This being Thursday, it's time for another edition of "Thursday Movie Picks", the blogathon run by Wandering Through the Shelves. We're in October, which of course ends with Halloween, so the subjects this month are all technically Halloween-related. This second Thursday in October has the theme of dolls. I think they mean real, no-foolin dolls, so I'm not picking Valley of the Dolls this time around. Besides, I've got three movies, all of which are frightening for various members of the cast:
Witchcraft (1964). I just watched this one a couple of weeks ago off of FXM Retro. A landed family in the UK develops another plot of land, but to do so they have to disturb an abandoned cemetery which includes the graves of another family with which they've had an extended feud. Lon Chaney Jr. plays the patriarch of the non-landed family, who lost their land when one of their ancestors was accused of witchcraft. That member returns from the dead and leaves dolls with the people she's going to put a spell on to kill.
Night of the Hunter (1955). Bank robber Peter Graves is about to get caught, so he puts the $20,000 he robbed in his daughter's doll. Robert Mitchum hears about the robbery, and wants to get the money. So he marries Graves' wife (Shelley Winters), Graves having been sentenced to death. The kids get the danger and run away, with Mitchum chasing not far behind and always being a menacing presence. Winters, as in A Place in the Sun and The Poseidon Adventure has a memorable scene involving water.
Wait Until Dark (1967). Audrey Hepburn plays a blind woman whose husband (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.) is asked to take a doll on a flight home to be a gift for a girl in the hospital. What neither of them knows is that the doll is actually filled with heroin, and the drug dealers, in the form of Alan Arkin, want the doll back. The dealers are willing to go to great lengths to get that doll, while Audrey can't see what's going on around her. Film has a memorable finale.
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3 comments:
LOVE your picks and the inventive way you approached the theme.
I never would have thought of either Night of the Hunter nor Wait Until Dark for this but they fit perfectly. Night of the Hunter is such a fantastic film with Mitchum frightening and Lillian Gish fearsome both brilliant. Water scenes were very, very good to Shelley.
Wait Under Dark is wonderfully tense and Audrey terrific in it. I think it's a shame though that Lee Remick didn't get the chance to recreate her stage role. It's puzzling since she was a big movie star at the time...perhaps not quite as big as Audrey though and that probably told the tale.
Haven't seen Witchcraft. I'll have to keep an eye out for it.
I'm not big on horror but did manage two that fit in that genre my third is more horrible than horror however.
Magic (1978)-When ventriloquist assistant Corky Withers (Anthony Hopkins) makes his first public performance alone he’s a bust. Afterward he’s given a dummy, Fats to work with. Slowly he improves and eventually is approaching the big time but something strange is happening, Fats seems to be taking control of not only their act but Corky’s actions. Feeling uneasy he takes a break at a cottage owned by his childhood sweetheart Peggy Ann Snow (Ann-Margret) where the hoped for relief doesn’t come but thanks to Fats things become increasingly dire. Creepy and unsettling. Notorious for having its initial TV preview pulled after a massive series of complaints that it was too frightening for children.
Attack of the Puppet People aka I Was a Teenage Doll (1958)-Mad doctor is lonely for companionship so he invents a machine that shrinks people to miniature size. When he pulls the trick on his secretary and her boyfriend they desperately try to discover a way to escape and once again return to normal size. Strictly drive-in stuff with a budget to match but John Hoyt gives it everything he’s got as the wacko professor with the human doll collection.
Magnificent Doll (1946)-Dolley Payne Todd (Ginger Rogers!?) is a young widow living in 17th century Philadelphia when she meets two men with great futures, Aaron Burr (David Niven) and James Madison (Burgess Meredith). Both court her but she picks Madison and from that point on according to this history is decided by two lovesick puppies quarreling over the supposedly Magnificent Doll. Ginger, completely at sea, obviously thinks the way to portray one of the Great Ladies of History is to declaim rather than speak her lines and act as if she were made of wood throughout this stately bore. A horror show of another kind and a real disservice to its subject perhaps the most vibrant, interesting woman of revolutionary times who did have tremendous influence on events just not in the drippy, empty way shown here.
Very nice approach. Unfortunately, I haven't seen any of these. I've been meaning to see Night of the Hunter forever, though.
I love your inventive approach to this week's theme. Joel is 100% right! I haven't Witchcraft but would love to! I love Night of the Hunter with that bad boy Mitchum loving his role. he plays an animal so well...like the big bad wolf. I so wish that Charles Laughton would have directed more films. I just saw Wait Until Dark last year and was so happy to have seen this film. I thought Hepburn played it so well but Arkin steals the picture as the psycho
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