Tormented (1960)

User Rating:

3.1/10   

Director:

Bert I. Gordon

Writers:

Bert I. Gordon (story)
George Worthing Yates (screenplay)

Release Date:

22 September 1960 (USA)

Genre:

Horror | Thriller

Tagline:

A ghost-woman owned him body and soul!

Plot:

A man lets a former flame fall to her death rather than let her interfere with his new relationship, but her ghost returns to disrupt his impending nuptials.

Plot Keywords:

Island | Ghost | Lighthouse | Seaweed | Blackmail

Cast

Richard Carlson	...	Tom Stewart
Susan Gordon	...	Sandy Hubbard
Lugene Sanders	...	Meg Hubbard
Juli Reding	...	Vi Mason
Joe Turkel	...	Nick, The Blackmailer
Lillian Adams	...	Mrs. Ellis
Gene Roth	...	Mr. Nelson, lunch stand operator
Vera Marshe	...	Mrs. Hubbard (as Vera Marsh)
Harry Fleer	...	Frank Hubbard
Merritt Stone	...	Clergyman
George Stanley
Dick Walsh
Leslie Thomas

Also Known As:

Tormented... by the She-Ghost of Haunted Island! (USA) (promotional title)

Runtime:

75 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

UK:PG (re-rating) (2005) | UK:X (original rating) | Canada:PG (Ontario) | USA:Unrated

Filming Locations:

Malibu, California, USA

Company:

Cheviot Productions

Trivia:

A portion of the score actually came from William Castle's House on Haunted Hill (1959) which Allied Artists had distributed the previous year.

Movie Connections:

Edited into Out of this World Super Shock Show (2007) (V)

low-budget cross of Twilight Zone and film noir

The first thing to notice is the photography of Ernest Laszlo, a veteran of film noir who shot the classic "D.O.A.", "Kiss Me Deadly" and Fritz Lang's "While the City Sleeps." (And the same year "Tormented" came out, he did "Inherit the Wind"!) He elevates this little ghost tale no end, with nice compositions such as the shots through broken lighthouse windows.

Classical ghost stories usually don't have very far to go, and that's probably why there aren't too many of them in American cinema. Someone's haunted, that's it. Such tales are atmosphere-heavy instead of plot-heavy, since motive and outcome are usually obvious. In this case, the atmosphere is a combination of spookiness (with some clumsy effects, and some smooth ones, like the pan shot across the room to reveal the missing LP which has somehow moved to the record player) and the neurotic paranoia of the hero, who reveals himself as trapped a sap as many a noir fool who blames his troubles on a dame. The plot delays and prolongs, but the last act juggles several nice twists. By the end, this cynical little flick has shown more style and imagination than several recent special-effects ghost movies.