William Castle + Joan Crawford = Insanity. Literally.

My weekend of holiday happiness and Christmas decorating was punctuated with possibly the most disturbing Joan Crawford movie I've ever seen. I think the poster says it all.

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.

Confessions

I have some confessions to make. Old movie related ones:

1. I don't really like Breakfast at Tiffany's. Everyone talks about how great this movie is, but I can't say I've ever enjoyed it that much. I especially hate the end with the cat and the rain. It upsets me.

2. I fast forward over musical numbers in non-musical movies. This mostly applies to every Doris Day movie in which she sings a pre-sex song. Also, every song in The Parent Trap.

3. The Wizard of Oz - not my favorite. I'm not saying I don't like it, it's just not my favorite Judy movie. Or my favorite in any category, really. But I have to act like I'm a big fan since I'm a big Judy fan and usually nobody's heard of any other Judy movies. Plus it's fun to collect the memorabilia.

4. I haven't seen any of Judy Garland's movies from the 60's. I'm pretty sure I've seen all of her films except these ones. They just seem weird and sad.

5. I don't get TCM. I'm not made of money, people! Meanwhile, Netflix more than makes up for it.

6. I don't really like watching new movies. And by "new" I mean old movies that I haven't seen before. I'd much rather just watch the same movies that I know I love over and over again. But I know the new ones are usually worth watching, so I make myself do it.

7. I don't think the Marx Brothers are that funny. I don't hate their movies and certainly I've had some good times while watching them, I just wouldn't do it on a regular basis.

8. I like the new Sabrina better than the old Sabrina. This one's easy because I just wrote about it.

9. It's possible that I've never watched the entire Climb Every Mountain scene in The Sound of Music. I hate the song and avoid it at all costs.

10. I've never seen Citizen Kane. And I don't have plans to. I'm pretty sure I won't like it.

The Fly and The Scream

Warning: This post will contain spoilers, because they're the interesting parts.

Great Halloween at my house last night. Old Movie Night featured two ... interesting Vincent Price films, The Fly and The Last Man on Earth.

The Last Man on Earth is about just that. After a terrible disease plagues the entire earth, Vincent Price is the last man standing, having gained immunity to the terrible disease through a bat bite years earlier. So for three years he lives alone, fending off the zombie-vampires that the disease has created. This film wasn't particularly scary (and I'm a jumpy one), but if you enjoy watching Vincent Price talk to himself, it's definitely the movie for you!

That brings us to The Fly. Basically the perfect 50's horror film, The Fly offers up screaming women, sexist children, scientist men, big machines that make futuristic noises, and insects.

Half the film is presented in flashback form as Helene Delambre tries to explain to her brother-in-law (Vincent Price, who's conveniently in love with her) and the inspector why she killed her husband. He turned into a fly, that's why. He got a little over-zealous with his "matter transporting" equipment and some of his "matter" gets a little mixed up. Now he's got a fly head and hand and somewhere out there buzzing around is a white-headed fly-man.

The second half of the film involves Vincent Price searching high and low for the white-headed fly that will prove Helene's insane story and get her off the hook for her husband's murder. His search finally leads him and the inspector to a spider web where a tiny little fly-man, yelling "help me!" a million times in a little fly voice, is about to get eaten by a spider.

This is the point in the movie at which the entire group at my house screamed. For an excessively long time. I can't really explain this scream and why it went on for so long. After all, this is a not-so-scary 50's horror movie. But seeing a fly-man get eaten by a spider is slightly disturbing. Plus, the special effects were basically horrific. So the scream went on for some time, laughing, screaming, confusion, general noise. It was exciting and an old movie night first. I'm not sure what to make of it.

But after all the screaming stopped and we calmed down, emotions were mixed. The premise was disturbing. But there were some sweet, touching moments like when the man-fly wrote "love you" to his wife on the chalkboard before getting squashed to death like any fly should. And who couldn't be happy when Vincent finally ends up with Helene whom he loved all along now that his sexy, smart fly-brother is squashed? And how can you not be appalled at their dumb little sexist son, spouting zingers like, "you know how women are"? This movie has it all. We laughed, we cried, we cringed, and we screamed.

The Sound of Music Reunion

Well I do love The Sound of Music so I was very excited to discover that the cast reunion on Oprah is now on Youtube.

It's not a Time Traveler, People

It's clearly an alien.

I'm not sure why we're so desperate to have time travelers show up in old movies. There are lots of reasons this person could be doing what they're doing:

1. The actual feasible explanation of the hearing aid.

2. Itchy ear

3. Insanity

4. Hiding

5. Alien

Also, for the record, I think it's a man dressed as a woman. Or an alien dressed as a man dressed as a woman.

Follow That Blog!

I started a Twitter for this blog because sometimes there are comments I want to make that just don't warrant an entire blog post. You can find me here.

Trifecta

In the midst of all this contemplation of Sabrina and remade movies I realized, to my horror, that I've never written about the ultimate remake series: The Shop Around the Corner, In the Good Old Summertime, and You've Got Mail. A trifecta of hatred, romance, and comedy. A couple months ago a group of very dedicated friends sat down and watched all three movies with me, for a marathon of awesomeness.

The Shop Around the Corner started it all in 1940 with Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullavan. It's a nice little movie, based in Hungary (??), our main characters work together in a gift shop and quickly grow to hate each other, all the while unknowingly writing love letters back and forth. It's funny and sweet, but I don't especially love it. The problem is, it has an unfair advantage considering that I loved the two later movies long before I even saw this one.

In the Good Old Summertime was the first of these three that I saw, during my childhood Judy Garland obsession. I believe that my loyalty to Judy and the sentimental value it holds for me make it my favorite of the three. It continues our themes of love blooming from extreme hatred, with our two main characters working together in a music shop. It's entertaining and fun, however, Judy is extra mean in it and many of the songs are forgettable.

So that brings us to You've Got Mail. Basically the same story, lead characters hate each other in real life, but love each other on paper ... or email as it were. Look, I love this movie. It's funny and romantic and basically lovely. I can't bring myself to say that I like it more than Summertime, but I don't like it less. And I can't really think of anything bad to say about it.

So is this another case of a superior remake (or two)? I'd say yes, though I know there are many people that love the original. I would highly recommend watching all three of them together if you're into that sort of thing. There are quotes and gags and characters that survived all three films, and they're all quality movies.