Evelyn Scott – Through the Shattered Lens

In 1958’s Back From The Dead, pregnant Mandy Anthony (Peggie Castle) is on a California vacation with her husband Dick (Arthur Franz) and her sister, Kate (Marsha Hunt).

While staying at Dick’s vacation home (which overlooks the ocean), a tired Mandy grimaces when Dick starts playing a record. Dick insists that it’s her favorite record but Mandy’s reaction would seem to indicate the opposite. While the droning orchestral music plays, Mandy has a sudden seizure and passes out. Dick rushes her to the bedroom while Kate smashes the record. A doctor (Ned Glass) comes to check on Mandy and announces that she’s had both an epileptic seizure and a miscarriage. When Mandy wakes up, she’s suddenly demanding to be called Felecia and referring to Dick by an odd nickname, “Deacon.” Dick rushes out of the bedroom and refuses to reenter. When Kate demands to know what’s wrong, Dick reveals that Mandy is actually his second wife. His first wife was named Felecia and she always used to call him “Deacon.”

Soon, Mandy is demanding to be taken to see “her” parents, who are actually Felecia’s parents. Felecia’s mother (Ada Bradley) is revealed to be some sort of witch who apparently cast a spell that caused Felicia’s spirit to possess Mandy as soon as she entered the vacation home. (It turns out that terrible record that Dick insisted on playing was Felecia’s favorite.) Along with Dick’s neighbor (Marianne Stewart), Felecia’s mother is a member of a Satanic cult that is led by the mysterious Renault (Otto Reichow) The possessed Mandy is soon threatening not only Dick but also all of Dick’s friends. She even murders Dick’s dog. (Boo!)

There’s an interesting subtext to Back From The Dead, though I’m not sure it was intentional on the part of the filmmakers. Even before Mandy is possessed, Dick is hardly the model husband. He comes across as being cold and uncommunicative and when both Mandy and Kate say that they don’t want to listen to the record, he ignores them and insists that they both love it. Dick also doesn’t seem to be particularly upset by the loss of the baby. As well, he’s never even told his wife that he was married before. The only time that Dick really shows emotion is when he realizes that he can no longer control Mandy. Mandy spends the entire film either being ordered around by Dick or being possessed by Dick’s dead first wife. In the end, it isn’t Dick or any of the other men in the film who fights for Mandy’s freedom. Instead, it’s Kate, Mandy’s sister. Kate is the only person in the film who seems to care that Mandy has basically lost control over her own life. In the end, the film becomes about just how far one sister will go to protect the other. Kate fights to give Mandy back her life but it’s hard not to feel that it’s not much of a life to begin with. Much like Nicholas Ray’s Bigger Than Life, Back From The Dead ends with a false sense of happiness. For Mandy and Dick and Kate, nothing is ever going to be truly the same again.

Now, I should note that Back From The Dead is definitely a B-movie. It has the look of a well-produced episode of a 50s anthology show. All it really needed was Boris Karloff to host. Arthur Franz is a bit on the dull side as Dick but that’s largely the fault of a script that doesn’t allow him to do much other than seethe and glower. The film’s heart belongs to Masha Hunt’s fierce performance as Kate. Kate is a fighter and a protector and it’s impossible not to root for her. I can only hope to be as good as a sister as Kate but, then again, I don’t think any of my sisters are going to be possessed this holiday season. Let’s hope not!

The film has its slow spots but, for the most part, Back From The Dead is a 50s B-movie that holds your interest. You’ll never want to listen to vinyl record again.

The 1953 film noir, Wicked Woman, opens with a bus coming to a stop in a small town in the middle of nowhere.

Getting off the bus is Billie Nash (Beverly Michaels). From the minute she starts walking through the town, it’s obvious that Billie may not have a home and she may not have a lot of money but what she does have is total and complete confidence in herself. Nobody tells Billie Nash what to do! When she movies into a boarding house (the rent is $6 a week!), she’s leered at by her new neighbor, the diminutive Charlie Borg (Percy Helton, a character actor who will be familiar to anyone who has ever spent a week bingeing on TCM.)

It turns out to be a rather low-rent boarding house. The landlady may be found of shouting, “I run a respectable place!” but nothing about this location seems to support that claim. Billie has one room to herself. The bathroom is down the hall. A pay phone sits in the hallway. Billie actually has to spend money to make a phone call. Fortunately, Charlie Borg is always around and willing to loan her money. In fact, when Billie says that she needs twenty dollars to buy a new outfit, Charlie hands it over and asks Billie to thank him by going out to dinner with him sometime. Even though she has no intention of ever spending any lengthy amount of time with Charlie, Billie says sure. Money is money. You do what you have to do.

(Myself, I’d just like to live in a time when it only cost $20 to buy a new outfit.)

Once Billie finally manages to get Charlie to stop bugging her, she goes down to the local bar and applies for a job. It’s not much of a bar but, again, money is money. The bar is owned by Dora Bannister (Evelyn Scott), an alcoholic who asks Billie if she’s sure that she can the bar’s “rough crowd.” Billie assures her that there’s no one so rough that she can’t handle and, as played by Beverly Michaels, you never doubt that she’s telling the truth.

Soon, Billie is flirting with the bar’s handsome bartender, Matt (Richard Egan). Matt is ambitious and hard-working and, after just a few nights, he’s absolutely crazy about Billie. The only problem is that Matt is not only married but he’s married to Dora! That doesn’t matter to Billie. In fact, she’s even come up with a scheme to steal not only Matt but also the bar from Dora.

Unfortunately, for Billie, the walls at the boarding house are extremely thin and Charlie overhears her and Matt scheming. It turns out that Charlie’s not quite as clueless as he seems and soon, he’s blackmailing Billie. He really wants that date….

Wicked Woman is a wonderfully sordid, low-budget film noir, one that features just a little bit of everything. Adultery, blackmail, sex, addiction …. it’s all here and it’s impossible not to be entertained by the film’s over-the-top melodrama. While both Richard Egan and Percy Helton are memorable as the two men in her life, the film is pretty much stolen by Beverly Michaels. Whether coolly glaring at Charlie or giving a little smile after having done something particularly manipulative, there’s rarely a time that Billie isn’t in complete control of her destiny. Beverly Michaels is a force of nature in this film and she turns “wicked” into a compliment.