The Great Hammer-Amicus Antiques Expo

Regular readers of Films From Beyond are no doubt aware of the bizarre universe that parallels our own, where monsters are the norm (and not just members of the ruling class). Every once in awhile, yours truly is privileged to see through the fragile membrane that separates our universes and report back via this blog -- see my previous reports here and here.

Recently I scored a sensational exclusive: the transcript from the pilot episode of the Hammer-Amicus Antiques Expo, which unfortunately was not picked up by the network in its alternate universe and never saw any further development.

Inspired by this universe’s Antiques Roadshow from PBS, the Expo (or HAAE) invited select participants caught up in the frightful events documented by various Hammer and Amicus films to share their antique finds with the co-hosts, who were uniquely qualified to assess the cultural significance and value of the items. Collectors in-the-know have searched far and wide for a copy of the show’s tape, the original of which is thought to have been reused for an episode of Hammer's This Old House of Horror.

The videotape itself is likely lost to the ages, but after countless hours scouring eBoo, Eeksy and the darkest corners of the Dark Web, I finally secured a transcript of the episode, dog-eared and dusty, but nonetheless complete. Judge for yourself whether or not the monsterverse is immeasurably poorer because the Expo failed to become a full-fledged series.

Jimmy Sanguinarius: Welcome to this debut episode of the Hammer-Amicus Antiques Expo! I'm your host, Jimmy Sanguinarius, and please give a round of applause to my co-host, Robert Black!

Bob: Just call me Bob, Jimmy.

Jimmy: Okay Bob Jimmy! [Winks at Bob] Before we get rolling with our first frightful find, a bit of background. Bob and I are certified MADD - that's Macabre Antiques Dealers and Distributors for the uninitiated. We're here to help our guests uncover the bone-chilling back stories of their finds, and assess their meaning and worth on the open market.

Bob: I'd like to add that I'm excited to be here, and...

Jimmy: First up we have Mr. Van Helsing...

Van Helsing: Doctor Van Helsing.

Jimmy: Doctor Van Helsing. So Doc, what's your specialty?

Van Helsing: I am a doctor of vampirology. I study the scourge of the unholy undead who drink the blood of the living to sustain their infernal existence, and I use that knowledge to eradicate them and their hideous evil from the face of the earth!

Jimmy: Okaaaay... So Doc, what did you bring us?

Van Helsing: These silver candlesticks literally saved my life. I recently tracked down the most cunning and evil vampire of them all, Count Dracula, to his remote castle. We faced off in the Ballroom, and it was not going well for me until I seized upon the idea to tear open the window curtains to let in the dawn's light. Then I picked up the candlesticks, forming a cross -- vampires hate the symbol of our lord and savior -- which repelled him, backing him up into the cleansing light, whereupon he promptly disintegrated. So to me, these are priceless.

Jimmy: [Picking up one of the candlesticks] Okaaaay... first off Doc, these aren't silver, they're pewter, and fairly crude at that. Top grade silver candlesticks will usually have the initials of the silver smith etched into the underside of the base. [Turning one of the candlesticks over] This one says "Made in China," and there's a tag here reading "Property of Hammer Studios."  But all is not lost. These might fetch upwards of 10 bucks at a movie memorabilia auction. But I understand how they might be priceless to you. [Van Helsing's face falls].

"Careful Van Helsing, you're going to scratch that priceless set of candlesticks!" (Horror of Dracula, 1958)

Pewter prop candlesticks: $10

Jimmy: Okay then Bob, who's our next guest?

Bob: Well Jimmy...

Jimmy: Oh, I see someone has brought a human skull for us to examine -- cool! Let's have the owner of this fine specimen introduce himself.

Maitland: I'm Doctor Christopher Maitland...

Jimmy: Whoa, another doctor! Well Bob, I guess we don't have to ask if there's a doctor in the house if somebody faints at the sight of that skull! [Audience laughter]

Maitland: Actually, I'm a doctor of anthropology, as well as a connoisseur of the macabre and esoteric like yourselves.

Jimmy: I don't suppose you're an expert on vampires like our last guest..., wait a second this couldn't be the skull of that Count Dracula fellow, could it?

Maitland: Er, no, but someone just as notorious! This is the skull of none other than Donatien Alphonse François de Sade, the Marquis de Sade!

Jimmy: Oh wait, that's that French guy who invented sadism, am I right?

Bob: To be precise Jimmy, the term "sadism" comes from...

Jimmy: [Picking up the skull] So Doc, how did you come by this bad boy?

Bob: Careful there Jimmy, that skull is reputed to be possessed by the foul spirit of the Marquis de Sade, and is said to haunt and terrify anyone who comes in contact with it, to the point of madness... or even death!

Jimmy [carefully examining the skull]: He seems pretty harmless now... [Grinning] They say the eye sockets are the windows to the soul. So, what's up Doc?

Maitland: Er, uh, one of my associates took it off the hands of a collector who, shall we say, was ready to part with it.

Jimmy: How convenient! But Doc, you're looking a bit run down. I don't suppose you're anxious for someone else to take it off your hands?

Maitland: Well, I have been troubled by persistent nightmares that seem very real. And it doesn't help that some people I know have been dying recently...

Jimmy: Well, maybe we can turn that frown upside down. I don't see any "Made in China" tags on it, so that's a positive. I know quite a few collectors who would give their right arms, and maybe a few other body parts, to own the legit skull of the notorious Marquis, even with its cursed reputation. It could even be worth a cool million...

[Maitland breaks into a broad smile]

Jimmy: ... provided you came into possession of it legally, and you have all the documents proving its authenticity. [Maitland's face falls. Jimmy holds up the skull again.] Alas, poor Maitland, I knew he might be disappointed! 

"Here's looking at you kid!" (The Skull, 1965)

Skull of the Marquis de Sade: $0 - $1 million

Jimmy: Okay, Bob, we have time for one more guest -- who's it gonna be?

Bob: Jimmy, next up is Edward Charlton, and he's brought an item for us to reflect upon.

Jimmy: Ho ho, good one Bob! I see a cloudy antique mirror that looks like it could have come from a haunted house.

Charlton [sniffing contemptuously]: This piece is quite old and unique, a magnificent example of the Rococo style. I got it for a literal steal at a local curio shop. [Smiling wanly] But you're right about its appearance. Some friends and I were inspired to perform a seance after I acquired it.

Jimmy [sizing himself up in the mirror]: And how did that go?

Charlton: Well, er, we tried but couldn't summon up any interesting spirits. Some at the seance were a bit jumpy though.

Jimmy [staring into the mirror]: Either I've gotten a lot paler and have developed deep circles under my eyes, or there's some sort of entity living in this thing.

Bob [looking at he mirror over Jimmy's shoulder]: You're right Jimmy, there's a very agitated, malevolent spirit inside the mirror. It seems to be saying something... [Pauses] Uh oh, it says it wants to be freed from the mirror, and needs sacrifices -- human sacrifices -- to rejoin the world of the living.

Jimmy: Oh, that's a bummer Ed! That's gonna bring down the price at auction, and on top of that, you'll probably have to divvy up the proceeds with the entity. [Charlton's face falls] But you still might get a hundred bucks from a collector who doesn't believe in murderous ghosts that live in mirrors.

"So, if you buy the mirror I'll throw in this cool ceremonial knife..." ("The Gatecrasher" segment of From Beyond the Grave, 1974)

Antique mirror: $100

Jimmy: Well, that's all the time we have today. On behalf of Bob Black and myself, thanks to everyone for coming, and keep an eye out for those frightful antique finds -- you never know when we might roll into your town in the dead of the night!

