Hey guys! I just watched Freddie Francis' directorial debut "Paranioac" for the first time in its original scope aspect ratio (I have previously watched it on full frame vhs), and what a marked improvement!!!
Francis, whose original profession was as cameraman/cinematographer combined a very mobile camera with deep focus to compose some impressive shots (the tracking shot through the estate in the opening, for example).
More significant is that although the film was clearly patterned after Hitchcock's recent hit "Psycho", its structure and characteristics appear to be percusors to the (then barely emerging) Italian "giallo" (the heroine, unsure if she's mad (or being driven there), the bizarrely costumed killer, "red herrings", foreign mistresses (the nurse), and childhood traumas that shape/effect a later psychosis).
Add a young, oftentimes spectacularly "over the top" Oliver Reed (especially when liquor introduces itself into the plot) into the mix, and you have one of Hammer's best psycho-thrillers.
Bryan
Francis, whose original profession was as cameraman/cinematographer combined a very mobile camera with deep focus to compose some impressive shots (the tracking shot through the estate in the opening, for example).
More significant is that although the film was clearly patterned after Hitchcock's recent hit "Psycho", its structure and characteristics appear to be percusors to the (then barely emerging) Italian "giallo" (the heroine, unsure if she's mad (or being driven there), the bizarrely costumed killer, "red herrings", foreign mistresses (the nurse), and childhood traumas that shape/effect a later psychosis).
Add a young, oftentimes spectacularly "over the top" Oliver Reed (especially when liquor introduces itself into the plot) into the mix, and you have one of Hammer's best psycho-thrillers.
Bryan
