Tag Archives: Richard Matheson

Friday Night At The Home Drive-In: Die! Die! My Darling! (1965)

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Poster for Die! Die! My Darling! (1965)Die! Die! My Darling! (1965) by #SilvioNarizzano

w/#TallulahBankhead #StefaniePowers #DonaldSutherland

A young woman is terrorized by her deceased fiancé’s demented mother who blames her for her son’s death.

“She’s One Mean Mother-in-Law!”
“In stabbing color”

#HammerHorror #Crime #Mystery
#NotQuiteClassicCinema
#FridayNightAtTheHomeDriveIn

Die! Die! My Darling! (1965) is  a movie that I’ve heard mention of for years, but never seen before. 

When I was a kid, there was a TV show on every Tuesday night called Hart to Hart (1979-1984). I’m not sure how I got into it. It wasn’t about monsters, or outer space, or anything like that. It was about two well dressed rich people who stumble onto crimes each and every week. It wasn’t exactly a mystery, as we tended to know exactly what was going on. I guess you would say it was more of a thriller. Unsuspecting rich couple stumbles onto murder plot and becomes embroiled in danger, or something like that.

I suspect that it was my mom who started watching it, and I somehow followed along. In any case, I wound up watching that show every week. It starred Robert Wagner and Stefanie Powers as the rich couple who get themselves into trouble, and then somehow triumph over the bad guys and save the day. Looking back, I suspect that just about every week Stefanie Powers would scream “Jonathan!” with a look of terror on her face.

I had no idea who Stefanie Powers was before I saw Hart to Hart. She wasn’t in Star Wars (1977) or Blazing Saddles (1974), so how could I have? I had no idea that 15 years before I was watching her scream every week on TV, she had been screaming in a horror film called Die! Die! My Darling! If I could have, I’m sure I would have watched this movie. I watched everything remotely scary that came on TV back then. And if it starred someone from one of my regular TV shows, I would have been all the more excited to see it. But alas, that never happened.

In a way, Die! Die! My Darling! is a perfect precursor to Hart to Hart. It starts with a wealthy (or at least fashionable and attractive) couple driving in a fancy convertible in England (something the Harts would certainly have done – and in fact did, I think). They are engaged to be married, but the woman (played by Stefanie Powers) was engaged once before – to a man who died. She feels that she needs to go and visit his mother (played by Tallulah Bankhead). Needless to say, this doesn’t go quite as well as expected…

Stefanie Powers spends most of the running time of Die! Die! My Darling! in peril. And it’s quite an effective suspense thriller. It’s the type of story that I can often feel quite frustrated by – particularly when characters make bad choices that only make their situation worse. For the most part, Die! Die! My Darling! avoids those pitfalls. Sure, there were a couple of moments when I could have advised our heroine to so something a little bit differently, but I never felt that her choices were unbelievable. In fact, some of them were oddly similar to moments I can recall witnessing in real life.

“Don’t aggravate the psychopath,” I’ve been known to say to friends. It’s simple advice, and you’d think it was fairly obvious as well. But you’d be surprised how many people choose to say the wrong thing to the wrong person – in real life, as well as in the movies.

“I’m going to report you to the police!”

This is never a good thing to say to the psychopath. Trust me, they don’t like to hear this. Some of them get downright cranky about it. But I digress…

To be fair, Stefanie Powers doesn’t quite say that to Tallulah Bankhead – but she does speak a little too candidly at times – even after she knows it’s a bad idea. But like I said, it’s believable that she does it. 

As I may have mentioned before, Hammer made a slew of psychological horror/thrillers in the 1960. Many of them were black and white and heavily influenced by Psycho (1960) and Diabolique (1955). My personal favourite is Scream of Fear (1961). Die! Die! My Darling! seems to be a continuation of that line, but in full colour. And it’s a worthy entry in that genre.

Based on a book by Anne Blaisdell, the screenplay was written by Richard Matheson – who was one of the best in the business as far as I’m concerned. I know less about the director, Silvio Narizzano, but it appears that he mainly worked in television. It’s too bad he never got to direct episodes of Hart to Hart. I think he would have been good at it.

Die! Die! My Darling! (1965) is another strangely classy example of #NotQuiteClassicCinema from Hammer Films. It’s perfect for a relaxed, cultured, and somewhat literary #FridayNightAtTheHomeDriveIn.

Friday Night At The Home Drive-In: The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)

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For as long as I can remember, I’ve known about The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957). I remember seeing pictures in books and magazines, like Famous Monsters, when I was a kid. I also remember seeing clips from the movie on TV programmes about the history of horror, or monster movies, or something like that. There were certain movies that seemed to get featured a lot, and this was one of them. I’m not sure when exactly I saw the entire movie for the first time, but I would have been young. It seems quite possible that I would have seen it for a second time on that legendary show of my youth, Not Quite Classic Theatre. I certainly saw other films by the same director, Jack Arnold, like Monster on the Campus (1958) and probably Tarantula (1955), And it seems like most of the movies I remember from the show were made and/or released by Universal Pictures. This suggests to me that the TV station bought a package of films to show on Not Quite Classic Theatre, and it would make sense for The Incredible Shrinking Man to have been among them, as it was made by Universal in the same era as all of the others.

Regardless, I definitely saw The Incredible Shrinking Man several times over the years. The last time I recall seeing it, prior to last Friday, was in an actual movie theatre. Back in the 1990s, it was shown as a midnight movie (I think) at my local Cinematheque. I recall going with a friend or two from University, and that it was great to see it on a big (ish) screen.

Watching The Incredible Shrinking Man now, for the first time in years, it struck me that it is a thinking person’s Science Fiction film. Yes, it features suspenseful scenes of a man being menaced by “giant” creatures, such as a cat and a spider, and in that way it is similar to other 1950s monster movies like Tarantula and The Deadly Mantis (1957). However, The Incredible Shrinking Man is really a very different kind of movie. It’s much more serious minded and philosophical than many of the others – and for what it’s worth, it gets a higher rating on the IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes.  Much of the credit for this can go to the intelligent script by Richard Matheson, which was based on his own novel. I would also say that The Incredible Shrinking Man is a tad darker than most of the other films. It deals with the psychological horror of its character’s predicament, and does not offer any false happy endings. 

Apparently, the studio wanted a happier ending, but both Jack Arnold and Richard Matheson disagreed. They did a test screening, and although many of the audience members were unhappy with the somewhat downbeat (and perhaps ambiguous) ending of the film, The Incredible Shrinking Man was released with its original ending intact. This may be one reason why its reputation has only improved over the years. 

As a child, I loved the action sequences and the visual delights of a tiny man fighting to survive in a giant world. As an adult, I appreciate the darker, and more psychological aspects of the film. It’s closer to a certified classic than many examples of #NotQuiteClassicCinema, and by all accounts, it’s a great movie. But in all honesty, it’s probably less fun than movies like Tarantula and The Deadly Mantis. So if you’re looking for a good time, filled with laughs and light-hearted chills, you might want to give one of those other monsters a call…

But when you’re in the mood to confront the existential angst lurking in the dark corners of your soul, The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957) may just be the perfect companion for a pensive and rewarding #FridayNightAtTheHomeDriveIn.