NOT WITH A BANG, BUT A WHIMPER: A List of Lamentable Last Films

“This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but a whimper.”   - T.S. Eliot   

It can’t be easy maintaining a film career. The practical side of the motion picture business doesn’t readily correspond with an artist's desire to work well and consistently while trying to hold onto whatever faint vestiges of integrity and self-respect are left intact after one is deemed no longer young or the pop-culture “flavor of the month.” Fans, critics, and rear-view-mirror biographers tend to speak of an actor’s career and body of work as though they are things strategically orchestrated and mapped out. Perhaps in some cases this is true, but for the most part, the cold realities of the business of fame suggests an actor’s lingering legacy is often the result of nothing more premeditated than the serendipitous meeting of talent, luck, ambition, and tenacity.

A film career of any length is bound to have its ups and downs, but if an actor is lucky, the ups outnumber (or outweigh) the bad to sufficient degree as to have little impact on time’s overall evaluation of an actor's merits. Because Hollywood films ween us on happy endings and tidy conclusions, perhaps this breeds in us an expectation (or hope) that the careers of our favorite stars culminate in films and performances worthy and emblematic of their lifetime achievements, in toto.

Occasionally it works out: as in John Wayne, dying of cancer in real-life, portraying an aging gunman dying of cancer in his last film The Shootist (1976); or Sammy Davis Jr. appearing as a revered, aging tap-dancer in Tap (1989) his final film. But all too often stars with illustrious early careers bow out in vehicles severely at odds with their cumulative talent, reputations, and dignity.
So here's a list of the less-than-celebrated last films of a few of my favorite actors. An unlucky list of 13 movies - indicative of nothing deeper than a movie fan's wish that these talented stars had been shown to better advantage in their final movie roles.
   

1. Mae West — Last Film: Sextette (1978)
The final film of screen legend Mae West turned out to be something of a good news/bad news affair. The good news being that the self-enchanted octogenarian ended her four-decade movie career in a name-above-the title star vehicle (vanity project) designed as a tribute to her image and career. The bad news, of course, is that I’m referring to Sextette: an ill-advised, fan-produced exercise in celebrity exploitation so unflattering to its leading lady, it essentially ends up being a 90-minute exercise in character assassination and idol-smashing...set to a disco beat.

Shoulda Quit While I Was Ahead: My Little Chickadee (1940) 

*****

2. Laurence Harvey  — Last Film: Welcome to Arrow Beach (1974)

Speaking in terms of equal opportunity, it’s nice to know that late-career leading men are as susceptible to the beckoning charms of the B-grade horror film as the cadre of older actresses populating that subgenre known as Grand Dame Guignol. On the heels of appearing with gal pal Joanna Pettet in a 1972 episode of TVs Night Gallery, and co-starring with longtime friend Elizabeth Taylor in Night Watch (1973); Oscar nominee Laurence Harvey (Room at the Top - 1959) went the full  slasher route in the rarely-seen cheapie Welcome to Arrow Beach. Appearing again with (VERY) good friend Joanna Pettet, Harvey underplays a military vet with a cannibalistic taste for hitchhiking hippie chicks and blowsy booze hounds. Looking gaunt from the stomach cancer that would claim his life before this film was released, Harvey also directed this bloody exploitationer which rode a short-lived 70s trend of cannibalism-themed horror movies. I remember seeing this as a teen (under the alternate title, Tender Flesh) on a double bill with the another  cannibal horror film, The Folks at Red Wolf Inn (1972). I guess we all have our low moments.  View trailer HERE

Shoulda Quit While I Was Ahead: Night Watch (1973)

                                                                         *****

3. Joan Crawford — Last Film: Trog (1970)

As a journalist once noted, the boon and bane of every Crawford fan has always been the actress’s dogged professionalism. No matter how low she'd fallen (and Trog is about as low as it gets) Crawford always emoted as though Louis B. Mayer were still breathing down her neck. Crawford’s co-star in Trog is a professional wrestler in a rubbery Halloween mask (Joe Cornelius), but by the level of her intensity and commitment, you’d think she was acting opposite Franhcot Tone. And while this trait is certainly admirable, it has the unfortunate effect of making Joan appear to be performing in a vacuum; acting her ass off independent of the tone and timbre of the scene, not really relating to her co-stars. In Trog, Joan – looking tiny and occasionally pretty well-oiled – plays an anthropologist who attempts to tame a "Kill-crazy fiend from hell!” amidst public outcry and resistance. As always, Joan is the best thing in it (on my personal Camp-o-meter, anyway), but this B-horror movie programmer is so beneath her talents it makes the schlock she made for William Castle look dignified.

Shoulda Quit While I Was Ahead: Berserk (1967)

*****

4. Gene Kelly — Last Film: Xanadu (1980)

A curious inclusion given how much I love this film and how, considering what he had to work with, I actually think Gene Kelly acquits himself rather nicely.
But I have to admit I've always found my enjoyment of Kelly in this musical to be running neck and neck with a sense of missed opportunities and a disappointment in how poorly he’s served by this charming but rather weak vehicle as a whole. Xanadu is nothing if not respectful of the influential actor/singer/dancer/director/choreographer who helped shape the face of the modern movie musical; it’s just that he’s let down by an insipid script, sabotaged by editing and camerawork which fails to understand the rhythms of dance (or rollerskating...they cut off his feet!), and is left to play third-fiddle to two low-wattage leads who fail to possess even a fraction of his screen charisma. So while Xanadu is not exactly a career embarrassment (I'd say that honor goes to his direction of Hello, Dolly! & The Guide for the Married Man), it ranks as a poor representation and send-off for the genius that was Gene Kelly.

Shoulda Quit  While I Was Ahead: The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967)

*****

5. Gloria Swanson — Last Film: Airport ’75 (1974)     

In this loopy sequel (of sorts) to 1970’s Airport, silent screen star Gloria Swanson appears as herself and makes up for all those mute years by never shutting up. Swanson’s not onscreen a great deal ‒ although it feels like it since, in a film overrun with nuns (Helen Reddy, for one), Swanson makes the curious choice of dressing exactly like a nun who’s been to a couturier ‒ but when she is onscreen you can bet she’s talking about herself. Ostensibly under the guise of dictating her memoirs to her self-medicating secretary (Planet of the Apes’ Linda Harrison or Augusta Summerland, who knows a thing or two about keeping quiet), Swanson, who is said to have written her own dialog, captures perfectly what it’s like to be in the company of an actor: they are always their own favorite topic of discussion.

Overlooking the suspense-killing casting of having Swanson playing herself in a fictional narrative (what are they gonna do, have her get sucked out a window?), her role feels like a far-in-advance infomercial for her 1980 memoir Swanson on Swanson. A title describing the entire thrust of Swanson's self-enamored characterization here.

Shoulda Quit While I Was Ahead: Sunset Blvd. (1950)

*****

6. Dean Martin / Frank Sinatra — Last Film: Cannonball Run II (1984)

Although I tend to consider myself a child of the '60s & '70s, and therefore lay no claim to the cinema atrocities committed in the 80s; the next time I go on a jeremiad about the craptastic bros-before-hos movie oeuvre of Adam Sandler and Kevin James, someone needs to remind me that Burt Reynolds – an actor from my generation – pretty much originated the lazy buddy comedy genre. That's when you find someone to pay for you and your pals to get together and have a good time, hand somebody a camera, film it, slap a title on it, and then call it a movie.

I never saw the original The Cannonball Run (1981) but the appeal of having the '60s Rat Pack reunited onscreen in this movie (Sinatra, Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. & Shirley MacLaine all appear) got the better me, and so I watched it one night on cable TV. With this movie (and I use the term loosely) I discovered that nostalgia is no match for a film that clearly holds its audience in low regard. The level of contempt this movie has for the intelligence of its audience is palpable and pungent. Dean Martin dares you to call him on the obvious fact that he really doesn’t give a shit, and Frank Sinatra looks exactly like someone dutifully following through on a favor/obligation. Dreadful. An unspeakably depressing last film for two of my favorites.    
Shoulda Quit While I Was Ahead: Airport (1970) / The First Deadly Sin (1980)

*****

7. Elizabeth Taylor  — Last Film: The Flintstones  (1994)    

Beyond the garden-variety complaint that Hollywood never seems to know how to properly showcase stars once they cease to be young, I’ve no objection to an actress of Elizabeth Taylor’s magnitude and reputation being cast as Fred Flintstone’s harridan of a mother-in-law (one Pearl Slaghoople) in a live-action version of the enduring 60s primetime TV cartoon show (inspired by the live-action The Honeymooners). Indeed, given Taylor’s sense of humor about herself, lack of pretension, and past success in playing shrews and shrill, fishwife types, it’s actually a pretty cool idea.
My problem lies with how dismal a comedy The Flintstones turned out to be. Taylor's role is little more than an extended walk-on, but in it, she's saddled with some strenuously unfunny material that she doesn't handle particularly well. There's so little to The Flintstones beyond the wittily prehistoric costumes, sets, and special effects (it's all concept, no content), that one is left with too much time to contemplate why the only laughs the film earns derive from how accurately the production team has captured some device or creature recognizable from the cartoon. Taylor (sporting that awful Jose Eber feathered helmet hairdo she adopted at the time) has definitely been better, was capable of better, and I only wish she had been given better.
Shoulda Quit While I Was Ahead: The Mirror Crack’d (1980)

*****

8. Peter Sellers — Last Film: The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu (1980)

It’s anybody’s guess how this flat, misguided comedy ever got beyond the planning stages, but avarice likely played a role in this unsuitable-for-release trainwreck ever seeing the light of day (it was released weeks after Sellers’ death). Fandom fuels a desire to see the last professional efforts of any favored celebrity, but it’s hard to imagine any Peter Sellers fan deriving much joy from this slogging crime comedy. A film which also served as the last screen role for Mary Poppins’ David Tomlinson and features Helen Mirren impersonating Queen Mary, the grandmother of Queen Elizabeth II, whom Mirren would win an Oscar portraying 26-years later. Sellers was a comic genius who made a career out of disappearing behind impersonation, but by the '80s his extended yellowface Fu Manchu shtick was strictly cringe material. Matters aren’t helped much by Sellers (ill at the time) playing dual roles: bored & tired.

Shoulda Quit While I Was Ahead: Being There (1979)

*****

9. Tallulah Bankhead —  Last Film: Die! Die! My Darling!  (1965) 

This one’s a bit of an academic call. A call resting both on the awareness of Tallulah Bankhead being an esteemed stage actress whose motion picture appearances were rare (thus branding this Z-grade exercise in Hag Horror as a film far beneath her talents); and the full understanding that no one in their right mind would care to deprive the world of Bankhead’s mesmerizingly over-the-top performance in said Psycho-Biddy gothic. Bankhead is too fine an actor for a title like Die! Die! My Darling! to stand as the representative coda to her brief film career, but as a longstanding connoisseur of camp, I can’t deny that I’m forever grateful to her for having undertaken it.

