THE BLANCHEVILLE MONSTER (1963)

Young Emily de Blancheville, who turns 21 in just a few days, is returning to her family castle in Northern France after spending years away at school. Accompanying her are her dear school friend Alice and Alice's handsome brother John who is sweet on Emily. On arrival, they are met by their host, Emily's considerably older brother Roderic whom Alice is half in love with just from reading his letters to Emily. But things are rather gloomy at the castle. The Blancheville patriarch died a while back in a chapel fire on the grounds, and all the servants that Emily knew have been replaced. The two most notable replacements are Eleanora, an attractive but severe-looking housekeeper, and Dr. LaRouche, the new family physician. The atmosphere is uncomfortable: Roderic seems tormented by something, and Eleanora and LaRouche are constantly exchanging secretive glances. When Alice hears a scream in the night, she is unnerved, and traces the scream to a tower room in which Eleanora is restraining a horribly disfigured man. Alice faints, and the next morning is told she must have been dreaming, but before long, Roderic comes clean: the disfigured man is his father, not dead but badly injured, and he has escaped into the nearby woods. He poses a threat to Emily because he's convinced that an ancient prophecy (if any Blancheville female reaches the age of 21, the family line will die out) is true, and Roderic says that the father will try to kill Emily.

Why Emily and her friends don’t just leave at this point is beyond me. Nevertheless, they stay as a number of Gothic complications pile up. The scarred "monster" gets into Emily's room and hypnotizes her into taking midnight strolls to the family crypt to prepare her for her coming death. Over the next day or so, she seems to lose the will to live. Can she be saved? And who besides the father is in on this plot? Eleanora comes off like a younger Mrs. Danvers (from Rebecca), and she and the doctor continue exchanging glances, but later the doctor proclaims his love for Alice, and says he wants to help save Emily. Roderic and John are both sympathetic but neither is very effective at helping, and finally Emily is found dead the night before her birthday. However, as her glass-covered coffin is carried to the crypt, we realize that she is not dead, but paralyzed (apparently through the earlier hypnosis) and is desperately trying to signal to someone that she is alive.

You may have figured out by now that this story is influenced by Poe, in particular by "The Fall of the House of Usher," which involves the end of a family line, a sister who may or may not be dead, and a main character named Roderick. But while "Usher" dabbles in the supernatural, this film is at heart a Gothic thriller with fairly traditional trappings. The mystery of which characters are good or bad is sustained to the end, and the dark and gloomy atmosphere adds to film's appeal. The English dubbing of this Italian film is not great, and makes judging the actors reliant pretty much on their looks. Gerard Tichy (Roderic) and Leo Anchoriz (the doctor) don't exactly look alike, but they feel interchangeable, which leads to some confusion along the way. Even the two young ladies (Joan Hills as Emily and Iran Eory as Alice) seem a lot alike. Richard Davis (real name, Vanni Materassi)as John is handsome but not energetic enough to inspire faith in him as a hero. This leaves Helga Liné as Eleanora with top acting honors as she keeps us on our toes as to her role in the scheme. The word "monster" isn't really accurate in the title (an alternate title, HORROR, is equally wrong) but for an October night's viewing, this should suffice. Pictured at right are the doctor, Eleanora, and John; the monster is pictured at left. [Amazon Prime; disappointingly, the Amazon print is pan-and-scan, but there is a good widescreen print available on YouTube.]