You might not be familiar with the 1968 British psycho-thriller Twisted Nerve starring Hayley Mills, but you probably heard the theme song. Bernard Herrmann’s unforgettable musical score includes a demented whistling theme that Quentin Tarantino appropriated for Kill Bill and as a phone ring tone in Death Proof. Even American Horror Story used the theme which begins innocently as a child’s whistling but then gets more crazed as it builds in intensity.
This above-average chiller didn’t get much critical love when it opened and has been incredibly hard to find in America on any home video. But a gorgeous, digitally restored Blu-ray is finally to the rescue from Umbrella Entertainment and watching it again after so many years I was surprised at how really perverse and creepy it is. If any movie deserved reevaluation it’s Twisted Nerve.
“Cleaver. Cleaver. Chop. Chop. First the Mom and then the Pop. Then we’ll get the pretty girl. We’ll get her right between the curl.” This lurid slogan was on the one sheet. And the film does fall into the category of post-Psycho thrillers about maniacs and their mothers. It also caused wild controversy at the time for pseudo-science linking certain chromosomes anomalies causing Down’s Syndrome (called Mongolism in 1968) to psychopathic tendencies. This alarmed and pissed off the National Organization for Mental Health so much that the producers had to add a pre-credit voice-over apology, “Ladies and gentlemen, in view of the controversy already aroused, the producers of this film wish to reemphasize what is already stated in the film, that there is no established scientific connection between mongolism and psychotic or criminal behavior.”
Hayley Mills was desperate to shuck off her Disney past (where as a child actress she triumphed in Pollyanna and The Parent Trap). The Boulting Brothers (Roy and John) had been putting out silly comedies and were transitioning to more dramatic films. They approached Hayley Mills and starred her with Hywel Bennett (also in Twisted Nerve) and put them in a dramedy called The Family Way about a young newlywed couple’s misadventures. It was a smash hit at the box office and they followed it with this thriller from a stylish screenplay by Leo Marks (who wrote the screenplay for Michael Powell’s wildly controversial Peeping Tom).
In this film, Martin Dunley (Hywel Bennett) is caught stealing a toy duck in a store and Susan Harper (Hayley Mills) is mistakenly brought to the manager by store detectives along with him. That’s when Martin assumes the persona of “Georgie,” a mentally challenged man-child. A sympathetic Susan offers to pay for the toy and later we see Martin returning home to a mansion where he lives with his doting mother (Phyllis Calvert) and his political big-wig, disapproving, step-father (Frank Finlay). They are up in arms as to what to do with Martin as he goes upstairs and furiously rocks back and forth in a rocking chair, hugging a teddy bear, all the while smashing a framed photo of his stepfather underneath the rocker.
Martin begins to stalk Susan, who is a librarian and lives in a rooming house run by her mother (Billie Whitelaw). He shows up during a rain storm with a fake note from his father looking for a room to let and insinuates himself into her life.
There are all sorts of perverse touches along the way. Martin in his room stripping naked and caressing his own body in front of a mirror, while many physique muscle man magazines litter the room. And Susan’s mom (Whitelaw) is obviously intrigued with “Georgie” from the start, with a sense of motherly protectiveness, but also a weird sexual attraction too, which just adds another layer of oddness to the film. Susan takes “Georgie” swimming in one sequence and he slips out of his bathing suit and stands naked in front of her causing her much embarrassment.
Other lodgers in the rooming house are Gerry (Barry Foster), a loutish, racist blowhard, and a quiet, bookish medical student (Salmaan Peerzada). Martin has lied to his family that he has gone off to Paris and continues to maneuver himself more into Susan’s life. But Martin is no harmless mama’s boy weirdo, and his psychopathic nature soon rises to the surface. Hywel Bennett is just terrific in the lead. He just oozes creepiness (especially when his mask suddenly drops and the real fiend emerges). And Hayley Mills has such a natural loveliness on screen that the audience is immediately fearful for her. The Blu-ray is so sharp I kept thinking how great her hair looked on screen.
The movie builds in intensity as Martin/Georgie really starts to act on his homicidal impulses. Director Roy Boulting does a good job with the material (and eventually married Hayley Mills in 1971). Hayley Mills and Hywel Bennett reunited in Endless Night, an Agatha Christie film adaption directed by Sidney Gilliat.
But I was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked the film this time around, and how Hywel Bennett’s performance was so rich with wonderful quirks. And then there’s Billie Whitelaw, one of those underrated great actresses that never seemed to get a role equal to her talent. She is probably best known as the demonic nanny in The Omen.
On one of the movie posters for the film it touts, “Enough to make even Hitchcock jump?” Ironically after Alfred Hitchcock saw the film he hired Barry Foster and Billie Whitelaw for his thriller Frenzy (1972), a nasty little gem about a strangler.
It is fabulous finally having this out on Blu-ray. The disc comes with audio commentary by author Jonathan Rigby and Kevin Lyons. There is also a featurette with film historian Alan Jones, and the film is presented in both the UK aspect ratio of 1:66 and full frame 1:33.
Cleaver. Cleaver. Chop. Chop…..
