La locura de Mimí

Somehow surmounting a creaky script rooted in some crackpot psychiatry, Screaming Mimi creates a somnambulistic, doom-laden mood that keeps you watching, bemused. And that's not easily explained.

The director, Gerd Oswald, was one of the lesser expatriates from Germany, a pedestrian workman who the year before helmed Crime of Passion, a jejune noir starring Barbara Stanwyck, Sterling Hayden and Raymond Burr; it's hard to extinguish the sizzle in that kind of cast, but Oswald did a pretty fair job of it.

In Screaming Mimi, he was saddled with the sort of rounded-up cast that doesn't incite box office stampedes. Anita Ekberg, - the Swedish bombshell with the storied bosom - proves oddly affecting in the numbed-out role she's called on to play. And society stripper Gypsy Rose Lee supplies a welcome bit of sass as proprietress of a nightclub called El Madhouse. But the male leads emerged from the La Brea tar pits of Hollywood anonymity. Philip Carey passes as sort of a poor man's Gary Merrill (that is to say, absolutely penniless), while Harry Townes, an even more faceless actor, makes up the roster.

The plot? Ekberg, an exotic `dancer' who writhes about suggestively in an act with bondage overtones, is visiting her sculptor-stepbrother on the California coast when she's almost knifed by an escapee from a nearby asylum, whom the brother promptly shoots dead. In consequence, Ekberg winds up in the selfsame asylum where her smitten shrink (Townes) arranges her release and, in a development reminiscent of The Blue Angel or Sunset Boulevard, leaves his post to manage her career (as `Yolanda Lang').

Then one night she's stabbed (again), but her vicious great dane wards off the attacker. Carey, a columnist whose curiously broad beat includes night clubs and crime in the night, grows intrigued, and stumbles onto the fact that both Ekberg and an earlier victim possessed strange statuettes called Screaming Mimis....

It's a jumble, all right, but it manages to hold some interest. A large part of the credit must, by default, fall to top-notch cinematographer Burnett Guffey, by far the most talented factor in the movie. (He films one scene in the light from a flashing neon sign, alternating between a two-shot and daringly long intervals of pitch blackness.) The movie shares a restive, oneiric quality with certain low-budget noirs from a decade earlier, that again compelled more attention than they deserved. Go figure.

This is a reasonably faithful adaptation of the 1949 novel by Fredric Brown. Reasonably, that is, by 1950s Hollywood standards -- all of the essential story elements are there, although most of the subtleties of the novel are missing. For instance, Sweeney the reporter (Philip Carey) spends most of the novel in a constant hangover, having just come off a drunken binge; and the true relationship between Yolanda (Anita Eckberg) and Greene (Harry Townes), made explicit in the film's opening scenes, isn't revealed until the end of the novel. This is largely because the film presents the story in a straightforward, linear fashion, whereas in the novel, such vital information comes out gradually, via Sweeney's investigations. The film also, understandably, tones down the more lewd elements of the novel: Yolanda's strip-tease becomes merely an exotic dance.

I can't help wondering what Alfred Hitchcock would have done with this story. Hitchcock was certainly familiar with Brown's work -- four of his stories were adapted for the TV series ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS ("The Cream of the Jest", "The Night the World Ended", "The Dangerous People", and "Human Interest Story"). If Hitchcock had directed THE SCREAMING MIMI, it would surely have become a classic on a par with PSYCHO.

As others have commented here, I strongly recommend reading Fredric Brown's original novel. (I re-read it recently, just before seeing the film for the first time.) Brown was a very prolific writer of mystery and science fiction from the 40s through the 60s. (He died in 1972.) He was a master of the short-short story, and of the surprise twist ending. Though most of his works are currently out of print, they can easily be found on eBay or abe.com.

A footnote: The book NIGHTMARE IN DARKNESS, a limited edition of previously uncollected Fredric Brown stories, includes the original, unpublished ending of the novel, in which Sweeney is actually killed by the Ripper.

ANITA EKBERG almost sleepwalks through her role of a disturbed woman who somehow finds herself in the midst of murder and mayhem in SCREAMING MIMI ('58), the title referring to a statue that is some sort of fetish that turns up at every killing. Miss Ekberg is also a statue here, towering above most of the cast except for PHILIP CAREY, the handsome male lead who shares one thing in common with Anita--he's a lifeless presence.

It's hard to get involved with these characters, especially since the story itself is a murky enough affair with some psycho-babble underpinnings in the convoluted storyline. On the plus side, the B&W photography of rainswept streets and dark shadows is impressive and the production aspects aren't too shabby.

GYPSY ROSE LEE manages to be lively enough as a nightclub proprietress, but her shimmy to "Put the Blame On Mame" is a pretty sorry attempt at the song made famous by Rita Hayworth.

The story starts out on a promising note, but quickly becomes an inept psychological thriller under Gerd Oswald's routine direction and moves toward a conclusion that lacks whatever punch it might have had because much of the disclosed information was already revealed.

This is an easily forgotten item that capitalizes solely on ANITA EKBERG's physical charms which are an eyeful for male fans but her acting is sub-par for a story that requires much more from an actress than mere physical presence and an overly generous bosom. She was much more fortunate a few years later to find herself in "La Dolce Vita". As for PHILIP CAREY, his stone-faced approach to acting doesn't help matters here.

Summing up: Hopelessly confusing and dull, when it should have been tight and suspenseful.

Screaming Mimi is directed by Gerd Oswald and adapted to screenplay by Robert Bless from the novel written by Fredric Brown. It stars Anita Ekberg, Phillip Carey, Gypsy Rose Lee and Harry Townes. Music is by Mischa Bakaleinikoff and cinematography by Burnett Guffey.

A woman becomes mentally unbalanced after a failed knife attack by a psychotic and has to spend time in a sanatorium. Whilst there she becomes the object of her psychiatrist obsessions.

Great Dame With A Great Dane!

A curio psychological film noir with horror leanings, Screaming Mimi is just a tad too nutty for its own good. It's also weighed down by a non performance from Ekberg, who you find is purely in the piece to tantalise via her voluptuous body, and also by a colourless performance by Carey. Yet it's a fascinating movie, a sort of car crash piece of cinema that you can't take your eyes away from!

Psycho Schematic.

It's all very lurid, sexy and bonkers, the sort of picture where alcoholic accompaniments would most likely improve the viewing experience tenfold. The characters inhabiting this world are a strange bunch, which is fun, whilst when you got entertainment establishments called Gay "N" Frisky and El Madhouse, you just know we are trawling through an off kilter city of sin and carnal desires. Unfortunately Oswald and Bless seem confused about what to do with all the provocative possibilities, rendering the narrative as confused and at times lifeless.

Rose Lee is great though as she flits between manipulator and sultry proprietor, as is Townes, who underpins the whiff of mania running through the pics veins. Guffey and Bakaleinikoff offer up solid tech work, and the jazzy strains provided by Red Norvo are most welcome. It really should have been a great movie though, such promise in story and set-ups, but sadly it ends up as a faux Freudian potboiler. 5/10

Bodacious, gloriously-maned Ekberg and her magnificent dog Devil (dubbed a great dame and a Great Dane)are the goodies in this fifties pop-psych piece with its is-she/isn't-she-crazy scenario. Looking like a gorgeous amazonian goddess (purportedly only 5'7" without heels), the mighty Ekberg makes all the human males in her orbit look mousy and malleable as she sashays from loony bin to gin den, her emotions and motivations as mysterious as the titular statuette around which it all revolves. The movie has an offbeat tone and texture and a tendency to unbalance the viewer with the unexpected:

asylum-escapee Ekberg doing her shackled-slave dance routine in El Madhouse nightclub; Gypsy Rose Lee putting the blame on Mame in an awkward, abortive fringe-dress shimmy; the famed stripster's shacked-up status with a cute little hipster. Fans of such censor-bound lesbian depictions should love this cinematic morsel, as will devotees of no-budget noir!