Sometimes the gutter giveth…
… and sometimes the gutter taketh away. Pfeh.
Other Points of Interest:
The poster campaign for Macabre at the Archive.
And now, finally, we get to the meat. The ballyhoo. The bullshit. The Castle raison d’etre. By no means great, but, when considering it’s lackluster reputation, even among William Castle’s fans, Macabre wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d anticipated. In fact, I found it to be pretty good. (Who knew Jim Backus had that kind of a heavy in him?) A bit clumsy, structurally, sure (–there might have been a flashback inside a flashback), and though this tale of kidnapping and buried secrets threatens to derail itself, the ending twist works and those closing credits are simply ADOREABLE! You’ll never get to cash in your Fright Insurance policy, but definitely worth a spin.
An official Beneficiary Agreement for Macabre:
And as a public service announcement for the IMDB, who list Macabre’s release as October, 1958, for the sake of accuracy, it played in the Island in May, 1958:
This post is part of Goregirl’s Dungeon and The Last Drive-In’s The William Castle Blogathan, a week long tribute to the King of Schlock. Follow the linkage, Boils & Ghouls. It’s gonna be a great week. And stick around, as we’ll be showcasing Castle’s film career from its fairly normal beginnings through it psychotronic glory days. Stay tuned!
Macabre (1958) William Castle Productions :: Allied Artists / P: William Castle, Howard W. Koch, Aubrey Schenck / D: William Castle / W: Robb White, Anthony Boucher (novel) / C: Carl E. Guthrie / E: John F. Schreyer / M: Les Baxter / S: William Prince, Jim Backus, Christine White, Jacqueline Scott, Susan Morrow, Ellen Corby
Hell’s Five Hours (1958) Muriel Corporation :: Allied Artists / P: Jack L. Copeland / AP: Walter Hannemann / D: Jack L. Copeland / W: Jack L. Copeland / C: Ernest Haller / E: Walter Hannemann / M: Nicholas Carras / S: Stephen McNally, Coleen Gray, Vic Morrow, Maurice Manson, Robert Foulk
Scenes from the Morgue 
Part Good When They Go In, All Bad When the Come Out! (September, 1950)
Posted in 1950-1959, Movie Ads with tags Agnes Moorehead, Betty Garde, Caged, Crime, Eleanor Parker, Ellen Corby, Film Noir, Hope Emerson, Jan Sterling, Jerry Wald, John Cromwell, Melodrama, Social Commentary, Virginia Kellogg, Warner Bros., Women in Prison on August 20, 2013 by WB KelsoAfter inspiring the screenplay for James Cagney’s White Heat (1949), for her next project, screenwriter Virginia Kellogg clandestinely arranged for herself to be incarcerated for a spell to help expose the true dirt on life inside a women’s penitentiary, which served as a blueprint for our feature, Caged, ushering in the era of Women in Prison flicks that we all know and love today.
Caged (1950) Warner Bros. / P: Jerry Wald / D: John Cromwell / W: Virginia Kellogg, Bernard Schoenfeld / C: Carl Guthrie / E: Owen Marks / M: Max Steiner / S: Eleanor Parker, Hope Emerson, Agnes Moorehead, Ellen Corby, Jan Sterling, Betty Garde
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