A quick note: Richard Anderson’s book is finally
out after a two-month delay! I am very excitedly waiting for my pre-ordered copy
to arrive. It can be ordered here: http://www.bearmanormedia.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=802
There’s also a hardcover version, but that’s $10 more.
So last night MeTV aired an absolutely mangled
copy of The Fatal Fetish that I have never seen them air before. It was
so bad, it looked like one of Hallmark’s 43 minute jobs. They put back the
scene where Larry Germaine barges in on Brady Duncan’s home, but they took away
the scene where Hamilton watches Mignon’s dance, the bit where the nurse talks
to Mrs. Duncan about magazines while Larry sneaks past her into Carina’s room,
the scene where Paul goes to get Mignon from New Orleans, and it seems like there
were some other cuts I’m not remembering at the moment. It was cringeworthy.
Previously, MeTV has aired a copy that was almost complete, with only the scene
of Larry barging in on Brady Duncan, and the bit of Hamilton’s introduction to
what Perry was going to do in the courtroom, missing. I hope this other one
isn’t going to be the copy they’ll air all the time now.
Following that, they aired The Sinister Spirit,
one of the early Perry movies that was a lot of fun. Ghosts haunting a
big old hotel? Yes, please!
David Hall was certainly one of the most sadistic
and cruel characters we’ve seen in any Perry media. The things he did to
those poor people, especially Robert Stack’s character! And then when the final
revelation came in court, that the secretary was really David and the person
who died had been the real secretary . . . wow. Not to mention that David
really murdered him in cold blood, apparently mainly just because he wanted to
kill “himself” off in the public eye and start over secretly. That was twisted.
I suspected for some time that perhaps the “secretary” was the murderer, and
that maybe the death had been an accident, so the revelation of the twist was a
complete surprise to me.
The things being done to torture Susan and make
her think the hotel was haunted were really freaky. Crying pictures have always
been something that makes my skin crawl, and being chased by what looks like a
character from a portrait would be absolutely terrifying. I think they could
have made it look scarier, though, by not having the guy be solid. It could
have been a ghostly hologram chasing her instead of a real person in costume.
When Paul Jr. found the door behind the picture, it seemed a little hard to
swallow that in reality Susan apparently saw the door open and the guy step out
of there, even though it seemed to her that the guy came out of the picture.
I was slightly disappointed it was the handyman
torturing her. I knew it wouldn’t be a real ghost, but I guess I thought it
might be a more prominent character, one of the other guests. But it was very
eerily done and enjoyable in any case. Also, the little bit where Paul Jr.
removes a washer from the sink so he can call the guy to come fix it? Heh.
I loved the surreal opening of Perry wandering
through a room and seeing the chandelier, which then descended. Perry promptly
woke up from a nightmare induced by the book he was reading, in which that very
thing happened. I think that may be about the only time a Perry
character is seen having a nightmare, let alone one influenced by the last
reality they were exposed to. And the dream almost seems to have been an eerie
warning in some way, since the scene played out for real when Perry discovered
the actual room in the hotel.
Della didn’t really have much screentime, which
was disappointing. But she got to do some very cool stuff while she was there,
especially saving Perry from the falling chandelier by seeing it start to come
down and calling to him just in time. She and Perry also share a nice scene
late in the movie when something she does inadvertently tips Perry off to the
solution of the crime, just like what happens several times in the television
series.
As usual, Paul Jr. managed to do something
stupid. When he arrived and saw a frightened girl fleeing down the hall, why
didn’t he call out to her instead of walking slowly and silently after her? He
certainly could have saved a lot of headache for himself. On the up side, I
liked how protective he was of Susan and how upset he was by Perry picking her
apart on the witness stand when he hadn’t realized Perry was going to do that.
It was great seeing Michael Reston prosecute, as
always, and as an Untouchables fan, a lot of fun seeing Robert Stack as
the defendant. I did think maybe there should have been a little more about the
character’s wife Carol, an earlier scene with her or something, but I loved the
little bit at the end where Perry had called her and she came down to reunite
with her husband at the end of the hearing.
It was really nice to have a change of scenery
from the usual Perry movies. I loved the creepy old setting of the hotel
and all the secret passageways and mysterious things inside them. And it was
nice, for once, not to have the usual subplot of Paul Jr. chasing an
uncooperative witness. That gets a little monotonous when it happens over and
over. It seemed to happen more frequently in the movies than it did on the
series.
Perry gave off an Ironside vibe at the end, when
he teases Paul Jr. about the picture talking, but that was definitely an
amusing close.
Overall,
it’s definitely one of the movies I’ve enjoyed the most.
No comments:
Post a Comment