Shoulda Quit While I Was Ahead: A Royal Scandal (1945)

*****

10. Bette Davis — Last Film: Wicked Stepmother (1989) 

It’s kind of a good thing this chaotic comedy about a homewrecking witch (Davis) is so aggressively unfunny, for the sight of the frail, reed-thin, surgically tightened, post-stroke, eerily animatronic Bette Davis croaking out her lines while chain-smoking like a madwoman is a bonafide laugh-killer. A problem-plagued production that had the ailing, dissatisfied Davis deserting the film shortly after shooting began (resulting in her onscreen time amounting to slightly less than 15-minutes), Wicked Stepmother may have brought Davis a hefty paycheck and yet another opportunity to work – something obviously very important to her – but beyond the curiosity value of seeing one of Hollywood's greats in her last film roe, the whole affair has a ghoulish feel to it.
The only joke in the film that works is a brief sight gag revealing the late wife of Davis' new husband (Lionel Stander) was Joan Crawford.

Shoulda Quit While I Was Ahead: The Whales of August (1987)

*****

11. Charles Boyer — Last Film: A Matter of Time  (1976)

Charles Boyer is an interesting case. He dodged having to be shackled with Ross Hunter’s Lost Horizon (1973) as his last film by following up that misstep with the stylish Alan Resnais film Stavisky…; a fine and suitably distinguished movie to end his career. Unfortunately, Boyer dodged the Ross Hunter bullet only to jump into the firing line of Vincente Minnelli’s calamitous A Matter of Time (1976). A film which not only reunited Boyer with the director of two of his earlier films (The Cobweb and The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse), but reunited him with his Arch of Triumph and Gaslight co-star, Ingrid Bergman.

Hopes couldn’t have been higher when it was announced Vincente Minnelli (making his first film since 1970s On a Clear Day You Can See Forever) was going to direct daughter Liza (in need of a hit after Lucky Lady) in a lavish costume drama. Without going into the ugly details behind a problem-plagued production, suffice it to say A Matter of Time didn’t do anybody’s resumés any favors. Boyer, as the husband of dotty Contessa Bergman, is really rather good. It’s the film that’s such a mess.

Shoulda Quit While I Was Ahead: Stavisky…(1974)

*****

12. Lucille Ball — Last Film: Mame (1974)  

Mame was released with a ton of hoopla and cheery smiles all around, but once the smoke cleared (and a few years had passed) what were we left with? A star who claimed making the film “was about as much fun as watching your house burn down”; a costar (Bea Arthur) who went on record stating, “It was a tremendous embarrassment. I’m so sorry I did it,” and that the leading lady was “terribly miscast”; a discontented composer (Jerry Herman); and a marriage dissolved (according to Arthur, her husband – Gene Saks, Mame’s director – used emotional blackmail to get her to do the movie: “As my wife you owe it to me to play this part.”).

Mame was to be TV legend Lucille Ball’s return to the silver screen, but reviews and reception to the film were so harsh, this $12-million misstep was her swan song. Oops! Maybe it’s not polite to bring up singing in this context.

Shoulda Quit While I Was Ahead: The Long Long Trailer (1953)

*****

13. Barbara Stanwyck — Last Film: The Night Walker (1964) 

After playing a bordello madam (Walk on the Wild Side) and appearing in an Elvis Presley movie (Roustabout), I guess Barbara Stanwyck decided to make her career degradation complete by working for William Castle. The Night Walker is a somewhat listless, surprisingly gimmick-free William Castle melodrama that, while not doing much for Stanwyck, at least reunited her with former hubby and co-star Robert Taylor.

As always, Stanwyck and her trademark intensity are fascinating to watch and the only worthwhile elements in a film that really would have been just fine as an episode of one of those suspense anthology TV programs (although the really creepy music by Vic Mizzy is effective as hell).
Happily, with the movies treating her so shabbily, it's nice to know television provided Stanwyck with some of her finest latter-career moments (I'm crazy about her performance in The Thorn Birds).

Shoulda Quit While I Was Ahead: Walk on the Wild Side (1962)

"I am big! It's the pictures that got small."

Norma Desmond - Sunset Blvd.

Copyright © Ken Anderson

I SAW WHAT YOU DID 1965

My not exactly unfounded opinion of gimmick-driven showman/producer/director William Castle is that he was the man with a Copper Touch: the genial, bargain-basement horror schlockmeister had the uncanny talent for making everything he came into contact with feel somehow cheap and derivative.

Take I Saw What You Did, Castle’s teen-targeted follow-up to the poorly-received Barbara Stanwyck feature The Night Walker (a film which, in nabbing the big-name star, he’d hoped would duplicate the success of Joan Crawford’s Strait-Jacket); its clever, harmless-prank-gone-wrong premise—which seemed to also anticipate the '80s trend in teen horror films—is actually a pretty nifty and original idea for a suspense thriller. But in William Castle's unremarkable hands I Saw What You Did comes off as a form of lukewarm hybrid: The World of Henry Orient meets “The Telephone Hour” number from Bye Bye Birdie, as envisioned as an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

Joan Crawford as Amy Nelson 

Andi Garrett as Libby Mannering

Sara Lane as Kit Austin

John Ireland as Steve Marak

Seventeen-year-old Libby Mannering (Garrett) lives way out in the fog-bound boonies with her parents (Leif Erickson and Patricia Breslin), kid sister Tess (Sheryl Locke), and a menagerie of dogs, ducks, ponies, and goats. While her parents are away on an overnight trip, Libby invites best friend Kit (Lane) over and the girls amuse themselves—as teenagers with names like Kit and Libby are wont to do—by making prank phone calls to strangers.

