Going Mad

 

 (goodreads.com)

SOFI-1968-This is a one man filmed version of the Gogol story “Diary Of a Madman”. From his dingy cellar living quarters, a nameless clerk (Tom Troupe) writes in his diary (with overdubbed thoughts) and speaks directly to the camera, ranting about his menial job, the disrespect he must endure and his infatuation for his boss’ daughter. Occasionally he talks to a puppet. He goes madder with each scene and imagines he’s the son of the king of Spain. Later he's put in an asylum and believes all human noses are on the moon. Nice tour de force acting. 

 (themoviedb)

The director Robert Carlisle was the sfx editor on IT! THE TERROR FROM BEYOND SPACE (1958)!

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Subliminal Terror

TERROR IN THE HAUNTED HOUSE-1958-Sheila (Cathy O'Donnell) has been having the same mysterious dream her whole life. A old house with the name Tierney on the outside. She goes up the stairs “where death awaits her”. She tells this to a psychiatrist in Switzerland just before she and her husband Philip (familiar character and voice actor Gerald Mohr) leave for America. Phil seems loving but some things he says also sound sinister. He takes her to  a secluded house in Florida so she can get some rest. Guess what? It's the same house from her dreams! Caretaker Jonah (John Qualen) says he's waiting for the original owners to come back. They decide to leave but wouldn't you know it...someone tampered with their car engine. Phil blames Jonah but it was Phil who was out there alone while getting their bags. Later Jonah tells Sheila that the previous owners were known as “The Mad Tierneys”. At night Sheila hears a scream, sees a figure at the window (“a hideous inhuman face”) and is chased by Jonah's dog (which seems to obey Phillip). After finding evidence that hubby is responsible for the car not running, she prowls around, sees the stairs in her dream and faints. The next day she accuses Phil and he leaves in a huff. Then a guy named Snell (William Ching) shows up and claims to own the house and the couple are there without permission. Later Sheila finds out from Jonah that grandpa Tierney killed most of his family and that Snell and Phil, the last of the Tierneys, are cousins. When it seems like Phil tries to kill his wife with a faulty chandelier, Snell tells Sheila about a strain of madness that only gets stronger with age. 

Despite its low budget this little psychological mystery keeps you guessing right up to the finale. Aka MY WORLD DIES SCREAMING, the original version used subliminal images to scare viewers. Rhino Video later acquired it and released it with their own messages. Director Harold Daniels made BAYOU the year before also with Cathy O'Donnell.

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Somehow They Finished It

EYE OF THE DEVIL-1966-David Niven plays Philippe de Montfaucon who returns to his family vineyard at Castle Bellenac to help when the crops fail. He leaves his wife Catherine (Deborah Kerr) and children behind but they soon follow and Catherine sees many strange things including a weird ceremony involving the killing of a dove. Later she is menaced by Odile de Caray (Sharon Tate with dubbed voice) and her bow and arrow toting brother Christian (David Hemmings). Donald Pleasance is the "out there" priest who talks mysteriously and watches while Philippe whips Odile after she nearly kills Catherine Flora Robson is Philippe's "I don't want to be involved anymore" sister. Later Catherine is terrorized in the woods by some cloaked figures. After Philippe drugs her and padlocks her in her room, she escapes and discovers a family secret involving witchcraft, pagan rituals and murder although the real culprit seems to be be madness. Edward Mulhare has a small role as a family friend.

EYE is alright for a while but it's drawn out and talky at times. Niven seems to be sleep walking through the whole thing. It seems to have been inspired in part by Henry James and may have had an influence on the later THE WICKER MAN.

Originally Kim Novak was cast as Catherine and most of her scenes were finished however production was shut down when she left the film. One story is she was injured when she fell off a horse. Another says she had a falling out with the producer Martin Ransohoff. Whatever, Deborah Kerr was hired and all of Novak's scenes were re-shot. Michael Anderson (AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS) started the film then was replaced by Sidney Furie and Arthur Hiller. Credited director J. Lee Thompson finished it. Some prints say 13 (the film's original title) at the end.

