Scary - I've Had A Few: The 60s Groundbreakers

Meanwhile, Stateside: by the 1960s, most of the really interesting experiments in filmed anxiety were popping up on television - a phenomenon deserving of its own upcoming post. Out in theatres, of course, Hammer ruled the genre - but, as previously stated, Roger Corman's Edgar Allen Poe pictures for the independent American International Pictures were doing very well, indeed.

I must say, though, that there is not one of these I would go out on a limb and recommend to you. American International was doing much more interesting - even definitive - work in other genres. And Corman, himself, was giving practical first experience to a range of young filmmakers who would make their mark in the 70s. The Poe pictures seem, as they've always seemed to me, anemic imitations of what Hammer was doing, so you probably need a more enthusiastic correspondent to cover them for you.

All that said, the 1960s would give birth to three of the most influential American horror films in history - two from the studios, and one independent cheepie. Each, in their way, would influence more films than GONE WITH THE WIND or CASABLANCA, combined.

First: we know Alfred Hitchcock, now, as an auteur, one of the most lauded and respected film directors of the 20th century. You betcha - I can go along with all that. What we tend to forget, though, is that it was only when European film critics like Francois Truffaut began writing of him in such revered terms in the 1960s, that his reputation rose to such lofty heights. But by that point in his career, he'd been pretty much played out.

For audiences in the 50s, he was the Director as Star - a celebrity, who made very fun, suspenseful pictures - not to mention the droll weekly host of his own anthology television series. He was also very much a commercial filmmaker, with a sharp eye toward the box office, and tended to hold his financial flops in very low regard - including his masterpiece: VERTIGO (1958). This, coming after a long string of hits throughout the decade.

His next film, though, in 1959, was much more accessible for a general audience: NORTH BY NORTHWEST had Cary Grant, a very witty Ernest Lehman script, and enormous production value. In turn, it was an enormous success - and put him back in the very bankable position to which he'd grown accustomed. Working through Universal, he could, at that point, truly film whatever he wanted, at enormous cost, as long as he stayed within the suspense genre.

What he chose to do next was a low-budget, black-and-white, horror picture - shot on the Universal backlot by the skeleton crew from his television show. PSYCHO (1960) was based on a poor novel by Robert Bloch - but Hitchcock never filmed books based on their merit. He was more interested in what clever individual situations they brought to the table - what scenes he, his writer and storyboard people, had the potential to own outright. To hear him tell it, PSYCHO was a technical exercise. An opportunity to "play an audience like an organ." And that he did.

The shock clips have been played so often on VH1 countdown shows, by this point, that I find myself watching the bridge drama with much more attentiveness and appreciation. The scene in the parlor - eating a sandwich under the birds, the cleaning-up after the shower, the detective checking the hotel register with Norman, and the lovely little scene in the middle of the night at the Sheriff's house: "I helped Norman pick out the dress she was buried in. Periwinkle blue." They're all very well-written scenes that pick you up like a baby and carry you to the next murder. They simply make you care about the people involved, and, in turn, makes the violence all the more costly and disheartening. How many times, before or since, has this kind of thing been tried - and how many times has it failed? The Film as Textbook.

Next: ROSEMARY'S BABY (1968) is not a particular favorite of mine, although its quality is undeniable. Schlockmeister William Castle brought the Ira Levin book to producer Robert Evans, who, in turn, enticed director Roman Polanski to step on over the pond to make it his first American film.

A sort of GASLIGHT (1944) remake, ROSEMARY was the first film to really profit from a non-religious Child-of-Satan Cache. So well directed: it builds methodically and honestly - with a genuinely disturbing payoff.

Now, I will come right out and tell you that I am not a huge fan of Mia Farrow's (for me, right up there with Sandy Dennis), but she is well cast here - and, being our surrogate, has a great deal to do with the lasting edge of the picture. I never suspect she would not be fooled by what was going on around her, if that means anything to you. And the supporting players are a dream: John Cassavetes, a bearded Ralph Bellamy, Maurice Evans - screenwriter/actress Ruth Gordon won an Oscar for it, and deservedly so.

Last: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania filmmaker George Romero's NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD from 1968, is still playing at a Drive-In, somewhere, I'm convinced. It was filmed for about $120,000 - and would come to make 30 million, internationally. Neither well-made, nor well-acted - it does have clever writing, and the relentless energy of people behind the camera who really care about scaring you. The first of the uber-grisly "Well, What Would Zombies Eat, After All?" genre - it surprises as both attempted satire, and a mild civil rights statement. Its amatuerism is the big plus, though: it makes the picture seem like a documentary - and that gives it its power.

Romero described it as "an homage" to Richard Matheson's seminal vampire book, I Am Legend. Which means he cribbed most of the plot elements - as many, many other writer/director's have over the decades. It's interesting to note, that once Hollywood finally got around to making a fairly faithful version of Legend, many scenes and themes had to be altered - since so many pictures had already picked clean the bones of the novel's plot. Nonetheless, for a decade or so, Romero earned and owned this genre, until the kids who grew up with it and its sequels began to kick it around for their own purposes in the early 1980s.

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