Picking random numbers from the phone book, they pretend to be mysterious “other women,” children abandoned at movie theaters, or merely poke fun at people with “asking for it” names like John Hamburger and Donald I. Leak. What sets the suspense plot in motion is when they start calling people and whispering cryptically into the mouthpiece: “I saw what you did, and I know who you are.” A harmless enough, all-purpose head-game that spearheads a passel of trouble when it just so happens one of their phone-victims (John Ireland) has just killed his wife and takes the call seriously. Dead seriously.

I Saw What You Did marks the film debuts of high-schoolers Andi Garrett (17) & Sara Lane (15).
Making Sharyl Locke (as Tess Mannering), 9-years-old and already two films under her belt, the show business veteran in this shot

So where does top-billed Joan Crawford fit into all this? Joan plays John Ireland’s wealthy, single, 60-something neighbor with the pre-teen babysitter name of Amy Nelson. Amy, whom Ireland has been carrying on with behind his wife’s now knife-perforated back, is part Gladys Kravitz, part Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction; so small wonder he’s beginning to show signs of having second thoughts about her before the film even clues us in on the nature of their relationship.

Crawford’s role is really just a high-profile cameo, but, Crawford being Crawford, she makes every onscreen second count by giving each of her scenes at least ten times the emotion required.

I Saw What You Did reunited real-life (clandestine) lovers and co-stars Joan Crawford and John Ireland, who had appeared together in 1955's Queen Bee.

I Saw What You Did was adapted from the 1964 novel Out of the Dark by Ursula Curtiss. I’ve never read the book, but I have a hard time imagining it having as much trouble establishing a sustained and consistent tone as Castle does with his film. Sabotaged at every turn by a distracting (and annoying) musical score better suited to a family sitcom or Hanna-Barbera cartoon, I Saw What You Did is a pleasant enough diversion, working in fits and starts as a light comedy and taut suspenser. That being said, the film rarely ever seems to be of a single mind about itself, and comes off like three TV programs spliced together to make a feature film.

Show #1 is a pleasant teen comedy of the Gidget/The Patty Duke stripe, comically exploring the social habits of ‘60s teens. Show #2 is one of those twisty noir thrillers in which lovers with secrets to hide keep playing one-upmanship games on one another. Show #3—the core premise of the film and most effective element (when it’s allowed to be)—the harmless prank that’s taken too far and goes dangerously awry.

Although 60-something Joan Crawford had no problem portraying a woman 30 years her junior when she subbed for her daughter in the soap opera Secret Storm in 1968, Crawford is said to have balked at the idea of her adoptive daughter, 25-year-old Christina, campaigning for one of the teenage roles in I Saw What You Did. Three years later, Christina (who clearly couldn't take a hint) hit the same maternal roadblock when she rallied for the role of Crawford's daughter in Berserk. A role that went to Judy Geeson. 

For all his faults as a director, William Castle, thanks largely to his eye for bizarre material and his naïve genius for mining unintentional camp in every performance and line reading; makes entertaining movies that remain watchable almost in parallel proportion to one’s awareness that they’re not really very good.

I Saw What You Did benefits from an engaging cast of youngsters and a genuinely suspenseful premise those of us of a certain age can relate to (with today’s caller ID technology, I don’t suppose kids make crank calls anymore…not with the sophisticated joys of cyberbullying and fake identities to distract them). Though conspicuously padded out and sorely lacking in as much Joan Crawford “realness” as I’d like, I Saw What You Did is situated somewhere between being one of Castle’s best (Homicidal, Strait-Jacket) and his worst (Zotz, The Old Dark House, The Busy Body).

Leif Erickson and Patricia Breslin as Dave and Ellie Mannering
Both are William Castle alumni: Erickson appeared in Strait-Jacket, and Breslin starred in Homicidal 

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILM 

As much as I’m entertained by I Saw What You Did, there’s no denying that frustration is as defining a characteristic of the William Castle movie viewing experience as cheesy promotional gimmicks. Frustration born of seeing one promising story idea after another given the blandest, flattest treatment possible.

I'm not sure whether it was ego or ambition that led Castle to invest his meager talents toward trying to emulate the careers of his idols Orson Welles and Alfred Hitchcock, but whatever it was had the double-edged effect of motivating him to indulge his strengths (producing and promotion) while blinding him to his weaknesses (directing).

As I’ve stated before, William Castle isn’t a bad director in the Ed Wood vein, he’s mostly just artless and mediocre. In fact, had Castle not been so consumed with wanting to be one of the big players in motion pictures, I’m sure he would have found much more success (and considerably more respect) in television; a realm where mediocrity is not only encouraged but in most cases required.

William Castle - Master of Composition,  Blocking, and Framing
This kind of pedestrian, line 'em up, nail the camera to the floor shot would look right at home on 1965 television. Indeed, shorn of about 20 minutes of its running time, I Saw What You Did would probably have played better as a 1-hour episode of one of those suspense anthology TV programs so popular at the time

That being said, I’d be lying if I inferred that I don’t find some of Castle’s movies to be a great deal of fun. And by fun I mean disposably watchable fun in the way that B-movies and Drive-In exploitation films are fun. One enjoys them because, by virtue of their wholesale inconsequence, they give us permission to indulge the junk-food side of the cineaste appetite.

