Jimmy Sangster always wanted to shoot his psycho thrillers in black and white – this was the first in colour. He was right. Black and white suits psycho thriller-dom a lot more than colour. It doesn’t help the material isn’t quite psycho-y – no one is drivig anyone insane or dies, it’s more a black family melodrama in the tradition of The Little Foxes. Once I got that, I began appreciating this film for what it was rather than what it could have been, and it’s quite entertaining.
It is very stage-bound – the action only really leaves the house for one sequence, a dinner in the middle of the film, and there’s lots of entrances and exits and telephone calls. The action takes place over one night, an annual dinner marking the wedding anniversary of Bette Davis and her husband – even though he’s been dead for ten years. She torments her kids – a cross dresser, married man with kids and nagging wife who wants to move to Canada, and bratty son who is always bringing home girls he’s engaged too. They try to fight back but ultimately lose (although there’s no real ending for the cross dresser story).
Bette looks cool with her different eye patches but she has too much dialogue – her voice really got on my nerves. She also sings ‘Rock of Ages’. Solid support from the British cast, except that youngest son whose arrogance got wearying. This was the film on which Davis famously demanded the director be sacked; he was replaced by Roy Ward Baker. Well, she was the star.
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