The Photographer is a long-forgotten 70s relic that stars Michael Callan as a psychotic shutterbug with a mother fixation. The gimmick is that every time a woman gets close to him (he's an incredible chick magnet in this picture), he sees his repulsive fleabag mother instead, and it drives him to murder. It's a failed attempt at a faux Alfred Hitchcock movie - the obsession with mother and murder is obviously taken from Psycho and a cutaway joke involving the cops and their eating routines is semi-lifted from Frenzy. The movie is cheesy as hell, with Callan simply muddling along from one victim to the next, no suspense ever really builds, but Callan is actually quite good in the role (although with the deep voice he's using he sounds suspiciously like Oliver Reed), and in one scene where he's in the throes of agony over his emotional conflict, he's terrific. It's the one show-stopping moment in the whole movie. Spencer Milligan is good as Callan's buddy-pal, but Barbara Nichols is disappointing as Callan's battle-ax mother, although to be fair, she's not given much in the way of a character, and, except for a flashback, you never fully understand why he hates her so much. There are a few clever twists toward the end, but mostly it's a big bag of cliches ripped off from other, better movies.
