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Review by E.C. McMullen Jr. |
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United Artists Television, CBS Rating: USA: R |
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There are people to this day who swear this movie scared/scares them.
It's also the only directing work of Joseph Stefano (Screenwriter: PSYCHO, THE NAKED EDGE, THE UNKNOWN, THE OUTER LIMITS [TV - 1963-1965], THE EYE OF THE CAT, REVENGE!, SNOWBEAST, PSYCHO IV: THE BEGINNING, THE KINDRED) who also Wrote and Produced it.
This was all his baby and was intended to be a pilot for a one hour series.
That didn't get off the ground, but what about the movie?
HAUNTED, which was re-edited into a 2 hour movie, began as a 53 minute television pilot. Nothing new was shot, it was all about the edit. So let me start by reviewing the original idea.
The movie opens on an M that's part of a wrought iron arch over two columns. A car drives beneath it and through. We see a man waiting. This is Henry Mandor (Tom Simcox: GRIM PRARIE TALES). He was born into wealth, but also blind. He hears the car pull up and knows who is driving it, his wife Vivia (Diane Baker: MARNIE, MIRAGE, STIGMA, THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, THE HAUNTED), who has been away on a long, 3 week, business trip.
Henry passionately holds his wife and tells her that, for the first time in his life, he was frightened for being blind. He's been receiving phone calls from his Mom, you see, but that's not the worst part. She doesn't say anything to him, she only cries, but that too is not the worst part. Arguably the worst part is that she's dead.
The servants all left mere days after Vivia and never came back. Henry's been cared for this entire time by a stranger the departing servants recommended, Paulina. Of course, Henry has never seen the face of the unforgettably smug and confident Paulina (Dame Judith Anderson: THE RED HOUSE, INN OF THE DAMNED), but when Vivia does she freaks out.
From there we go to a cemetery and the sound of a woman crying. Then its off to opening credits.
Fortunately that opening was no five minute gotcha and no title cards come up with 5, 10, 20 years later or some such bullshit. We get right into the story of,
Soon we are back at Mandor Mansion and the black phone is ringing*. Henry picks it up and we get the same crying we heard over the credits. It sounds exactly the same. Henry freaks, asking his Mother to talk to him, tell him what is wrong. Explain what is going on. Yes, Henry is aware that his Mother has been dead for nearly a year, but he believes in ghosts and all manner of superstitious hogwash. He's so convinced that he,
A Fine Cast, though they all look rather Haunted
Hired a man named Nelson Orion (Martin Landau: SPACE 1999: ALIEN ATTACK, SPACE: 1999 [TV], DESTINATION MOONBASE-ALPHA, THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER [1979], METEOR, WITHOUT WARNING, THE RETURN, THE BEING, ALONE IN THE DARK [1982], COSMIC PRINCESS, JOURNEY THROUGH THE BLACK SUN, TRIAL BY TERROR, ED WOOD, THE X-FILES [1998], 9), who Vivia meets in the family cemetery at midnight.
You know, it's way easier to find your way around in daylight, but anywho...
Vivia sizes him up, then hand him a blank check. He looks like a man who knows his own price. Nelson tells her that if her husband is not being haunted, if this is a hoax or a crime, he won't charge for the job but he will alert the po'leece.
This lowers Vivia's view of him considerably and she says so, as she doesn't understand how a Medium who charges only for the genuine thing must be a very poor medium.
"Officially, I'm an architect and I make a sizeable living at it. And I am not a medium."
TRIVIA By 1964 Joseph Stefano's reputation as a screenwriter was still growing from his work on Alfred Hitchcock's PSYCHO. Though Robert Block wrote the original novel, anyone who has read it and seen the movie knows that they are connected by a thin umbilicus (someting that Robert acknowleged after the excitement died down). Stefano wrote 12 episodes of the short lived but cult popular THE OUTER LIMITS, and his work, like THE ZANTI MISFITS, is considered among the best of the series. Stefano and his actor friend, Martin Landau, came up with a Horror television series they'd call, THE HAUNTED, with Martin playing the main protagonist, Nelson Orion. *This pilot episode was originally called THE BLACK PHONE, as pretty much all home telephones in 1964 were black. Apparently after only one showing, the TV movie so frightened the audience that phone lines at CBS were lighting up with viewers complaining that it was "Too Scary!" |
Nelson accepts the title of Psychical Consultant. "Which is a different breed of cat altogether."
