Die! Die! My Darling! (1965)
(released on DVD by Columbia on August 12, 2003)
The release of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? in 1962 was one of those events that triggered a spate of similar films. Thus for much of the mid-1960s, horror films starring veteran actresses were a constant presence. Few if any, though, could live up to the quality of Baby Jane and the dual pedigree of Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. Certainly both Davis and Crawford tried again separately. So we got the likes of Hush Hush, Sweet Charlotte and The Nanny from Davis (the former also with Olivia de Havilland and Agnes Moorehead), and Strait Jacket and I Saw What You Did from Crawford. Not to be left out, an aging Tallulah Bankhead made her contribution with Die! Die! My Darling! - a 1965 British Hammer Films Production (originally released as Fanatic) that is actually better than the title might suggest.
A young woman, Pat Carroll, decides to pay a courtesy visit to the mother of her former fiancé who had committed suicide in an auto wreck. The mother, Mrs. Trefoile, lives in a large rambling house with a staff of three. What was meant to be a short visit turns into an overnight stay and eventually Pat's imprisonment in the house's attic. Mrs. Trefoile, it turns out, is obsessed with her dead son's spirit and feels it to be her mission to reunite Pat with her son in the afterlife. The film is entirely Bankhead's as she gives a bravura performance as the increasingly mad Mrs. Trefoile. She plays it straight and invests the character with real menace; she's a delight to watch. The supporting cast is equally good with Stefanie Powers in an early role as Pat, Donald Sutherland as a mentally deficient gardener, Peter Vaughan as an antagonistic, menacing odd-job man (the sequence where he uses Miss Bankhead's old publicity photos for target practice is a nice touch), and Yootha Joyce as Mrs. Trefoile's maid. The story is familiar and simply told, but done with conviction, suspense, and professionalism. One could spend a much worse hour and a half.
Visually, Columbia's DVD presentation is very good. Working from what appears to be pretty decent source material, the 1.85:1 anamorphic transfer is crisp and bright with generally very nice colour saturation and good shadow detail. The odd speckle and scratch and occasional pale sequence do not detract in any significant fashion from what is otherwise a transfer that is a pleasure to watch. The Dolby Digital mono track is more than adequate. The most important thing was to have Tallulah Bankhead's distinctively throaty voice come through clearly and there it is successful. Columbia restricts its supplementary material to three trailers, none of which are for Die! Die! My Darling!.
(released on DVD by Columbia on August 12, 2003)
The release of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? in 1962 was one of those events that triggered a spate of similar films. Thus for much of the mid-1960s, horror films starring veteran actresses were a constant presence. Few if any, though, could live up to the quality of Baby Jane and the dual pedigree of Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. Certainly both Davis and Crawford tried again separately. So we got the likes of Hush Hush, Sweet Charlotte and The Nanny from Davis (the former also with Olivia de Havilland and Agnes Moorehead), and Strait Jacket and I Saw What You Did from Crawford. Not to be left out, an aging Tallulah Bankhead made her contribution with Die! Die! My Darling! - a 1965 British Hammer Films Production (originally released as Fanatic) that is actually better than the title might suggest.
A young woman, Pat Carroll, decides to pay a courtesy visit to the mother of her former fiancé who had committed suicide in an auto wreck. The mother, Mrs. Trefoile, lives in a large rambling house with a staff of three. What was meant to be a short visit turns into an overnight stay and eventually Pat's imprisonment in the house's attic. Mrs. Trefoile, it turns out, is obsessed with her dead son's spirit and feels it to be her mission to reunite Pat with her son in the afterlife. The film is entirely Bankhead's as she gives a bravura performance as the increasingly mad Mrs. Trefoile. She plays it straight and invests the character with real menace; she's a delight to watch. The supporting cast is equally good with Stefanie Powers in an early role as Pat, Donald Sutherland as a mentally deficient gardener, Peter Vaughan as an antagonistic, menacing odd-job man (the sequence where he uses Miss Bankhead's old publicity photos for target practice is a nice touch), and Yootha Joyce as Mrs. Trefoile's maid. The story is familiar and simply told, but done with conviction, suspense, and professionalism. One could spend a much worse hour and a half.
Visually, Columbia's DVD presentation is very good. Working from what appears to be pretty decent source material, the 1.85:1 anamorphic transfer is crisp and bright with generally very nice colour saturation and good shadow detail. The odd speckle and scratch and occasional pale sequence do not detract in any significant fashion from what is otherwise a transfer that is a pleasure to watch. The Dolby Digital mono track is more than adequate. The most important thing was to have Tallulah Bankhead's distinctively throaty voice come through clearly and there it is successful. Columbia restricts its supplementary material to three trailers, none of which are for Die! Die! My Darling!.
