*contains spoilers Penny finds Steiner’s office ransacked and the killer attempts to strangle her but she uses a blunt instrument and escapes him/her/neither. Here the music, or lack of it, drives the tension. Is a life without music/sex worth living? This element seems built in to the tension of the sequence. Of course, after another…
Read more Craig Lahiff’s Aussie Hitchcockian Double Bill (Part Two)
*contains spoilers Coda (1987) aka Symphony of Evil aka Deadly Possession and Strangers (1991) are two films directed by South Australian director Craig Lahiff (1947-2014). The titles of his movies were often one word and the pair of movies are often described by critics as sub-Hitchcock. I think they deserve more praise than that, considering…
Read more Craig Lahiff’s Aussie Hitchcockian Double Bill (Part One)
As a companion piece to the article Frank Howson and the Boulevard of Broken Dreams, we have this interview with the Producer/Writer/Director himself. Melbourne’s Frank Howson (1952-) started in show business on the stage at the age of seven. A prodigious and prolific writer of music, film and the stage as well as other media,…
*contains spoilers In 1969, Larry had a bit part in the Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr vehicle The Magic Christian. A film which poses the question that people will do anything for money, it is extremely over the top and quite funny. Set in England, Larry plays a Shakespearian actor doing Hamlet, who is bribed…
Read more The Cult of Laurence Harvey Forever a Dandy in Aspic (Part Two)
*contains spoilers He was an AC/DC (no, not the band) playboy whose persona would swing between jaunty cynicism to debonair gloom. This together with his modern flamboyancy didn’t really endear him to audiences with great popularity. But enter his gallery of movies, especially towards the end, and there are some minor classics. He is Laurence…
Read more The Cult of Laurence Harvey Forever a Dandy in Aspic (Part One)
*contains spoilers The second movie made by Lee is the far more atrocious, yet in some ways more fun, Killers from Space. According to Myles Wilder, who told Tom Weaver, the film was shot in six days using his father’s money and actual office for the office scenes as well as other cheap locations –…
Read more W. Lee Wilder’s Terrible Trilogy that Wouldn’t Die! (Part Two)
*contains spoilers Pity director Billy Wilder’s (born Samuel 1906-2002 pneumonia) older brother, whose name was William but was known as W. Lee Wilder (1904-82). Long estranged from each another, while Billy was receiving Oscar nominations and scoring wins, his brother, who Billy jokingly called “a dull son of a bitch”, was making some of the…
Read more W. Lee Wilder’s Terrible Trilogy that Wouldn’t Die! (Part One)
*contains spoilers This is an article about madness and the supernatural. It is about dolls in passing. The main doll, which helps frame this article, is Hugo from the ventriloquist segment of the excellent Dead of Night (1945). Yes we also mention Annabelle and Chucky. But Dead of Night is the timeless classic of the…
*contains spoilers Had a bad day? Did someone let you down? Did several people let you down? In fact, did you get the feeling that nobody cares? You get the idea that if you took a couple of handfuls of tablets you wouldn’t be missed at all? Then everything seems to have gone to hell.…
Read more The Anthony Waller Out of Water Into Hell Trilogy!
*contains spoilers Then came a pair of films in England where public interest was piqued by the scandal. The films were released by what would become Hammer Studios and were the sci-fi themed Four Sided Triangle (1953), which obviously used the ménage a trois angle of Barbara’s real life and Bad Blonde (1953), where she…
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