I narrowed my Saturday night movie search down to something with Kerwin Mathews, an underrated actor from the 1950s and ’60s who I find easy on the eyes and fun to watch.
Hammer Films’ MANIAC (1963, though filmed in 1962), directed by one of Hammer’s staple producers and directors, Michael Carreras, is generally well-done crime thriller intrigue. Set in the Camargue of Southern France, Mathews plays Jeff Farrell, an American artist traveling abroad. He spurns his spoiled rich girl British girlfriend, who leaves him behind at a backwater inn. There, Farrell grows close with a woman and her stepdaughter who, together, run the small hotel. Jealousy between the two for Farrell’s affections becomes readily apparent. What is less obvious but soon suggested are dark, ulterior motives by at least one of these women. Off camera, the husband and father is locked away in an insane asylum for brutally killing a man who raped his teenaged daughter four years earlier. Farrell gets involved with helping him escape.
I did find myself wondering why Farrell shifts his romantic interest from one of the women to the other for no clear reason. That is one area– a big area– of the script that seems poorly written, leaving Farrell coming across as somewhat superficial and insincere, not fully developed as a character. Mathews did well within this flawed screenplay, however. He comes across as sympathetic, a well-meaning, romantic man who gets in way over his head.
Plot twists unfold in the film, mostly predictable but not completely. I was impressed with the surprise ending. However, other viewers who are more well-versed with crime mystery formulae than I may find the whole narrative completely predictable. Regardless, MANIAC is succinctly written, though flawed as noted above, coming in at under ninety minutes. With solid acting by the whole cast (and particular kudos to the lovely Nadia Gray), a thrilling soundtrack by Stanley Black, and wonderful cinematography of French oceanside, country and old buildings, MANIAC moves crisply and gracefully along. The black and white choice for filming lends an effective starkness and sense of foreboding to the overall mood, drawing, it seems, from the older film noir style. This is 1960s cinema at some of its best, sans a somewhat superficial, unevenly written script.
The Practical, Fanciful Pagan 