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Category:    Home > Reviews > Drama > Counterculture > Mental Illness > Pretty Poison (1968/DVD-Video)

Pretty Poison (1968/DVD-Video)

 

Picture: C+     Sound: C+     Extras: C-     Film: B-

 

 

Lorenzo Semple, Jr. was working on the hit TV series Batman in the 1960s while also working on more mature, adult material.  As a sort of counterculture tale (based on Stephen Geller’s novel She Let Him Continue), Noel Black’s Pretty Poison (1968) has former arsonist and factory worker Dennis (Anthony Perkins continuing typecasting) becoming interested in young Sue Ann (iconic Tuesday Weld) who has a repressive mother (Beverly Garland in an interesting performance) and Dennis tells Sue Ann he is with the CIA instead of the truth that he just came out of a mental hospital.

 

Of course, he is having problems at his factory bottling job and wants to do something more, something better.  Sue Ann is not all there either; it turns out, thanks in part to her mother.  That is why things are about to become more complicated.

 

Though not a great film, Black and Semple were able top create something interesting, realistic, intelligent and a film that met many of its ambitions.  Perkins can act and is good here, while Weld still looked great and has an odd chemistry with him.  John Randolph, Dick O’Neill and a young, unknown Ken Kercheval are the more recognizable cast members in a story that is always sad about people who are trapped in the most subtle ways and cannot seem to figure out any way to get out.  You rarely see any film approaching this honesty today, which is why it is nice to see it on DVD now.

 

The anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image was shot by David Quaid and is not bad, though the transfer is a little softer than expected and only some of that can be attributed to the style of the piece.  The sound is here in Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono and Stereo with a Johnny Mandel score that helps the film’s narrative out.  Either version shows the age of the film sound, but the Stereo is a bit better.  Except for the original theatrical trailer and text recommendation of similar Fox titles, there are no extras.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo


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