This week on SVENGOOLIE...

[RedRiver]

spoiling her son, as though his unchecked boyish high spirits were really the cause of his becoming one of the "undead."

Maybe that's what happened to Mitt Romney.

the Baron's hair threw me. In my mind's eye, I have never pictured a vampire with a blonde pompadour held in place with an entire can of Final Net

Yes, he looked more a candidate for Hullabaloo than Hammer!

Do you get Me-TV?

Does anybody?

[MikeBSG]

Moira, apparently the publicity for "Brides of Dracula" made a big deal about the vampire being a blond male. Some critics see the film as important in sexualizing the vampire more than earlier films in that the vampire Baron is young (compared to Lugosi, Carradine and even Lee.)

As you said, Cushing is better than the film. I think three sets of writers worked on the screenplay, and it shows.

[RedRiver]

I'm tramatized! I might not get to watch the delightfully campy I SAW WHAT YOU DID. I have a commitment I can't get out of. Don't even talk to me about DVR. I'm still getting the hang of the waffle iron! Maybe I'll get home in time to watch it. Or at least, part of it. If not, I'll have to order the video. I've come to close to let it go now.

Anyone who's available, and has access to Svengoolie's silly program, do yourself a favor. Make time for this exciting, melodramatic, perfectly William Castle-ish carnival ride. It's sensational. Literally!

[moira finnie]

Moira, apparently the publicity for "Brides of Dracula" made a big deal about the vampire being a blond male. Some critics see the film as important in sexualizing the vampire more than earlier films in that the vampire Baron is young (compared to Lugosi, Carradine and even Lee.)

I guess that may have been true, though I think Oliver Reed's troubled youthful werewolf in The Curse of the Werewolf (1961) really kicked Hammer's libido-tickling flicks into high (profitable) gear.

As you said, Cushing is better than the film.

Isn't he always?

I think three sets of writers worked on the screenplay, and it shows.

Of the four scenarists mentioned in the credits of this movie, the man who may have helped make Hammer movies memorable, Jimmy Sangster, was a name jumped out at me. He only died last year, but of the interviews I've read with Hammer filmmakers he seemed to be the most honest about injecting a bit of "slap and tickle" into the proceedings, as he put it in one of his interviews.

I'm tramatized! I might not get to watch the delightfully campy I SAW WHAT YOU DID. I have a commitment I can't get out of. Don't even talk to me about DVR. I'm still getting the hang of the waffle iron! Maybe I'll get home in time to watch it. Or at least, part of it. If not, I'll have to order the video. I've come to close to let it go now.

Anyone who's available, and has access to Svengoolie's silly program, do yourself a favor. Make time for this exciting, melodramatic, perfectly William Castle-ish carnival ride. It's sensational. Literally!

Okay, message received, Red...must see I Saw What You Did (1965), but please tell me that Joan doesn't run around with an axe in this one?

If I can operate a DVR, pal, so can you, believe me.

UPDATE!!: TCM is showing this movie on Sat. July 28, 2012 at 10:30pm ET

[RedRiver]

Well, I got home in time to see most of it. Missed the shower scene, unfortunately. (Personal hygiene must have gone way down in the 1960's!) But I enjoyed what I saw. This just might be the incorrigible Mr. Castle's most tightly crafted, sizzlingly satisfying shocker. Almost every frame enhances either the plot or the atmosphere. The sophomoric acting and juke box style soundtrack merely add to the fun. This adorable thriller is B filmmaking at it's finest.

No, Moira, Mommy Dearest doesn't wield an axe in this one. But, well...let's just say it's not a quiet evening in the suburbs! What hurts is, I told several educated, artistically inclined people the movie was playing. They had never heard of it. Ouch!

"I saw what you did. And I know who you are!"

[MikeBSG]

Moira, in the department of "more than anyone needed to know about the horror film," I have to say that "Curse of the Werewolf" was a box office flop. While it didn't hurt Reed's career, Hammer never again made another werewolf film. "Demons of the Mind" (1973) looks like it might be a werewolf film, but it is really only about hereditary insanity. Werewolf movies never became popular until 1981 when "The Howling" and "American Werewolf in London" came out.

[moira finnie]

Well, I can tell you Ollie's turn as a misunderstood Werewolf was a big hit in my house! Nowadays, I can see how cheesy it all is, but it had something, even if it didn't make a buck back in the day. Now I would say that it is a cult classic.

[RedRiver]

Are there well adjusted werewolves? No issues?

[moira finnie]

Are there well adjusted werewolves? No issues?

