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5
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6 |
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10
= Highest Rating |
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Guest
Review by Rod
Barnett |
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An
early Pete Walker film that finds the director
in interesting territory without making a very
interesting movie.
Marianne
MacDonald (Susan George) is a free-spirited, promiscuous
young woman making her living in Europe as a dancer
in go-go clubs. On the run from two men tracking
her from place to place, she falls in with Sebastian
Smith (Christopher Sanford), who takes the beautiful
lady home to London. After living together for
two weeks an apparently smitten Sebastian pushes
Marianne into a marriage ceremony —
although she is less than enthusiastic about the
idea. Showing a passive-aggressive nature Marianne
manages to sabotage the marriage by substituting
the best man's name in the groom's blank on the
marriage certificate. Sebastian is exasperated
when Marianne admits that she did this on purpose
and stunned when she packs and leaves. Sebastian's
friend and best man Eli Frome (Barry Evens) is
unsure of the situation but offers the girl his
spare bed until she can find her own way. He promises
Sebastian won't know; we learn that is certainly
true as the spurned fellow packs up and flies
off to Portugal. There our failed husband meets
with Judge Evans (Leo Genn) who, it turns out,
is Marianne's estranged father. It seems Sebastian
has a history with Marianne's rather vicious half-sister
Hildegard (Judy Huxtable) and was well aware of
her past and her real last name from the moment
he met her. The Judge wants his prodigal daughter
to return to his Portuguese country estate before
her 21st birthday and offers Sebastian $3,000
to complete this task. Informed that she is legally
married, he asks for the husband to be convinced
to visit as well. Enticement is added by Hildegard's
promises of even more monetary reward if he will
help her do away with her despised half-sibling.
Returning
to London, our smarmy Mr. Smith finds the couple
quite happily cohabitating. Even after a day in
which Marianne briefly left Eli to secretly try
to find a dancing job she seems to actually care
for her accidental hubby. Still not ready to confide
in Eli about her past she agrees to go to Portugal
and he joins her, thinking he should meet the
in-laws. The family reunion is tense but we are
finally given the reasons for Marianne's reluctance
to live with her father. Marianne's mother had
(for some reason) compromising papers locked away
in a numbered Swiss bank account —
an account that only Marianne has access to. These
papers are proof of the Judge's illegal activities
on the bench and could cause him embarrassment
and possible jail time. It seems that Judge Evans
might have been complicit in the mysterious death
of his wife and just might want his willful daughter
dead, too, if it sealed those papers away forever.
Hildegard is more interested in the several hundred
thousand dollars packed away in the account...
Thus begins a silly and sloppily
ham-fisted series of murder attempts and double
crosses that result in a few deaths and a strangely
downbeat ending. I can honestly say I couldn't
see the final scene coming exactly as it plays
out but the mild surprise it packs is hardly enough
to cause a repeat visit to Marianne's odd story.
This isn't a bad film, really —
just a mediocre one. It often seems as if there
is a better story that is just about to break
out but the script keeps veering away from it.
At first the film plays as a late '60s drama with
Marianne as a troubled girl in search of herself.
Then it moves into mystery with the two men tracking
her to London and threatening Eli until he responds
with violence. At the same time we witness the
nastiness and perversity of Sebastian and Hildegard
as they plot and we're in thriller territory.
There's even a hint of incest thrown in for no
real purpose other than to up the sleaze factor
minimally. Early on I smiled at the introduction
of Eli Frome thinking that with that literary
allusion there were going to be some interesting
things at play but nothing ever panned out. Sadly
this is a rather flat film with a few interesting
scenes, some good performances and some very nice
location work but a script in need of sharper
focus. Pete Walker would go on to make better
movies with better scripts but he does invest
some points of interest in the proceedings. There
just aren't enough of them to recommend Die
Screaming, Marianne except to Walker completists
and those with a desire to check out the late
60’s London and clothing. Although some may want
to check out the credit sequence in which the
bikini-clad Miss George go-go danced her way into
my permanent memory.
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Another in Shriek Show's
commendable Pete Walker Collection series
of DVDs, Die
Screaming, Marianne
is a good way to see this fairly obscure film.
The movie is presented in anamorphic widescreen,
letterboxed at 1.85:1 with both the original Mono
soundtrack and an optional 5.1 mix. Both tracks
are good with the Mono getting a slight edge (even
though actor Leo Genn is often hard to decipher
on either). The film appears to have been taken
from a slightly worn print with occasional obtrusive
vertical lines. There is one very ugly splice,
evidence of a few missing frames and the disc
has an annoying pause at the layer change. Extras
include the theatrical trailer for this and the
other film in the Shriek Show series, brief notes
on the film's production, a small photo gallery
and an excellent commentary track with Walker
hosted by Jonathan Rigby.
This track is easily the highlight of the DVD
with the director being very open about the film
and the circumstances that nearly caused it to
be stopped in mid-production. Having Rigby on
hand makes for a steady stream of information,
not just about the movie but also touching on
the various actors, British film industry problems
and the fateful call from Sam Peckinpah that landed
Susan George her role in Straw
Dogs. I wasn't looking forward to another
trek through this film but this commentary was
well worth the time.
9/03/06
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