Die Screaming Marianne

If there was ever a genre of horror dedicated to inflicting obscene and brutal quantities of boredom onto the audience, then Die Screaming, Marianne would be its keynote work. I heard so much about how brutal Pete Walker movies were and everyone was right. This movie is brutal. I didn't even realize Susan George was the lead until other posts pointed it out in this forum. Basically if you like watching Susan driving around, walking around, renting a house, driving around some more, talking aimlessly, then driving around, and then... Well you get the picture. A completely boring and flat film. It should have been called Die SLEEPING Marianne! It makes Andy Warhol's Eat feel like a cross between Fukasawa's Battle Royal and De Bont's Speed. Unbelievably dull.

Not particularly gripping tale of a 'free spirited' Susan George becoming embroiled in a seedy crime racket, led by a 'defrocked' Judge.

Not just *a* Judge, but 'The Judge' - Leo Genn's character who is continually accorded the definite article by sundry friends and enemies - who are largely interchangeable. This melodrama, with a heavy accent on the corrupt authority figures, bears some resemblance to Pete Walker's later baroque horrors. But the formula isn't developed as of yet - and he had yet to work with the waggish scriptwriter David McGillivray. Walker followed this film with the relatively interesting curio, "The Flesh and Blood Show" - collaborating with the talented veteran Alfred Shaughnessy of "Upstairs, Downstairs" fame - and then his fecund period began with "The House of Whipcord" in 1974.

Susan George and Judy Huxtable are done a great disservice by Walker and scriptwriter Murray Smith here with their reductive portrayal of female characters. Such as shame for George in particular, subject of much brutality in Peckinpah's "Straw Dogs" the following year, but also Huxtable, who was the evocative beauty at the heart of the whimsical "Les Bicylettes de Belsize" two years earlier.

There is always some degree of objectification of women in Walker's films, but what is lacking here is the suspenseful, charged context of his later films. "Frightmare" and "House of Mortal Sin" have something of the Hitchcockian about them: Hitchcock-meets-the Grimm Brothers-meets-British exploitation cinema of the 70s. This is a rather more humdrum affair, with even the exotic locations eliciting no more than a Gallic shrug in this viewer.

It's hard not to have a soft spot for Pete Walker. He was an impresario of British sleaze, genuinely making sexploitation and low budget horror films, and gleefully mixing the two.

"Die Screaming Marianne" is an outlier in his filmography. Despite the title, it's not a horror film, and there's no sex or nudity. It's more like a crime thriller, and Walker was not, by any stretch of the imagination, a thriller director.

The titular Marianne is played by the ravishing Susan George, an actress so effortlessly sexy you don't even mind that she doesn't get naked, even in a subpar film like this. She is also probably the best actress Walker ever worked with.

Marianne's mother died when she was a tried and inexplicably bequeathed to her a large sum of money and proof that her father, a crooked judge, is a crooked judge.

Her older sister in after her for her money, and her father wants the proof - though what it could be I can only guess.

Marianne escapes from her creepy family and goes on the run. She has a truly chance meeting with an utterly uncharismatic, birdlike '70s hairdo sporting creep, who almost runs over her in his convertible. After a few harsh words, she decides to come with him, and a few scenes later, they are married. The creep has an undue interest in the certificate that says they are really married, hinting that he is obviously involved with Marianne's sinister family, and yet when he looks at the certificate, he finds she has instead been married off to the much more preposessing Eli, played by Barry Evans, an actor best known for failing to snatch the sexploitation actor crown from Robin Askwith.

If you aren't yet getting the feeling that the movie's plot was made up on the spot, consider this: if the creep was in on the conspiracy from the beginning, why was his original meeting with Marianne so obviously by chance? They could have at least made it look somewhat staged. He couldn't have possibly met her that way on purpose, and yet the movie later seems to think he did.

Eli is a much better fit than the creepy '70s throwback fossil, and he and Marianne seem to get along, but pretty soon two large men pose as police officers and pluck him off the street and take him to a dingy back room that looks like part of an adult book store. They sit him down, offer him a cigarette, and one leaves while the other leisurely appears to consider different murder weapons. He takes a gun and screws and unscrews a silencer, and then wraps a length of cord around his hands the way murderers do. Seeing this, and given a fantastic opportunity to escape, Eli does so. He does, admittedly, have to fight off one of the guys on the way out, with a little pocket knife.

Remember what I said about the movie feeling made up along the way? If those two men were going to kill Eli, why did they take him into the room before they had even decided what weapon they were going to use? If they had a gun and a silencer, why would they even consider a length of cord?

Eventually, Marianne and Eli decide to go back to her family in Portugal. Why isn't really explained, but Susan George is such a great actress you can actually believe this decision, which, truth be told, is probably another example of idiotic plotting on behalf of the screenwriter.

Scenes in the movie often seem to end out of nowhere. There is a scene where the judge talks to a man, and the man suddenly makes choking noises and slides out of the frame. Scene over. I guess he died. Was he killed? By who? The judge? They didn't even seem to touch each other.

The ending also comes out of nowhere, but it actually manages to be sad, mostly due to the amazing presence that is Susan George, and the fact that she and Barry Evans (RIP) had real chemistry.

Come to think of it, all the actors in "Die Screaming Marianne" are better than the flimsy material deserved. Their presence, together with the ridiculousness of the movie's plot, staging and editing, kept me watching, and kept me entertained.

I'm a big fan of Pete Walker's exploitative style of horror and Susan George rates very highly on my '70s crumpet-ometer', so I was pretty stoked at the prospect of finally watching 'Die Screaming, Marianne', which sees Walker directing the lovely actress as a free-spirited young woman on the run from those who will stop at nothing to get their hands on the contents of a swiss bank account for which only she holds the numbers.

Unfortunately, this early attempt by the director to break free from his sexploitation roots sees him struggling to find his feet, the plot meandering all over the place, the pacing dreadfully slow, with very little of the bolder elements that would make his later films so much fun; in fact, if it wasn't for George, who looks absolutely stunning throughout, go-go dancing in a bikini during the opening credits, modelling some very short dresses, relaxing in a bubble bath (curse those bubbles!), cavorting in her underwear, and wearing just a towel while trapped in a sauna (Die Steaming, Marianne?), 'Die Screaming, Marianne' would qualify as a total snoozeathon.

3.5 out of 10, generously rounded up to 4 for IMDb.

Pete Walker was one of the most interesting British horror directors of the 1970's, with impressive efforts like The Flesh and Blood Show (1972), House of Whipcord (1974) and Frightmare (1974) to his name. This earlier film is sometimes described as his first foray into horror but really it is nothing of the sort. Despite a title that suggests that it could be, this one turns out to be a psychological thriller with really no horror aspects at all. A young woman's life is threatened when her crooked father tries to prevent her reaching her 21st birthday and in doing so inherit a fortune plus some documents which will incriminate him.

Aside from being an early example of a Walker film, this one is notable for featuring Susan George in a starring role a year before she appeared in Sam Peckinpah's controversial Straw Dogs (1971). In truth, the opening credit sequence which has her gyrating in a bikini in front of a deep red background is very striking indeed, although it is probably in fairness the best bit in the entire film. The main issue with this one is its pretty poor script which meanders about somewhat with a definite lack of focus. The first half of the film which is set in England is the better part with some intrigue and character set-ups but once the action relocates to Portugal things grind to a bit of a halt and it does get a bit boring. It's kind of unfortunate, as the bare bones of the story has got at least some potential but there is something very half-hearted in how things are ultimately played out. Seemingly Walker had some issues with the young cast members during the Portuguese section and this may account for the results on screen being less than impressive. Whatever the case, this is still worth seeing if you have an interest in Walker's movies as it does at least showcase some of his recurring themes such as elderly villains interfering with the lives of the younger generation. But, despite its director and cute leading lady, it has to be admitted that this is not essential stuff by any means. With its cool title and nice cover art it will look good in your film library though and that's not such a terrible thing I guess.