A Taste of Evil (1971)

          If a barrage of logic-bending plot twists, a handful of familiar actors, and pervasive woman-in-peril atmosphere are sufficient to hold your attention, then you’re the target audience for 1971’s A Taste of Evil, a distasteful but watchable telefilm starring two very different Barbaras, onetime Golden Age star Stanwyck and Peyton Place player Parkins. Rounding out the top-billed cast are Roddy McDowall, Arthur O’Connell, and William Windom, while the behind-the-scenes notables are prolific TV director John Llewellyn Moxey (whose career spanned 1955 to 1991) and writer Jimmy Sangster, best known for the entertainingly lurid Hammer horrors he wrote and/or directed. These folks’ assorted skillsets give A Taste of Evil a smidge more cinematic verve than the average telefilm, even though the picture is most assuredly schlock.
          In a bleak prologue, a 13-year-old girl is sexually assaulted on a sprawling estate. Cut to a decade later, when the now-grown Susan (Parkins) returns home from an overseas mental institution. She’s welcomed by her mother, Miriam (Stanwyck); her alcoholic stepfather, Harold (Windom); and the family’s simple-minded groundskeeper, John (O’Connell). Susan endures several bizarre episodes, seemingly getting chased through woods, discovering a corpse that disappears in the time it takes Susan to get help, and so on. Enter Dr. Lomas (McDowall), whom the family hires to help Susan navigate trauma. Per the Hitchcockian-psychological-thriller playbook, viewers are tasked with guessing whether Susan is unwell or being gaslit—and, if the latter is the case, by whom. To Sangster’s credit, this brief telefilm juggles so many plot elements that it’s possible to overlook major clues, especially because some of the twists, once revealed, are ludicrous. (Incidentally, this was Sangster’s second pass on the same narrative—A Taste of Evil recycles a premise he originated for the 1961 Hammer production Scream of Fear.)
          Stanwyck, ever the consummate professional, does her best to sell this hokum and therefore neither distinguishes nor embarrasses herself. Parkins’s take on PTSD is too glassy-eyed to register emotionally, so she’s more of a delivery device for Sangster’s yarn-spinning than a proper leading lady. And while the film largely squanders McDowall and Windom, O’Connell’s portrayal engenders a bit of empathy. Yet this is ultimately more of a writer’s piece than anything else, so it’s a shame Sangster didn’t bring his A-game; the characterizations are sketchy at best and much of the dialogue is clumsily expositional. Nonetheless, even though everything about A Taste of Evil will quickly evaporate from the viewer’s memory—save perhaps the queasy opening sequence—the flick is just cynical and nasty enough to provide a few kitschy kicks.

A Taste of Evil: FUNKY

Asylum (1972)

          One in a series of anthology horror films generated by UK company Amicus Productions, Asylum boasts a solid pedigree: The picture was written by Robert Bloch, of Psycho fame, and directed by Hammer Films veteran Roy Ward Baker. The picture also has a solid cast, with Peter Cushing, Britt Ekland, Herbert Lom, Patrick Magee, Barry Morse, Barbara Parkins, Robert Powell, and the elegant Charlotte Rampling. Like most similar Amicus movies—and, for that matter, like most anthology pictures in general—it’s wildly uneven. On the plus side, the framing story is stronger than usual, and the overall presentation is terrific, thanks to glossy cinematography and solid production values. On the minus side, two of the stories are deeply silly, even by the standards of tongue-in-cheek UK horror. Asylum has its minor pleasures, but it’s not to be taken the least bit seriously.

         In the framing story, earnest young psychiatrist Dr. Martin (Powell) shows up to interview for a job at a mental institution. While speaking with his would-be superior, Dr. Rutherford (Magee), Martin is given a challenge—he must identify which of the asylum’s patients is a former doctor, driven insane by dealing with the institution’s lunatics. If Dr. Martin identifies the right patient, he gets the job. Each visit with a patient occasions a flashback vignette with a gruesome twist ending. In “Frozen Fear,” Ruth (Parkins) describes being attached by dismembered body parts that move of their own volition. In “The Weird Tailor,” Bruno (Morse) recalls how a mystery man (Cushing) hired him to construct a magical suit of clothes. In “Lucy Comes to Stay,” Barbara (Rampling) explains that she was framed for murder by Lucy (Ekland), who may or may not be imaginary. And in “Mannikins of Horror,” Dr. Byron (Lom) reveals his hobby of creating tiny robots bearing lifelike faces modeled after his acquaintances.

          The bits with the homicidal body parts and the violent robots (you knew they’d get bloodthirsty, didn’t you?) are unavoidably goofy, even though all of the actors give gung-ho performances. Conversely, “Lucy Comes to Stay” is fairly credible, but Ekland and Rampling provide more glamour than talent, so “Lucy Comes to Stay” gets tedious after a while. Still, Amicus had this sort of thing down to a science, and cramming five stories into 88 minutes ensures a relatively brisk pace. Further, Bloch provides more than enough cheap thrills, and Baker casts the whole cartoonish enterprise in a warm glow thanks to his dignified pictorial style. So, while Asylum may not be particularly frightening, at least it’s bloody and colorful and energetic.

