Help! I've just watched John Brahm's psycho-thriller GUEST IN THE HOUSE and it blew the top clean off my Thrillometer, spouting adrenalin across the room. This will take weeks to mop up! (This will take weeks of me ignoring it until Fiona breaks out the squeegee in exasperation.)

Anyhow, the title is abysmal, carrying with it no promise of mystery or tension or even basic drama (STRANGER IN THE HOUSE would have worked much better, and made sense), although the film's re-issue title, SATAN IN SKIRTS, works as pure camp. The movie is impure camp, not quite silly enough to dismiss out of hand, far too outrageous to take totally seriously.

Some years before playing the artfully concealed embodiment of Evil in ALL ABOUT EVE (isn't that character supposed to be based on Lizabeth Scott? One hopes not!), Anne Baxter is seductively sinister as demented bunny-boiler Evelyn, due to marry the young doctor son of a nice upper-middle-class American family. Anne maybe never looked more glamorous, her wickedness adding to her allure and her obvious youth and radiant good health clashing intriguingly with her role as an invalid with a weak heart.

Since "Doctor Dan" has to go off and earn a living, Evelyn is assigned the guest bedroom in the home of Ralph Bellamy and Ruth Warrick, where she sets about poisoning the minds of everybody and breaking up the happy marriage. The film has a decidedly conservative side to it, with the sick outsider viewed as purely malevolent, while middle-class family values are to be preserved at all times, but there are some intriguing fractures in this scheme. One reading would see the household as deeply flawed, just waiting for an Iago plot device to set its disintegration in motion. Certainly everybody's all too willing to suspect the worst in everybody else.

The cast is so strong, while avoiding any hint of the A-list, that they're worth working through in some detail.

Ralph Bellamy -- was ever an actor so apparently unpromising, actually so versatile and impressive? His everyman looks seem to cut him out for an endless succession of thankless hero's-best-friend roles, but Bellamy was memorable as comedy schnook in HIS GIRL FRIDAY, tender romantic rival in HANDS ACROSS THE TABLE, satanic gynaecologist in ROSEMARY'S BABY and millionaire comic villain in TRADING PLACES -- there's nothing he can't do. Here he's a can-do commercial artist who slips into sullen alcoholism and neurosis with the slightest of pushes, and he's sympathetic and individual all the way.

Ruth Warrick is much more likable and natural here than in CITIZEN KANE, which isn't a question of her having grown as an actress, just that she's skilfully playing a more likeable and natural character.

Deep joy comes with the presence of Percy Kilbride and Margaret Hamilton as servants. Hamilton, the Wicked Witch of the West, is always good value, but Kilbride is an underrated demi-god of the silver screen. Watch him fail to make a fist in FALLEN ANGEL, slapping a limp wrist into his palm to express his steely indignation! Watch him perform the world's most awful wedding ceremony in THEY LIVE BY NIGHT. A withered noodle soaked in melancholia and left to dry on the chipped counter of a hardware store, he's an invaluable addition to any film, especially one that might otherwise be too exciting. I love him like a wonderful dead uncle.

And then there's Aline McMahon! What is wrong with America that this great matriarch was never elected to high political office? With her lovely amphibian countenance, eyes limpid as poached eggs, she exudes the wisdom of the ages, along with compassion and strength. She could make economic troubles fade with but a wistful smile, end wars with a quip. "Why you're nothing but a mean old woman," remarks Jimmy Stewart in THE MAN FROM LARAMIE. "Ugly, too," she agrees, affably.

John Brahm directs with his customary zeal and delirium (Andre DeToth also contributed, according to the IMDb) and makes the most of a magnificent set, where most all of the film takes place. The titular house is attractive and spacious, but very low-ceilinged, which allows for unsettling angles and an oppressive feeling when required. The movie is a masterclass in interior filming, with shots split-screened by doorways, gliding smoothly from one space to another, regularly surprising us with new unusual angles.