Kerr and Niven were reunited the next year in CASINO ROYALE.

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They Got The Clap!

DAMAGED LIVES-1933-The great Edgar Ulmer made this cautionary exploitation drama a year before his horror masterpiece THE BLACK CAT. 

Donald Bradley, a young businessman (Lyman Williams) gets a venereal disease from a one night stand with a woman he meets at a party. He gets married to his fiancee, Joan (Diane Sinclair) and passes it on to her. 

He visits the famous doctor Leonard (Murray Kinnell) who gives him a tour of patients who have long term disabilities from the effects of untreated VD. Madness, blindness, body sores are some of the results. Their family doctor (Jason Robards Sr.) tries to cheer them up but then he won't even let his young son kiss Joan. After she tries to commit suicide and take hubby with her they realize everything will be ok (the medical treatment cure them will take two years) and they live happily ever after. It's based on a French play. 

You can read more about the author of the play here:

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eug%C3%A8ne_Brieux

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Japan

A PAGE OF MADNESS-1926-This silent film from Japan was once thought to b lost. I'm glad someone found it. It has no titles however and is a bit hard to follow. I admit there were a few bits I wasn't quite sure about until I did some research. 

A janitor works at an insane asylum to be near is wife, an inmate. One day their daughter comes to the place to visit the mother unaware who her father is. Flashbacks tell a back story as to how the mother wound up an inmate and why the father isn't recognized. Other parts seem to be a dream. It features incredible haunting scenes of patient madness and eerie surreal imagines. 

Some critics compare it (usually unfavorably) to THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI. I can't agree. This stands on it's own. Director Teinosuke Kinugasa made many more films including GATE OF HELL in the sound era.

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The Horror! The Daughter of Horror!

DEMENTIA/DAUGHTER OF HORROR-1955-”Come with me into the tormented haunted half lit night of the insane. This is my world. Let me lead you into it. Let me take you into the mind of a woman who is mad”. 

So says the unnamed narrator of this weird low budget quickie (this version runs 55 mins.) that seems to have inspiration from both German expressionism and Ed Wood! It features no spoken dialogue, only narration (dementedly provided by Johnny Carson's future late night sidekick Ed McMahon!)

An insane woman called The Gamin (we know she's insane because the narrator says so) wakes up in bed fully clothed. She goes to a dresser draw, pulls out a stiletto and smiles. After encountering a child and seeing a wife beater arrested in the hall of her apartment she buys a newspaper from a smiling dwarf (who else but Angelo Rossitto?) with the headline: “Mysterious Stabbing”. The look on her face seems to say she knows all about it already. She walks down a dark alley and when a street drunk harasses her a police detective (Ben Roseman) viciously beats the drunk with a blackjack while she laughs insanely. Then she encounters a well dressed sleaze with a pencil thin mustache who tries to put the moves on her. After buying a flower from a haunted looking flower lady the detective introduces her to The Rich Man (Bruno Ve Sota). The Rich Man takes her to dinner, then a bar and finally a nightclub (the police detective is also hanging out there) where The Rich Man stares  obsessively at a dancer. This all goes on with no dialogue what so ever. Only music and a few sound effects! The mysterious narrator then returns while the pair are driving in The Rich Man's car to inform us that The Gamin is going to have a flashback about her parents. And what a flashback! 

It takes place in a graveyard! Here we learn how her abusive drunken father (who looks like the police detective) murdered her slutty mother after he finds a cigar in an ashtray (apparently dad doesn't smoke) and then she stabs her father to death! We also meet a hooded figure in a suit with a lantern who calls himself (?) "the demon who possesses your soul". He has the voice of the narrator so now we know who's relating the whole thing...