Asylum: FUNKY

The Deadly Trap (1971)

          Despite starring three Americans and featuring a primarily English-language soundtrack, the murky thriller The Deadly Trap is actually a French film, directed and cowritten by noted Gallic auteur René Clément. Conceived, designed, and marketed in the vein of a Hitchcock thriller, the piece has tension and a measure of cinematic style, but so much information is withheld from the audience for so long that the experience of watching The Deadly Trap is often more befuddling than it is beguiling. Faye Dunaway and Frank Langella star as Jill and Philippe, a married American couple living in Paris with their two small children. Right from the start, the circumstances of the main characters’ lives are unclear. It seems that Philippe has an innocuous office job at the present, and that he belonged to a shady criminal organization in the past. At the moment the story begins, the organization wants Philippe to do one more job for them. (The nature of the task is never revealed.) Meanwhile, Jill and Philippe are experiencing marital difficulties, which are compounded by Jill’s deteriorating mental state—she having inexplicable memory problems, and may or may not be subject to paranoid fantasies of Philippe being unfaithful. (Again, whether she’s actually unwell or not is never revealed.) There’s also some murky business involving the couple’s sexy neighbor, Cynthia (Barbara Parkins), who’s a little too interested in their affairs.

          Throughout the first half of the movie, Jill repeatedly endangers her children (even getting into a car accident), with her irresponsibility reaching its apex when she loses sight of the kids while walking through the streets of Paris one afternoon. Police officers, led by the dogged Commissaire Chameille (Raymond Gérôme), become involved, but they’re unsure whether the children were kidnapped by strangers or harmed by their (possibly) unstable mother. The second half of the picture holds together fairly well thanks to the innate suspense of a missing-children scenario, but getting to the good stuff requires slogging through a lot of vague scenes in which Dunaway and Langella feign intensity for unknown reasons. In fact, it’s a testament to the skill of both actors that their performances feel artful and emotional even though they must have been as perplexed by the script as viewers are by the resulting movie. Beyond the solid acting, The Deadly Trap benefits from abundant location photography, snappy editing, and taut music. In sum, The Deadly Trap feels, looks, and sounds like an excellent thriller, even if the narrative raises infinitely more questions than it answers—and not in a good way.

The Deadly Trap: FUNKY

Shout at the Devil (1976)

          While not a great movie—or even, for that matter, a particularly coherent one, given its odd mixture of light comedy and nasty violence—Shout at the Devil is worth investigating for fans of manly-man adventure flicks. Among other things, the picture includes the only screen pairing of Roger Moore, who shot this movie in the early days of his long run as 007, and the inimitable Lee Marvin. The movie’s convoluted narrative and lengthy running time give both actors opportunities to hit many different notes, and Marvin’s rough-and-tumble charisma complements the alternately grim and suave flavors of Moore’s performance. Shout at the Devil also boasts incredible production values.

          Set in German-controlled East Africa circa 1913, the story concerns an amiably disreputable ivory hunter named Colonel Flynn O'Flynn (Marvin). An American expat with a mysterious past, Flynn needs a stooge for his next poaching excursion, so he snookers traveling English aristocrat Sebastian Oldsmith (Moore). The biggest hiccup in Shout at the Devil’s storyline is that Oldsmith doesn't turn himself over to the Germans once he realizes Flynn is a scam artist—but if you can suspend your disbelief on that point, the rest of the movie is quite enjoyable. Without going into laborious detail (there's a lot of story in Shout at the Devil), Oldsmith hangs around with Flynn long enough to get injured, at which point he's nursed back to health by Flynn's beautiful daughter, Rosa (Barbara Parkins). Naturally, Oldsmith and Rosa fall in love. Thereafter, Flynn persuades the Englishman to help rip off the Germans, especially odious regional commander Fleischer (Reinhard Kolldehoff). Once all the narrative pieces fall in place, the movie becomes a covert-mission story about Oldsmith hunting down and sabotaging a strategically important German warship.

          Director Peter Hunt edited several 007 movies before making his helming debut with one of the series' best installments, On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), but he never worked on any of Moore's Bond pictures. Instead, the two teamed up for the first time to make the similarly overstuffed action-drama Gold (1974). While Hunt does a great job creating tension within individual scenes, he's not adept at balancing performance styles, so Marvin and Moore sometimes seem as if they're acting in different movies. (Leading lady Parkins, who generally played decorative and/or villainous roles, does some of her best work here, lending elegance and weight to her scenes.) Nonetheless, the best parts of Shout at the Devil are rousing and/or whimsical, if not both.

