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"Pretty Poison" is a very interesting, offbeat, darkly comic thriller and a film that remains somewhat under-valued 50 years after its release. Anthony Perkins stars in the kind of role that fit him like a glove: Dennis Pitt, a young man just released from a mental institution. Starting a job at a chemical plant in a small Massachusetts town, he becomes utterly entranced with Sue Ann Stepanek (the memorable Tuesday Weld), a sexy blonde high-schooler and majorette. Given that Dennis is prone to a rich fantasy life, he feeds her a bunch of bull about the spy work that he's doing. She seems to fall for it, hook, line, and sinker, but as things progress, she takes the reigns, making him realize that underneath her wholesome beauty is a psycho that's about to emerge. Then he's just meekly plodding along in her wake.

A good candidate for cult status, "Pretty Poison" marked the filmmaking debut for young Noel Black, who worked mostly in TV and made only a handful of features. He gives the fast-moving, twisty plot very surefooted direction, and gets excellent performances out of his two stars. "Pretty Poison" also has a great feel for small-town America, and the kind of madness that could be boiling beneath the surface. What's appreciated about the tale (scripted by the busy Lorenzo Semple, Jr., based on the novel "She Let Him Continue" by Stephen Geller) is the fact that it's not so predictable. You're fascinated by this character played by the lovely Ms. Weld, and wonder what else she and the filmmakers will do with her.

Perkins may be too old for his role by at least a decade or so, but, much as he did in "Psycho", he does have the ability to earn some sympathy. By the end of the picture, you realize that for all his mental issues, he's not unintelligent. He may have been played for a sap, but he knows it, and he has some advice to pass on to his case worker Azenauer (top character actor John Randolph).

In addition to the great Randolph, other supporting players help to add gravitas: 1950s B movie queen Beverly Garland as Sue Ann's disapproving mother, Dick O'Neill as Dennis' cranky boss, and Clarice Blackburn as the helpful Mrs. Bronson. Ken Kercheval of future 'Dallas' fame has a bit at the end of the story.

But Ms. Weld, despite being a little too old for her role as well, is this pictures' main draw, revealing this not-so-innocent teens' true personality with a vengeance.

All in all, "Pretty Poison" is a striking little film that sinks its hooks into you and doesn't let go for 90 straight minutes.

Eight out of 10.

The sleeper of 1968, this little-scene film is frightening with Tuesday Weld giving her best performance as a self-centered tinderbox of passion and greed. Anthony Perkins is his usual affable set of nervous tics and equally as good. What happened to this director? What happened to this film? The script has you guessing from beginning to end and it's a great payoff eventually.

A definite 9 out of 10 (the music is strictly bad tv score) in a great location in New England that hopefully will come out on DVD eventually. If you've never appreciated Ms. Weld before, this is the one you should try to track down. Strange story, wonderful cinematography, and sensitive lead performances make this one special.

I remember seeing this movie on BBC2 absolutely years ago. It was released on video but is a pure bugger to track down. I feel it never really got the credit it deserves as both Perkins and Weld probably turn in the best perfomances of their careers. Perkins is great in the role of a deluded arsonist who while on probabtion arrives in a sleepy little town. Once there he enlists the help of juvenile cheerleader Weld to help him in his schemes after filling her head full of his delusions about him being in the CIA. She of course is thrilled to escape her rather dull life and agrees to help him. It's interesting to note that Weld thought this was one of her worst performances when it's bloody obvious it is anything but. She is quite simply superb turning from an innocent cheerleader to an amoral killer. The range of emotions she displays is amazing. Perkins character of Dennis Pitt hasn't got a chance as behind her sweet innocence lurks someone far more deadly than he who ultimately goads him into matricide. If you can, see it!!!

Dennis Pitt (Anthony Perkins) is a young man who is being released from a mental hospital after having committed arson. He burned down his aunt's house at age 15. What he didn't know was that she was in the house at the time, and so she died in the fire.

Dennis has a job waiting for him at a chemical company, but it is mind numbingly boring work - sitting on an assembly line all day making sure that bottles of chemicals are OK and that they proceed down the assembly line OK, which they almost always do. Since Dennis' root problem is that he is subject to a rich fantasy life, this lack of something upon which to occupy his mind has him drifting into the exciting world of make-believe and out of dull reality in short order.

He gets involved with a pretty high school student, Sue Ann (Tuesday Weld), and tells her that he is an undercover CIA agent. Sue Ann seems to be a gullible thrill-seeking teen at first, impressed with Dennis's exciting stories of secret missions, maybe wanting to believe it, maybe actually believing it. Dennis has plans to sabotage the chemical plant where he works because it is dumping toxic chemicals into the river next to it. In his mind, some vandalism for the sake of his fantasy life and the environment is within the limits of acceptable behavior. But Sue Ann has a darker agenda, one that soon has Dennis unwillingly mixed up in murder. Complications ensue.

The 60s is not my favorite decade for film because so much of it is of two minds - You either have entries that are trying to push the envelope as it existed at the time such as "Midnight Cowboy" and "Bonnie and Clyde" or lighter fare such as Oliver or Mary Poppins. Sometimes you have both tendencies in the same film! But this one just clicks and rings true. Perkins was great as the doomed misfit, with a role that for sure is trying to capitalize - eight years later - on his role in Psycho, except here he's not a psycho as much as he is a gullible patsy. Then there is Beverly Garland as Sue Ann's hard drinking tough talking hypocritical mother just a year before she becomes the stepmother to My Three Sons - for sure this was a departure from her usual doe-eyed roles.

Note the brief scene at the end with Ken Kercheval, who played JR Ewing rival Cliff Barnes on Dallas some ten years later.

I'd recommend this one as it seems unfairly forgotten.

I just finished watching Pretty Poison, and it is a great movie worthy of recognition. I don't know why or how this movie has been somewhat obscured, I guess it wasn't so popular back in those days and it ruined it for other generations.

I'm glad I found this on the movie channel, great performances by Anthony Perkins, really impressive and not exaggerated, which is what a lot of times makes people see as good acting, but this is not the case here, a deep performance is what Mr. Perkins gives us, really laid back and neutral, Kind of the characters he played through his career (Josef K on Welles adaptation of Kafka's "The Process", and his Classic Norman Bates on Psycho) and a great Tuesday Weld as the strange and evolving character Sue Ann Stepanek.

It is so sad that movies like this get lost. A great Screenplay (Best Screenplay Award given by the New York Film Critics Circle Awards) and great acting should make a successful movie, I don't know what happened here.

[8.5/10]