PERFORMANCES 

The stars of I Saw What You Did are the two teenage “discoveries” making their film debuts: Andi Garrett and Sara Lane. Speaking volumes about Castle’s directorial skills, the observable amateurism of these neophytes blends seamlessly with the caliber of performance typical of any William Castle production. In fact, both girls are engagingly natural in their roles, and awkward in ways both appropriate and believable to their characters. Little 9-year old Sharyl Locke, however, poses no immediate threat to the memory of Margaret O’Brien.

An interesting story angle centering around adolescent sexual precocity is introduced when the girls, intrigued by Steve Marak's voice on the phone, stake out his house in hopes of 
getting a glimpse of the "sexy" older man.

After hitting pay dirt with Joan Crawford in Strait-Jacket, William Castle hoped to corral her for The Night Walker, but she declined, having already signed to reteam with What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? co-star Bette Davis in Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte. When Crawford got "sick" during the making of that film (sick of Bette Davis) and had to drop out, Castle offered Crawford, an uninsurable health risk, top-billing, and a $50,000 paycheck for a 4-day cameo in this little opus. 

Ever the style-icon, Joan Crawford's elaborate bouffant looks to have inspired
 the coiffure adopted by Gary Oldman in Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)

In her forays into low-budget cinema, Crawford took to wearing clothes from her own closet.  
This extreme example of suburban glamour (outsized  hair, scoop-necked frock, and ginormous necklace) calls to mind the Afrocentric glamour getup of another diva favorite: Diana Ross in Mahogany

Crawford’s character and story arc is not the major focus of I Saw What You Did; but judging by the intensity of her performance, you probably would have had trouble convincing Crawford of that fact. Because I’m such a Crawford fan, I think she’s wonderful in that camp, overarching way that typified so many of her late-career performances. I can never tell if she outacts the others or merely overacts, but every one of her scenes is charged with a tension and electricity noticeably absent elsewhere in the film.

"I'm going to give you a nice, stiff drink."
(followed by the most superfluous sentence in movie history)
"I'm going to have one myself!"

THE STUFF OF FANTASY

Did I mention how much I disliked this film’s musical score? Oh, I did?…well, when the music isn’t doing its best to subvert and undercut the onscreen action, I Saw What You Did mines a pretty fair amount of suspense out of the mounting trouble the girls unwittingly get themselves into with their silly phone prank. There’s a brutal Psycho-inspired murder early on that could have been very disturbing had it not been shot so incompetently (thanks, Mr. Castle, I guess), and since Castle has such a reputation for derivative homages, a “surprise” murder in the third act comes as no surprise at all. Rather, it feels like a narrative inevitability that simply took a very long time in coming.

Luckily, Joan Crawford is on hand to provide the one truly chilling moment of the film.

Catching Libby peering into Steve's window and jumping to the conclusion that the gray-curious teen has DILF designs on her man, Joan (ahem, Amy) launches into a memorably violent assault and slurred-speech tirade that brings those "night raids" passages in Christina Crawford's Mommie Dearest to vivid, blood-curdling life.


THE STUFF OF DREAMS
I grew up as the only boy among four sisters, so the rare occurrence of a movie with a teenage girl as the protagonist was well-nigh a must-see TV occasion in our house. I Saw What You Did, The World of Henry Orient (1964), and The Trouble With Angels (1966) are all a kind of happy blur in my mind being that each was such a favorite of my sisters when we were young. I cannot even count how often I've seen these films, yet every time I see them it brings back memories of occasions when my sisters and I would sit around the family B&W television set and laugh.

Another reason I Saw What You Did holds such a special place in my heart is because when our parents were away, my sisters and I played similar silly phone pranks. Nothing as provocative as what's said in the film—and mind you, I'm not the least bit proud of this—but we'd call up pizza and take-out joints and place party-sized orders for addresses we got out of the phone book. The only variance I recall was to call strangers and pretend to be a radio DJ offering a chance to win a prize if they could answer a simple question (Q: Who's the sexiest male recording artist today? A: Tom Jones). I have no idea what prize we offered or how the hell we even got away with it, what with our kiddie-sounding voices, but in those pre-video game/internet days, we kids had to find our fun where we could. Ah, youth!

If in the final analysis, I Saw What You Did fails to live up to the level of thrills promised on this high-strung poster, it nevertheless remains, thanks largely to the deeply-in-earnest contributions of Joan Crawford, a movie I enjoy a great deal. Like one of those not-very-scary house of horrors at small-town amusement parks.

BONUS MATERIAL

Sara Lane & Sharyl Lock pose with one of the oversized phones William Castle arranged to have placed outside select theaters to promote the film. According to his memoirs, when the movie resulted in a rash of crank calls in the cities showing the film, the phone company had the prop phones removed

                                                                                           ZombosCloset.com

I don't know if I mentioned this before, but I really hate the musical score for I Saw What You Did. Oh, I did? Well, wouldn't you know it; in addition to the usual William Castle gimmicks: intended but never used - seat belts for the prevention of you being shocked out of your seat; there was an actual 45 single of the vocal version of the I Saw What You Did theme song sung by a girl-group calling themselves The Telltales. Music by longtime William Castle composer Van Alexander, lyrics by Jerry Keller, a singer/songwriter who had a pop hit in 1959 "Here Comes Summer"  (which is actually pretty good). The song is about as awful as you'd imagine it to be, but since you'll have the instrumental version stuck in your head for hours after seeing this film, you might as well check it out with vocals HERE.

