'Shattered Silence', a suspense movie with Gazzara and M. Douglas, gives a strong sense of the unconscious' power over our consciousness, over what we acknowledge and what we deny, also like the everyday struggle between acknowledgment and denial.
I liked the girl, and the carved pumpkin, and believe we deserved to see those pumpkins at the harvest festival; I also enjoyed the '70s casualness, if one likes thinking in terms of decades, and perhaps most of all I enjoyed M. Douglas' glamor, his father had been, 25 yrs earlier, also into torn youth, yet the two have very different styles, with the son able to delve into neurosis and hysterical behavior.
M. Douglas gives a good role, and he upstages Gazzara; 'Shattered Silence' is an enjoyable '70s horror for the TV. The movie is a scary whodunit, and atmospheric, with the masks and the suggestions of impersonation, even visual gags (the fatso copper: a pumpkin; the shattered pumpkins, as these were only the '70s, when pumpkins were still shattered, not smashed); there are a few nice views of the setting, the mentioned pumpkins, and the daughter is very funny. Less good seems the quirk of the hypnosis and remote control, a plunge into '30 silliness that makes the denouement look explained away. Both murders, with the bee venom that prompts the swarming, and at the harvest festival, are unlikely, laborious and too staged. After a couple of such nerdy murders, the psychotic arrives at his aunt's home with a bat .
After having exported so many players and people in the showbiz, Canada rented these two actors, and a likable TV movie has been made. M. Douglas improves very much upon the script, and looks almost too urbane for the modest setting; on the other hand, Gazzara is too convincing as a ne'er do well cur (or marten ).
In the early '90s, I remember being very keen on M. Douglas, '90-'93.
I liked the girl, and the carved pumpkin, and believe we deserved to see those pumpkins at the harvest festival; I also enjoyed the '70s casualness, if one likes thinking in terms of decades, and perhaps most of all I enjoyed M. Douglas' glamor, his father had been, 25 yrs earlier, also into torn youth, yet the two have very different styles, with the son able to delve into neurosis and hysterical behavior.
M. Douglas gives a good role, and he upstages Gazzara; 'Shattered Silence' is an enjoyable '70s horror for the TV. The movie is a scary whodunit, and atmospheric, with the masks and the suggestions of impersonation, even visual gags (the fatso copper: a pumpkin; the shattered pumpkins, as these were only the '70s, when pumpkins were still shattered, not smashed); there are a few nice views of the setting, the mentioned pumpkins, and the daughter is very funny. Less good seems the quirk of the hypnosis and remote control, a plunge into '30 silliness that makes the denouement look explained away. Both murders, with the bee venom that prompts the swarming, and at the harvest festival, are unlikely, laborious and too staged. After a couple of such nerdy murders, the psychotic arrives at his aunt's home with a bat .
After having exported so many players and people in the showbiz, Canada rented these two actors, and a likable TV movie has been made. M. Douglas improves very much upon the script, and looks almost too urbane for the modest setting; on the other hand, Gazzara is too convincing as a ne'er do well cur (or marten ).
In the early '90s, I remember being very keen on M. Douglas, '90-'93.