What Became of Jack and Jill? 1972 Film Review
Out with the one-time, and in with the new!
What Became of Jack and Jill is an extremely rare British psycho chiller, and a rather good film to boot. The picture show takes on the idea of 'murder for profit' and mixes it with a family theme and the idea of lazy youngsters not wanting to get a job. I do have to admit that the re-create I saw was sourced from a very old VHS and thus the quality was rather shabby; but in spite of that, it's still clear to see that Bill Bain'due south film is very well made and effective, despite not having the luxury of a big upkeep and star names on the cast listing. The film actually has nothing to do with the classic plant nursery rhyme - and I'm not sure where the title comes from considering the male person lead'due south name is 'Johnny'. Anyway, we focus on a young man living with his grandmother, who just happens to be sitting on a fortune. Naturally, the grandson wants to get his selfish mits on this fortune and so does his girlfriend; so the 2 hatch a plot to ship the grandmother insane; leading to her death and leaving the pair free to spend all her money. However, things practise not exactly go to plan.
The motion picture is actually quite slow and the plot very relaxed in terms of it's plotting; but while the film is not particularly exciting, the slow plot does benefit it in that we get time to know the characters and the situation to ensure that the film is always intriguing. The acting is fairly decent too with the three key performers doing well in their roles. Paul Nicholas ('Blind Terror') convinces in his role every bit the grandchild that wants his grandmother out of the way so he can enjoy life, while Vanessa Howard (the biggest standout in Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny and Girly) is ice cold as his scheming girlfriend. Mona Washbourne ('Fragment of Fear') rounds off the key cast and gives the only likable character of the whole slice. The film is much better while in that location are iii leads in it; after the death of the grandmother, at that place's some amusement in the backwash but the rest of the film doesn't live up to the hope of what went before it. Still, What Became of Jack and Jill, while non a classic, is certainly an interesting little film and it'south worth a await if you can find a re-create.
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Cool Flick
This is ane of those films almost no 1 living seems to take seen, nonetheless remember. I only caught it once in '72 or '73 simply establish it smashing fun. An opportunistic young couple are later on an elderly lady'south money ... their plot & how they gear up it upward is absorbing. This is a half-remembered movie, probably in line with the youth-oriented '70's American flicks like Three in the Attic and Wild in the Streets, which I would welcome enjoying again. It's not corking, but it's very enjoyable "black humour".
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A minor footnote in the history of British psycho thrillers
This is an obscure English language thriller, whose interrogative, nursery rhymesque championship suggests an attempt to connect information technology to the series of bigger-budgeted "crazy old lady" thrillers directed by Robert Aldrich and Curtis Harrington ("Whatever Happened to Infant Jane?", "Who Slew Auntie Roo?", etc.). The onetime lady here though (played by Mona Washburn) is genuinely sweet, and the villains are her lazy, amoral grandson and his sexy Lady Macbeth-in-training girlfriend (Vanessa Howard). The two young people plot to get their hands on grannie'south money, but rather than simply pushing her down the stairs they hatch an elaborate plot to convince her that radical youth have taken over England are planning to practice away with "oldies" like her. This is thus kind of similar a nasty horror version of the recent film "Bye, Lenin", but not played for (intentional) laughs.
This is an entertaining pic while Washburn is in it, but the other two characters are so disagreeable that information technology's hard to intendance much near them after she exits, and the young couple are likewise too one-dimensional to really relish them getting their eventual just desserts either. This isn't really the error of the actors though. Vanessa "Girly" Howard is especially good(even if her failure to take off her clothes is pretty regrettable).
This movie was as well probably a piddling besides tame for 1972, even for the famously violence-adverse British, and this besides might have led to it'south failure and current obscurity. Still it isn't a bad pic, and deserves at least a minor footnote in the history of the British psycho thriller.
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Spoilers follow ...
Warning: Spoilers
Amicus, who had a potent run of album horror films by this time (and would continue to accept more than throughout the ensuing decade) released this flick two years later its completion. Its minimalist arroyo was difficult to market place and it sank without much fanfare, and is now extremely rare. It concerns the machinations of Johnnie and Jill, indulging in some baroque 'young versus old' theatrics (with imagery of teens dressed as Nazi soldiers, gunning downwards a truckload of pensioners, who are herded like cattle) to frighten Johnnie'due south rich Gran to expiry.
Vanessa Howard plays Jill with all the hallmarks of a 1970's wrong 'united nations. Chewing gum, slightly cockney, indulges in casual sex – definitely bad news. Howard plays her convincingly. A nighttime dreamer, she wants a better life than the one which currently traps her. And it does trap her. Her boss casually gropes her every bit a matter of course, and the locations where she lives are dank and littered with grim perpetual winter's drizzle.
Jack is played past Paul Nicholas, who went on to become a successful pop vocalist – one of his biggest hits was called 'Grandma's Party'. He doesn't want to piece of work ('nine-v? Who needs a bloody job?' he asks himself) and provides a comparative vocalisation of reason between them both.