This post was originally going to be part of the fifth Hammer-Amicus Blogathon hosted by Gill at Realweegiemidget Reviews and Barry at Cinematic Catharis, but I couldn't get my act together in time. Check out their sites and the blogathon from last year (click the image below):

"Mommie Dearest, please put down that axe!"

Now Playing: Strait-Jacket (1964)

Pros: Joan Crawford breathes wonderful, flamboyant life into the character of Lucy Harbin; Diane Baker is the perfect foil to Joan's histrionics.
Cons: Derivative of earlier films, even screenwriter Robert Bloch's own previous work.

Note:This is my contribution to the William Castle Blogathon, hosted by Joey at The Last Drive-in and Goregirl at her Dungeon. They've lined up an all-star cast of movie bloggers to storm the Castle for your entertainment and edification. Don't miss a single post!!

We're a fickle and petty lot, we commoners. When a new royal is born, we hang on every word of the talking, babbling heads of the 24 hour news outlets, and gorge on every image we can lay our bug eyes on:

• "Wow, doesn't she look absolutely fabulous even with that baby bump thing going!" 
• "She is just so brilliant for delivering a boy on the first go round!" 
• "Now remind me, where is this kid in the royal line of succession?"

And when these poor, overprivileged, overexposed creatures reveal themselves to be human just like the rest of us, we consume every sordid detail of every scandal large and small, and can't get enough of the humiliation and degradation.

• "Can you believe he went clubbing with that Russian ex-porn actress the other night?" 
• "Who in the world let him show up in that Charlie Chan costume for the Chinese ambassador's reception? Where are his handlers?" 
• "Did you see those beach photos of him with those rolls of fat? Why would show yourself in public if you were gonna let yourself go like that?"

But I suppose this is the price you pay for being the wealthiest, most glamorous public welfare recipients in the world. With apologies to all my readers in the UK, here in the good ol' U.S. of A. we have a much better system for anointing our royalty. At least until recently, qualifying for American nobility meant more than just being born into a certain family. You actually had to accomplish things, like building large profitable businesses, or playing a sport with consummate skill, or developing a screen persona that sold tickets by the millions. Better still, American nobles were crowned by the good, common people with their hard-earned money.

There was arguably no greater queen reigning over the country's Golden Age of movies than Joan Crawford -- and she "reigned" not once, but twice. In a prototypical rags to riches story, Lucille LeSeur, who had once worked with her mother in a laundry, parlayed her song and dance talents into a contract with MGM in the mid-'20s. (Joan Crawford, a name she disliked her entire career, was given to her early through a contest in Photoplay magazine.) Dissatisfied with the early roles the studio gave her, she tirelessly lobbied for bigger and better ones, to the point where, in 1932, she starred with such screen immortals as Greta Garbo and John Barrymore in MGM's lush, all-star picture Grand Hotel (1932).

The same year she was cited by the Motion Picture Herald as one of Hollywood's Top Ten Moneymaking Stars, and in 1937 Life magazine crowned her the "Queen of the Movies." But her first go round on the throne was to be short-lived. Even as Life was celebrating her screen royalty, her not-so-loyal subjects, the movie going public, were staying away from her pictures in droves. 1937's The Bride Wore Red was a huge flop for MGM, and she fell precipitously out of the money makers' top ten list, making instead the Independent Film Journal's list of actors and actresses labeled "box office poison."

Joan Crawford, circa 1934. "Bow before
the Queen you peasants!"
(Courtesy of Dr. Macro's High Quality Movie Scans)

Although she made something of a comeback in pictures like The Women (1939) and Strange Cargo (1940; with Clark Gable), her fate with MGM was sealed, and she left the studio in 1943 to sign with Warner Brothers. The move turned out to be the start of her new reign as Hollywood royalty. Against all odds, she secured the lead role in Mildred Pierce (1945) -- Bette Davis was the studio's first choice, but turned it down, and director Michael Curtiz wanted just about anybody but Joan. After collecting the Oscar for best actress, she appeared in a string of hits opposite some of the very best leading men of the era, including John Garfield in Humoresque (1946), Van Heflin in Possessed (1947), and Dana Andrews and Henry Fonda in Daisy Kenyon (1947).

Nothing lasts forever, and by the time she turned 50 in the '50s, the former screen queen had long been deposed, and was serving with the commoners in the antechambers of B movie melodramas. Of course, A-types like Joan don't just stop working, and like many aging actors and actresses of the time, her determination to keep making movies led her down some strange and interesting genre paths.

Years before the "Summer of Love," the riots at the 1968 Democratic Convention, and Woodstock, Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) ushered in America's most subversive decade. The brutality with which Hitch quickly dispatched starlet Janet Leigh in that film prefigured the passionate overturning of tradition and convention that would come to characterize the decade. The common folk had taken up their pitchforks, determined to storm the Hollywood palace and skewer any last vestige of the old glamor.

The skewering of the old icons was truly a sight to behold (and a lot of fun if you were in the right frame of mind). A few years after Psycho, director Robert Aldrich managed to get bitter real-life rivals Joan and Bette Davis into the same eccentric, neo-Gothic production, and somehow lived to tell the tale. What Ever Happened to Baby Jane (1964) was a very dark epitaph for the old Hollywood system, turning the two former glamor queens into repulsive hags who just happened to be … you guessed it … faded actresses. Its success at the box office spawned a wave of neo-Gothics featuring aging glamor queens in unflattering and sometimes grotesque roles: Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964, with Bette Davis and Olivia DeHavilland), The Night Walker (1964, with Barbara Stanwyck and Robert Taylor), What's the Matter with Helen? (1971, with Debbie Reynolds and Shelley Winters), and many more.

Joan herself made more then her share of these things. She almost teamed up again with nemesis Bette in Hush…Hush, but when she took ill (some say after being unmercifully harassed by Davis), she was unceremoniously dumped from the production in favor of Olivia DeHavilland. No matter, she managed to appear in several more memorable (and not-so-memorable) horror-thrillers through the end of the decade, unfortunately culminating with the execrable Trog (1970), her last feature film role.

Joan suddenly realizes that her career has taken a turn
for the worse, and she's now starring in B horror movies.

Of these, Strait-Jacket is by far the best and most fun. Written by Psycho author Robert Bloch and produced and directed by the circus ringmaster of B horror movies, William Castle, Strait-Jacket features a dual role of sorts for Joan. In the movie's prologue, we're introduced to lusty, working class gal Lucy Harbin in a flashback sequence narrated by her daughter Carol (Diane Baker). Lucy makes her grand entrance to the sound of a train whistle and a bleating saxophone: "Lucy Harbin, born and raised on a farm, parents poor, education meager, very much a woman, and very much aware of the fact."

This Lucy, wearing too much makeup, a hideous print dress, cheap, jangling bracelets, and high-heeled shoes, confidently struts her stuff -- until she catches her no-good second husband (Lee Majors in an early uncredited role), seven years her junior, in bed with a former girlfriend. With young Carol watching, she cuts off this liaison for good with several well-aimed axe strokes. Cut to Lucy twenty years later (okay, okay, enough with the cheap puns!), after she's been released from the asylum to the care of her farmer brother and sister-in-law. She's now haggard, grey-haired, meek, and depressed, wearing a dress that looks like it was made out of an old sack. Both Lucys are a far cry from the sleek, chic glamor roles of Crawford's heyday. Moviegoers of the '60s, especially the drive-in crowd, did their best imitation of French revolutionary peasants, spurning the high class glamor crap and screaming "off with their heads!"

Jolly, cigar-chomping William Castle was always happy to feed the riffraff their red meat in the form of B movie horrors. He combined an innate instinct for mass taste with P.T. Barnum-like promotions, starting with an insurance policy against death by fright for his first breakout hit Macabre (1958), and following up with such gimmicks as floating skeletons and theater seat buzzers that were employed during the high points of his 1959 films House on Haunted Hill and The Tingler.