At the climax, McMahon, a watchful presence throughout, comes into her own in an "all women are bad" plot turn, and Brahm pulls one of his customary freak-outs, jolting the camera around and smacking us with alarming high angles, as Baxter, her lid flipped for permanent, staggers around in terror of imaginary canaries.  It's giddy, kitsch and highly imaginative stuff -- prime Brahm!

Seems to me only Brahm would have tried a crazy composition like this -- THE LODGER is full of them, generally at play upon the outsize kisser of Laird Cregar.

Pulitzer-prize winner Ketti Frings scripted (she wrote the story for the magnificent HOLD BACK THE DAWN), which is a worry considering the traces of misogyny, but there's some wisdom too. When family friend Jerome Cowan shows up and INSTANTLY diagnoses the neurotic true nature of Anne Baxter's little schemer (and, doubly impressive, he does it without smoking a pipe) he points to the manipulative tendencies of the invalid. It's not completely unfair. Of course, sick people can be manipulative -- relying as they do on healthy people for their care and comfort, emotional as well as physical, the only power they can exert to get their way is through first, polite requests then, if that fails, emotional blackmail. It's only human.

Admitting that much, it's still a bit harsh to portray a neurotic invalid as a horror-movie monster, especially when one's natural impulse is to side with the stranger being introduced to a new family (double-bill this with MEET THE PARENTS, for much-needed balance). This kind of problem niggles away at most of the Brahm films I've seen, eroding their greatness (THE LOCKET is maybe the most fully satisfying, ending aside) but I like what he does with the camera so much I'm going to continue to seek out his stuff.

Right after I buy a new Thrillometer.

De Toth, among many other things, was second unit director on LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (and Nicholas Roeg was his cameraman), during the later part of his career when he also produced BILLION DOLLAR BRAIN for Ken Russell and generally did things other than directing his own films. On LAWRENCE, most of his ideas were rejected ("Revolting!" Lean would say) but he was still very useful to the production.

When Sam Spiegel decided that Lean was never going to finish the film in Arabia and arranged to have the unit shifted to Almeria, Spain, it was decided that the production would have to buy some camels and import them. I think the figure was fifty camels, including ten silver racing camels.

(Stop me if you've heard this before.)

De Toth is presented with a problem. Several production personnel have visited the sheik, and arranged to buy these camels, but the deal never seems to go through -- the camels don't come. André is the muggins who must go and investigate.

The deal is agreed once again, over a banquet. Then, the sheep's eyeballs are brought in. A rare delicacy. De Toth shrewdly realises the problem. All the previous production emissaries have refused to partake of this treat -- a fatal insult to the sheik. To make sure the deal goes through, De Toth must chow down on ovine orb.

For a brief moment he imagines that the consumed eye will replace his own missing left eye. He pops the thing in his mouth. Not so bad. Yes it is. Worse! Unendurably repugnant. He swallows, the sheik is appeased, and De Toth will awaken gagging for many nights to come, re-experiencing the traumatic sweetmeat.

De Toth and the camels and their herders go to Spain.

One morning, he is awakened in his hotel suite by the smell of camel dung. The camel herders are standing round his bed. They have bad news. The camels have escaped. All of them. How has this happened? Nobody knows.

Imagining haveing to return to Arabia and eat another sheep eye, De Toth pulls out all the stops. Soon he has the Guardia Civil sifting the dunes for his fugitive ruminants. Partial success! All ten of the silver racing camels are recaptured, but only 37 of the regular ones.

Defeated, De Toth reports the camel shortfall to Lean's trusted assistant, an indefatigable and resourceful woman. "Mr. Lean specifically asked for 50 camels and I only have 47." She thinks. "We won't tell him," she decides.

Lean goes into battle with 47 camels and never notices the difference. Nobody thinks to count them.

As for the missing camels, De Toth reports that they were still living in the Spanish desert when he shot PLAY DIRTY there some years later, adding enormously to the conviction of his North African setting. "We could never have afforded them otherwise."

