Screaming Mimi

When I first read Fredric Brown's 1948 novel, I was mesmerized. I have read it a few times since and have no intention of stopping-- it's really one of those forgotten classics of the hardboiled genre. Also being a Fellini fan, I have long been curious to see the film, Anita Ekberg's first starring role, (La Dolce Vita was two years later.) I know that Fellini was a pretty big fan of Brown-- at one point he planned to adapt his sci-fi novel What Mad Universe-- so I'm pretty sure he discovered Ekberg in this film.

Though I think the above reviewer was kind of harsh on Oswald and the cast-- especially Harry Townes, who understates the creepy obsessiveness of Doc Greene very well-- the fact is the movie falls short of the book by a considerable margin. I would put most of the blame on screenwriter Robert Blees, who had previously scripted the giant monster movie The Black Scorpion. But for all its faults (unfortunately, the ending is one of the things they botched) the film has its charms. Not only the cinematography but the music performed by Red Norvo captures the mood of the novel very well. And there are scenes that they actually get right. So I guess it's a love/hate thing for me.

Before I go, one last sidelight. Gypsy Rose Lee, who's featured in Mimi, was an exotic dancer in the forties and wrote one novel, The G-String Murders-- also about a killer who stalks strippers-- which was adapted as Lady of Burlesque, with Barbara Stanwyck.

How did I miss this drive-in special back in 1958 when I hit those passion pits weekly. Yeah, it's lurid to the max, but it's also got some kinky touches carefully hidden during the Age of Ike when sex was summed up by Debbie and Eddie. Note the not-so-subtle innuendo that Lee's character has more interest in the cigarette girl than in handsome stud Carey. And what is that s&m chain doing on Ekberg's wrists as she writhes around during her so-called stage act, which we get to see not once but twice as though we may not have believed it the first time around. Then too, what's with Towne's kinky doctor who can't seem to decide just which of Ekberg's startling features he's most interested in. And finally, how did this bit of bizzaro escape the confines of a respectable studio, Columbia, and the co-producing team of Brown and Fellows. Say what you will, despite the sleaze, this low-budget piece of 50's movie-making has more inherent interest than 90% of its bigger contemporaries.

I expect cult director Gerd Oswald is responsible for taking up the challenge and turning what could have been a routine crime drama into a genuine curiosity piece. Just watch his direction of the movie's centerpiece, and I don't mean Ekberg's Amazonian proportions-- in fact, her best scenes are those standing around looking comatose. No, this is familiar character actor Harry Towne's masterpiece. He was always good at slightly off-center characters, but here he out-does himself, delivering a masterfully kinky performance that really defies description. I've seen nothing quite like it in years of movie watching. Just what is going on inside those many tormented expressions. Watch the scene where he stands outside the colloquy between Carey and Ekberg when she must decide where her allegiance lies. Note the subtle array of emotions that react to what is being said. He could have just stood there and picked up his paycheck, but he didn't. Instead he created one of the more interesting obsessions to appear on the big screen in some time. I hope there's a special place in Hollywood heaven for unsung actors like Towne who deliver so much and get back so little. Anyhow the movie remains an interesting piece of esoterica, even if the title likely drove away more people than it brought in.

Swedish sex symbol of late 50's and 60's Anita Ekberg sadly died on 11th January 2015,so to honour her jaw-dropping physical beauty I decided to watch "Screaming Mimi".Frederic Brown 1949 novel has been adapted into a movie twice:Gerd Oswald's "Screaming Mimi" in 1958 and more loosely Dario Argento's first giallo "The Bird with the Crystal Plumage" in 1970.I must say that dancing scenes of Anita Ekberg in "Screaming Mimi" are very sensual.The beginning of the film probably inspired infamous shower scene in "Psycho"(1960).The film is well-shot and genuinely entertaining with some gleefully perverse overtones.If you like low-budget noir cinema,Italian gialli or krimi movies it's a must-see.8 Screaming Mimis out of 10.

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.

This film could be considered one of the missing links between American film noir and the suspense and horror films that would become so popular in continental Europe over the next two decades (i.e. the German "krimis", the Italian "gialli", the horror films of Bava and Argento). It's technically a late period film noir, but rather than having the traditional pessimistic tone and hard-boiled, voice-over narrative, it is completely off-the-wall and chock-full of the suggested depravity and lurid psycho-babble that would characterize the later European films. Interestingly, it was apparently based on the same Fredric Brown novel as Dario Argento's "Bird with Crystal Plummage" (although at least one of these movie was obviously only loosely based on the source novel because they don't really resemble each other too much). It also features European sex symbol Anita Ekberg as a voluptuous stripper (who looks like she could eat Edwige Fenech or one of the other later European sex kittens). Rare for the time, it even has a psycho-killer, called "The Ripper", who leaves the epononymous "screaming mimi" dolls next to his/her butchered female victims. Not a great movie perhaps, but I really dug it.