By 1964 and Strait-Jacket, Castle had dispensed with the gimmicks, and was content to follow the successful Baby Jane formula of featuring former A-list leading actors and actresses in B thrillers. The formula was indeed successful, enough so that for his next project, Castle secured not one but two fading A-listers, Barbara Stanwyck and Robert Taylor (see my earlier post on The Night Walker). In spite of the difficulties in working with the imperious Joan (more on that later), Castle, under pressure to have a big name in the credits, enlisted her yet again for I Saw What You Did (1965) with John Ireland. Although the role was a small one and she's killed off pretty quickly (a bit of director's revenge?), she reportedly got as much for it, $50K, as she did for the far meatier role in Strait-Jacket. [John W. Law, Scare Tactic: The Life and Films of William Castle, Writers Club Press, 2000.]

Estranged mother and daughter bond over a cool, refreshing bottle of Pepsi.
(Joan was on the board of PepsiCo at the time, thus the product placement.)

Strait-Jacket, while not innovative or particularly surprising, sets itself apart from the run-of-the-mill B thriller by exploiting the deep-seated fears we all (or at least most of us) have about our place in society. It's a horror story about social class as much as it is about mental illness. Both incarnations of Lucy -- the brash, lusty broad from the wrong side of the tracks, and the quietly grim ex-mental patient -- are awkward and stick out like a sore thumb in polite society. By contrast, her daughter Carol, in spite of having witnessed her mother's gruesome killings 20 years earlier, is seemingly happy and well-adjusted, not to mention gorgeous.

Carol lives contentedly on a small farm with her aunt and uncle (Emily and Bill Cutler, played by Rochelle Hudson and Leif Erickson), has converted one of the farm sheds into a sculpture studio, and is on the verge of getting engaged to the handsome son of one of the richest men in the county (Michael Fields, played by John Anthony Hayes). At the point where it seems life couldn't get any better for Carol, Mommie Dearest shows up, fresh from the sanitarium and wearing a sack-cloth dress and a frown.

At first, Carol reacts coldly to this veritable stranger, but then, taking pity on her haggard mom, decides to turn the frown upside down. She takes Lucy into town to go shopping and get a makeover. The result is almost an exact copy of the old five and dime sultry dame, right down to the noisy, jangling costume jewelry and the dreadful print dress. But Lucy's newfound joy and vigor don't last for long. She has nightmares, waking up next to the headless bodies of her victims from 20 years ago. She imagines that children playing in the street are chanting the Lizzie Bordon nursery rhyme, updated specifically for her. The doctor from the asylum who pays a surprise visit to check up on her suddenly, mysteriously turns up missing. She completely blows her first meeting with Carol's prospective fiance, drinking too much, playing music too loud, and coming on to the young man in spite of herself. And most terrifyingly, she learns that she will be meeting Michael's rich, snooty parents at their house for cocktails and dinner.

Somehow, Castle got permission from the bigwigs at distributor Columbia Pictures
to cut their icon's head off at the end of the film.

Yep, we've all been there, playing the role of the awkward outsider at a gathering of chic, self-confident people who are much, much better than we are. Short of having your head lopped off with an axe, few things are more uncomfortable. And though there are a number of bloody murders throughout the film, none are as cringe-inducing as the scene in which a flat-out drunk Lucy slobbers over Carol's weirded-out fiance. Thankfully, Joan goes right up to the edge of overplaying the part but never quite oversteps, and Lucy keeps our sympathy throughout the film. (Diane Baker also plays her role to near perfection. Underneath the pretty, smiling, forgiving daughter act lurks something not so pretty or forgiving. At first, the bright white headband that she wears throughout much of the film seems like a symbolic halo. By the end of the film, we're thinking it's a device for keeping her head from exploding…)

Apparently the former glamor queen had the normally ebullient Bill Castle cringing (and perhaps bowing and scraping) throughout the production. IMDb's trivia section for the film is filled with her demands and conditions:

• She had script and cast approval. 
• She had a fellow Pepsi board member and vice-president of the company, Mitchell Cox, play the asylum doctor. 
• She had a carton of Pepsi displayed prominently in an early kitchen scene (an early product placement!). 
• She had the actress originally slated to play daughter Carol fired. Diane Baker stepped in front of the cameras only a day after she accepted the role.