Almeria in those days was such a popular location that film shoots would actually collide -- De Toth's armoured vehicles would break into the background of Edward Dmytryk's western SHALAKO, while Dmytryk's cowboys and Indians rampaged across De Toth's WWII campaign.

I also draw! Here's one I did of André De Toth. I've made his head massively overlong, unlike any of his films. I think this looks like one of those pieces of fan art, pencil drawings of Marilyn or Elvis with their eyes too far apart. Not a problem one can have with André. Unlike most of the Hollywood eyepatch directors (Ford, Ray, Lang) who had two eyes, one impaired, De Toth was genuinely cyclopean, like Walsh.

Yes! I am writing something this week about each of the eyepatch directors. I take the view that old-time directors had much in common with pirates, and this accounts in part for the plethora of patchwork.

De Toth came to Edinburgh Film Festival for a retrospective of his work. He was greeted by a festival employee, herself wearing an eyepatch. She had to explain that she really needed it and was not just taking the piss.

Adding to his unique appearance, De Toth sometimes wore a neck brace, the result of his twice having broken his neck. In Fragments, his quirky autobio, De Toth reports that the second time he broke it was the lowest point of his life, somehow implying that the first time was a cakewalk.

As if that weren't enough, upon arriving at Edinburgh Filmhouse, the Great Man expressed admiration for the punky close-shaved haircut of the man operating the box office. "Who did it?" "I did it myself." Whereupon De Toth had the guy shave his own head. So now he was monocular, neck-braced and bullet-headed. And Hungarian. Fearsome.

Though in his late eighties, he had an incredibly vigorous, forceful manner. You assumed he was totally fit, but my friend Andy Gonzalez saw him attempting to descend the three steps to the Filmhouse bar, with the aid of a handrail, and reported, "It took him fookin' ages."

Somehow both severe and charming, De Toth made an impressive guest, and I was much taken with the few of his films I managed to see -- PLAY DIRTY is a very considerable war film, with the most extraordinary ending. There was always the hint that De Toth could be a tough egg, which was confirmed when I read here how he conspired to have Paul Picerni, his leading man in HOUSE OF WAX decapitated. I exaggerate, but only slightly.

'Andre says to Frank Lovejoy, "For the next shot, Frrrank, you come in with the other policemen. You see Buchinski! He's got Paul in the guillotine! [...] You lift up the block of wood, you pull out Paul and, zoooom!, down come the blade! That's the next shot! Light it!" I say, "Andre -- excuse me. You're gonna shoot this in separate cuts, aren't you?" He says, "No, no, no! We do it in one take, one cut! Frrrank pulls you out, zoooom!, down come the blade!" Now, bear in mind I'm a young actor under contract.

'I say, "Andre, I don't wanna intercede on your job as director, but how do you propose to do it in one take?" He indicates Red Turner, the prop man. [...] Andre says, "Red Turner will sit on top of the guillotine; he will hold the block of wood between his legs; when Frank pull you out, Red will release the blade. And we see it all in one take!" I say, "Andre -- supposing Red drops the blade prematurely?" He says, "Only hurt for a second. Now don't t'ink about it, it'll make you nervous." And he walks away!'

Read the whole interview at The Astounding B Monster, it's an eye-opener. As Wallace Beery said to Louise Brooks, when she asked why he never did his own stunts, "All directors want to kill actors."

