Le Mannequin défiguré

American Susan Roberts (Stefanie Powers) goes to the south of France to research the late composer Henry Ryman. She is staying with his family. There are his widow wife Danielle (Margaretta Scott) and his wheelchair-bound son Georges (James Olson).

This is a Hammer horror. Like a lot of them, they're not actually scary. It's more a psychological thriller with some injected nudity to try to make it erotic. It doesn't get sexier than Stefanie Powers but the movie drags. The flashbacks are too clunky. I really don't like shooting the pool scenes in a studio. There is something inferior about this and it annoys me. Besides all that, the bigger sin is the lack of tension, thrills, or scares. I guess it has a few thrills in the final section but it's too little, too late.

For her masters degree in music, Susan Roberts (Stefanie Powers) intends to write a thesis on the late composer Henry Ryman and accepts an invitation to stay at the Ryman villa in the south of France, home to Henry's widow Danielle, her wheelchair-bound son Georges (James Olson), and their staff: manservant Carter (Joss Ackland) and maid Lillianne (Jane Lapotaire). However, soon after arriving, Susan realises that something is very wrong in the Ryman household.

This psychological horror from Hammer is admittedly slow-moving, and instead of building to a crescendo, it closes with a rather trite twist that I imagine most will have seen coming a mile off. That said, the film does score major points with its fine cast of five, who deliver memorable performances despite the predictability of the script. The gorgeous Stefanie Powers is terrific as the woman-in-peril, proving a far more capable actress than her role in Hart to Hart ever suggested; Ackland is very effective as menacing manservant Carter; Olson is required to run the gamut from pitiful to deranged, and does so admirably; Scott is relatively restrained, but still acquits herself well as the clearly not-quite-right matriarch; and Lapotaire steals every scene she is in, oozing sultriness with a side-order of insanity.

Those looking for horror in this particular Hammer outing might be disappointed by the one murder, but the film offers up some sleaze by way of compensation, with Georges revealed to be a heroin addict who is sexually teased by Lillianne, who wants to become his wife so that she can quit her job and live the high life. Lapotaire strips off several times, most notably for a naked swim in the Ryman pool, while Powers flaunts her bod in a blue bikini and briefly gets topless for a dream sequence.

Not nearly as bad as others might have you believe, this is definitely worth checking out if you've enjoyed Hammer's other psychological thrillers (or if you've always wanted to see Jennifer Hart's jubblies).

This was the last of Hammer's 10 psycho-thrillers to get watched by me: in the long run, it is a middle-of-the-road effort, not particularly good but neither is it among the worst. Still, the film has palpable deficiencies, first and foremost because it is severely undercast (though lead Stefanie Powers had already co-starred in the above-average FANATIC aka DIE! DIE! MY DARLING {1965} from the same stable: incidentally, I regret not giving that one a spin as part of my recent tribute to its late director Silvio Narizzano!) and over-familiar – to say nothing of being essentially dreary – in plot line. In fact, it borrows the French setting, wheelchair-bound protagonist and the mysterious room from TASTE OF FEAR aka SCREAM OF FEAR {1961}, the hallucinations pertaining to a past crime from NIGHTMARE {1964} – both among the company's top outings and both also scripted by the late Jimmy Sangster, who here reworked Alfred Shaughnessy's original scenario…which had actually been intended for Michael Reeves, the promising but short-lived director of WITCHFINDER GENERAL {1968}! – and the domineering mother from FANATIC itself. By the way, the pool-as-murder-setting owes its origins to Henri-Georges Clouzot's seminal DIABOLIQUE (1955), which – along with Alfred Hitchcock's even more celebrated PSYCHO {1960} – was virtually the template for all of these Hammer shockers to begin with! Another clear link to the latter's cinematic universe is the molding of one character into the personality of another, now deceased, which was at the center of both his REBECCA (1940) and VERTIGO (1958)! One additional motif here is the eerie presence of broken dolls, which may very well have already been employed by some earlier Hammer shocker but was certainly a vital feature of Freddie Francis' THE PSYCHOPATH (1966): while this was made for the company's rival Amicus, its director had contributed a trio of titles to the British House Of Horror's Grand Guignol-infused subgenre.

