Nonureva Really Surprised!

Inadvands Boring, over-political, tech fuzed mess

Matylda Swan It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

Caryl It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties. It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

christopher-underwood I found this interesting enough at the start particularly with the bold and brave opening but I was soon hearing that good old postman ringing once if not twice and I rather took my eye off the ball as twist followed twist and the leading man switches from daughter to mother and back again and back again. Location shooting effective except the completely wasted finale scenes and the look generally was okay. Certainly it looked better than it sounded. Even on my shiny new Blu-ray the dubbed and undubbed accents were a strain to follow even with the dialogue being somewhat repetitive. The stuff with the blowtorch is fine and perhaps if there had been some more hard hitting sequences instead of all those loving clinches after only a couple of exchanges things might have been more involving, and believable.

gavin6942 An American painter (Kerwin Mathews) has an affair with a bar owner (Nadia Gray) in a French village and agrees to help her murderer husband escape from a prison for the criminally insane.Something of a Hammer Horror, though not of the Gothic type (this killer prefers blow torches). This is constant suspense, with plenty of twists and turns, and you will definitely keep guessing throughout the plot. As Bosley Crowther wrote, it has "a plot of extraordinary cunning...(It) takes on a twitching suspense that simmers, sizzles and explodes in a neat backflip". Turner Classic Movies calls Jimmy Sangster's script "gimmicky and obvious", but they are dead wrong.Besides writing from Sangster, we have direction from Michael Carreras (the son of Hammer's founder). The cinematography is courtesy of Wilkie Cooper, who was raised under the wing of Ray Harryhausen on such films as "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad". He had previously shot this film's star, Kerwin Mathews, in that film (with Mathews as Sinbad, no less).Nadia Gray ("La Dolce Vita") plays the femme fatale, and does an admirable job, but she is overshadowed by Liliane Brousse, who plays her stepdaughter Annette. Her credits are short (this was her second to last film), but Hammer fans may have seen her in "Paranoiac" (1963) alongside Oliver Reed, which was also written by Sangster and directed by the visionary Freddie Francis.Although not well know, this is a must-see film for Hammer fans, and is available in the "Icons of Suspense" box set. Now if only Hammer would take a more active approach in releasing their back catalogue... hundreds of great treasures.

Neil Doyle So much of the dialog exchanges between a French mother and daughter is hardly discernible (to American ears), that MANIAC, with its complex plotting, is sometimes difficult to follow. Only Kerwin Mathews, as the hunky artist who finds himself attracted to both women, is fully understandable. Not so understandable is why he allows himself to be taken in so easily by the manipulating Nadia Gray.The acting is only so-so, almost indifferent when it should be strong, so the suspense is further undercut by the underwhelming performances of the principal cast. Only Donald Houston, as the villainous Henri, gives a vivid and chilling performance.Filmed in B&W amid some interesting locations, it has too many twists and turns before it ends rather limply in a deserted quarry. But those thick French accents really needed a good dubbing job.

MARIO GAUCI This was one of two Hammer thrillers (even if it was watched on a "Fantasy" day) that had eluded me thus far; for the record, the remaining title – CRESCENDO (1970) – has, controversially, just been released on DVD-R as part of Warners' U.S. exclusive "Archive Collection". While MANIAC has a reasonable reputation, I have to say that I was ultimately let down by it and I would place the film in the lower rank of the studio's efforts in this vein. Its main fault, basically, lies in a not very interesting plot (courtesy, as were many of these outings, of screenwriter Jimmy Sangster): besides, it tries – but fails – to recapture the sense of eeriness inherent in a remote seaside location (in its case, the Camargues) already seen in the much superior TASTE OF FEAR (1961) and THE DAMNED (shot in 1961 but only released 2 years later). That said, characterization is quite well rounded: Kerwin Mathews, infrequently seen in a modern-day setting, makes for a surprisingly effective lead (in fact, he had previously starred in Hammer's splendid adventure film THE PIRATES OF BLOOD RIVER [1962]); Nadia Gray is sultry and conniving, Liliane Brousse her ingenue – but no less sexy – stepdaughter (who gets raped in the film's very opening sequence!). Coming into play during the latter stages is Donald Houston as the titular figure, though he proves to be someone other than who the audience had been led to believe; therefore, we have a number of nice twists (and implied violence) here…but, then, end up with a rather ordinary mystery – actually anticipating a number of gialli in this regard! Unfortunately, my enjoyment of the film was further dampened by all kind of technical problems (after the picture in the copy I acquired initially failed to visualize) – with stretched image (fixed by altering the TV setting to 16:9), fuzziness, combing (the latter also causing the audio to drop out a couple of times) and lip-synch issues all rearing their ugly head throughout the viewing!