Grande Dame Guignol

[Snarky Oracle!]

I can watch Circus Of Horrors, thanks! (did you lie about my age?)

Well, I lie about mine!

 

[ClassyCo]

I watched BERSERK! (1967) when I was off from work, terribly sick, on Monday. I had wanted to see it for a long time.

Well, the itch has been scratched.

BERSERK! is a cheesy British B-movie which I thought pulled some decent performances out of Crawford, Ty Hardin, and Diana Dors, the latter two being '50s sex symbols, now past their prime. There isn't much to the movie really. There's murders going on at a circus ran by a tyrant named Monica (Crawford) and the plot sets up a "whodunnit" for the audience.

A lot of the running time (to me at least) seemed to be used on old-timey circus showmanship, which I suppose is a time capsule in its own right. It really reads as filler in the movie itself, though.

I must admit I figured out who the killer was quicker than the movie wanted me to, but I don't think they did a good job of hiding it. They did at least try to throw some red herrings into the mix along the way.

BERSERK! isn't necessarily a good movie. Crawford is at least 15+ years too old for her role (there are multiple camera tricks done to disguise her age, i.e. a constant shadow cast across her neck), and that makes her romance scenes with Ty Hardin a little unsettling. Dors, I thought, was good in a tongue-in-cheek sort of way. There are some other okayish performances, too.

You're not missing anything by skipping this one.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

You're not missing anything by skipping this one.

But you should watch BERSERK to compare it to CIRCUS OF HORROS (both of which are posted above).

CIRCUS OF HORRORS is the tighter picture -- just as grade-B cheezie, but better. My fantasy, probably achievable with A.I. but the legal stuff would be a disaster, is to combine both films, with Crawford the repressed and frustrated wife of Anton Diffring; later their daughter shows up -- expelled from boarding school, and it turns out that daddy and daughter have both been committing the murders separately (him, because the lady performers want to exit the Big Top; her, because the male circus workers have been molesting her since childhood). And it ends up -- as both movies do -- with a catastrophe outside of the tent curtain, several people killed at once (a car crash, a lightning strike, an angry elephant no longer willing to tolerate abuse by its master anymore).

It would be 90% the scenes from CIRCUS OF HORRORS, only with Crawford face added in, with the better moments from BERSERK (mostly those with the daughter, plus Joan's elephant walk sequence) edited in.

It wouldn't have to be more than 15 minutes longer than either movie actually is, especially since the police exchanges in both films are almost identical as well.

 

[ClassyCo]

But you should watch BERSERK to compare it to CIRCUS OF HORROS (both of which are posted above).

Yes, I mean to watch CIRCUS OF HORRORS, too. I might get on that tomorrow during some hopeful downtime at work.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

I've been watching some videos about the 1929 murder at the Doheny's Greystone Manor (where Bette Davis' DEAD RINGER was filmed, as was DEATH BECOMES HER with Streep and Hawn, and the mansion served as the location where The Consortium was holding Jeff in DYNASTY: THE REUNION in 1991).

The Doheny mansion murder from 1929: the closeted gay son, Ned, and his lover, Hugh Plunkett, were both caught up in the Teapot Dome scandal (one of the biggest dust ups in America political history); Hugh slides into depression, shows up at the estate (uninvited, but his presence wasn't really unusual) and shots rang out.

Hugh had been shot in the back of the head at close range, lying face down on his cigarette; Ned, son of the patriarch, was shot at close range and was lying face up.

The case was suspiciously covered up with minimal investigation. It was speculated to be a murder/suicide, with depressed Hugh having killed his "business partner," Ned, before killing himself (which seems unlikely since Hugh was shot in the back of his head while holding a cigarette). The family didn't bury poor Ned in the family crypt, probably because they believed Ned himself was the suicidal killer and suicides weren't allowed the proper ceremonial burial when they're Catholic... But Ned's alleged guilt had to be hidden, given the family's name.

Tongues wagged for decades that Papa Joe "caught" his son, Ned, with lover Hugh and killed them both (which seems unlikely, as both victims were fully dressed).

Another scenario which has lingered for most of the century was that Ned's wife, Lucy, killed her gay husband and his gay lover, Hugh, made it look like a murder-suicide, and she then inherited the mansion, remarried and moved her new husband into Greystone (!), lived there until downsizing in 1955, and she finally died at age 100 in 1993!

