DEAR DEAD DELILAH (1972)

In 1943, young Luddy is preparing to go out on the town while she talks to her mother about marrying her soldier boyfriend Don when he comes back from the war. But we soon see that Luddy's mom, who didn't approve of Luddy's behavior, is dead, her arm cut off with an axe. In the present day, Luddy is released from prison and, with nowhere to go, wanders through a park where she watches some people playing touch football. She is accidently knocked over by the young hunky Richard. He and his wife Ellen, a nurse, take her back to her family's mansion to recover, and they ask her to stay to be a companion to Ellen's wealthy aunt Delilah, who is slowly dying (and has been for quite some time). In addition to Ellen, who has lived at the mansion for years taking care of Delilah, and Richard, there are others around the plantation: Delilah's brothers Alonso, a heroin-addicted doctor who has lost his license, and Morgan, a would-be playboy who has arrived with his younger gold digger girl Buffy; Delilah's alcoholic sister Grace; and Roy, the family lawyer. Delilah announces that this time, she really is dying and it's clear that the relatives are hoping for a big payday, but she surprises them with the news that she is giving them small cash settlements, leaving the property to the state. Then she teases them with rumors of buried money on the estate, some $600,000. They call it "horse money" because supposedly Delilah's husband got the cash when he pulled an insurance scam, burning down a barn and killing a number of valuable horses. Delilah says whoever finds it gets it, which in grand old melodrama style gets all the interested parties hunting for the treasure between drinking, taking drugs, and arguing. Then people start getting axed to death. The quiet, passive Luddy, though still wrestling with her demons, is too obvious a suspect, so who is it?

This low-budget movie fits right into the "scream queen" flicks of the era with stars like Bette Davis and Joan Crawford starring in horror films like Whatever Happened to Baby Jane and Strait-Jacket. But Agnes Moorehead was never as big a star as Davis or Crawford—her lasting fame is as Endora in the TV sitcom Bewitched—and this movie has made me realize that Moorehead, though fabulous as Endora, is not quite in the top rank of actors. Even in her best known parts (Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons, Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte), she comes off as an oddly mannered, second-tier Judith Anderson. She's OK but no better here as Delilah; to be fair, she was apparently under treatment for cancer while filming, dying two years later. Everyone else seems a little low energy, possibly the fault of the director, John Farris, better known as a writer. The best performance comes from Patricia Carmichael as Luddy. This is her only movie and she gives a solid, unshowy performance as a passive, broken woman, almost autistic in her affect. Dennis Patrick (from Dark Shadows) is good as the similarly broken Alonso, who seems to be dabbling in romantic overtures to Luddy. Everyone else is a bit drab, including Michael Ansara as Morgan, Anne Meachem as Grace, and Robert Gentry (pictured) who gets a couple of shirtless scenes as the studly Richard. Farris also wrote the weak screenplay, and ultimately Luddy's story never meshes well with the Charles family plot. There are some surprisingly gory death scenes, including a silver-faced figure who whacks off someone's head while galloping by on a horse. Another person is found hanging in a smokehouse with a bunch of hams. An attempt is made at exploring psychological motivations, but it all comes off as underheated Tennessee Williams melodrama mixed with underfunded William Castle horror. It’s not terrible, but a bit disappointing. [YouTube]