1963
Director- Riccardo Freda
Cast- Barbara Steele, Peter Baldwin, Elio Jotta, Harriet
Medin, Carol Bennet, Carlo Kechler
Dr.
Hichcock has been stricken with a debilitating disease that has bound him to a
wheelchair. He has developed a type of chemotherapy that he believes will cure
him though it makes him deathly ill. This predicament seems to have left him a
bit morose and death obsessed. He contemplates suicide and regularly
participates in séances.
Well, be
careful what you wish for I guess. His wife Margaret (played by Barbara Steele)
is tired of playing nurse maid and is having an affair with her husband’s
doctor. They conspire and murder her husband. The last laugh may be on them
though. His safe containing millions of dollars in jewels is locked and
apparently the key was buried with him. What’s worse are the foreboding signs
of the supernatural; bells ringing, dogs howling, the maid in a trance,
speaking with Dr. Hichcock’s voice.
A bit of
grave robbing to retrieve the safe key reveals a rotting corpse but the old man
is still having his revenge as the safe turns out to be empty. Tension is
rising between the lovers as the murder is not paying off the way they had
hoped. One night her rotting husband
appears before her and Margaret tries to shoot him and only succeeds in filling
the wall with bullet holes. The pair become paranoid, turning on each other.
But what is behind all of this? Has her husband returned from the grave or is
someone conning them? Are they conning each other?
The film
is one of the many movies influenced by the 1955 French film, Les Diaboliques.
The revenge from beyond the grave plot was used in several Barbara Steele
movies so it can be a little hard to
tell them apart. Despite the name of her husband, the film has nothing to do
with another Barbara Steele movie, The Horrible Dr. Hichcock.
A predictable movie if you are familiar with Italian gothic horror but good for some surprises. It does have one big saving grace ; it offers the rare chance to see a young Barbara Steele in glorious
color!
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