Torture Garden.

Review #2598: Torture Garden.

Cast:

Framework story: Burgess Meredith (Dr. Diabolo), Michael Ripper (Gordon Roberts), and Timothy Bateson (Fairground Barker), and Clytie Jessop (Atropos - Goddess of Destiny)

"Enoch": Michael Bryant (Colin Williams), Catherine Finn (Nurse Parker), Maurice Denham (Uncle Roger), Niall MacGinnis (Dr. Silversmith), Roy Stevens (Constable), Norman Claridge (Police Sergeant), Barry Low (Tramp) 

"Terror Over Hollywood": Beverly Adams (Carla Hayes), Robert Hutton (Bruce Benton), John Phillips (Eddie Storm), Bernard Kay (Dr. Heim), David Bauer (Mike Charles), Nicole Shelby (Millie), James Copeland (Fred)

"Mr. Steinway": John Standing (Leo Winston), Ursula Howells (Miss Maxine Chambers), and Barbara Ewing (Dorothy Endicott)

"The Man Who Collected Poe": Jack Palance (Ronald Wyatt), Peter Cushing (Lancelot Canning), Hedger Wallace (Edgar Allan Poe), Roy Godfrey (Collector)

Directed by Freddie Francis (#854 - They Came from Beyond Space, #856 - The Evil of Frankenstein, #860 - Dracula Has Risen from the Grave, #1145 - Tales from the Crypt, #1419 - Dr. Terror's House of Horrors, #2143 - Trog, #2429 - Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny and Girly)

Review: 

Well, if you're going to do an anthology movie, you might as well go with one filled with certain types of "imagination". With Amicus Production and producer Milton Subotsky's favoring of doing anthology movies (after the success of 1965's Dr. Terror's House of Horrors, which had Francis as director) and funding from Columbia Pictures, how could you go wrong? This was the sixth movie written by Robert Bloch and it was the second of three films where Freddie Francis directed his script (the others were The Psychopath [1966] and The Deadly Bees [1967]). Apparently, there were ideas to have Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee be the main stars, but Columbia wanted some American presences, so you get Jack Palance and Burgess Meredith while Cushing gets a bit role for the fourth story. Apparently, when Francis later worked with Martin Scorsese as a cinematographer, Scorsese told Francis how much he liked the movie and even tried to get him involved in doing a film about Edgar Allan Poe, which did not come to pass. Amicus returned to the well of anthologies with The House That Dripped Blood (released in 1971 that happened to be co-written by Bloch) while Francis worked with Amicus again with Tales from the Crypt (1972).

You get four stories of people (in what Amicus liked calling a "portmanteau" rather than anthology because, well, um, why not?) looking at threads of what may come to pass after spending a dozen minutes (of a 100-minute movie, and that doesn't include the "resolution") with Meredith and his totally not more than a carnie act with a "goddess of destiny" standing still while people's "future" is told. What you get here is two unwieldy stories and two that almost seem ready to have fun in the macabre for a very subdued affair unless you just roll with evil cats, pianos, Hollywood caricatures and other things that go eyeroll in the night. Meredith and his huckster act is probably the highlight of the movie, honestly. The first story (lasting roughly 25 minutes, the longest of the bunch) involves a steadily revealed secret upon a family visit with the greedy Bryant. No, not that secret, a real one: a cat. It has the least glaring annoyances that happens to also involve an evil, hungry cat (aren't they all?), which, well, at least is presented halfway seriously. The second segment (23 minutes) involves a woman trying to get ahead in the world of showbiz that finds the real secret behind actors never going down-oh forget trying to hide the secret, it's because the actors are robots. It's bad enough to be wrapped in a middling story with a barely-there Adams, it's quite another to just fling out a twist that a third-grader might come up with for why they are so hyper today. By this point the idea of having characters encounter ironic or cutting fates is basically nonexistent, as if these people can't even exist beyond the names given to them.  The third segment is probably the shortest (14 minutes) for a good reason: a woman living in the piano-sized shadow of someone who can't quite just live his life without the dead daring to speak their mind. Yes, it involves a moving piano and it probably is the most interesting tale of the bunch because it at least provides a few interesting shots for when it gets to the inevitable showdown of just who deserves to be around for love. The last segment (lasting 17 minutes) involves who else but Edgar Allen Poe, as there are secrets that lie beneath collectibles with devilish influences, a lack of subtlety from Palance and an all too briefly charming Cushing and other things that come with wannabe spooky storytelling. Aside from a few highlight moments from Meredith in setting some curious with the conman act of fates and darkness, Torture Garden is just too inconsistent to really call a winner, representing that making one anthology movie is hard enough, making one that doesn't feel like a re-hash of the aforementioned Dr. Terror is another. If you like digging around for anthologies, it might be worth a look down, down, down the line, but, well, you never know.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day!