Later she and the Rich Man go to his apartment (the detective is watching them the whole time). He plays the piano and she fixes him a drink but he's more interested in the meal his butler brings him. After nourishment it's time for hanky-panky. But our heroine will have none of it. When he tries to kiss her she stabs him and pushes him out a window. His butler doesn't seem bothered. He just laughs. She runs away but then realizes when she stabbed the Rich Man he grabbed a pendant she was wearing around her neck. Fortunately, she happens to run right into his dead body with the pendant still clutched in his hand! Despite the corpse being surrounded by "the ghouls of insanity" she gets the medallion back but only after cutting off the hand that holds it. She runs away again but the police detective is following her. She escapes him and ditches the severed hand in the flower lady's basket. 

When she is finally trapped in an alley, she is saved by the sleazy guy with the pencil thin mustache who takes her into a night club he owns. He magically dresses her in a gown while Shorty Rogers and His Giants play on stage. She goes out to meet the denizens of the club who are either passed out drunk or jiving spasmodically. Comedian Shelly Bergman (perhaps the only one still alive associated with the production...?) appears briefly as a very frantic one. The Gamin gets into the groove and joins the band on stage. Then the police detective shows up and displays some handcuffs. Once again her madness takes over and everyone in the club accuses her. The Rich Man (minus his hand) even shows up to mock her! Everyone crowds in on her with clutching hands and bizarre close-ups and flashbacks occur. Suddenly she wakes up in bed. Was it only a dream? She opens the dresser draw and there is her pendant wrapped in a severed hand and it's alive!

For years the only thing I knew about DOH is the clutching hand scene which is being shown on screen in the movie theater (the marquee also says BRIDE OF THE MONSTER is showing) in THE BLOB. It's really a weirdly avant garde film noir that's saved by it's short running time. The images presented are strange and must have taken many an audience in the 50's by surprise. 

I read a number of stories about credited director John Parker the most persistent being that he didn't actually exist and featured player Bruno Ve Sota actually made DAUGHTER OF HORROR. But more recent research seems to say that Parker was real and wrote and produced it while Ve Sota "probably" directed it. 

Lead Actress Adrienne Barrett may have been Parker's secretary. IMDB says she made only one more movie THE MORE THINGS CHANGE...31 years later! But since that movie is an Australian production I wonder if it's the same actress? A lot can happen in 31 years I guess. Jazz trumpeter Shorty Rogers was a very well known musician and later became a composer and arranger. He even arranged Ex-Monkee Mike Nesmith's first solo album in 1967. Ve Sota (who's real life wife Jebbie plays the flower girl) appeared in low budget movies and TV. He is the credited director on 3 films including the much maligned but great THE BRAIN EATERS! 

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I'm Back!

SECRET WINDOW-2004-Yet another Stephen King adaptation saved mostly by Johnny Depp's performance in the lead. He plays writer Mort Rainey who six months after catching his wife (Maria Bello)with her lover (Timothy Hutton) in a hotel bedroom, lives alone in a small New England town. An Amish like farmer (John Turturro) accuses him of plagiarism. After that Rainey's life begins to unravel and some deaths occur. It's very reminiscent of another King story THE DARK HALF (which George Romero made into a movie in 1993 that starred Hutton) and the whole thing is very predictable. The director David Koepp also made STIR OF ECHOES and wrote several major screen plays including JURASSIC PARK, CARLITO'S WAY, MISSION IMPOSSIBLE, SPIDER-MAN and WAR OF THE WORLDS.

SLASHER-(2004)-Despite it’s title this is not a horror movie. In fact it’s actually a documentary directed by John Landis about a super car salesman named Michael Bennett who’s brought in by local car dealers to get rid of their over stocked cars. The guy knows his craft and talks the talk really working hard to sell the unwanted cars. He drinks a lot of beer when not working but does seem to be doing it all to support his family. The customers however don’t need much convincing. They all think they are getting something for nothing!

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