Remarkably strange and original, "The World I Want" was written by Halsted Welles, a forgotten writer and Broadway director who has one classic movie in his resume, the original "3:10 to Yuma" Western suspense film of 1957. He specialized in suspense, even writing dozens of segments of the early '50s live "Suspense" series.
WIth Jo Van Fleet in the lead, this Kraft Suspense Theatre segment falls in the very popular early '60s genre of Gothic horror ignited by Robert Aldrich's hit "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?", in which the lead roles would go to great, mature Hollywood leading ladies of yore. Van Fleet gets to emote the extremes of emotion here, way beyond what would be acceptable in "normal" TV series (but perfect for a one-off Anthology slot).
Central character is Fern, wonderfully underplayed by a lovely 20-year-old actress Patricia Hyland (whose TV acting career was unsuccessful), is writing a composition for school titled "The World I Want". Her hope for a world of love without hate contrasts with her actual situation, living in an unhealthy, hermetic environment, cooped up in living quarters part of the aunt & uncle's homemade furntiture business, with Sal Mineo as her only friend, deaf and dumb.
Van Fleet and husband Albert Dekker are from the Old World creating craft furniture, but in a toxic love/hate marriage. They sleep in separate rooms and are both paranoid. Dekker's fears that his wife will murder him (she's a sleepwalker at night in white nightgown, pure Gothic motifs) and he goes to, of all people, a kindly young Leonard Nimoy as the son of his now-deceased lawyer to draw up a will, but instead Nimoy uses legal gimmicks that permit Dekker to leave his entire $62,000 savings to his niece Fern, closing out Jo with only $5.
Mineo gets to emote strictly in pantomime, while both Dekker and Jo are unhinged, contrasting with sensitive Hyland, who also voices-over her hopes in soothing narration. Matters grow increasingly violent and lead to a reductio ad absurdum conclusion to the little play.
This reminded me, seen 60 years after broadcast, of a brilliant arthouse movie from Mexico, Arturo Ripstein's incest drama "The Castle of Purity". I saw it a MoMA in a film series and was impressed with how it built the enclosed world of a family not permitted to leave their home with the taboo subject matter of incest.
Director Silverstein manages to include exploitation movie (circa 1964) level content into the censored world of television, as in Dekker's affection for his underage niece; Van Fleet's technically crazed swings between her romantic memories of unrequited love from her youth to murderous feelings toward hubby; and even a solid fetichism in both adults ritually combing out Hyland's hair "100 strokes each night".
A classic.
WIth Jo Van Fleet in the lead, this Kraft Suspense Theatre segment falls in the very popular early '60s genre of Gothic horror ignited by Robert Aldrich's hit "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?", in which the lead roles would go to great, mature Hollywood leading ladies of yore. Van Fleet gets to emote the extremes of emotion here, way beyond what would be acceptable in "normal" TV series (but perfect for a one-off Anthology slot).
Central character is Fern, wonderfully underplayed by a lovely 20-year-old actress Patricia Hyland (whose TV acting career was unsuccessful), is writing a composition for school titled "The World I Want". Her hope for a world of love without hate contrasts with her actual situation, living in an unhealthy, hermetic environment, cooped up in living quarters part of the aunt & uncle's homemade furntiture business, with Sal Mineo as her only friend, deaf and dumb.
Van Fleet and husband Albert Dekker are from the Old World creating craft furniture, but in a toxic love/hate marriage. They sleep in separate rooms and are both paranoid. Dekker's fears that his wife will murder him (she's a sleepwalker at night in white nightgown, pure Gothic motifs) and he goes to, of all people, a kindly young Leonard Nimoy as the son of his now-deceased lawyer to draw up a will, but instead Nimoy uses legal gimmicks that permit Dekker to leave his entire $62,000 savings to his niece Fern, closing out Jo with only $5.
Mineo gets to emote strictly in pantomime, while both Dekker and Jo are unhinged, contrasting with sensitive Hyland, who also voices-over her hopes in soothing narration. Matters grow increasingly violent and lead to a reductio ad absurdum conclusion to the little play.
This reminded me, seen 60 years after broadcast, of a brilliant arthouse movie from Mexico, Arturo Ripstein's incest drama "The Castle of Purity". I saw it a MoMA in a film series and was impressed with how it built the enclosed world of a family not permitted to leave their home with the taboo subject matter of incest.
Director Silverstein manages to include exploitation movie (circa 1964) level content into the censored world of television, as in Dekker's affection for his underage niece; Van Fleet's technically crazed swings between her romantic memories of unrequited love from her youth to murderous feelings toward hubby; and even a solid fetichism in both adults ritually combing out Hyland's hair "100 strokes each night".
A classic.