The conversation feels natural. It is never on the nose but it does get right to the point of what kind of person Vivia is, what kind of person Nelson is, and why someone would install a telephone within arm's reach of a coffin deep within a crypt.
As they descend into the crypt we see that its huge (many generations of Mandor are interred here). In other parts of the crypt, we hear the crying again, the same exact crying. This audio loop of the same crying at this point becomes annoying.
Never do this to your movie. If you have a ghost sobbing, or crying, or farting throughout your movie, say, 12 times in all, do everyone a favor by recording 12 different performances of it. SHEESH!
While both Vivia and Nelson go into the crypt believing there's a hoax being pulled on Henry, they leave convinced that a ghost is involved.
But why is the ghost there? Who is it really haunting? And what living person does the ghost actually belong to?
The 53 minute pilot episode is tight, well written, well-acted, and directed. Too bad Joseph Stefano never directed again. The Fact is, he wasn't going to direct this pilot except that the Director they'd hired fo the job had to bow out only days before shooting.
Most of the people who worked on this project were folks Joseph knew. There is -
The Cinematography by Conrad L. Hall (THE UNKNOWN, THE OUTER LIMITS [TV - 1963-1964], INCUBUS [1966], MARATHON MAN), who would go on to win three Academy Awards for three different movies, and be nominated for another seven, is tense and atmospheric. It loses nothing within the tight confines of old fashioned 4:3 ratio box image.
The original editing by Anthony DiMarco (THE GIANT CLAW, TALES OF FRANKENSTEIN, THE UNKNOWN, THE OUTER LIMITS THE OUTER LIMITS [TV - 1963-1964], DAUGHERS OF SATAN, SUPERBEAST, DOCTOR DEATH [1973], THE THIRSTY DEAD, THE INITIATION OF SARAH, DEATHROOM, ARE YOU IN THE HOUSE ALONE?, HELL NIGHT, THE SEDUCTION) is all dialog and action. This story really moves.
Also Art Director McClure Capps (ROCKY JONES: SPACE RANGER [TV], MENACE FROM OUTER SPACE, MANHUNT IN SPACE) made great use of the low budget sets, it all looks real and lived in (well, except for the crypt of course. Not so lived in there).
When the pilot wasn't picked up by CBS (a change of comand occurred at the wrong moment), there was little Stefano could do to recover his losses. CBS had put up some of the money and wasn't about to let a competing network have it. All agreed on a feature length version of HAUNTED and that became THE GHOST OF SIERRA DE COBRE.
Except for the ghost. That ghost is silly!
Which Sucks!
Having budgeted only for pick-up shots and re-editing, no additional story, the entire feature film, clocks in at about 2 hours, more than twice the length of the pilot, and it's all padding! All 64+ extra minutes of it!
I'm not kidding! In the original movie, we see -
Nelson Orion enter the cemetery at night and meet with Vivia Mandor. Dialogue commences.
In the padded feature film, we see -
A vase of plants next to a grave. It's windy. It gets windy-er and the plants blow over. Nelson Orion enters the cemetery, notices the blown over vase, casually walks over and sets it back up right. Then he just hangs out for a bit. Yes, its a quiet but breezy night in the old cemetery. The wind picks up. In fact, it gets so windy that the same vase of plants tips over again in the same way it did before.
Nelson notices, but he's not going to set it back up again. Instead he just decides to wait around and see what happens. Eventually Vivia Mandor shows up and dialogue commences.
Every single scene is done this way and instead of being judicious about it by, say, restoring only an 12 extra minutes, to bring it up to 70 minutes, which is the bare reasonable length for a live-action feature film, they padded GHOST OF SIERRA DE COBRE with more than an hour!
NEVER do this boring shit to your movie!
This is why the 53 minute HAUNTED gets Three Shriek Girls and GHOST OF SIERRA DE COBRE gets One!
HAUNTED
GHOST OF SIERRA DE COBRE
This review copyright 2023 E.C.McMullen Jr.
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