Pretty Good

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

2011:Talking to a fellow IMDb'er,after watching Dario Argento's amazing 1970 film The Bird with the Crystal Plumage,I was shocked to learn,that Argento had actually done a partial "unofficial" adaptation of a novel called The Screaming Mimi,which had received an official screen adaptation,with a US film in 1958. After reading the fascinating comments from a fellow IMDb'er,and also hear film reviewers Kim Newman and Alan Jones give thrilling comments about the movie in their audio commentary for Crystal Plumage,I decided to search on Amazon Uk for a DVD or VHS of the title. Sadly,despite being extremely keen on seeing the film,I discovered that the title appeared to be unavailable on DVD or Video…from anywhere!Late 2013:Being cheerful about finally getting hold of the title which would see Dario Argento,Tony Musante and Ennio Morricone team up for the first time (1969's The Love Circle),I decided to search for the original adaptation of their fantastic Giallo,and was happily caught by surprise,when I stumbled upon a DVD of the film,which would at last allow me to hear the Mimi scream.The plot: Going for an outdoor shower with her pet dog Rusty after enjoying a wonderful swim,Virginia Wilson is confronted by an escaped convict,who attempts to stab her with a knife.Hearing his daughter scream for her life,Virginia's step-brother Charlie Weston, (an artist who makes miniature stature's) quickly grabs a gun and shoots the attempted murderer dead.Faced with the knowledge of having been a potential murder victim,and also witnessing a killing,Wilson experience's a nervous breakdown,and finds herself unable to wipe the moments of that day from her memory.Feeling that his step-sister is in desperate need of help,Weston arranges for Virginia to be placed in a mental hospital,where she is closely looked after by Dr.Greenwood. Despite being a doctor who does things "by the book,Greenwood finds himself falling deeply in love with Virginia.Knowing that they both might have to wait years before she's officially "cured",Greenwood decides to fake Wilson's death,so that she can get out of the hospital,and run away with him.Years later:Keeping their relationship under-wraps,Virginia changes her name to Yolanda Lange and becomes the star attraction as a dancer in a popular night club.Catching the eye one night of a local journalist called Bill Sweeney,Wilson/Lange begins to fear that she has also caught the eye of her past,when a stranger begins stabbing women in a similar manner that was used in the attempted murder of Virginia…View on the film:Entering the movie,in what appears to be a rather tight swimsuit,Anita Ekberg gives a shimmering performance as Virginia Wilson and Yolanda Lange.For the two sides of her character,Ekberg gives each of them subtle alterations,with the psychological issues in Virginia's mind,being kept under cover by Youlanda's swagger and powerful eroticism,which along with giving Youlanda complete control of the night club's inhabitants,also leads to her appearing to be on the target list of a revived psychotic killer.Taking a different angle to his excellent adaptation of Fredric Brown's novel The Screaming Mimi than the one that Dario Argento would take a decade later,Robert Blees combines a thrilling,proto-Giallo edge with a gritty Film Noir atmosphere,with Blees gradually showing the impact that the new killing spree is having on Virginia/Yolanda,as Youlanda's extravagant shell is melted away,and Virginia's psychological issues are shown in their rawest form.Made just as the "Hays Code" was at last starting to lose its grip on the industry,Blees shows a sharp eye for placing subtle undertones under the films skin,with hints of S&M,lesbianism and drug use bubbling away as a Giallo killer stalks a Film Noir world.Placing Blees undertones at the centre of the movie,director Gerd Oswald shows an unexpected glee in the highly stylised,eye-catching vicious murder scenes which is matched by Oswald giving each of the gorgeous Anita Ekberg's dances a strong whiff of S&M.Along with the daring Giallo elements,Oswald also soaks the title in a striking Film Noir atmosphere,with Yolanda's night club being filled with darken corners where the killer may be hiding,with Oswald also covering the long,empty streets in a doom-laden mist,as Bill Sweeney begins to realise that he must stop the Mimi from screaming,before the killer strikes again.

I remember this movie only because my sister and I were the original latch key kids. My older sister and I used to watch TV from the old channel 5 ( pre- Fox network ) TV out of Washington DC. They ran great late afternoon movies and reruns I watched for years before cable. Anyone who grew up in the channel 5 area during the late 60's knows hows what I mean. The Untouchables, Highway Patrol, The Big Valley, Dear Lord where are these great reruns today?? But I digress.. This movie scared the living crap out of me, and I remember my sister teasing me for months. I remember so little about this movie, but it scared me bad enough I've never forgotten the title. Netflix doesn't have this..anyone know where to get a copy of it? I want to face my fear!!

Bodacious, gloriously-maned Ekberg and her magnificent dog Devil (dubbed a great dame and a Great Dane)are the goodies in this fifties pop-psych piece with its is-she/isn't-she-crazy scenario. Looking like a gorgeous amazonian goddess (purportedly only 5'7" without heels), the mighty Ekberg makes all the human males in her orbit look mousy and malleable as she sashays from loony bin to gin den, her emotions and motivations as mysterious as the titular statuette around which it all revolves. The movie has an offbeat tone and texture and a tendency to unbalance the viewer with the unexpected:asylum-escapee Ekberg doing her shackled-slave dance routine in El Madhouse nightclub; Gypsy Rose Lee putting the blame on Mame in an awkward, abortive fringe-dress shimmy; the famed stripster's shacked-up status with a cute little hipster. Fans of such censor-bound lesbian depictions should love this cinematic morsel, as will devotees of no-budget noir!

This is a reasonably faithful adaptation of the 1949 novel by Fredric Brown. Reasonably, that is, by 1950s Hollywood standards -- all of the essential story elements are there, although most of the subtleties of the novel are missing. For instance, Sweeney the reporter (Philip Carey) spends most of the novel in a constant hangover, having just come off a drunken binge; and the true relationship between Yolanda (Anita Eckberg) and Greene (Harry Townes), made explicit in the film's opening scenes, isn't revealed until the end of the novel. This is largely because the film presents the story in a straightforward, linear fashion, whereas in the novel, such vital information comes out gradually, via Sweeney's investigations. The film also, understandably, tones down the more lewd elements of the novel: Yolanda's strip-tease becomes merely an exotic dance. I can't help wondering what Alfred Hitchcock would have done with this story. Hitchcock was certainly familiar with Brown's work -- four of his stories were adapted for the TV series ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS ("The Cream of the Jest", "The Night the World Ended", "The Dangerous People", and "Human Interest Story"). If Hitchcock had directed THE SCREAMING MIMI, it would surely have become a classic on a par with PSYCHO.As others have commented here, I strongly recommend reading Fredric Brown's original novel. (I re-read it recently, just before seeing the film for the first time.) Brown was a very prolific writer of mystery and science fiction from the 40s through the 60s. (He died in 1972.) He was a master of the short-short story, and of the surprise twist ending. Though most of his works are currently out of print, they can easily be found on eBay or abe.com. A footnote: The book NIGHTMARE IN DARKNESS, a limited edition of previously uncollected Fredric Brown stories, includes the original, unpublished ending of the novel, in which Sweeney is actually killed by the Ripper.