Review #1,151: 'Die! Die! My Darling!' (1965)

After Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) made cinematic waves and raked in the profits as a result, studios were eager to deliver their own take on mad-man horror cinema. Hammer's unique brand of British gothic and literary monsters was begin to wobble as audience's tastes moved on as a result of the leaps and bounds being made in the genre in Europe and the U.S.. Robert Aldrich's What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) made a success out of bringing a once-Hollywood great, Bette Davis, out of a forced early retirement and turning her into a screen psychopath. Hammer pinched Davis for themselves in The Nanny (1965), and repeated the trick again the same year with Tallulah Bankhead in Die! Die! My Darling!, or to give it its blander, more widely-used alternative title, Fanatic.

American Patricia Carroll (Stefanie Powers) arrives in London to marry her handsome beau Alan (Maurice Kaufmann). After admitting that she has been exchanging letters with the mother of her former, now-dead fiance, she heads off on her own to pay a visit to her would-be mother-in-law when Alan disapproves. Patricia believes that she is doing a nice thing. and the old lady Mrs. Trefoile (Bankhead) seems harmless enough at first, if a little nutty. She is being guilt-tripped into staying the night, and ends up staying much longer than she had planned, as the true extent of Mrs. Trefoile's religious zealotry reveals itself. There are no mirrors in the house as vanity is a sin, lip-stick and red clothing are banned, and the food consists of unrecognisable slop. Just as Patricia is about to leave, she lets slip of her intention to re-marry, causing Mrs. Trefoile to lock the poor young lady away until she learns the evil of her ways.

It may not be the most memorable entry into the fleeting 'psycho-biddy' fad, but Die! Die! My Darling! has its fair share of moments courtesy of a tight and witty script by Richard Matheson, and a fiery performance by Bankhead, in what turned out to be her final appearance (she died the following year). Powers cuts a likeable but frustrating lead, as she fails time and time again to make any real attempts to escape outside of making the occasional feeble struggle. Any in the audience used to the hardened, capable heroines we tend to get nowadays will no doubt be shouting at the screen. There's a terrific supporting cast, which includes husband-and-wife servants Harry (Peter Vaughan) and Anna (Yootha Joyce), and a young Donald Sutherland as the simple-minded Joseph. You may not have the desire to see it more than once in your lifetime, but it makes for a cosy Saturday afternoon B-movie.


Directed by: Silvio Narizzano
Starring: Tallulah Bankhead, Stefanie Powers, Peter Vaughan, Yootha Joyce, Maurice Kaufmann, Donald Sutherland
Country: UK

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie