Obsessão Sinistra

The movie takes place in the 1930s--The mothers (Debbie Reynolds and Shelley Winters) of two murdering sons run away to Hollywood after their sons are convicted. They change their names and open a dance studio for children. Reynolds quickly adjusts to her new life and falls for a nice guy (Dennis Weaver). However Winters keeps having flashbacks to her husband's bloody accident that killed him--or was it an accident? This film looks fantastic. Curtis Harrington was a very good, underrated director and he did a great job here. The settings and costumes are incredible and perfectly fit the 1930s. However the story doesn't flow smoothly. It runs in fits and starts and comes to a screeching halt for THREE musical numbers with the kids and Reynolds! Also a certain murder at the end was drastically cut to avoid an R rating (the director was not happy about it). But the acting saves it. Reynolds is superb in a very dramatic and hard role. I never thought she could act till I saw this. Winters chews the scenery (as usual) but in a fun way. Also, despite the GP (now PG) rating this is pretty bloody and the shock ending is totally ruined by being on the poster AND the theatrical trailer! Still it's worth catching.

This is certainly NOT a movie to laugh at, rather than with, as one commentator indicates. This move has an understated black comic humor running through it that is simply delirious fun! And that "borders on a bad musical" that another commentator mentions? Well, I believe it's supposed to be bad. In fact, frightening so. One of the major points of the film is how we live our dreadful lives in sad imitation of equally dreadful Hollywood stars. And these kids are but the sad tools of monstrous parents, forcing them to play bad imitations of Shirley Temple, or worse, trashy child vamps! And the worst of them all is Debbie Reynolds, who - when given a bouquet of gardenias - can only remark, "Oh! Joan Crawford's favorite!

See this movie. Observations like the one quoted in the title to this post will surely make you wet your pants. And if that doesn't, then Agnes Morehead's milking her flock for donations in support of her CHURCH OF THE OPEN HAND should do it. Or how about the poem she recites that goes something like, "Give it up for to God. It's time you took action. You should make Jesus your main attraction!"

The audience at the screening I went to the other night was actually on their feet cheering after the film.

From the writer of "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" and "Hush .. Hush, Sweet Charlotte," this tail-end of the sixties horror cycle has some eerie and campy fun. Micheál Macliammóir does a Victor Buono-type bit, but too often the movie totters dangerously close to a bad musical ... there's a particularly awful children's recital about halfway through. Debbie taps, tangos and tricks up a lá Harlow, while Winters' religious fanatic has a lesbian edge to her. Agnes Moorehead checks in as an evangelist. Weaver has nothing to do - and even has to pay a gigolo to dance with Debbie.

It was interesting to see the comments preceding my entry. I saw this movie when it first came out when I was 11 years old and it was really frightening at the time. The gruesome murders that the sons committed combined with the gory flashbacks and the maniacal ending burned images in my mind that lasted for years later.

I couldn't appreciate or recognize any of the factors that may make it considered camp now. All I can say is that getting that last shot of Debbie Reynolds out of my head while trying to fall asleep took a long, long time.

The sons of two very different women are convicted of murder. Fearing for their safety in their small town in 1930s America, star-obsessed Adelle (Debbie Reynolds) decides to get a fresh new start in Hollywood, and convinces the quiet and religious Helen (Shelley Winters) to join her. They exploit the Shirley Temple craze by running a successful instructional school that teaches child actresses singing and dancing. Things seem to be going well for both until Helen starts to have crazed flashbacks about her "former life." But things have never looked better for Adelle, so What the hell is the matter with Helen?!

This movie is a hoot! Debbie Reynolds looks like a classic Hollywood starlet (fantastic costumes and makeup), and it is hilarious and sickening fun watching Shelley Winters in a downward spiral. Agnes Moorehead has an amusing cameo as a Radio evangelist with whom Helen becomes obsessed. The major drawback of the movie is the musical sequences. There are several, and while they do serve as a contrast to the more explicitly twisted elements in the film, showing entire song and dance routines is unnecessary (the scene where Reynolds tap-dances comes to mind here). It is also unfortunate that the film does not take advantage of the themes it presents. A deeper exploration of Helen's psychosis might have proved fascinating, scary, and even amusing.

Overall, What's the Matter with Helen? is an entertaining psychological horror/thriller that does its job but gets weighed down by filler drama and musical sequences. Recommended to fans of "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" and anyone who entertained by Shelley Winters going crazy. My Rating: 6/10.