I Saw What You Did was updated and remade as a TV movie in 1988 (cue the fried perms and shoulder pads) with Shawnee Smith and Tammy Lauren as the phone-cradling teens. Brothers Robert and David Carradine co-star. 

I Saw What You Did, And I Know Who You Are

Copyright © Ken Anderson  2009 - 2016

BERSERK 1967

Fans of late-career Joan Crawford (and who isn’t?) are sure to relish the sight of 61-year-old La Mommie Dearest as the mannish owner and ringmaster of a traveling circus. While juggling the books and two younger lovers (“I just may let you tuck me in tonight!” she threatens to one) performers in her employ fall victim to gruesome, far-fetched fatalities. Similarly, variety show fans nostalgic for the bygone days when animal acts ruled primetime TV variety programs like The Ed Sullivan Show and The Hollywood Palace, are sure to get a vaudeville kick out of Berserk!'s interminable parade of capering horses, indifferent lions, playful elephants, and intelligent poodles. All used to pad out the film's already meager 96-minute running time.

But horror fans finding Berserk! to be a little tame and slow-moving by American Horror Story: Freak Show standards would do well to turn a viewing of this circus-set whodunit into a drinking game. As Crawford was still on the Board of Directors of Pepsi-Cola at the time this was made, so the film fairly overflows with Pepsi-related product placement. May I suggest taking a shot of 100-Proof vodka (Crawford’s much-preferred beverage of choice) every time there’s a Pepsi sighting?

Or perhaps you can take a swig each time a mysterious band of shadow materializes out of nowhere to provide our star with dramatic framing and flattering neck shade whenever in medium shot or closeup. But be aware, should you choose the latter option, you’re likely to find yourself plastered to the gills long before To Sir, With Love’s Judy Geeson makes her mid-film appearance as yet another in Joan Crawford’s long procession of troublesome onscreen/offscreen daughters.

Joan Crawford as Monica Rivers  
"We're running a circus, not a charm school!"

Ty Hardin as Frank Hawkins
"In this world, you only get what you deserve. No more, no less."

Judy Geeson as Angela Rivers
"I was shunted around from place to place like a piece of luggage with the wrong address pasted on it!" 

Michael Gough as Albert Dorando
"How can you be so cold-blooded?"

Diana Dors as Matilda
"The next time she puts her arms around you, make sure those lovely hands aren't carrying a knife!"

Although Berserk! (I’m never going to be able to keep up this exclamation point thing) is often lumped together with other entries in the popular What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? hag-horror/psycho-biddy genre; Joan Crawford’s dedication to being the world’s most glamorous, well-turned-out circus proprietress qualifies it more as a gilt-edged example of Grand Dame Guignol. Dressed in a fashion parade of vividly monochromatic cocktail suits (from milady’s own closet, may I add), Crawford magisterially strides about the horse and elephant dung-covered circus grounds‒head held aristocratically aloft, balancing a towering, tightly-braided bun‒barking out orders and wearing the daintiest of impractical, strappy high-heel sandals.

Britain's Billy Smart Circus plays the role of Berserk's The Great Rivers Circus
Smart's Circus (note the BS emblems) was also used in 1960s similar Circus of Horrors 

In contrast to the usual abasement heaped upon the typical hagsploitation heroine, every effort in Berserk! is made to make Crawford look good. Not only is she the center of the drama and propels the narrative, but she's also the only character afforded an active love life or much in the way of a backstory ("Long ago I lost the capacity to love..." she intones at one point; her words instantly making me aware of the weight of my eyelids). Unfortunately, due to the film’s obviously sparse budget and perhaps an over-determination on the filmmakers’ part to make its sexagenarian leading lady’s age into a non-issue (one of the more conspicuous Crawford-mandated script additions is a character voicing the opinion, "Your mother will never grow old, she has the gift of eternal youth!" ), the sheer amount of attention paid to showcasing Crawford’s three-ring matronly glamour actually results in a kind of inverse-derogation. 

"Find your happiest colors - the ones that make you feel good."
Joan Crawford - My Way of Life 1971
Joan in her happy colors (given her expression, I guess that's something we'll have to take her word for)

Even if you'd never seen a movie before in your life, you could probably guess the plot of Berserk from its setting alone. A traveling circus plagued by a series of grisly murders finds the deaths have a gruesome side-effect: a boost in attendance. This turn of events means the shadow of suspicion falls (usually across the neck) upon hard-as-nails, cool-as-a-cucumber circus owner, Monica Rivers (Crawford). Especially since, some six years prior, Monica’s husband died in a mysterious trapeze accident. Since that time, Monica has been “comforted” by dour-faced business partner Albert Dorando (Gough). Meanwhile, Monica's only child, Angela (Geeson), has been stowed away at a hoity-toity boarding school.

As the body count rises, within the ranks of the circus’ motley troupe of performers, low levels of British panic reigns, motives are plentiful, and red herrings abound. Figuring prominently amongst those most likely to have "dunit" are Bruno (George Claydon), the circus' dwarf clown/toady who’s a tad over-enamored of his leggy employer. Then there’s brassy Matilda (Dors), the in-your-face, peroxided two-thirds of a sawing-a-woman-in-half illusionist act. She's skeptical of Monica from the start, but this may have more to do with Monica's habit of addressing Matilda as "You slut!”. And finally, there's the circus's most recent arrival, high-wire walker Frank Hawkins (Hardin); a six-foot-two hunk of flavorless beefcake with a sketchy past, hair-trigger temper, and a thing for women old enough to be his mother. Especially if they own their own circus.

