Strait-Jacket (1964) +

This stranger than strange little "hag horror" genre piece pitches Joan Crawford as a possibly insane former ax murderer against the perils of a new life on a farm somewhere east of Riverside. The conceit is nominally simple: Lucy (Joan Crawford, playing a character who shares her birth name of Lucille) is married to a cheating younger man, who thinks nothing of staging his drunken assignations in front of their young daughter while his wife is out of town. Crawford's Lucy arrives home one evening to discover the husband in bed with a floozy. Devastated (and possibly drunk), Lucy does the sensible thing: she takes an ax and whacks off the noggins of both hubbie and floozy, right in front of little traumatized daughter. Lucy goes to the crazyhouse; traumatized daughter Carol grows up to be a pretty girl, a talented scuptress and betrothed to the town's most eligible wealthy bachelor. Then, Lucy comes home and complications ensue. Lucy behaves erratically, especially when Carol dresses her up in improbable outfit and asks her to act as if the last 20 years had never happened. Lucy's especially loopy around sharp objects and it becomes suspicious when first a visiting doctor and then a hired hand begin to disappear. But the real question: will Lucy's insanity and possibly continuing criminality lead to the end of Carol's promising romance with the delicious John Anthony Hayes. I won't spoil it, as the tricksy resolution of the conflict remains a treat to watch unfold no matter how many times you see the film. Suffice it to say that the story is a mix of Mildred Pierce and Gaslight and Psycho, all knotted in one ugly wig. The film is loaded with cheap thrills. Red herrings and shrieking sound effects provide reliable jolts. The fetishization of (and lurid attention to) sharp objects offer additionally startling shocks. But the real pleasure of the film comes in the oddly sincere performances especially from La Crawford, Diane Baker as the daughter, and Edith Atwater as the awful mother of delicious boyfriend. (George Kennedy, too, as a ratty hired hand is a hoot, and Howard St. John is absolutely perfect at the boy's father.) The reliably bad Leif Erickson does not disappoint here. Diane Baker is great throughout, playing a perfect Sandra Dee kinda of character before things get really out of hand (and the way Baker says "insane" in the climactic sequence: buh-rilliant.) This movie is stunt-casting, stunt-horror, stunt-stunt-stunt...but my impression is that Castle hoped for this to be a bid for legitimacy and there is a sincerity and genuine artful aspiration here that makes this an enduringly odd camp classic. Indeed, any movie that culminates in dueling Joan Crawfords is an enduring gift, possibly for all time. Brilliantly bad, b-movie delight.