You'll Like My Mother

Heavily pregnant widow Francesca Kinsolving (Patty Duke) travels to snowy Minnesota to meet her mother-in-law Maria for the first time. However, on arrival at the remote Kinsolving estate, she is shocked to find that the woman (Rosemary Murphy) isn't as saintly as her husband described (nice old ladies don't drown kittens!). When a snowstorm prevents her from leaving, Francesca finds herself a virtual prisoner in the house, and discovers a secret that puts not just her life in danger, but that of her child as well.

A taut thriller with bags of atmosphere and great performances, You'll Like My Mother could have been a classic, if it wasn't for one dodgy plot point that undoes a lot of the good work done by director Lamont Johnson and his talented cast. Without giving too much away, the effectiveness of the film as a whole depends a lot on the silence of a baby; silence when it is born, and silence for the following few days. In my experience, newborns do the exact opposite - they cry a lot - but Francesca's bundle of joy doesn't even gurgle or coo. As the script requires, the tiny tot stays schtum. It's just a tad far-fetched as far as I am concerned, and prevents the film from being a complete success.

Still, even with this somewhat irksome plot contrivance, I enjoyed this slow-burn thriller for its wonderfully chilling wintry locale, smart direction (Johnson makes great use of the old house), and solid acting (Duke and Murphy are given able support from Sian Barbara Allen as mentally disabled Kathleen, and Richard 'John-Boy Walton' Thomas as sexual sadist Kenny, the other occupants of the sprawling Kinsolving manor).

Despite what a few other reviewers have noted, this movie was a. Not a made for TV "movie of the week" and b. Not filmed in the "woods of Minnesota". The Glensheen Mansion is in the eastern part of Duluth, nestled in amongst other mansions built around the turn of the last century by the "robber barons" who made their fortunes in lumber, railroads or other enterprises of the times.

I happened to be in St. Mary's Hospital in Duluth when this movie was filmed in early 1972 and we had a celebrity guest on our floor at the time. Every morning an entourage would parade down the hall to visit Patty Duke, to include her dog and numerous hangers-on. Patty Duke was hospitalized at the same time for a "nervous condition". Read her bio and you will understand what that means in English.

The movie was OK, but a real treat for people who knew about the mansion because that was long before it became open to the public. The movie was made about five years before Mrs Congdon and her night nurse were savagely murdered. That event could also have made for a very interesting movie itself.

Filmed in the woods of Minnesota this thriller is scary and exciting! Patty Duke delivers a great performance but is at times outshined by newcomer Sian Barbara Allen! Sort of bloody at times! Richard Thomas in a rare performance as a physcho! Excellent film to watch on a cold winter night!

"You'll Like My Mother" is reminiscent in terms of subject matter to the British, Hammer-produced thriller "Die! Die, My Darling", as both movies deal with a recently widowed women acquainting their mothers-in-law only after the husbands' deaths and almost literally ending in hell. And since "Die! Die, My Darling" was such an absorbing and creepy little thriller; I really wanted to check out this movie as well, particularly because this is an "Americanized" 70's version with exploitation undertones and complementary raw atmosphere. Francesca, eight months pregnant and widowed since seven months as she lost her husband Matthew when his plane crashed in Vietnam, travels all the way up to Matthew's parental house to pay an unannounced visit to his mother. From the very first minute, Mrs. Kinsolving turns out to be hateful and cynical person who hasn't got the slightest intention to get friendly with Francesca or the baby. But there's more, as Matthew mute and mentally underdeveloped sister Kathleen – whom Francesca never heard about before – seems petrified of the mother and slips bizarre little newspaper clippings into her hands like she's trying to warn her about something sinister. With the snowy weather getting worse, Francesca and her unborn child are trapped in a mansion with a potentially very dangerous psychopath. "You'll Like My Mother" is a very tense and unnerving 70's thriller with a solid script that gradually becomes more convoluted through effective twists and a couple of powerful moments that are simultaneously disturbing and saddening. Particularly halfway through the movie, the story becomes unusual and nightmarish (all comparisons with "Die! Die, My Darling" abruptly end at that point as well) and you'll need a very strong nerve system to make it through some of the sudden twists. This movie is another perfect example to show you don't necessarily require a big budget to deliver a spine-chilling thriller. "You'll Like My Mother" contains no special effects or particular gimmicks, but thrives exclusively on dreary atmosphere and offbeat plotting. It's an incomprehensibly underrated 70's highlight with great acting performances (Patty Duke is sublime as the mother in distress) that urgently needs a much wider audience.

"You'll Like My Mother" has Patty Duke as Francesca, a pregnant widow who travels from California to the snowy backwoods of Minnesota in the dead of winter to meet her mother-in-law. She gets more than she bargained for however, and finds herself not only stranded there, but in great danger.

One of many seemingly forgotten horror-thriller offerings from the early seventies, this inconspicuously-titled chiller is severely underprivileged in terms of audience, to the point that it's been mistakenly labeled as a television film (it wasn't). Its snowy backwoods setting is phenomenal, and the film reaps a chilling and claustrophobic atmosphere from it throughout. Adding to the ambiance is the main setting—a secluded, ornate manor house—which acts as an oppressive force in and of itself, concealing family secrets as well as housing key scenes in the film.

The film sets it self up for sinister happenings from the outset, with Patty Duke innocuously asking her bus driver about her husband's family. "Kinsolving?" he asks, as if he believes her to be mistaken. "Oh, yeah, yeah, I know the Kinsolvings," he unconvincingly adds. It's minor, subtle moments like these—many of which are found in Duke's and Rosemary Murphy's performances—that make the film so unnerving. The audience knows something's not quite right from minute one, and the film is an exercise in ratcheting atmosphere and tension from there on out. Duke is likable as the doe-eyed, well-meaning widow, and Murphy is ice-cold as her unreceptive (among other things) mother-in-law. The increasing tension between the two actresses is nearly palpable.

Overall, "You'll Like My Mother" is an under-seen thriller marked by solid performances, eerie use of landscape and cinematography, and a consistently suspenseful plot. A worthwhile effort, and one of the better (and more unusual) snowbound horror films to come of the late twentieth century. 9/10.