Reflections on ... The Silent Scream (1979)

Recently watched: The Silent Scream (1979). Tagline: “Terror so sudden there’s no time to scream”. (Interestingly, this film is also sometimes called simply Silent Scream with no “The”). 

It’s a pulpy, no-frills and enjoyably old-fashioned proto-slasher with a “madwoman-in-the-attic” twist straight out of Jane Eyre. Basic premise: perky college student Scotty Parker (Rebecca Balding) missed out on campus accommodation, so seeks to rent a spare room – and of course, winds up lodging with the freaky Engels family: unnerving oddball teenage son Mason (Brad Rearden) and glowering ashen-faced, black-clad matriarch Mrs Engels (Yvonne De Carlo). Really, everything about them should have set alarm bells ringing, but Scotty isn’t exactly a deep thinker. 

/ Above: Yvonne De Carlo as Mrs Engels /

Anyway, what makes The Silent Scream irresistible is its cast: De Carlo, Cameron Mitchell and none other than iconic wraith-cheekboned scream queen Barbara Steele! I’m always fascinated by the vagaries of fame and the phenomenon of second-tier golden age Hollywood actors who never quite made the big bucks (or made bad investments), still had mortgage payments (or alimony payments), swallowed their pride and gamely made forays into the “disreputable” realm of horror and exploitation cinema in the seventies. (It may have been perceived as “demeaning” at the time, but we know better now). Think of the later careers of De Carlo, Aldo Ray, Ray Milland, Shelley Winters, Veronica Lake and Gloria Grahame. Or indeed the bizarro filmography of Mitchell, which encompasses Italian giallo (Mario Bava’s Blood and Black Lace (1963), no less), spaghetti westerns, blaxploitation, biker gang movies, disaster movies, martial arts movies, science fiction, no end of low-budget horror and even pornography (something called Dixie Ray Hollywood Star from 1983). As gruff Lieutenant McGiver, Mitchell’s face looks taut as a drum, and he seems to be wearing Tony Curtis’ wavy, grey-steaked pompadour toupée. 

Anyway, I’ve deliberately said almost nothing about Steele (pictured above), but rest assured she is absolutely riveting. The Silent Scream is easy to find online streaming for free. Below is the version I watched.

Reflections on ... Teresa la ladra / Teresa the Thief (1973)

I’m always moaning about how difficult it is to see Monica Vitti’s Italian comedies in the UK – and now the British Film Institute here has devoted an entire season (Monica Vitti: Creative Force) to her films! Buying tickets for the BFI is pricey as hell, so I could only pick one (and I’d already seen 1968’s La ragazza con la pistola (The Girl with the Pistol)), so I opted for Teresa la ladra (Teresa the Thief) (1973) on Tuesday night. It was an evening of diva worship – Italian style!

A prime example of commedia all'italiana, it’s an earthy, raffish slice of life picaresque following the titular thief and jailbird Teresa (Vitti) from her impoverished rural girlhood to the hardships and deprivation of Italy during and after WWII to old age. (Of her father, Teresa recalls almost admiringly, “When he hit you, he REALLY hit you!”). Living by her wits, the cheerful, resilient and amoral Teresa survives as a petty criminal (burglar, pickpocket, seller of contraband cigarettes). 

Unexpectedly, there are parallels with John Waters’ Female Trouble (1974). Teresa is for Vitti what Dawn Davenport was for Divine: a charismatic, bad girl criminal anti-heroine. When Teresa burgles apartments, she even has two female accomplices, just like Dawn’s sidekicks Chiclet and Concetta. 

There’s a nice running gag where Teresa and her female cohort lure men to the cinema and steal their wallets while they’re distracted. The movie is always Waterloo Bridge (1940): Teresa is entranced by it but never gets to see how it ends. The tone is mostly larky, except towards the end when Teresa is sectioned in a mental institution and it turns harrowing. “I was livid with hunger and passion!” Teresa exclaims at one point, and Vitti makes you believe it. (The penniless Teresa is famished much of the time and wolfs down food as opportunity arises). Picking up where her forebear Anna Magnani left off, Vitti is magnetic throughout: she narrates in her inimitable husky voice and gets multiple dreamy close-ups (those green eyes!). 

Director Carlo Di Palma’s storytelling is shaggy and episodic in a good-natured way. And he sure knows how to artfully compose a shot: watch for the gorgeous sequence at a party where Teresa is surrounded by drunk revelers and completely oblivious as we watch her feckless husband and his mistress sneak out and abandon her in the background. By the end, I’d convinced myself not only could I speak fluent Italian but that I WAS Italian!