1. Rosemary’s Baby (1968)

Evil triumphs in the end and the heroine and anyone else deemed good are powerless to stop it. Before 1968 most horror films worked on a cathartic level where audiences could exorcise their fears by watching a sympathetic protagonist struggle against the powers of darkness and finally overcome them. But the comfort level disappeared with the release of films such as ROSEMARY’S BABY and NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (also 1968, see below). Whether this disturbing and pessimistic new approach was merely a reflection of the era in which it was made – Viet Nam, the civil rights movement, campus unrest, the emerging drug culture – is hard to say but the brilliance of Roman Polanski’s film is its presentation of evil in a realistic setting. And the devil worshippers don’t look or act like crazed cult members but are instead a mixture of grandparents, middle-aged spinsters, career professionals or someone equally innocuous in appearance. The climax, in particular, really threw audiences for a loop, with Polanski refusing to show the demonic child. Even more disturbing was Rosemary’s final gesture. After the initial horror and outrage over what was done to her, she surrenders to the inevitable and follows her maternal instincts to comfort the baby as it begins to cry. The final shot of her cradling the son of Satan as Krzysztof Komeda’s haunting lullaby plays over the end credits was NOT the resolution most moviegoers wanted to see, regardless of how the novel ended. At least Polanski didn’t show us any close-ups of Rosemary nursing the baby. The dark ending of the movie was just a foreshadowing of worst things to come in the culture and Polanski’s own life – his wife Sharon Tate and three friends were slaughtered in their Los Angeles home by members of Charles Manson’s cult commune only a year later in August of 1969.

2. Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Stupidity triumphs in the end of George Romero’s groundbreaking masterpiece. The flesh-eating dead are truly nightmarish images from the id run wild but the most disturbing aspect of the movie was the fact that the besieged survivors were completely incapable of working together as a group and, in most cases, the situation exposed their worst human traits – selfishness, panic, carelessness, and aggressive behavior toward each other. We don’t usually expect all of the good characters to die in a horror movie but after Ben (Duane Jones), the sole survivor of an all-night zombie assault, is mistaken for one of the living dead and shot in the head, the joke is on us. The beauty of NOTLD is that it can be read on so many levels but regardless of whether you accept the ending as black comedy or a grim commentary on the human condition, the movie’s influence on future horror films and directors is unquestionable. You also have to wonder what is worse - a world inhabited by the living dead or vigilante rednecks who shoot first and ask questions later.

3. Play Dirty (1968)

This terrific Andre De Toth World War II adventure – which was recently released on DVD – may seem like a “Dirty Dozen” ripoff on the surface but it’s actually much more subversive, with touches of wicked black humor and tautly directed action sequences that avoid the sadistic excesses of Robert Aldrich’s 1967 blockbuster.  It’s topped off by a twist ending which is as effective as a surprise slap in the face. De Toth’s cynical, unromantized approach to what could have been a standard genre film is unexpectedly refreshing. There are no heroes here…or survivors. After all, war is hell….or didn’t you know that by now?

4. McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971)

Robert Altman’s revisionist Western is still his finest film in my opinion and one that plays by its own rules. The film’s final moments, in which McCabe (Warren Beatty) is stalked in the snow by three hired gunslingers while the town’s residents rush to put out a fire, is one of the great ironic endings in American cinema. McCabe, who is more of a con-artist and bumbler than a gunfighter, somehow manages to kill his foes but is mortally wounded in the process. As he lies dying in the snow while the townspeople succeed in putting out the fire in the church they rarely attended, Altman cuts to the final scene of Mrs. Miller (Julie Christie), McCabe’s lover and business partner, lost in an opium haze in the Chinese workers’ quarters where she, assuming the worst, has retreated to avoid the showdown between McCabe and his hired killers. It’s a melancholy, defeatist conclusion to a rough and messy portrait of frontier life and the misfits who really won the west.

5. Sword of Doom (1966)

Unlike most other samurai films of the period, this costume drama from director Kihachi Okamoto features a protagonist who is little more than a sociopathic killer, slaying people without provocation or good reason. As played by Tatsuya Nakadai, Ryunosuke is at war with the world, a rabid dog who is driven by an inner rage. The film doesn’t so much end as spontaneously combust. Surrounded by countless swordsmen, Ryunosuke slices and dices his way through them in a frenzy though he is clearly outnumbered. During a peak moment of ferocity, the movie ends on a freeze-frame, immortalizing Ryunosuke’s true nature. For a portrait of unrelenting evil, it is a stunning and idiosyncratic entry in the samurai genre.