Dementia (1955)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Dementia |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1955 |
| length | 58 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | John Parker |
| script | John Parker |
| production | John Parker Ben Roseman Bruno VeSota (as Bruno Ve Sota) |
| music |
George Antheil Shorty Rogers |
| camera | William C. Thompson |
| cut | Joseph Gluck |
| occupation | |
| |
Dementia (Alternative title: Daughter of Horror ) is a in black and white twisted American film directed by John Parker from the year 1955 . The film, which is underlaid only with music and isolated sound effects and works without dialogues, combines elements of horror film , film noir and expressionist film .
action
A young woman wakes up from a nightmare in a run-down hotel at night. She puts a snap knife in her pocket and walks out into the street, where she catches the newspaper headline “Mysterious stabbing” (Eng. “Mysterious knife murder”). She is harassed by a drunk in a side street, but a patrol officer arrives and brutally knocks the drunk down. A stranger approaches her and persuades her to keep a rich man company in a limousine, who pays the matchmaker for his services. While driving, the young woman remembers how she was abused by her alcoholic father in her youth, until she stabbed him to death after he killed her mother in a fit of jealousy. The rich man takes the young woman to his posh apartment, where she sexually provokes him. When he tries to make her submissive, she stabs him and throws the dying man out of the window. In a fall, he snatches the amulet she wears around her neck. Since the hand of the corpse is holding the amulet, she cuts it off, watched by faceless passers-by. The policeman who saved her from the drunk chases her; on the run, she throws her hand into a flower girl's basket. She meets the matchmaker again, who hides her from the police in a jazz club . Eventually she is discovered there; the rich man points her with the stump of his arm out of the crowd that then surrounds her. The young woman wakes up in her hotel room, the event was apparently just a dream. She opens the drawer of her chest of drawers, and inside is a severed hand clutching her amulet. The camera leaves the hotel room, from which a desperate scream can be heard.
background
Dementia was created in the Hollywood studio and location in Venice , California , and was completed in 1953. The film music was written by the well - known avant - garde composer George Antheil , complemented by vocals by the soprano Marni Nixon . In the jazz club to which the young woman takes refuge, a performance by jazz musician Shorty Rogers with his band “Shorty Rogers and His Giants” can be seen.
Dementia remained Parker's only directorial work. In the opening credits he is not mentioned as a writer or director, but only as a producer. In later years, actor Bruno VeSota claimed to have played a key role in the script and directed the film with Parker.
Only after several attempts did the film, which was subject to editing conditions, receive approval from the New York State censorship authority . On December 22, 1955, Dementia started in New York City in a double program with the documentary Picasso . Jack H. Harris acquired the distribution rights and started the film, with a voiceover by Ed McMahon , as the Daughter of Horror in US theaters. In the Jack H. Harris production Blob - Horror Without a Name (1958), a short excerpt from Daughter of Horror is shown in a cinema .
In the UK , the BBFC censors refused to release the film in 1957. It was not until 1970 that it was approved without cuts. In Germany the film was not shown.
Reviews
"Perhaps the strangest film that has ever been offered for a theatrical release."
"A cinematic youth work [...] regardless of its good intentions [...] Understanding Mr. Parker's need to say something new does not reconcile one with the lack of sense of poetry, analytical skills and cinematic experience that is revealed here."
"To what extent this film is a work of art, we cannot say for sure, but in any case it is strong material."
"For one hour the film explores the sexual paranoia of a lonely woman by means of a torrent of expressionist caricature images that would be avant-garde if it weren't for the vulgar Freudian message that is reminiscent of B-movies of the 50s."
literature
- Re / Search No. 10: Incredibly Strange Films. Re / Search Publications, San Francisco 1986, ISBN 0-940642-09-3 , pp. 179-180
Web links
- Dementia in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Running time (5212 feet ) on the application for screening release, reproduced on the US DVD of the company "Kino Video", 2000.
- ↑ “Essentially an experiment in cinematic expressionism […] Though nominally a horror film, Daughter of Horror actually operates in several different generic registers. The most important of these is film noir and the crime drama, but the film also refers to such experimental works as Luis Bunuel's Un chien andalou […] “- Gary Don Rhodes: Horror at the Drive-In: Essays in Popular Americana. McFarland & Co. 2003, p. 156.
- ^ Paul Parla, Charles P. Mitchell: A Truth That Will Shock You! In: Filmfax No. 65. Quoted from the US DVD by the company "Kino Video", 2000.
- ↑ Information on the US DVD by the company "Kino Video", 2000.
- ↑ Refusal of approval in 1957 for Dementia / Daughter of Horror ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. from the BBFC website, accessed December 7, 2012.
- ↑ 1970 approved for dementia ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. from the BBFC website, accessed December 7, 2012.
- ↑ a b Quoted from the US DVD by the company "Kino Video", 2000.
- ↑ "[…] a piece of film juvenilia […] despite its good intentions […] An understanding of Mr. Parker's desire to say something new cannot reconcile one to the lack of poetic sense, analytical skill and cinematic experience exhibited here." - Reviewed December 23, 1955 in the New York Times, accessed December 8, 2012.
- ↑ "The movie spends an hour exploring a lonely woman's sexual paranoia through a torrent of expressionistic distortions which would look avant-garde if the vulgar Freudian 'message' weren't so reminiscent of '50s B features." - Time Out Film Guide, Seventh Edition 1999. Penguin, London 1998, p. 219.
