- Awards
- 19
For as long as it lasts...
Bette versus Bette:
Bette versus Bette:
- Awards
- 11
I decided to re-watch DEAD RINGER (1964) today, having not seen it in several years. It's a pretty good B-movie, as those things go and Bette turns in a solid performance, even if the movie isn't as shlocky as I remember it being.
The set-up is relatively simple. A poor sister (Davis) decides to kill her rich sister (also Davis) and take over her life. The tables turn on her and she ends up paying for a crime she didn't commit. It's a classic case of karma.
Davis hams it up some, but also seems to be just a tad restrained in some of the scenes, which I think works effectively. Karl Malden, as always, is a standout, while Jean Hagen and Peter Lawford are both relegated to smaller supporting roles. The movie doesn't do anything new, but I thought it offered a good amount of suspense and has some good B&W camerawork photographed by Davis's favorite cameraman, Ernest Haller.
- Awards
- 19
I still have my lurid, sanguine ~1967 imaginary shocker, HORNET'S NEST, with Joan Crawford in her own good-n-evil twins dual role: the wealthy mean-spirited dowager, living in a pinkish Victorian mansion at the top the hill, mistreating her motley gang of family members until her good twin, a clairvoyant healer, shows up one day to bring her wicked sibling down... Naturally, the evil sister has Crawford's severe beehive hairdo and giant choker necklaces, while the saintly-psychic sister has a long, tumbling "fall" and modest wardrobe.
All I know is that the final scene has Good Joan wandering down the long driveway at twilight as Bad Joan's mansion is ablaze, Bad Joan being attacked, impaled and garroted by the resentful giant hydra plant in the conservatory. Shrieking in apocalyptic torment as only she can.
Maybe we can use A.I. to recreate Crawford's image and voice (her estate, obviously, will have to sign off on it for a chunk). An intensely autumnal production design and Halloweenish color scheme is used.
As we know, they can do stuff like that now. We need only the will...
Then.... we fix STRAIT-JACKET.
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- Awards
- 11
I wish HORNET'S NEST actually existed. This would probably be one of my favorites of the batch.I still have my lurid, sanguine ~1967 imaginary shocker, HORNET'S NEST, with Joan Crawford in her own good-n-evil twins dual role: the wealthy mean-spirited dowager, living in a pinkish Victorian mansion at the top the hill, mistreating her motley gang of family members until her good twin, a clairvoyant healer, shows up one day to bring her wicked sibling down... Naturally, the evil sister has Crawford's severe beehive hairdo and giant choker necklaces, while the saintly-psychic sister has a long, tumbling "fall" and modest wardrobe.
All I know is that the final scene has Good Joan wandering down the long driveway at twilight as Bad Joan's mansion is ablaze, Bad Joan being attacked, impaled and garroted by the resentful giant hydra plant in the conservatory. Shrieking in apocalyptic torment as only she can.
Maybe we can use A.I. to recreate Crawford's image and voice (her estate, obviously, will have to sign off on it for a chunk). An intensely autumnal production design and Halloweenish color scheme is used.
As we know, they can do stuff like that now. We need only the will...
Then.... we fix STRAIT-JACKET.
- Awards
- 19
But it can -- but it can!! The technology is there! We must only harness it!
Maybe I can post a photo of the theoretical lobby card over my bed at night... Linda Evans and Joan Collins both posted photos over their teenaged beds of the man they wanted to marry, and then they did (without even actively pursuing him!). Worked out great for Linda (for a while) but not so great for Collins.
It works! Has something to do with brain plasticity -- but it works... I just wish I'd tried it in my teens or twenties.
So we can have our HORNET'S NEST. And, if we're very good, very focused, and have any extra time, world peace!
- Awards
- 8
My own Crawford as twins fantasy film is much earlier, during Joan's Warners era. It's vaguely based on Stephanie Powers' DECEPTIONS TV-movie, with twin sisters swapping places; very trashy noir melodrama.
Either way, more than Davis or De Havilland, the two sides -- the two faces -- of Crawford needed to square off.
- Awards
- 19
