This winter I have been determined to make a list of movies I have always wanted to see and attempt to track them down. Now, I once picked up a 1972 movie pressbook for a double bill of What Became of Jack and Jill? and The Strange Vengeance of Rosalie. I never saw them in a theater and they never surfaced on home video, as far as I know. The only prints available are blurry dupes. When I finally tracked down a bootleg DVD of What Became of Jack and Jill?, I decided to made a night of it.
Yeah, what the hell did become of Jack & Jill? Didn’t they go up the hill to fetch a pail of fucking water? Wasn’t there a head trauma involved and some unfortunate tumbling by Jill? Blame the success of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? for the glut of “Whatever Happened” films that followed.
This film, based on the book The Ruthless Ones by Laurence Moody, was from Amicus, a British studio that specialized in anthology horror films like Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors, The House That Dripped Blood and Asylum. But audiences in 1972 wanted edgier fare. Even Hammer Studios were turning out more adult psychological thrillers like Fear in the Night (1972) and Straight on Till Morning (1972).
Paul Nicholas plays Johnnie, an unemployed 22-year-old who lives and cares for his Granny (Mona Washbourne) who is 78 and not in the best of health. His girlfriend is sexy, blonde Jill (Vanessa Howard) who works at a travel agency and begrudgingly puts up with her boss pinching her bottom every day. They meet in a graveyard plotting how to bring about the end of Granny. Johnnie starts frightening his Gran about “youth power” and how students and young people are rioting and planning to do away with anyone over 80. He even paints ”Down With The Oldies” on a fence across the street to scare her. And cuts out pieces from the newspaper saying he thought the articles might terrify her. Then he informs her the dreaded age has been reduced to 75 and “they” are coming for her. This is all synched with a college youth fair that is noisily going past the house.
John is a cute creep, but Jill is the cookie full of arsenic, always warning, “I get bored easily.” And Mona Washbourne seems like such a sweet old biddy it’s impossible to sympathize with the callous couple as they drive her to her untimely death.
Unfortunately, it all doesn’t go according to plan when there is a surprise codicil to the will that throws a monkey wrench into their dreams of cars, jewels and endless erotic vacations. That’s when they begin to turn on each other. Not surprisingly, the movie ends on a bleak, ironic note.
The trouble with finally getting to see films you always wanted to see is that often they can’t possibly live up to what you imagine them to be. What Became of Jack and Jill? Isn’t badly made. And the cast is quite good. Gorgeous Vanessa Howard (who died in 2010) still has a Facebook page devoted to her. She made an earlier film- Girly (1970) (aka Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny & Girly), directed by Freddie Francis, that is also a dark look at disaffected youth (actually an entire family of psychotic loons) that works so much better than this film. It’s more offbeat, dark humored and fun to watch. This film is a bit of a slog because the two leads are so unpleasant and unsympathetic that the premise starts to sour on you. Right up to its depressing conclusion. I have to admit I do like the movie’s tag line in advertisements: “Jack and Jill Are Out to Kill.” But, maybe, a film about Jack and Jill fetching a goddamn pail of water might have been more compelling in the end.