And according to John Law, she forced Castle to adopt the A-list way of making movies:

"'Joan asked me when you plan to start rehearsals," asked [Associate Producer] Holloway to Castle. 'Rehearsals?' hollered Castle. 'Who said anything about rehearsals? I just want to start shooting…. No goddamn rehearsals. I never have rehearsals before I shoot!' But this time he would. On an empty stage with only folding chairs, the cast began rehearsals for the film." [Ibid.]

Joan admires her beautiful, glamorous former self in
the tacked-on ending of Strait-Jacket.

More momentous still, she had the ending of the film changed. The film was originally supposed to end with a very effective close-up of Carol/Diane Baker. Her Highness had a scene tacked on in which Lucy desultorily sums up the nefarious goings-on in a discussion with her brother. In a Joan Crawford picture, no younger, prettier actress was going to steal the final scene! (Interestingly in this scene, Joan's character, once more dressed primly and clearly showing her age, poses with a glamorous bust of herself. For the storyline, the sculpture was fashioned by Carol, but in real life, it was done by Yugoslav artist Yucca Salamunich, and presented to Joan on the set of A Woman's Face, 1941. For a moment, Crawford seems to be lost in reverie, dreaming of the days when she ruled the silver screen.)

The axe murders in Strait-Jacket are almost incidental. The real fun is in watching Joan and Diane Baker go toe-to-toe, Mommie Dearest-style. I suspect Producer/Director/Showman Bill Castle scarcely knew what he was getting into when he signed Joan, but the results are a very worthy addition to his cinematic B ring circus.

---

Where to find it:

Amazon Instant Video

Amazon (The William Castle Collection)


"So shocking, it slashes through the limits of suspense!"

Guise and Dolls

Now Playing: The Psychopath (1966)

Pros: Colorful, quirky characters; Nicely staged climax and a particularly creepy ending
Cons: Some egregious over-acting; Pointless lovers' subplot slows things down

What is it about dolls that causes an involuntary shudder in many of us? Have you ever been in a toy store, or worse yet, a semi-darkened room, and seen a particularly hideous specimen propped up in the corner, its stubby plastic or porcelain fingers almost seeming to move, its sightless glass eyes staring at you? Have you ever thought to yourself, or said half-jokingly to the person standing next to you-- "that thing frightens me!"

In an earlier post on the TV movie Dark Night of the Scarecrow (1981), I speculated that somewhere in the deepest, darkest recesses of the Id, we all harbor the atavistic belief that figures made to look like a man or an animal can somehow be invested with the spirit or power of the thing being represented. The most obvious example of such sympathetic or imitative magic is the voodoo doll, which can be used to gain power over the person depicted.

Then there's the spooky feeling you get when you happen to glance into the black cutout holes that are supposed to be the scarecrow's eyes, or the fixed, staring glass eyes of a doll, and for just the briefest moment you think you see some sort of life there, possibly malevolent. Filmmakers have been playing on this atavistic fear for a very long time. There have been possessed dolls (Trilogy of Terror, 1975; Dolls, 1987; Child's Play, 1988), possessed ventriloquist's dummies (Dead of Night, 1945; Devil Doll, 1964; Magic, 1978), possessed puppets (Asylum, 1972; Puppetmaster, 1989) and even people that have been turned into dolls (The Devil-Doll, 1936).

A recent and very funny example of this fixation is an ad for the U.S. postal service, in which the ever-helpful mailman assures a frightened family that they can quickly and economically return a creepy clown doll that seems to have a life of its own:



Dolls figure very prominently in the eerie atmosphere of The Psychopath, but in this case they are not possessed themselves, but rather are the tools of a person possessed by madness. The film begins with a well-dressed man carrying a violin case preparing to get into his car, then discovering to his great irritation that it has a flat tire. Shrugging his shoulders, he starts walking. As he wends his way through dark alleys, apparently looking for a shortcut to his destination, we see several quick shots of a small red car following him. He pops into yet another alley, then, realizing it's a dead end, turns around. The car's high beams hit him like a slap in the face, and he throws an arm up to shield his eyes. Trapped in the dead-end alley, he drops his violin and waves his arms frantically as the car bears down on him. We see the violin case crushed under the car's tires, then flattened a second time as the car lurches forward and backs up again. As the car screeches off, the unseen driver drops a doll -- an exact replica of the victim down to his coat and tie -- onto the smashed remnants of the violin case.

Cut to a genteel, well-appointed drawing room, where we see a close-up of an empty chair with sheet music lying on it. The camera tracks back to reveal three well-heeled men playing a nice classical piece for string quartet. We know what's happened to the fourth member. The stark contrast of the dark, grimy alley where the murder occurs to the well-lit, refined atmosphere of wealthy privilege is nicely done, along with the subtle reveal of the victim's intended destination.

As the quartet "jam" session is breaking up, police inspector Holloway (Patrick Wymark) shows up at the residence with information that their fourth member had been found murdered at 8 that evening -- run over by a car several times. He starts grilling the assembled amateur musicians and other guests about their whereabouts, and they furnish him with a variety of alibis for the 8 o'clock hour. In an odd bit of business, the inspector lets them have their say, then reveals as he gets up to leave that the body was only found at 8 o'clock-- the coroner had determined time of death at around 7.

Inspector Holloway (Patrick Wymark) interviews the widow Von
Sturm (Margaret Johnston) surrounded by her "friends"

Through inquiries to various toy and doll shops, the police determine that a number of doll bodies identical to the one dumped at the murder scene were delivered to the residence of Mrs. Von Sturm (Margaret Johnston), widow of a WWII era German industrialist. Holloway pays Von Sturm a visit, and finds an eccentric, wheelchair-bound woman who has surrounded herself with dolls of every size, shape and description. When Holloway shows her the murder scene doll and asks her if she's ever made one like it, she immediately recognizes it as Rinehart Clemmer, her solicitor. The widow breaks down when she learns of Clemmer's death, so her son Mark (John Standing) takes over the interview with Holloway. He explains that Clemmer was the legal representative for his industrialist father's estate in Germany. The elder Von Sturm had been accused by an allied commission of using slave labor in his factories during the war, and had committed suicide in prison. Clemmer had been retained to clear the Von Sturm name, but according to Mark, had given up years ago without telling his mother, supposedly so as not to dash her hopes. Mark explains to Holloway that her world collapsed when her husband died, and she's since created a new one out of her imagination. "The dolls are her friends," he says, grinning, "the dolls and me."

Pretty soon we find out that the upstanding citizens and amateur musicians that Clemmer had been friendly with were -- you guessed it -- members of the very commission that condemned Von Sturm and seized his extensive holdings. There are rumors that the commission manufactured the evidence against the industrialist to get their grubby mitts on his money. And yes, you guessed it again-- soon they're bumped off one by one, each murder scene, like Clemmer's, marked with a doll uncannily fashioned to look exactly like the victim. To add variety to the proceedings, each self-satisfied ex-commissioner is dispatched with a different method-- by car, poison, hanging and **gulp** blowtorch. Another potential witness is stabbed to death, and the police inspector himself is almost blown up in his own car.

Martin Roth (Thorley Walters) stares into the face of death:
a doll uncannily fashioned in his own likeness.