Hint: make sure to add the year to googling this movie, as "Torture Garden" apparently also leads to a search for a fetish event.

Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny and Girly.

Review #2429: Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny and Girly.

Cast: 

Michael Bryant (New Friend), Ursula Howells (Mumsy), Pat Heywood (Nanny), Howard Trevor (Sonny), Vanessa Howard (Girly), Robert Swann (Soldier), and Imogen Hassall (Girlfriend)

Directed by Freddie Francis (#854 - They Came from Beyond Space, #856 - The Evil of Frankenstein, #860 - Dracula Has Risen from the Grave, #1145 - Tales from the Crypt, #1419 - Dr. Terror's House of Horrors, #2143 - Trog)

Review: 

Apparently, Freddie Francis wanted to just do a movie on his own without studio assignments in his way, and this is the end result. Francis enlisted the services of Brian Comport, who had provided written material for the 1968 documentary The London Nobody Knows. The adaptation material to freely crib little from was a play called The Happy Family, which had been written by Maisie Mosco that apparently was quite weird. All Francis wanted was to make sure that the film could be set and shot in Oakley Court, a castle that overlooks the River Thames in Bray, Berkshire, England that had been used for a handful of movies for exterior shooting. Comport wrote just three more screenplays: Moon (1970), Beware My Bretheren (1972) and The Asphynx (1972). He later moved to Australia to become a journalist and did corporate videos before he died in 2013. Reportedly, this was the movie that Francis admired best among the movies he directed as a filmmaker. The movie was released on VHS but not on DVD until 2010. An event to honor the film at the Court was done in 2015 and it may very well be possible to call this a cult favorite. While the movie had an opening in the States in early 1970 and a premiere in the United Kingdom in April, it only was released in its native country for theater showings in September, which as it turned out was just a few weeks before the release of Goodbye Gemini, a movie involving a pair of close siblings and its own implications of their closeness together. Apparently, the fact that a horror movie daring to show or hint at something controversial was shocking to media watchdogs (read: losers but are they the biggest losers imaginable?) that led to backlash and led to theaters not being big on wanting to screen the film. For whatever reason, the movie was called "Girly" outside the United Kingdom, which seems like a foolish thing to do.

Admittedly, it is a pretty British type of movie, dangling bits of humor in the fuss it has in manners in the same breath that sees quite a few people get hacked off. Sure, it isn't a bloody affair, but it has an unusually chipper attitude that I can't help but appreciate in the slow burn for 101 minutes. It is a cheery type of film for people that like macabre things with a worthwhile group to play the game in characterization. Mostly, it is up to the viewer to consider just how anybody goes around calling themselves Mumsy or if these folks are even related to each other at all. They just go around with devilish whimsy that happens to resonate well with the interesting choice of setting in such beautiful isolation. There is a morbid elegance to people trying to play house while corpses are around the place (don't forget that in one instance Sonny goes and records one of the murders to show as a snuff film later on) that I imagine would be extremely deserving for a following or at least recognition. Francis may not have been big on doing horror film after horror film as a director, but he at least had an eye for trying to make the best out of what could've easily just been silly British stuff. Howells and Heywood were the among most experienced actors in the film (i.e. more than a few) and they do a pretty good job in establishing the unsettling nature of play-acting in roles of alleged authority, one that has them more concerned about who finishes knitting first than the business of disposed bodies. Howard Trevor (not to be confused with Trevor Howard, as one might find when trying to Google) apparently made just one film as an actor and it was this one, while Howard had a handful of horror films and that was it, since she retired from acting not too long after getting married, doing just three more movies after Mumsy (All the Way Up [1970], The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer [1970], What Became of Jack and Jill? [1972]); she died in 2010 at the age of 62. Incidentally, a bench in her memory was dedicated at Oakley Court in 2015. She does a pretty unnerving job in making it more than just with a detached commitment that is more than just being a bit. It all collides with Bryant, who plays the lone detached force with clever interest, managing to maneuver around the strange order of things without just being a bland would-be final "guy" (well, at least by how the ending may, or may not, go in the long run...). As a whole, Mumsy is a strange piece of macabre amusement, one that plays with its environment and expectations for a few enjoyable moments within the horror of people bound to structure and the ones who have the misfortune to have to try and adjust to it without losing their head. If you like seeing movies that deserved better from the time it was made, this one may be up your alley.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.