Masterful Movie

just watch it!

Beautiful, moving film.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

The final 10-minutes or so amounts to a neat wrinkle I didn't see coming. Too bad the rest of the ghost film is so utterly pedestrian. On the eve of his wedding to Meg (Sanders), Tom (Carlson) is confronted in a remote lighthouse by former lover, Vi (Reding). Unwilling to give up prospects of marrying into wealth, Tom allows Vi to fall into the ocean below, refusing to help as she dangles from the tower. Now he's haunted by her ghost, even as he continues his wedding plans.In my view, the material really needs a visual stylist to complement the spooky premise. As is, Director Gordon films in flat, high-key style thereby undercutting the eerie premise. Add a ghost who resembles Marilyn Monroe at her softest, and I was anything but repelled or even unsettled. Unfortunately, the occasional apparitions are about as scary as over-exposed film, which the effect likely is. If the writers were reaching for some kind of ghostly novelty, they got it, but at the movie's expense. Cast against type, a 50-year old wholesome Carlson fails to show much needed shadow of his own, and as a jazz musician and swain of a 20- year old cutie, he's a stretch. What the film does have is beguiling little 10-year old Susan Gordon (the director's daughter) as Meg's sister. She manages to steal the film in unobtrusive fashion unlike many Hollywood moppets. Also, catch Joe Turkel as the jive talking boat captain, apparently on loan from Kubrick and his iconic role in The Shining (1980). Otherwise, the 75-minutes amounts to an all-too-real bust, bombshell ghost or no.

A man (Richard Carlson) lets a former flame (Juli Reding) fall to her death rather than let her interfere with his new relationship, but her ghost returns to disrupt his impending nuptials.Worth noting is the work of Bill Cooley, makeup artist since the 1930s with such titles as "Yankee Doodle Dandy" and "Mr. Moto Takes a Chance". Not that there is any amazing makeup here, but Cooley deserves to be recognized wherever he appears.The ferry driver was played by Joe Turkel, who appeared in two other productions from Bert Gordon: "The Boy and the Pirates" and "Village of the Giants", and who would go on to play Lloyd the bartender in "The Shining"; and Eldon Tyrell in "Blade Runner". It is interesting to see which actors were with Gordon before going on to work with Kubrick.Paul Corupe describes the film as Alfred Hitchcock adapting Poe's "Tell-Tale Heart" with a detour via William Castle. As strange as that may sound, it actually sums up very nicely the feel of the picture -- suspense, chills, and just a bit of remorse and guilt (whether deserved or not).

Mediocre acting, melodramatic direction, and sometimes vacuous, uneven scripting make this noirish, wannabe chiller a treat to watch. If the screenplay were half as tight as the women's clothes--even those of a fat, middle-aged blind lady--this offering might have emerged as just another half-baked, predictable haunter. But the incongruous dialogue, lurid reactions, and clumsily presented ghostly manifestations (lopped-off heads and hands) make the film a non-stop feast of fun. Eleven-year-old Susan Gordon has the best lines and, unlike most of the cast, delivers them well. (She also has the best wardrobe, even if it does make her look years younger than her actual-age character.) The only dull moments are when Carlson is (obviously not really) playing the piano, and that just means more ectoplasm--and more merriment--is at hand (or head).

