I am redoing this review--I did the original one five years ago and I think I can top myself. I rated this movie as "excellent" and I am going to explain why I rated it so darned highly.
Isn't Joan Crawford the coolest? Some people jokingly call this movie "Blanche's Revenge" as Joan eschewed the wheelchair of "Baby Jane" and replaced it with an axe. (It would have been really nifty if she'd been an axe murderer and in a wheelchair. That would have kicked tail.) This movie was made in 1964, and William Castle was attempting to better his reputation--he was known for scaring people, but I think he really wanted an A-movie to his credit. After seeing "Baby Jane" he decided that using a bona-fide star might help him in his plan, and he pitched Robert Bloch's "Strait-Jacket" story to Joan Crawford. Lucky for him she agreed to do it, and he earned a little critical recognition for a change.
The plot is simple enough--Joan Crawford plays Lucy Harbin, a "young" woman of "29" who witnesses her husband cheating on her with a former girlfriend. The shock of being thrown over drives her to madness, and she dispatches both her husband and the hussy while they sleep. The couple's three-year-old daughter Carol watches, horrified, and Castle cuts (get it?) to another shot of the daughter, now grown. She's telling her fiancée about her past because, as she abruptly puts it, "My mother's coming home from an asylum. Today." That line kills me--she gave him so much time to prepare, huh? Once Lucy returns Carol begins going to great lengths to turn the present-day Lucy into the Lucy of twenty years earlier. Obviously, that isn't such a hot idea because Lucy was a murderess. Even more distressing, Lucy gives several indications that she isn't completely rehabilitated--when the asylum doctor shows up to say hello, she wigs out completely and runs screaming from the room. Eventually, anyone and everyone who discovers Lucy's imbalance gets offed. Is Lucy regressing or has she been usurped? That is the basis of the movie's "surprise" ending, which I of course didn't figure out. (My mother did, but she always does.) Okay, so why is this movie so entertaining? If you guessed Joan Crawford, you guessed right. William Castle's idea works wonderfully. He chose someone who would give her all to make sure a movie worked, and that's what happens. At the time, Joan was sixty years old, give or take a few, and she throws herself into the role of a 29-year-old with gusto. (She doesn't succeed, but she tries.) Her character starts out as a brunette, brazen floozy-type and ends up a gray-haired timid middle-aged woman. It doesn't seem like such a big difference on paper, but when you see the difference between Joan's first and second entrances it's quite effective. Also, who among us knew (besides Christina Crawford, apparently) that Joan could swing an axe like that? Move over Lizzie Borden, Joan's on the warpath! And the "seduction" scene with daughter Carol's fiancée? I don't think a movie has ever made me squirm so much. It's horrible, but you can't look away--Lucy goes through about fifteen emotions in less than fifteen minutes. Just thinking about it makes me feel icky, and nothing really happens. That's the weird part--nobody does much of anything, but it's so damn disgusting. (The DVD features a little making-of featurette, and one of the film historians says in a awed tone, "She actually puts her finger in his mouth." I guess it bothered him too!) If I had to choose the one part of this movie that raises it over other movies of its ilk, it would be the first murder scene. The moment where Lucy, poisoned with anger and wielding an axe, wreaks havoc on her sleeping husband. I just feel that a jealousy-crazed woman brutally murdering her husband would have the same look on her face as Joan does in the scene. It's absolute blind rage and she has no control over it. To be blunt, she looks like an insane killer and she is more than a little creepy doing it. I just thought of another great part--at the end of the picture the Columbia Pictures lady has been beheaded. Cute little touch, huh?
Isn't Joan Crawford the coolest? Some people jokingly call this movie "Blanche's Revenge" as Joan eschewed the wheelchair of "Baby Jane" and replaced it with an axe. (It would have been really nifty if she'd been an axe murderer and in a wheelchair. That would have kicked tail.) This movie was made in 1964, and William Castle was attempting to better his reputation--he was known for scaring people, but I think he really wanted an A-movie to his credit. After seeing "Baby Jane" he decided that using a bona-fide star might help him in his plan, and he pitched Robert Bloch's "Strait-Jacket" story to Joan Crawford. Lucky for him she agreed to do it, and he earned a little critical recognition for a change.
The plot is simple enough--Joan Crawford plays Lucy Harbin, a "young" woman of "29" who witnesses her husband cheating on her with a former girlfriend. The shock of being thrown over drives her to madness, and she dispatches both her husband and the hussy while they sleep. The couple's three-year-old daughter Carol watches, horrified, and Castle cuts (get it?) to another shot of the daughter, now grown. She's telling her fiancée about her past because, as she abruptly puts it, "My mother's coming home from an asylum. Today." That line kills me--she gave him so much time to prepare, huh? Once Lucy returns Carol begins going to great lengths to turn the present-day Lucy into the Lucy of twenty years earlier. Obviously, that isn't such a hot idea because Lucy was a murderess. Even more distressing, Lucy gives several indications that she isn't completely rehabilitated--when the asylum doctor shows up to say hello, she wigs out completely and runs screaming from the room. Eventually, anyone and everyone who discovers Lucy's imbalance gets offed. Is Lucy regressing or has she been usurped? That is the basis of the movie's "surprise" ending, which I of course didn't figure out. (My mother did, but she always does.) Okay, so why is this movie so entertaining? If you guessed Joan Crawford, you guessed right. William Castle's idea works wonderfully. He chose someone who would give her all to make sure a movie worked, and that's what happens. At the time, Joan was sixty years old, give or take a few, and she throws herself into the role of a 29-year-old with gusto. (She doesn't succeed, but she tries.) Her character starts out as a brunette, brazen floozy-type and ends up a gray-haired timid middle-aged woman. It doesn't seem like such a big difference on paper, but when you see the difference between Joan's first and second entrances it's quite effective. Also, who among us knew (besides Christina Crawford, apparently) that Joan could swing an axe like that? Move over Lizzie Borden, Joan's on the warpath! And the "seduction" scene with daughter Carol's fiancée? I don't think a movie has ever made me squirm so much. It's horrible, but you can't look away--Lucy goes through about fifteen emotions in less than fifteen minutes. Just thinking about it makes me feel icky, and nothing really happens. That's the weird part--nobody does much of anything, but it's so damn disgusting. (The DVD features a little making-of featurette, and one of the film historians says in a awed tone, "She actually puts her finger in his mouth." I guess it bothered him too!) If I had to choose the one part of this movie that raises it over other movies of its ilk, it would be the first murder scene. The moment where Lucy, poisoned with anger and wielding an axe, wreaks havoc on her sleeping husband. I just feel that a jealousy-crazed woman brutally murdering her husband would have the same look on her face as Joan does in the scene. It's absolute blind rage and she has no control over it. To be blunt, she looks like an insane killer and she is more than a little creepy doing it. I just thought of another great part--at the end of the picture the Columbia Pictures lady has been beheaded. Cute little touch, huh?