Fanatic (1965)

User Rating:

6.3/10   

Director:

Silvio Narizzano

Writers:

Anne Blaisdell (novel)
Richard Matheson (writer)

Release Date:

21 March 1965 (UK)

Genre:

Horror | Thriller

Tagline:

She's One Mean Mother-in-Law!

Plot:

A young woman is terrorized by her fiance's demented mother who blames her for her son's death.

Plot Keywords:

Religious Fanatic | Fanatic | Death | Insanity | England

Cast

Tallulah Bankhead	...	Mrs. Trefoile
Stefanie Powers	...	Pat Carroll
Peter Vaughan	...	Harry
Maurice Kaufmann	...	Alan Glentower
Yootha Joyce	...	Anna
Donald Sutherland	...	Joseph
Gwendolyn Watts	...	Gloria
Robert Dorning	...	Ormsby
Philip Gilbert	...	Oscar
Winifred Dennis	...	Shopkeeper
Diana King	...	Woman Shopper

Also Known As:

Die! Die! My Darling! (USA)

Runtime:

Australia:95 min | USA:97 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound Recording)

Certification:

UK:15 (DVD rating) | UK:X (original rating) | USA:TV-14 | West Germany:18 | Portugal:M/12 | Australia:M | Finland:(Banned) (1965) | Sweden:15 | USA:Unrated

Filming Locations:

Letchmore Heath, Hertfordshire, England, UK

Company:

Hammer Film Productions

Trivia:

The producers considered replacing Tallulah Bankhead during filming when she became ill and was unable to work. However, Bankhead put up her salary for the film as a guarantee she'd finish the film if she wouldn't be replaced.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: When Patricia finally gets fed her oatmeal, the bowl she has is actually empty but she's pretending to eat from it.

Quotes:

Pat Carroll: [Patricia sees an open book on Mrs. Trefoile's bed, opened to a glamorous shot of Mrs. Trefoile as a young woman] Oh, how lovely. What is that, a costume? Mrs. Trefoile, were you an actress?
Mrs. Trefoile: [quickly grabs the book] God was good. He led me from that evil.
Pat Carroll: Evil?
Mrs. Trefoile: Yes. A pit of evil! A place for the lost and the damned! The devil's entertainment... God's anathema! It is a painful memory to me, but by the grace of our Lord and the inspired inspiration of my late husband, no more than a memory. I keep it as a harsh reminder of what I was, of what I escaped!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Suddenly Susan: Lie! Lie! My Darling (#1.6)" (1996)

Chew! Chew! The Scenery!

What inspired casting! The libidinous Tallulah Bankhead as a drab, sober, religious zealot! That alone is worth the price of admission. Thanks to Bette and Joan, the 60s era of Grand Guignol brought some of our favorite glossy "middle-aged" legends back to the somewhat less glossy cinematic limelight. Debbie Reynolds, Shelley Winters, Olivia de Havilland, Geraldine Page, Agnes Moorehead, and Ruth Gordon all took the Gothic plunge. The prerequisites? Simple. Look like hell and act like a mad bull in a china shop. So why not grand ol' Tallulah, dahling?

Here, the "Alabama Foghorn," as Fred Mertz once called her when she guested (hilariously so) on an episode of "The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour," is called upon to play the prim, tight-lipped Mrs. Trefoile, a wacko bible-thumper whose only child died a short time before. When her dead son's fiancee (Stefanie Powers) comes to pay an overdue visit out of respect, she makes a big whoops and tells the old lady that she is about to marry another man. And now the fun begins...

Urged on by her Maker (of course) to exorcise the young girl's demons and restore her purity (she wears that blasphemous red lipstick, you see) and, oh yeah, also to punish her (of course)for her mortal wickedness and ultimate betrayal to her dead son, the old lady (of course) imprisons the young damsel in her medieval-styled lair for a week's worth of (naturally) bible verse and repentance. But then the old crackpot decides she'd be better served if she (you know) takes it up a notch and makes her (of course) a sacrificial lamb instead. See, Trefoile finds out that the girl is still a virgin so (of course) if the girl's still a virgin, her soul can still be (you know) saved and, at the same time, she can be reunited with Trafoile's dead son in heaven, which better serves his memory. You know, kill, I mean save, two birds with one stone.

Seeing Bankhead cavorting around as a dowdy, highly repressed teetotaler while spewing passages from Revelations is an admittedly sinful pleasure. What's even better is that the old girl gets away with it. As bizarre and campy as one could hope for, Bankhead's Mrs. Trefoile is still all prickly seriousness and deadly menace, possessing a convincingly firm, fervent gait. She doesn't really play the joke. Moreover, she manages to slightly stroke audience sympathy with human shadings of loneliness and utter despair. The atmosphere is appropriately claustrophobic and suspense is built up expertly too, with every Bankhead entrance punctuated by creepy, stringy harpsichord music.

Fun too is watching Bankhead's Addams Family-like household run amok, especially Donald Sutherland as a mute, dim-witted servant -- a role I'm sure he'd love to erase permanently from his resume. Poor bruised and bloodied Stefanie Powers does yeoman's work here, gaining our sympathy from the onset and making a wonderfully feisty "straight man" to the Bankhead histrionics.

And just wait until the skeletons come out of the closet. Like you knew they would! Bankhead's final curtain in the flick is a great wallow. And speaking of final curtains, this was regrettably her last feature film.