I checked. Lucy was a Sun in Cancer/Moon in Pisces... (the gay hubby was Sun in Scorpio/Moon in Libra) .. the bitch did it!!

She must've killed him and his lover, sweeping the Teapot Dome scandal away and inheriting everything with impunity!

Since her name was "Lucy," it makes me wonder if Robert Bloch had the Doheny murder in mind when he wrote the STRAIT-JACKET screenplay... Maybe the original concept was for Joan Crawford to catch Heath Barkley in bed with Chuck "The Rifleman" Connors... but it could never get passed the censors in 1963!

No wonder poor little Carol (Diane Baker) lost her mind, watching her papa get sodomized from the livingroom couch and then chopped to bits by her mama!

What's a tyke to do but go crazy??

 

[DallasFanForever]

chopped to bits by her mama!

Joan was always good with an axe I gotta say

 

[Popular Piggy Defying Gravity]

I watched FANATIC (otherwise known as DIE! DIE! MY DARLING! for the American market) tonight on Tubi.

This thriller stars Tallulah Bankhead as Mrs. Trefoile, a suppressed religious fanatic (which is where the British title comes from) who is morbidly obsessed by the death of her son, Steven. Mrs. Trefoile is unhinged and takes the locking up Steven's would-be wife Patricia (Stefanie Powers) in her attic when she comes to England for a visit.

I found FANATIC to be a good movie, and I'd say it's a good representation of the "grande dame guignol" genre. The fact the movie is in color doesn't bother me, and I thought several parts of the story were quite creepy. This a Hammer production (as was Davis' THE NANNY, filmed in B&W and also released in 1965), and the studio's fingerprint is prevalent.

FANATIC can get a little long-winded, and perhaps had a good 20 minutes been shaved off, the movie would've been a tad more impressionable.

This is probably Tallulah's finest on-screen performance as an actress (even though Hitchcock's LIFEBOAT is right up there, too), as she really seems to slide into the character of Mrs. Trefoile without her typical "Tallulah" mannerisms. I recall Bankhead plugging the movie during her appearance on WHAT'S MY LINE? in 1965.

I think the movie plays better when titled FANATIC, but the version I watched tonight was called DIE! DIE! MY DARLING! American exhibitors retitled the movie for U.S. audiences to cash-in on Bankhead's "darling" over usage, a fact often played for laughs by those impersonating her. There's also a line towards the end of the film where Mrs. Trefoile says to Patricia, "You must die. Die! Die! My darling." So, I guess they can say that's where the U.S. retitle came from as well.

As I said, this movie is currently free on Tubi. If you're interested, go and watch it. Even if you find it not to be your cup of tea, at least you didn't waste money to watch it.

View attachment 51358

I finally watched this tonight (thanks to you all for my nightmares) and, in a very twisted way, I did enjoy it. We have Mrs. H., Mrs. Roper, Jack Bauer´s daddy and the woman who inspired Bette in "The Little Foxes" and "All About Eve" all in a bunch. There´s so much to laugh at... Tallulah is indeed a "fanatic" (and his son in the portrait looks like Jack Coleman, by the way). Stefanie Powers looks quite dumb in the first half-hour, and poor Sutherland hardly has one line of dialogue... Of course, the scene-stealer is Yootha Joyce, here a butch with a satyr of a husband (as in "George & Mildred"). Interesting facts mentioned above, thank you! Some shots are clearly inspired (or copied and pasted) by "Psycho", though the DoP does a good job. All in all, a nice way to spend a hot summer night (alone).

 

[Oh!Carol Christmasson]

Is this Demi Moore's grand guignol?

 

[Popular Piggy Defying Gravity]

Here is a great video that reviews "Whatever Happened..." and the lesser movies of Joan and Bette that are linked to it in some way.

 

[ClassyCo]

Is this Demi Moore's grand guignol?

I'm unsure if I'd classify this as "grande dame guignol", but this is probably the 21st-century version of it.

 

[Oh!Carol Christmasson]

We could call it "grande demi guignol"

 

[ClassyCo]

We could call it "grande demi guignol"

You stole the words right outta my mouth!

 

[Popular Piggy Defying Gravity]

Demi´s true grand guignol was her appearance in "Empire", straight out of "Misery"!!! She was gross there!! Her daughter was gross too, but only for her painful face reconstruction...

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Miss Piggy adds that all the Willis family (minus Bruce, of course) seem to be "straight out of Compton" instead...