          The running gag of Flynn inventing reasons why Oldmsith must endanger himself works nicely, and there's a peculiar but fun subplot involving Flynn's mute sidekick, Mohammed (Ian Holm), who mostly communicates with sarcastically raised eyebrows. Some of the action is genuinely thrilling, too, like Oldsmith's incursion (while wearing blackface!) onto the German warship. So while Shout at the Devil is excessive and sloppy, it’s also a lively throwback to the adventure movies of yesteryear, with just a touch of modernized grit. FYI, those with P.C. sensibilities might have a tough time with this picture, since the heroes slaughter elephants for profit, and it’s worth mentioning that Shout at the Devil is widely available both in the original cut (which runs 147 minutes) and a snipped version (which runs 128 minutes). The longer cut is recommended.

Shout at the Devil: GROOVY

The Mephisto Waltz (1971)

          Despite falling well short of greatness, The Mephisto Waltz is an above-average supernatural-horror flick with evocative atmosphere, strong acting, and a unique hook—it’s built around the world of classical music. It should also be noted that the movie stars Jacqueline Bisset at her most ravishingly beautiful, so the eye-candy quotient is considerable. At the beginning of the movie, we meet angsty Myles Clarkson (Alan Alda), a mediocre pianist relegated to interviewing better players in his role as a music journalist. Accompanied by his wife, Paula (Bisset), Myles travels to a sprawling estate for an audience with Duncan Ely (Curt Jurgens), a legendary virtuoso. Although Paula gets a bad vibe off Duncan and his twentysomething daughter, Roxanne (Barbara Parkins), Myles quickly falls under Duncan’s spell—because Duncan claims he can train Myles to become a world-class pianist. It turns out the Elys are Satan worshippers, and Duncan has designs on U-Hauling his soul into Myles’ healthy young body, since Duncan is terminally ill but determined to preserve his genius.

          It’s not giving anything away to say that Duncan succeeds, because the real thrills begin when Paula starts to realize her husband isn’t her husband anymore. Produced by prolific TV guy Quinn Martin (whose output included The Fugitive and The Streets of San Francisco), the picture is capably directed by Paul Wendkos from a script by Ben Maddow (which was adapted from Fred Mustard Stewart’s novel). The execution is stylish even when the story gets convoluted and silly, and the film benefits tremendously from spooky music by composer Jerry Goldsmith. Additionally, the locations are consistently credible, especially the shadowy expanses of the Ely mansion. Yet it’s the acting that really propels the piece. Alda is poignantly narcissistic as Myles, and then appropriately aloof once Duncan’s spirit inhabits Myles’ body, while Jurgens makes a strong impression as a domineering diva during his few scenes. Parkins, whose dark beauty complements Bisset’s natural look, has fun playing a scheming witch, and Bisset lends a certain measure of emotional credibility to her various scenes of anguish and panic. Best of all, the movie twists and turns toward a perverse ending that almost justifies the movie’s overlong, 115-minute running time.

The Mephisto Waltz: GROOVY

The Kremlin Letter (1970)

          Before venturing into the wilds of his fantastic ’70s character pieces, director John Huston punched the clock on this turgid espionage thriller, a half-hearted effort so overstuffed with plot twists and supporting characters that it’s borderline incomprehensible. One of those murky Cold War stories in the vein of John Le Carre’s books, The Kremlin Letter dramatizes efforts by American spies to recover a controversial letter in which a U.S. official agrees to help the Russian government derail China’s nuclear ambitions. The first half of the movie depicts the convoluted process by which the Tillinger Foundation, a front for the CIA, recruits a spy with a photographic memory to lead a covert op inside Russia; next comes the spy’s campaign to build a team of specialists for the mission.

          The unanswerable questions pile up immediately: Why isn’t a properly trained spy available? Why is a newbie entrusted with recruiting accomplices? Why can’t normal channels like bribes and double agents be used to recover the letter, especially since both tools are used for other purposes throughout the movie? The Kremlin Letter never solves any of these mysteries, and one gets the impression the filmmakers were so bogged down in the convoluted plot they barely understood which scene they were shooting on any given day. So as a story, The Kremlin Letter is a complete waste.

          As quasi-sophisticated entertainment, however, it has some amusing moments. Honey-voiced Orson Welles pontificates pleasantly about politics. Bitchy All About Eve star George Sanders plays a cranky old queen, right down to a scene performed in drag. Barbara Parkins essays a sexy thief who demonstrates her skills by opening a safe with her feet while dressed in a leotard. The movie also boasts some kinkiness; Max von Sydow, at his most unnerving, plays a sadistic Russian enforcer with a soft side for his crazed wife, a pain freak who likes rough sex with gigolos. (Cinematic footnote: Playing von Sydow’s wife is Bibi Andersson, his costar in numerous Ingmar Bergman movies.)

          None of this even remotely adds up at the end, and laconic leading man Patrick O’Neal seems far too bored with the material to have much of an impact, but some scenes are quite interesting to watch. The movie’s best element, by far, is onetime Have Gun–Will Travel star Richard Boone as Ward, the amiable overlord of the American operation. Gleefully blending bloodlust and chattiness, he presents the movie’s most interesting vision of a sociopathic spook.

The Kremlin Letter: FUNKY