DEMENTIA 13

DEMENTIA 13 (1963). Director: Francis [Ford] Coppola.

When Louise Haloran's (Luana Anders) husband John has a fatal heart attack, she decides to cover up his death and pretend he's gone on a trip so she can still inherit from his mother. (Apparently it doesn't occur to her that a widow might still come into a share of the estate.) But this is only one of the secrets at the spooky and stately Castle Haloran in Ireland, where a barely seen figure with an axe roams about hacking and beheading his victims, and each year the family reenacts the funeral of the young daughter, Kathleen, who drowned seven years before. (None of the characters seem to realize the terrible impact the child's death would have had on Kathleen's mother, who is a bit "off.") 

ax attack on Louise

This early film from the director of The Godfather trilogy is modeled on Psycho in that we at first follow a blond character who is then brutally dispatched a la Janet Leigh nearly forty minutes into the film. Anders is very vital as Louise, as are Bart Patton as her brother-in-law, Billy; Ethne Dunn as Lady Haloran; and Patrick Magee as the family's creepy and tactless physician. William Campbell is Billy's brother, Richard, and Mary Mitchel is his oddly-named girlfriend, Kane. The film is atmospheric, has an effective score by Ronald Stein, and boasts a very well-handled and suspenseful sequence in which Simon, a poacher (Karl Schanzer), is stalked and decapitated. Bart Patton did mostly television work; Luana Anders, who also appeared in The Pit and the Pendulum with Vincent Price, was a busy actress up until her death in 1996.

Verdict: Odd, confusing at times, but strangely compelling and vivid! ***.

REFORM SCHOOL GIRL

Gloria Castillo

REFORM SCHOOL GIRL (1957). Director: Edward Bernds.       

Donna (Gloria Castillo) has an unfortunate home life living with her miserable Aunt Rita (Claire Carleton) and her lecherous, leering uncle (Jack Kruschen). No wonder she decides to go out for a ride with Gary (Wayne Taylor). Unfortunately the driver is Vince (Edd Byrnes of 77 Sunset Strip), and the car they're in is stolen. Throwing Gary and his own date, Josie (Luana Anders), out of the car, he takes off for a wild ride with a resisting Donna, and runs over and kills a man. Frightened of Vince's retaliation, Donna refuses to tell the cops who the driver was, and is sent to reform school, where things, are, if anything, even worse. 

Edd Byrnes and Ralph Reed

Donna finds herself in the Hastings School for Girls, run by Mrs. Trimble (Helen Wallace). There is also a teacher named David Lindsay (Ross Ford), who is doing research on the tough lovelies but who is unlikely to inspire romantic feelings in any of them. Donna earns the enmity of some of her fellow inmates, including Roxy (Yvette Vickers, who looks like crap in this). Things get worse when the devious Vince has a lady pal call the police pretending to be Donna, and she gives Josie's name to them -- Josie winds up at the Hastings School herself and with the help of the other girls, who hate snitches, decides to get even with Donna. Donna's only friends are Ruth (Jan Englund) and Jackie Dodd (Ralph Reed), a nice boy who sneaked inside the gates to go on more than one date with her. Vince forces Ralph to show him the way inside, but Ralph may have other plans. 

Yvette Vickers and Ralph Reed

Reform School Girl is a modestly entertaining flick with a good lead performance by Castillo [Invasion of the Saucer Men]. Vickers [Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman] is typically zesty, most of the other gals play with vitality, Edd Byrnes overacts a bit but is sufficiently nasty, and Ralph Reed makes an appealing "good boy" to counterbalance Byrnes' snake in the grass. Sally Kellerman has a small role as nasty, violent Marcia; she seems to literally tower over the other girls. Bernds also directed High School Hellcats. 

Verdict: "Chicks" in the hoosegow. **3/4.