyllic summer home becomes a battleground where survival is at stake.
Driven by a chilling performance from Michael Higgins, “Edge of Fury” delves into the dark recesses of the human psyche, exploring the depths of Richard’s psychopathy and the unsuspecting family’s fight for survival. With each twist and turn, the film keeps audiences on the edge of their seats, weaving a thrilling tale of suspense, deception, and the terrifying consequences of crossing paths with a disturbed mind.
Directed by Irving Lerner, “Edge of Fury” stands as a classic noir thriller, offering a gripping exploration of the disturbing complexities of human behavior and the destructive power of a psychopath’s manipulation.
Directed by Irving Lerner & Robert J Gurney Jr. Also stars Lois Holmes as Florence Hackett, Jean Allison as Eleanor Hackett, and Doris Fesette as Louisa Hackett.
“If anything should happen tonight, if anything should happen, don’t blame me…if anything should happen, darling.”