Mommie Likes

The lack of urgency displayed by the veddy-British investigating detective in the case (Robert Hardy) mirrors that of Berserk!'s director Jim O’ Connolly.  O' Connolly somehow imagines Berserk’s tepid tension and sluggish suspense as engaging enough to withstand the mood-killing interjection of several adorable animal acts (in their entirety!) and a comic musical interlude.
Still, thanks to Joan Crawford’s sometimes baffling acting choices (“You’re crrrrazy!”) and the always-welcome presence of British bombshell Diana Dors, Berserk!’s 40-minutes of plot padded out to 96-minutes of movie flows painlessly enough to its abrupt, highly-preposterous conclusion. One in which the surprise-reveal killer has to utter the great-granddaddy of unutterable, self-expository outbursts:

“Kill! Kill! Kill! That’s all I have inside me!” 

And if you think that line reads ridiculous, wait until you hear someone actually try to deliver it with a modicum of sincerity.

Trog co-star Michael Gough braces himself while a frisky Joan Crawford moves in for the kill. 
As a side note, is there anything more terrifying than a clown painting?

Berserk! Began life as Circus of Terror and Circus of Blood before Crawford vetoed those crude, cut-to-the-chase options in favor of the infinitely more marketable, Psycho-friendly single name tag (see: Homicidal, Hysteria, Repulsion, Paranoiac, and Fanatic [the British title for Tallulah Bankhead’s loony masterwork, Die, Die My Darling!]). 

As Crawford’s first film in a two-picture deal arranged by personal friend/producer Herman Cohen (the man who gave the world I Was a Teenage Werewolf and Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla), the British-made Berserk! was undertaken when Crawford’s reputation as a heavy drinker rendered her an unacceptable insurance risk, stateside.

Coming as it did on the heels of the double-barreled horror blitz of William Castle’s Strait-Jacket (1964) and I Saw What You Did (1965), Berserk! may have further distanced Crawford from her glory days at MGM in the mind of the public, but it did serve to indelibly cement her status as Hollywood’s then-reigning scream queen. A reputation reinforced by her appearances on supernatural-themed TV shows like Night Gallery and The Sixth Sense. And while rival Bette Davis may have appeared in a couple of slightly more upscale UK features at this time (The Nanny -1965 and The Anniversary-1968), Berserk! and Trog gave Crawford what she needed: employment (at a time when many of her peers had been forced into early retirement), leading lady status, and above-the-title billing.

"This is APPALLING! I have devoted myself to making Christina...er, Angela a proper young lady!"

In a moment redolent of Mommie Dearest's infamous Chadwick expulsion scene, Monica's daughter Angela is expelled from The Fenmore School for Young Ladies. In real life, Joan's daughter Christina campaigned unsuccessfully for the Judy Geeson role, to which Crawford responded to the press, "Christina is not ready to have such responsibility. To co-star with 'Joan Crawford'? Isn't that a lot of pressure to put on the girl?"

The aforementioned Trog (1970) was the second vehicle in Crawford’s contract with Herman Cohen and her last feature film appearance. In the 1994 book, Attack of the Monster Movie Makers by Tom Weaver, producer Cohen refutes claims that Crawford was ever subjected to the kind of on-a-shoestring treatment his low-budget films suggest (namely, the oft-repeated rumor that Crawford had to dress in the back of a station wagon while making Trog).

According to Cohen, Crawford always insisted on being treated like a major star, and to make her happy he was glad to stretch the budgets of both Berserk! and Trog to accommodate the Crawford-mandated expense of: a Rolls Royce and driver, an apartment with a maid and cook, and a large location dressing room caravan. Anything to make Miss Crawford feel like the star she was (or used to be). 

Cohen also relates that it was important he never use the term “horror film” when talking to Crawford about their professional collaborations. Joan, it seems, hated the idea of horror films and considered her films for Cohen to be dramas with “…some horrific moments.”

Scream Queen
At this stage, it didn't matter to Joan what her name appeared on,
just so long as it appeared on SOMETHING....preferably in big letters

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILM

I’m pretty much an all-around Joan Crawford fan, but a glance at my DVD collection reveals a decided preference for late-career Crawford. To me, Joan at her worst is actually Joan at her best. I don’t deny the appeal of her early films, but in them, I've always sensed the indelible imprint of the MGM assembly line. She comes across too similar (looks, mannerisms, and speech) to every other major actress on the roaring lion’s payroll at the time. However, the over-the-top, almost frightening Joan Crawford unveiled in Torch Song (1953) and movies thereafter, is another Joan altogether.

Seeming to purposefully shed all those soft and vulnerable qualities evident in her performances in movies like Possessed (1947) and Daisy Kenyon (1947), late-career Crawford retained–if not emphasized–the hardness and severity she brought to her roles in Flamingo Road (1949) and Harriet Craig (1950). Post-1950s Joan Crawford had transmogrified into a being of her own creation. A being who was not so much an actress as the human embodiment of the principles of hard work, discipline, determination, and self-delusion. Joan was no longer just a star; she was stardom triumphant. A larger-than-life entity so committed to giving her fans The Joan They Knew And Loved, her performances took on the quality of grand opera. A quality blissfully ignorant of things like camp sensibilities, drag queen aesthetics, or modulating a performance to the appropriate scale of the film at hand.

