Buy this film from the WB ShopCRESCENDO — Guignol at it's Grandest
Director: Alan Gibson
Actors: Stefanie Powers, Margaretta Scott, James Olson, Jane Lapotaire, Joss Ackland
Run Time: 83 mins | Country: UK | Release Date: June 7, 1970 (UK) . November 29, 1972 (USA)
Best Uses: With a group of friends, with the lights out.
In CRESCENDO (the film is filled with wildly dramatic classical music), Stefanie Powers plays Susan Roberts, an attractive young music student invited to spend a few weeks at the large and remote estate of a recently-deceased composer in order to write a thesis on his life and music. As Susan sets to work on her studies, she begins to notice strange goings-ons involving those who live and work at the estate.
First, there's the composer's widow, Danielle—a commanding, gravelly-voiced Tallulah Bankhead type with big hair, flowing gowns and a forced congenial manner. Then there's her handsome, wheelchair-bound son Georges, a former tennis pro who was in a mysterious "accident" that nobody wants to talk about. He's plagued with nightmares and has something weird going on with the attractive but ice-cold French maid, Lillianne. And everyone seems to be steering clear of Carter, the gruff and towering butler-handyman.
As the Grand Guignol starts to kick in (strange sounds; empty wheelchairs; dismembered mannequins, bodies in the pool) a long list of dark, well-kept family secrets begins to unravel and young Susan Roberts finds herself on a macabre thrill ride of grizzly Hammer Studio fun.
The WB Archive DVD widescreen transfer of CRESCENDO looks terrific—doing justice to the eerie and bizarre horror cinematography of the late '60s/early '70s that's typified in the film. You can rent this and all other Warner Archive DVD releases at Scarecrow Video in Seattle.
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