The afore-mentioned dreams that afflict hero James Olson (who had just starred in Hammer's goofy 'Space Western' MOON ZERO TWO {1969}) do rather give away the final twist (much-abused over the years), especially with the repetition but, then, the plot does incorporate a number of red herrings which makes one think the narrative will be going a certain way only for it to change direction before long. These have to do with the sordid goings-on in the central mansion and the sleazy characters that inhabit it, the others being Margaretta Scott – whom I was mainly familiar with from the mammoth Alexander Korda/William Cameron Menzies sci-fi THINGS TO COME (1936) – as Olson's "obsessed" mother (determined to keep the memory of her late and distinguished composer husband alive), Jane Lapotaire as the "sensuous" maid (who procures Olson with his heroin fix for sexual services rendered – the film is reasonably explicit in this regard – though at the same time deluding herself that she can one day become his wife) and "sinister" manservant Joss Ackland (who seems to have something going with the latter as well but nothing is eventually made of it!). I deliberately quoted the adjectives utilized in the accompanying theatrical trailer (for the record, though CRESCENDO was recently issued on DVD-R as part of Warners' "Archive Collection", the copy I watched came via a serviceable VHS source) to describe each of these three characters!

To the house arrives young, pretty music teacher Powers who has decided to research the life and work of Scott's husband for her Masters degree; the main piano theme, while quite good in itself, does receive a thorough work-out amid the proceedings. Another quibble I have with the script expressly concerns her presence there (though it is not limited to the film under review), that is to say, if the household obviously concealed some dark secret that would invariably bring the whole crushing down (thankfully, not literally) on its occupants, why tempt Fate by inviting an outsider into their fold? The climax, then, is appropriately intense but also not exactly inspired (with Ackland's demise proving especially unconvincing) and abrupt into the bargain. Indeed, even if the handling here of Hammer newbie Alan Gibson was appreciated by some, I had always been somewhat wary of his involvement since he would subsequently helm the notorious last two entries in the company's "Dracula" franchise, which brought the mythical vampire Count uneasily into contemporary times (though he still could not tarnish the reputation of genre icons Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee)! Even so, I did enjoy one of his two contributions to the HAMMER HOUSE OF HORROR (1980) TV series (which had also starred Cushing) and was intrigued enough by the picture that would follow CRESCENDO, namely the obscure but impressively-cast telepathic horror GOODBYE GEMINI (1970), that I acquired it soon after this viewing...

This is a thriller from England's Hammer studios and not a TV movie as some comments have suggested. A woman arrives at a country estate to write a thesis on a dead classical composer. While she's there, she becomes involved in a twisted tale involving infidelity and murder and finds her own life in jeopardy. Warner Brothers released this uncut and rated R but later cut it down to PG and used it on double bills with Dracula AD 72 and WHEN DINOSAURS RULED THE EARTH. WHEN DINOSAURS was cut down to a G rating and seeing as Warner's is releasing Dracula AD later this year, maybe they can get around to their other remaining Hammer properties. It would be great to see CRESCENDO AND DINOSAURS get uncut R1 DVD releases.

Although Britain's Hammer Films is mostly known for their Gothic horrors (Frankenstein, Dracula, etc.), they also had a long series of "psycho" movies from "Scream of Fear" in 1962 to "Straight On 'til Morning" in 1973, which were in many ways even better (they definitely were by the 1970's) than their Gothics. This movie came fairly late in the cycle and perhaps isn't the best, but it is pretty decent. The story, as another reviewer said, is definitely "unusual". It isn't necessarily good and it isn't remotely believable, but it is certainly unusual. An American nurse (Stefanie Powers)comes to a secluded English mansion to care for the invalid adult son of a famous deceased composer. Right away she knows something is amiss. The sultry maid (Jane LaPortare)seems to have the guy addicted to drugs (and sex with her) and is using them to cruelly manipulate him. And SOMEBODY keeps playing the dead composer's music. . .The end is pretty absurd, but fun--and definitely surprising.

I had one big problem with this though. Apparently, they originally filmed this with some nude scenes by Stefanie Powers. Americans of a certain age will definitely remember Powers from the early 80's TV series "Hart to Hart" where she and Robert Wagner played husband-and-wife detectives. As Lionel Stander (who played the couple's butler "Max") said of her every week in the opening narration of the show: "She's GORGEOUS!!"-- which had to be the biggest understatement in the history of television. Anyway, some sick, depraved person seemed to have cut out her alleged nude scenes in the version I saw. Maybe some horny projectionist clipped them out and took them home for his, personal, um, use, but more likely it was someone trying to "protect society" (from what, God only knows). LaPortare (who is attractive, but a mere mortal compared to Powers) also seems to have received some unkind cuts, but she does have a brief nude swimming scene.

I don't mean to go on about this. It's still a worthwhile movie, but WHY must people do stuff like this?!