Berserk! is a thoroughly harmless (one might say affectless) suspenser that’s a great deal of silly fun in that way unique to low-budget genre flicks that harbor few illusions about themselves and harbor no objectives beyond giving the audience a good scare. But as pleasant as it is to play “whodunit” in a colorful setting brimming with red herrings and hoary fright effects; Joan Crawford is the entire show. And for me, she alone is what makes Berserk! worth watching at all. As efficiently as she carries out her ringmaster duties while showing off her handsome legs in that Edith Head-designed leotard, Crawford single-handedly turns the mediocre Berserk! into a masterpiece of high drama and unintentional circus camp.

Diana Dors, about to be sawed in half as magician's assistant to Philip Madoc in Berserk! 1967 

Diana Dors, about to be sawed in half as magician's assistant to David J. Stewart
in the unaired 1961 episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents: The Sorcerer's Apprentice

PERFORMANCES

In Berserk!, if Joan is less than 100% convincing as the owner of a traveling circus, it’s only because she runs it with an aggressive authority and Machiavellian cunning more appropriate to the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. Plus, it's hard to imagine Joan putting up with untidy elephants. 

I can’t say anything about her performance here that I haven’t already covered in previous posts on Queen Bee, Strait-Jacket, and Harriet Craig. Only to add that I get a particular kick out of the way Crawford's studied line readings in Berserk! have a way of sliding from her usual over-enunciated, studio-groomed elocution, into a curious brand of Texas-accented dialect:
“That’s JUST whadda mean!”
“Want me to spell it out fuh ya?”
“He’s just mah business partner!”

With dinner over, Hardin's ready for dessert 

The supporting cast of Berserk! is quite good, what with each actor wisely giving the film’s star as wide a berth as possible for the histrionic grandstanding that inevitably shows up. My favorites are Diana Dors, saddled with a truly awful wig but giving each of her scenes an enjoyably bitchy vitriolic punch. The appealing Judy Geeson is given scant to do, but does so with a level of genuineness that almost feels out of place for a movie like this (“Geeson’s pretty but doesn't have the stuff to make it for the long haul,” sniffed Crawford in an interview). And the regrettably-named Ty Hardin (that is, until you learn his real name is Orison Whipple Hungerford …JR!!!) makes an appropriately incongruous choice for Crawford’s love interest. Although I guess his towering frame and obvious youth serve to cast just the right amount of suspicion on his character’s motives.

Ted Lune, Golda Casimir, George Claydon & Milton Reid
Berserk! grinds to a screeching halt in order to accommodate
the cutesy musical number, "It Might Be Me"

THE STUFF OF FANTASY
Contractual show-biz pairings are nothing new. If you hired TV personality, Steve Allen, you had to take Jayne Meadows. British director Bryan Forbes never worked without his wife Nanette Newman. And, pre-split-up, getting Tim Burton always meant Helena Bonham Carter was not far behind. In the 60s, Joan Crawford and Pepsi were an onscreen pair made in product-placement heaven.

THE STUFF OF DREAMS
I was ten years old when Berserk! was released in theaters, and I recall how disturbing I found the TV commercials and newspaper ads that prominently featured the image of a man about to have a stake driven through his head by a hammer. I was actually too afraid to see the movie at the time, but I wonder what I would have made of it. As silly as it seems to me now, I might have actually gotten into it then.

This is one of several different "Shock-Limit" quiz teaser ads that
appeared in local newspapers in January 1968

Watching the film today, the plot, such as it is, really fades into the distance, and the entirety of my enjoyment is centered exclusively around Crawford and the Crawford mystique. Like a solar eclipse, Joan Crawford and all she has come to represent as a gay icon and camp godsend blots out everything else. Every aspect of Crawford and her life have been parodied and talked about for so long that it's hard for me to even see her as a human being, much less a fictional character. One she plays as pretty much as a template of her Joan Crawford image. 

As I find with all of Crawford's late-career films, watching Berserk! is like being given a tour of a Joan Crawford tribute museum. And I honestly wouldn't have it any other way.

There are scenes infused with near-confessional references to her real-life failed romances, dedication to work over all else, and her "problematic" mothering skills. 

Joan and Ty adopt a pose ripped from countless vintage movie posters
 (not to mention paperback romance novels)

Indeed, every one of Geeson's scenes with Crawford subliminally calls to mind Mommie Dearest:

"And what about your Christmas card list?"

"Because I'm not one of your FAAAANS!"

"You know, Christina, flirting can be taken the wrong way...."

Perhaps a stronger film than Berserk! could surmount these distractions, but Berserk! has so little going for it that's really compelling; one can't help but welcome every self-referential, over-acted, self-serious moment the great Miss Joan Crawford provides. So, for fans of the best that camp has to offer...Step right up!

BONUS MATERIAL
The original (spoiler-filled) Berserk! trailer that scared me as a kid.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents; "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" (1961) - Diana Dors stars in this circus-themed episode that was never aired because sponsors deemed it too gruesome.

George Claydon, who played Bruno the clown in Berserk! appeared as the
first Oompa Loompa on the left in 1971's Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory

Diana Dors was not only quite the bombshell in her youth, but in later years became one of television's most articulate, witty, and charming talk show guests. Here's a clip of a 1971 television interview.

Wikipedia biography of actor Ty Hardin referencing his 8 marriages and eventual descent into right-wing, nutjob, ultra-conservatism.

Given how much Joan Crawford favored the dramatic lighting which cast a shadow across her neck,  I suppose it's only fitting that on the day I took this photo of her star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame (in front of the Capitol Records building near Hollywood & Vine) I was unable to avoid this band of shadow falling across it. I can imagine Crawford in heaven telling God how to light her correctly. 

Copyright © Ken Anderson   2009 - 2015