Screenwriter Robert Bloch (of Psycho fame) throws in a number of red herrings and misdirections that don't fool the viewer for a minute (and aren't really intended to). Louise Saville (Judy Huxtable), the daughter of one of the retired commissioners, Frank Saville (Alexander Knox), just happens to be a doll designer. When poison is implicated in one murder, the inspector starts grilling her fiance Donald (Don Borisenko), who happens to be a medical student with knowledge of and access to such things. Even one of the surviving (up to that point) ex-commissioners, Victor Ledoux (Robert Crewdson), is a sculptor who is very good at fashioning human likenesses, especially faces. Bloch has fun flinging around the red herrings even as he sets the plot grinding to an inevitable and obvious, yet disturbing, conclusion. It's a bit like a surreal, cinematic version of the game Clue -- "I'll take Ledoux with the rope in the artist's studio."

The strength of The Psychopath is not in a "keep 'em guessing" mystery plot, but in the well-crafted creepy atmosphere and eccentric characters (due in no small part to the talents of director Freddie Francis and cinematographer John Wilcox). There's the imperious businessman Frank Saville (Alexander Knox) who wears his smug self-satisfaction with the same panache that he wears his elegant smoking jacket. There's the portly, nervous solicitor Roth (Thorley Walters) who jumps at the sight of his own shadow. Robert Crewdson plays the debonair sculptor Ledoux with a thick French accent and heavy dose of insouciance. Mark (John Standing), the industrialist's son and professional mama's boy, is immaculate with his perfect blonde haircut and tight-fitting black leather jacket. When he grins at the inspector, you know there's something not quite right with that boy. But the eccentric prize (a big honey-baked ham) goes to the widow Von Sturm (Margaret Johnston), who goes from cooing at her large collection of dolls, to weeping uncontrollably, to rolling her eyes and gnashing her teeth. It's either fun or appalling to watch depending on your frame of mind.

Mother and son have a heart-to-heart talk.

Regardless, the widow figures into some of the more effective, chilling scenes. When the inspector first comes to call, he enters a huge, cavernous room with hundreds of dolls occupying almost every square inch of floor space. He calls out for Mrs. Von Sturm. There's a stirring, almost as if the dolls themselves were coming to life. After a few moments, she wheels herself out from among her silent plastic and porcelain friends, looking almost like a large, demented doll herself. In another very effective scene, she pays a visit to Frank Saville's home in the dead of night. Frank stands at the head of the stairs, peering into the gloom of his spacious front hallway. He takes a few fearful, tentative steps down the stairs. "Who's there?" A barely-perceptible figure in a wheelchair rolls forward into a patch of moonlight. "Take a good look…" Von Sturm hisses, her face contorted with malice.

In the midst of all these bizarre characters, Patrick Wymark's Inspector Holloway is an island of calm, unflappable British reserve. It's a good acting job and a nice touch, with the quiet competence of the Inspector standing in stark contrast to the hysterical aberrations of the other characters.

Also noteworthy is Elisabeth Lutyen's original music-- the simple, chilling nursery music for a madhouse is used very effectively in the titles and at key points in the film.

While more than a few precious minutes of film time are wasted on an uninteresting side story about Saville's disapproval of his daughter's American fiancee, and there are parts that get overly talky, you'll want to stick it out for the nightmarish conclusion. Without spoiling it, let's just say that, like Psycho, this film manages to raise the gooseflesh with a simple (?) shot of a person sitting in a chair. Overall, The Psychopath is a very worthy member of the Psycho-imitators club, bringing a number of unique, creepy touches and stylistic flourishes to the subgenre.

Sadly, this one is very hard to find, and there's no U.S. DVD release that I'm aware of. I saw it on TCM Underground (Friday nights). At the moment, the full movie is available on YouTube (see below). Catch it before some grumpy rights-holder forces YouTube to take it down.

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Where to find it:

YouTube