Reflections on ... Screaming Mimi (1958)

 

Recently watched: Screaming Mimi (1958). Tagline: “Suspense behind every curve!” I’m using this period of enforced social isolation to explore the weirder corners of YouTube for long forgotten and obscure movies. (My boyfriend is accompanying me only semi-willingly).

The dilemma with Screaming Mimi is that it frontloads so much lurid excitement into its opening minutes that the rest of the film feels anti-climactic. It begins in Laguna Beach with statuesque bathing beauty Virginia Weston (Anita Ekberg) emerging from the crashing surf, accompanied by her yapping pet dog. Discarding her one-piece bathing suit (implied nudity alert!), she scrubs herself in an outdoor shower. Unbeknownst to her, an escaped psycho killer is spying on Virginia from the bushes! He stabs her dog to silence its warning barks (don’t worry – this happens off-screen) and lunges at Virginia with a knife! (Yes, this shower segment foreshadows Hitchcock’s Psycho). Virginia’s screams alert her stepbrother Charlie, who shoots the psychopath dead. 

Cut to Virginia (diagnosed with “deep traumatic shock”) recuperating at Highland Sanitarium. But her problems are only beginning! Dr Greenwood - the shrink assigned to her - has become erotically fixated on his sultry new patient (actor Harry Townes communicates this with haunted bulging eyes) and exerts an unhealthy control over her (“You need me to look after you!”). Six months later, Virginia is released from the institution, re-locates to San Francisco (with the corrupt Dr Greenwood in tow as her manager) and - after adopting the stage name “Yolanda Lange” - resumes her exotic dancing career at a club called (appropriately enough) El Madhouse. But now Yolanda’s fellow strippers are being murdered by a serial killer. And a mysterious statuette of a screaming woman is found at the crime scene! 

/ The look of love: Harry Townes and Anita Ekberg in Screaming Mimi (1958) /

Suffice to say Screaming Mimi struggles to live up to that frantic introduction. It certainly isn’t a “good” film by any standard. Gerd Oswald’s direction is frequently pedestrian. The narrative is disjointed and confused. For an ostensible thriller, the pacing is surprisingly plodding. The police procedural aspect is dull, especially when the focus shifts from Ekberg to Bill Sweeney, the news reporter who’s determined to crack the case (and falls in love with Yolanda). The actor who plays Sweeney (Philip Carey) is fatally unengaging. But any black and white film swathed in noir-ish shadows, where the action unfolds mostly at night and shuttles between lunatic asylum to strip club to apartment illuminated by a flickering neon sign exerts an alluring sleaze appeal. Screaming Mimi is vividly representative of a sensational lowbrow fifties pulp sensibility.   

/ An example of Burnett Guffey's striking noir cinematography /

And leading lady Anita Ekberg’s performance is compellingly bad. The voluptuous Swedish sexbomb was always more of a glamour icon than an actress (the only director who knew how to properly utilize her charms was Federico Fellini). To be fair, though, the part of Virginia / Yolanda would flummox the most accomplished of actors: she’s a one-dimensional victim with uncertain motivation (her character changes scene-by-scene from catatonic to petulant to child-like). “She’s the greatest thing in the history of night club entertainment!” someone raves, but in truth Yolanda’s burlesque routine (think slave girl bound in chains) reveals Ekberg is no dancer (it mainly consists of her striking poses or writhing on the floor). But Ekberg possesses undeniable magnetism, and she resembles a spectacular Nordic Viking goddess throughout.   

Then there’s Gypsy Rose Lee as the brassy proprietress of El Madhouse. Her presence ensures a certain camp curiosity value, but how can I put this? Lee is a massively significant pioneer in the history of striptease.  Her origins are immortalized in the classic Broadway musical Gypsy. But she’s frankly awful in Screaming Mimi, and her "Put the Blame on Mame" number is excruciating. Lee is involved in some of Screaming Mimi’s most seamy facets, though. Her character is “coded” as lesbian, and the nubile young cocktail waitress / wannabe dancer from El Madhouse is her "companion." And when Sweeney visits Lee's apartment to question her, he makes a joking reference to the scent of "perfume" - he means he can smell that the two women have been smoking reefer! 

/ Gypsy Rose Lee (shakin' that fringe!) in Screaming Mimi (1958) /

Anyway, everything eventually culminates in a shock-o-rama twist conclusion that weirdly evokes the ending of A Streetcar Named Desire. But there are still plot holes aplenty. Does anyone really understand the significance of the statues? How come Virginia has a Swedish accent? Why is Virginia’s stepbrother old enough to be her father? And why is he dressed like Colonel Sanders? I guess we’ll never know!

Watch Screaming Mimi here: