The Screaming Woman

Working with this wonderful performer was a great thrill for me. She was like and beginner with great joy and loved every suggestion I made and wanted to rehearse over and over again. I was shocked somewhat because few Oscar winners seem to want to do that with and "unknown" which I kind of was in those days. When waiting around we talked once about Errol Flynn who I think did 8 pictures with her, back in the Warner Bros, days. She said all the bad press he got on being Pro Nazi and other things, was to quote Her. "was ridicules, and believe me I knew him better then anyone." Joe Cotton,all the way back with Wells in "Citizen Kane," was a regular guy, and was the star of the first film I did, still in New Orleans, It was entitled "The Steel Trap" with the wonderful Teresa Wright. I was an extra and scared to death standing next to him in a big scene. The title of this ABC TV movie was something else and they changed it after we started shooting. Olivia really hated the title saying, "All the audience will see is my face screaming from this title."

I wrote this because you all liked the picture so much. Thanks Ed Nelson

As a very big fan of Mrs De Havilland ,it was a great pleasure for me to see her with her old partner in crime Joseph Cotten (some will remember "hush hush sweet Charlotte" ),even though the latter has a too brief appearance.

Ray Bradbury 's short story was modified and her heroine ,a young girl named Margaret ,was replaced by an older lady ,Laura.Actually the story recalls that of William Irish aka Cornell Woolrich ,"fire escape" (transferred to the screen as " the boy who cried wolf" ) in which a little boy told imaginary stories till a true crime happens.....just as the sheriff and his deputy do not believe that old bat who sees prowlers everywhere ...and who do not want "riffraff " around -the short scene where the "commoner" tells her :"you made my day,no you made my week" is worth the price of admission -

Jack Smight succeeds in confusing the viewer: is Laura a lunatic? (after all,she forgot that the greenhouse was destroyed by fire)has she really discovered a buried alive woman ? Or has she been framed by her daughter-in-law who covets her money and would like her to be considered irresponsible ?As cousin Olivia and her old beau Joseph wanted to do pitiful Davis/Charlotte away from her valuable property in "hush hush sweet Charlotte" .

De Havilland and Cotten met again in "airport' 77" but the movie was a spate of clichés and they were given poor parts.

Like many others, this is the one horror movie that really affected me when I saw it as a child. I used to have nightmares and get chills thinking about it. I remember really being frightened of the sounds coming out of the ground. Probably shouldn't have watched this type of movie at such a young age. As an adult, I have talked about this movie to friends who had never heard of it and told them that it would be great to find a copy so that they could see it. I'm sure it would still scare the heck out of me now. I would love to get it and invite a bunch of friends over and watch it in our theater room. The impact of this movie would be so much greater on a large screen versus the small television that we had in the 70's. It would be interesting to see how my teenagers would react to it and how they would compare it to the scary movies of today.

Obviously, for me, this horror movie did what it intended to do! SCARE ME!!!

Laura, a woman in her late 50's just recovering from a sojourn in a mental hospital returns home to her estate in the temporary care of her son and his wife. A rather dubious couple to say the least. While walking in the grounds one morning she hears or thinks she hears groaning sounds emanating from the ground and tries to raise the alarm. Unsurprisingly when help arrives the voice is no longer evident and so the seeds of doubt are raised about her sanity. Caught this one on the box very early one morning and scared me enough to have a really lousy sleep. De Havilland is in her element here as the recovering patient and gives her character enough credibility to even make the viewer wonder as to her mental state. The black & white photography enhances the suspense of the whole story. Unfortunately not available on dvd or video.

I saw this on TV way back in the early 70's and it truly frightened the living daylights out of me.

Anyone from the industry reading this should surely consider a DVD release of this engrossing masterpiece