The well-adjusted ones have electrolosis and take Prozac when the moon is bright. Werewolves are surprisingly poor on follow-up due to that notoriously poor memory of the nights when they howl, so to speak.



I did see I Saw What You Did (1965). What a fine case history documenting the poor development of the frontal lobe in the adolescent brain! This cautionary tale centers around the horseplay that two teenage friends get up to using the telephone to harass the squares (adults) by dialing numbers anonymously and pretending to know them, leading them into making fools of themselves. Since the parents of two of the girls are out and the other's father believes an adult is in the home, they are left on their own, playing their game until they reach a dangerous character who believes them when they say "I saw what you did. I know who you are."

For once, William Castle actually went into production with a finished script by someone who knew how to build suspense, William McGivern (who wrote the screenplay for Odds Against Tomorrow, among other creative projects). It was quite well done (if highly derivative at certain points i.e. Psycho). As a thriller this was Hitchcockian by comparison to such "landmarks" of cinema as 13 Ghosts. And he had some good actors for a change, though I did feel sorry for Joan-"I think I'll wear my largest necklace in this movie" Crawford because of the size of her part (and her hairdo, which made her about 6'2" instead of a petite 5'3"). The lady was determined to marry John Ireland, though I couldn't quite see his allure. I loved the scene when Joan grabbed the sneaky girl's hair and threw her into her car, telling her to get the heck outta there. That woman had commitment in every part she ever played (well, maybe not Ice Follies of 1939), though sometimes you wonder if she might have needed to be committed...oops, that was a joke that must have occurred due to over-exposure to Svengoolie.


Good use of John Ireland's creepy air, though I really didn't need to see as much of his bod as the shower scene allowed. The girls (Sara Lane, Andi Garrett and the fairly cute little kid, Sharyl Locke) did a good job of conveying that impossibly keyed-up borderline hysteria that the human female is often capable of manifesting during the years when she is being swept along on a tsunami of hormones. I'm sure that this was on the Legion of Decency's "condemned" list for movies, so I don't even think my older sister and brother would have dared see this movie. I know I sure didn't especially after the parents found out we had all gone to see Atlantis, The Lost Continent during Easter vacation the year before I Saw What You Did was released. I think we had to go to confession for that spiritual faux pas since that doozie was full of heathens, guys being turned into boars, and dancing babes, not to mention Ed Platt wearing a hat that looked like a birthday cake on his head...but I digress.

I kept expecting/hoping that Leif Erickson would turn into the kind of father he was born to play--BAD, as in Invaders From Mars (1953) BAD DAD--but no, all he did was condescend to his wife (Patricia Breslin) and demonstrate how little he really cared about his offspring by deciding to stay in Santa Barbara for the night. John Archer as the other girl's father was shocking to see without that ubiquitous cigarette holder he sported in so many movies from White Heat (1949) to Emergency Hospital (1956). In the latter movie he played a doctor who smoked between patients, though I would not have been surprised to see him ask someone on a gurney to hold his ciggie for him while he took a bullet out of their leg or performed a tracheotomy on the patient. At least Archer's parent was the only one who had a clue that something was amiss with the kids' behavior and he got to deliver the "moral" of the movie, which was "don't get caught goofing on the phone" or maybe it was some balderdash like "tell your parents the truth about your activities." Ha! That'll happen. You bet.

Overall, a good thriller, though if these were my kids, I not only would have locked the phone when leaving the house, I would probably have locked the kids in their rooms, though I guess that would be frowned on by the authorities. Wasn't this movie the target of some backlash from organizations such as the PTA when it was released? I'm sure Castle ate that kind of publicity up.

[RedRiver]

I love your last sentence, Moira. If there was a social upheaval, I bet nobody was happier than Mr. William Castle!

[RedRiver]

I missed this week's Mummy movie. Any comments?

[moira finnie]

I missed this week's Mummy movie. Any comments?

I feel as though I forgot to do my homework! I fell asleep at the beginning of the movie, which seemed to consist of entire scenes lifted from the original The Mummy. Maybe someone else saw it?

[RedRiver]

I fall asleep practically every time I turn on the TV. Thank God for video!

[RedRiver]

Looking forward to Count Alucard and SON OF DRACULA. This one is kind of fun. Not Universal's best, of course. But a cute little story, presented with respect. If you're not busy, and have this obscure channel, it's worth the time.

[moira finnie]

Thanks very much for the reminder, Red. The Siodmak stamps on this Dracula are enough for me. I set it to record already.