She Waits

I've just watched this movie twice; gorgeous visuals, really moody soundtrack. And this from a cheap TV movie starring Patty Duke! The story concerns a new bride arriving at her husband's family abode, to be unnerved by the possibility that she might be in danger of being possessed by the spirit of his deceased former wife. Patty Duke and "The Man From UNCLE" (McCallum) do a great job of acting, given the bad lines they have to deliver.

And there's the problem = the dialogue is stunningly trite and obvious, no better than a daytime soap-opera. Pretend the characters are speaking a foreign language you can't understand, and you'll get a good frisson as the mood of this drama envelopes you. Don't turn off the sound, the music works perfectly.

I Rate it at eight stars = two being deducted because of the dialogue.

Newlyweds, Laura Wilson (Patty Duke) and her husband, Mark (David McCallum) stay at Mark's family estate, in spite of his mother's (Dorothy McGuire) protests. Mark's first wife, Elaine had died there, and he's very touchy about the subject.

Then, Laura starts hearing a tune found on Elaine's music box, to the point of being haunted by it. She also hears voices, and screams like a banshee sitting on a porcupine! Laura becomes curious about how Elaine died. Mark doesn't want to discuss it, so Laura talks to his mother, who tries to get her to leave the house. She also tells her the truth about Elaine's death. This sends Laura into a mega-tizzy! She screams and screams.

The next thing we know, Laura's entire personality changes into a major meany pants. Has Elaine returned from the dead to possess her, or is Laura cracking up?

SHE WAITS is a tale of family secrets, murder, and possible vengeance from beyond the grave.

BONUS POINTS FOR: Ms. Duke's final scream, that could peel a bunch of bananas from 100 yards away!

EXTRA BONUS POINTS FOR: The music score, which is sort of Bernard Herrmann meets Bach...

Mostly, "She Waits" is your average woman-goes-to-house-and-strange-things-start-happening story, but it's kept afloat by the good performances. Patty Duke plays Laura Wilson, who goes with her husband Mark (David McCallum) to his childhood home, where his first wife died. His mother Sarah (Dorothy McGuire) contends that his first wife never left the house and is waiting to get him back. You can probably guess what starts happening thereafter.

Overall, the movie has everything that we would expect in such a movie, namely the eerie house and overpossessive mother. Most of the dialog is routine, but there are some good lines. For example, housekeeper Mrs. M (Beulah Bondi) says of Los Angeles: "What self-respecting ghost would want to live here?" Lew Ayres (yes, the "All Quiet on the Western Front" star who later became a conscientious objector) plays the doctor.

Nothing new, but innocuous.

While falling very much on the melodrama side of things as opposed to aiming for much in the way of overt shocks or scare tactics, She Waits holds together pretty well in its way, building pleasurably to a suitably fraught final block. The plot is simple, David (Ilya Kuryakin) McCallum takes his lovely new wife home to see his mother and work through some of his own issues, only for said mother to stir up the past and his wife's own neuroses into a foaming brew of the possibly supernatural. Actually for much of the time the film could simply be called something like The Menace of the Meddling Mother In-Law, as generally the point of whether or not something paranormal is going on is kept ambiguous, while the fact that the mother is doing no good is beyond question. Still, a quality turn from Dorothy McGuire keeps her character interesting if not beyond cliché, one gets the feeling of genuine fear and torment roiling away inside her, the feeling that she really is doing what she thinks best and exists in a sphere of isolation permitting no outside force to change her mind. It's a decent performance and she has great chemistry with Patty Duke as the beleaguered new wife Laura. Duke captures very well a sense of restless curiosity, steady mounting insecurity and eroding personality, malleable mind within fragile beauty. David McCallum on the other hand is very much a weak link, his acting borders on the somnambulant for most of the film, only developing a noticeable pulse and positive action in the final block, in which he does redeem himself somewhat. The scares are too thin on the ground and the details of the plot are left rather undeveloped, not that I mind having the nitty gritty left to the imagination but I definitely prefer to have a few more hints. Still, there are a few chills and the flowing camera-work gives a nicely foreboding atmosphere to the dark and daunting house in the the majority of the films action is set. Overall I'd say this is a worthy little diversion for fans of this sort of film, though it lacks much in the way of spectacle or thrills and isn't even all that tense, it keeps fairly compelling with its drama and is an admirably sincere and serious entry in a genre which was well on its way to collapsing into the swamps of camp long before this film was made. A fair 6/10 from me, though definitely a film for those already predisposed to enjoy it.

It's a tragedy that this film is in circulation by paid subscription to Prime Video but looks like Grandma's cathode ray tube television set in the mid 1980s. She Waits is available in terrible condition and if it were remastered it would likely bring my rating up to a solid 5/10 just for the glorious antiques.

Otherwise the plot is common and slightly boring, the usual 1972 housewife recently married to a financially comfortable but narcissistic man telling her to mind her own business about how his last wife died, as if that's ever been a rude question to ask one's spouse.

Patty Duke performs fairly well in this mediocre mid-Century flick, also starring two music boxes because we all know how they're capable of murder - especially the ones who play "gay tunes."