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Strait-Jacket

Strait-Jacket

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Hack Hack Sweet Has-Been
Review: This is a stunner. From the opening when we see Joan's Lucy "all woman, and very much aware of the fact" Hardin hacks up her two-timing hubby (Lee Majors!) and his girlfriend, to the very end where we find out who is committing all of those pesky axe murders after Joan gets sprung from the institution, this is a Crawford tour-de-force. She looks as if she crancked her own personal acting switch up to 11, and let 'er rip. She also alternates between wearing a grey wig and a frumpy muu-muu to a tight dress, black wig and about forty pounds of bangle bracelets (How could she have snuck up on anyone who was not in a coma making all that noise?), all of which succeeds in making her look twenty years older than she looks as an old woman!

Wildly inappropriate line readings were a hallmark of Joan's performances in later years- but these are the best. The scene where she tells her prospective son-in-law's parents about her incarceration is a corker- she alternates between mewling terror and screaming demented harpy from moment to moment. And though other reviewers have mentioned it, the scene where she comes on to said son-in-law is jaw dropping; she starts out downing about a milk jug full of bourbon, drags the poor boy over to the sofa and sits him down by shoving him with her hips- while having him in a death-grip- drawling "I wouldn't want my daughter to think I was moving in on her fella" then proceeds to stand across the room from him and give him a pick-up look more appropriate to the leather bar scenes in "Cruising" than to an early 60's B movie. The rest of the cast just sit there, visibly aghast at the spectacle. So will you.

I demand that this movie be released on DVD right this second!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Wonderfully dated suspense tale of axe murderess
Review: Strait Jacket is a must for Joan Crawford devotees, Robert Bloch fans, and those who like mysteries. Joan has a field day as a woman just released from an asylum after 20 years. Someone is knocking off more people, could it be her?

Gear yourself up for over the top acting and a great sixties feel in this black and white shocker. Highly recommended.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Those five stars are meant to be ironic
Review: This is one of the most entertainingly bad movies ever made. When I was a kid, I thought it was scary (George Kennedy in the chicken coop!). Heck, when I was a kid, I thought those ghouls in "Plan 9" were scary. But now, as an adult, I realize that nothing is scarier than Crawford's performance in this movie. I defy you -- absolutely defy you -- not to giggle (much less guffaw) during the scene where Diane Baker brings her boyfriend home to meet Mother. Carol Burnett in a fright wig might come to mind, which wouldn't be far off, except no parody could plumb the depths of these few minutes. (Bonus -- find the Pepsi product placement!)

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Cheesey, campy fun, but not a thriller.
Review: The first three minutes are great. Unfortunately, the movie slumps from that point onward, and the final scene explaining everything we have just seen is pat and annoying. This movie is a plodding derivative of Psycho and ultimately is not suspenseful. On the other hand, Joan Crawford is alarmingly scary when she switches from self-doubting, asylum refugee to an overripe, vampy Mrs. Robinson, or when she becomes a hysteric defender of her daughter's welfare. George Kennedy is also suitably eerie. See the movie for the two of them, or see it as part of a trilogy with Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane. But don't expect to be thrilled by the mystery---the whole film is painfully obvious!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Low-budget Horror that Works
Review: Horror master William Castle, along with the talented Robert Bloch, crafted a top-notch thriller featuring "killer" performances from veteran Joan Crawford and the beautiful Diane Baker in this tale of murder and mayhem. Although obviously made on a shoestring budget, the film is a worthy companion segue piece between the earlier bigger budgeted "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane" and the year later masterpiece "Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte."

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Twisted Fun...
Review: ...'Mildred Pierce' gone overboard. It's in William Castle midnight movie black and white and to me it's just as much fun as 'Baby Jane' or 'Hush Hush...'. Get the popcorn out for this one!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Variations on a theme of Psycho
Review: The screenplay is by Robert Bloch, who also wrote the book on which the film Psycho is based. There are a lot of clear similarities between this film and Psycho (e.g. waxed figures instead of stuffed animals)and the strucure of the farmhouse in which two of the killings occur resembles the Bates Motel so the ending didn't surprise me at all. It's very interesting to compare this with Psycho 2 (made in 1983) which has a very similar story for much of the time. But this is Crawford and not Anthony Perkins and things have to be re-written accordingly. I love the opening description of her as "very much a woman and very much aware of the fact" and the hilarious scene in which she gets drunk and flirts with her daughter's fiance. Check out Berserk, made 3 years later, which also features mysterious killings with Crawford as the main suspect and which has a pretty similar ending.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: CHRISTINA, GET ME THE AXE!
Review: WOW!! I'm pretty sure this is the movie shown in 'Serial Mom' when Kathleen Turner bumps in the kids' room. I can't believe it's a Joan Crawford movie, it looked so gore c-movie!! No need to say a cult.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: STRAIT JACKET
Review: It is a excellent movie, Joan Crawford is a Great actress, since I watched this movie I looked for more Joan's movies, they are simple the best! Forget about Mommie Dearest. They just wanted to destroy Joan, when she was allready dead.... Now I know Christina Crowford was just jealous of Joan Crawford. That is SAD!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: ....excellent movie....
Review: ...which I give four stars, but the ending just blew me away...really, it blew me away...i have never been so shocked in my life! The perfect ending. The plot appealed to me and it was great, but the final result could have been much better...it started off good enough, but it began to get alittle slow and somewhat boring...then the murders started and it was all worthwhile...no matter what, stick to this film, it is not what you think...this is pure classic terror...I have never been so scared...


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