As most fans know, producer/director Bert I. Gordon didn't receive the pet nickname "Mr. Big" based on his acronym alone. From 1955 to '77, Gordon came out with a series of beloved films dealing with overgrown insects, reptiles, humans and other assorted nasties: "King Dinosaur" ('55); "Beginning of the End," "The Cyclops" and "The Amazing Colossal Man" ('57); "Attack of the Puppet People" (in which Mr. Big reversed directions and went small), "War of the Colossal Beast" and "Earth vs. the Spider" ('58); "Village of the Giants" ('65); "Food of the Gods" ('76); and Joan Collins' least favorite film of all those that she appeared in, "Empire of the Ants" ('77). In 1960, however, Gordon took a break from his outsized monstrosities and presented his fans with a decidedly different type of tale: a supernatural ghost story! The picture in question, "Tormented," was released on September 22 of that year and was one that Mr. Big not only directed, but also produced and co-wrote. And thanks to the DVD revolution, this near-forgotten piece of work may soon be getting some recognition for the entertaining (if minor) journey into the uncanny that it is.In the film, the viewer makes the acquaintance of a fairly well-known jazz pianist named Tom Stewart, well played by Richard Carlson. (A personal foible of this viewer is that I always have a hard time differentiating between Carlson and fellow actor Hugh Marlowe. Perhaps it is their similarity in looks and on-screen personae. Whatever the case, I have to keep reminding myself that Marlowe featured in "All About Eve" and "The Day the Earth Stood Still"; Carlson in "The Magnetic Monster," "It Came From Outer Space," "Creature From the Black Lagoon" and "Valley of Gwangi.") When we first encounter him, Stewart is having a heated argument with his ex-girlfriend, Vi Mason (saucily played by Juli Reding), about just whether or not she IS his ex or not. Stewart does his best to explain that he doesn't love her anymore and that he has a fiancée, Meg (played by an actress with the very strange handle of Lugene Sanders), to whom he is completely devoted. During their contretemps, Vi leans against the railing of the lighthouse where they stand; the railing collapses, and Tom does nothing to rescue her. Vi falls to her doom in the rocks and water below, and Tom feels himself guilt-free, and well rid of the clingy chanteuse. But as events in the coming days show, though Vi might well be dead, her angry ghost is very much "alive" and well, and hell-bent on doing everything in her power to wreck Tom's upcoming wedding and claim the pianist as her own. And Tom's plight is made even more complicated when the tug skipper who had ferried Vi over to the island (although a certain Wiki site avers that the film transpires on Cape Cod, an island off the coast of California is more likely, especially in light of the fact that Meg's folks have a house in Bel Air) gets wind of what happened and demands "five thou" for his silence, and when Tom's future sister-in-law, 9-year-old Sandy (the adorable child actress Susan Gordon, who had appeared in "Attack of the Puppet People" and would appear in father Gordon's "Picture Mommy Dead" in '66), also begins to grow troublesome....So, as a ghost story, does "Tormented" provide the requisite chills? Well, yes, there ARE any number of eerie scenes: Vi's drowned body turning into a mass of seaweed; Vi's footprints mysteriously appearing in the sand; the song "Tormented," which Vi once recorded, playing itself on Tom's phonograph; the ghostly hand of Vi appearing and later stealing Meg's wedding ring; Vi's perfume wafting through Meg's parents' house; another mess of seaweed befouling Meg's wedding gown; and Vi's face appearing in a photo of the betrothed couple. The film, compact as it is at a mere 75 minutes, yet features a number of memorable sequences, including one in which Vi's floating head appears to Tom, taunting him with the words "Tom Stewart killed me, Tom Stewart killed me," and the one in which Vi's ghost busts into the wedding ceremony of Tom and Meg, causing all the flowers to wilt and culminating in a bloodcurdling scream from the terrified bride. (Not for nothing did the trailer for the film urge the viewer to "Attend the Wedding of the Wicked...and the Weird!") And director Gordon even gives us one truly memorable final shot, with Vi's ringed hand resting on Tom's chest. All told, a wholly satisfying little ghost picture, which leaves the viewer with only one nagging question: Why has Tom chosen the comparatively mousy Meg over sexpot Vi, the latter being not only a better-looking woman, but a more talented (as evidenced by her singing) and passionate one as well? Guess there's no explaining taste! And, oh...just one word on the DVD itself. The one that I recently saw came from those notorious underachievers at Alpha Video, but happily, the print in question here features only minimal damage, and is, for the most part, sharp and clear enough for comfortable watching. All the better for discovering this small but likable picture from good ol' Mr. Big....