William Castle + Joan Crawford = Insanity. Literally.
In Straight-Jacket, Joan Crawford plays Lucy, a wife and mother who brutally axes her cheating husband and his girlfriend to death. The problem his, her young daughter sees it all. Lucy is quickly whisked away to the loony bin.
Fast forward 20 years and Lucy's getting out of the asylum on good behavior, and she's sent to live with her daughter, Carol, now in her twenties and engaged to a nice young man.
Carol and Lucy attempt to repair their relationship by getting Lucy a makeover, but pretty soon Lucy starts going crazy again, hearing voices and having disturbing hallucinations. Then, of course, people start getting mysteriously axed to death.
I won't spoil the rest of the movie for you. But rest assured, it's disturbing and surprisingly graphic, and everything you'd want from a William Castle film starring Joan Crawford in her 60's "I'll do anything" period.
Highlights of the film include:
Joan Crawford looking crazy
Joan lighting her match on a spinning record in a moment of drunken insanity:
Needless to say, Straight-Jacket has further cemented my love for all Joan Crawford movies.
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2 comments:
I used to be such a Joan-hater, but after seeing a bunch of her early stuff I became a huge fan. Needless to say, I MUST see this because I love that vulnerability she exudes when she does those axe-wielding kind of roles!
Being in the Chicago area, and a JC fan, I assume you are familiar with the work of David Cerda?
http://www.handbagproductions.org/
He is quite, very, morbidly, obsessed with Joan and has even done a musical based on Trogg....
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