sdiner82 Review of Strait-Jacket

Strait-Jacket (1964)

Crudely effective William Castle schlocker; Crawford's last hurrah.

[6/10 · 15 September 2002]

Following the unexpected smash-hit "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane," both Bette Davis & Joan Crawford saw their careers revitalized--as crones in horror films. Davis took the high road ("The Nanny" features one of her finest, most subdued performances.) Crawford apparently took whatever she could get, as witness "Strait-Jacket," an enormously entertaining low-budget low-class William Castle schlockfest wherein our gal Joanie's released from prison years after chopping hubby's block off upon discovering him in bed with another woman. When La Crawford is sent home to stay with her daughter (the lovely Diane Baker, whose career had apparently fallen on hard times as well), heads begin to roll again and guess who the cops think is wielding the axe? Like most of Castle's fright-fests, "Strait-Jacket" is a crude, outrageous (for its time), often genuinely shuddery thriller that does indeed deliver the goods--and benefits immensely from Crawford's undeniable star-power (whether you're a fan or not). The isolated farmhouse setting provides a perfectly eerie backdrop for the ghoulish goings-on, the cast includes such pros as Leif Erickson, George Kennedy and Rochelle Hudson, and when the battle-axe starts swinging, the chill-factor is truly alarming. The surprise ending is a corker--and such a neat, nasty twist that the exact same gimmick was used four years later when Ms. Crawford journeyed to England to take on the lead in the garishly Technicolored circus thriller "Berserk." If you've seen the latter, you'll know exactly what I mean, so I shall say no more. Except that, without Miss Crawford, both films could have easily come off as camp hoots. That they don't is a tribute to this lady's amazing professionalism. In private life (according to her daughter's memoir), Joan Crawford may have indeed been the mother-from-hell. In movies, however, she commanded the big screen right up to the bitter end. More power to her!