Other Titles • Strait-Jacket • Die Zwangsjacke (1964)
Synopses for Strait-Jacket (1964)
1.
Poor Joan Crawford just can't get a break. She hacks her husband to pieces and is sent away to a mental hospital; then after she comes back and tries to adjust to a normal life, there's more ax-swinging and more noggins rolling. Her pretty sculptress daughter (Diane Baker) just wants Mom to return to society and a happy, well-adjusted life... or does she? The plot is a little trite and predictable, the direction a bit staid, but it's all Joan's show anyway. Obviously director William Castle told her to play up her character's insanity, and Crawford turns the knob on the acting meter up to 10, then breaks it off and throws it away. She spectacularly mugs her way through the whole film, abruptly changing from severe schoolmarm to trampy vamp and back again several times. The scene where Mom meets her daughter's fiancée for the first time is particularly memorable; Mom guzzles half an iced-tea glass full of bourbon, then crawls all over the boyfriend while the viewer squirms uncomfortably. Back in '64, lucky moviegoers were given little cardboard axes when this feature made its run in the theaters. Sadly, the cardboard axes are long gone, but this is still highly recommended for fans of Crawford, Castle, and high-powered thespianism in general. --Jerry Renshaw
2.
Movie queen Joan Crawford gives a terrific performance in this chiller from pioneer horror movie producer William Castle.
Crawford plays Lucy Harbin, a woman who goes berserk when she finds her husband in bed with another woman. With her three-year-old daughter accidentally witnessing the grisly act, Lucy axes the couple to death. She spends twenty years in a mental institution for the double murder.
After she is released, she moves in with her brother (Leif Erickson), his wife and her own daughter (Diane Baker), now twenty-three. Her nightmare is over…or is it? When a spate of ax murders start occurring suddenly in the neighborhood, police think Lucy has reverted to her old ways. The truth is finally revealed in a rousing, blood-chilling finale.
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