Gran, Alice Talent, is played by Mona Washbourne who refuses to portray her as the sweet, docile old girl this flick seems to weep out for. Instead, she is more existent, grounded, and not afraid to tell Jack a few dwelling house truths now and again. Merely when she breaks downwards and declares, "Yous'd retrieve it was a offense to be old. Nosotros can't assist information technology," whilst facing the brunt of Jack'south connected lapses into passive aggression, your center breaks for her.
Similar 'Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny and Girly (1971)', the star of this particular show is Vanessa Howard, who is ice cold throughout but still has some wonderful lines (her departing words to her sometime employer: "Volume yourself a nice prowl, right upward your ain dorsum passage!"). All performances are terrific, specially when the two youngsters are written equally such wholly unlikeable characters.
The story is slow and generally uneventful, enlivened by the characters and their mounting arguments when their carefully laid plans come to zip in their drizzly lives of 70's drudgery. The picture certainly doesn't deserve information technology's mostly forgotten status. Whilst hardly a straightforward horror, the concepts are certainly brutal and the slight sense of humor that embraces them is dark indeed.
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It'south Grandma's Party This evening
Jack lives with his elderly grandmother who he looks after . He hates this and resents caring for her . Along with Jill his gold digging girlfriend they hatch a plan to get rid of her
If the premise above reads as a fleck too simplistic and then you'd probably have a point . It's the old Shakespearian tragedy of a immature weak greedy man listening likewise much to a slutty greedy woman and coming to regret information technology . Notwithstanding this isn't plenty to to condemn the film as being bad in anyway and while it'southward not terribly skillful neither is it terribly bad , simply a little bit predictable
The bandage are somewhat one note with Paul Nicholas every bit a hip early 1970s immature cat heart-searching that the all-time years of his life will revolve effectually looking after his elderly grandmother who he has murderous fantasies towards . Vanessa Howard plays Jill who is a bit too slutty to exist entirely apparent but if you're a hip young cat then the tail wags the dog if you know what I mean and Mona Washbourne plays Gran who despite existence a coffin dodger isn't written or portrayed as being insufferably selfish , but erstwhile
The directing by Nib Bain is rather static and workman similar which is not too surprising since most of his prior and subsequent piece of work was in the field of telly . Ane interesting aspect Bain does bring to the pic is a cinematography featuring muted sepia tones which is the only existent remarkable thing in an unremarkable film
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Why did Amicus bother
I exercise non recollect that this picture was released in the Great britain.It certainly has non made it out on DVD.It is a rather strange moving picture.It takes an awful long time to get to its climax and when it does all yous can think its"so what".In fact when the couple go into run into the solicitor about the reading of the will y'all think ,rightly,from that moment on that everything is nigh to get downhill.It is difficult to know why the makers thought this motion picture was worth making.It is not a horror film,it is not sexploitation information technology is not a mystery thriller,it is just a mess.I can but feel compassion for dear old Mona Washbourne that she felt that she had to appear in this.Although only 69 when the film was made she looks admittedly dreadful.
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There's a reason why this one hasn't fabricated it to DVD
If y'all are checking out this title here on IMDb, chances are y'all are a fan of Amicus productions and are searching for the very few titles that haven't fabricated their manner to DVD all the same. I managed to get my hands on a re-create of this one and watched it last night.
A 20-something loser who lives with his grandmother schemes to get rid of her and then he tin can inherit the business firm and the big pile of money she'southward sitting on. With the aid of his cold-as-ice girlfriend, he convinces poor Granny that a rising group of British youth are violently getting rid of all former people, making her last days as torturous as possible. That is basically the plot. There is no supernatural twist as I was expecting from an Amicus production. While the film does manage to generate sympathy for Granny, it doesn't practice much else.
We've all seen this type of story play out many, many times before - Amicus themselves did a much better version in 1 of the stories in "Tales From The Crypt" with Peter Cushing, only with the plot-enhancing supernatural twist. Don't exit of your way to find this one guys, at that place is a reason why this is i hasn't been re-released still.
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How to murder an annoying granny.
Warning: Spoilers
This is a campy black comedy psychological horror motion-picture show nigh a wastrel young homo (Paul Nicholas) trying to provoke his grandmother Moana Washbourne into having a heart attack by scaring her to death, making her think that in that location is a plot to kill all old people as a office of guild cleansing. He'southward been pushing to this by girlfriend Vanessa Howard, a travel agent who wants to observe an easier style of getting through life. Washbourne isn't actually all that abrasive, but lonely and vulnerable and extremely gullible. Nicholas is cruel, grinning at her as she wheezes after having a nightmare, and he fifty-fifty dreams of her existence mowed down with a agglomeration of older onetime people while he is wearing a Nazi uniform. Howard and Nicholas are having fun with their deliciously nasty characters, with Howard delighting in making fun of granny. Nicholas does prove hints of loving her, but he's so desperate to not work and get ahold of the estate's she is leaving him that he is like shooting fish in a barrel prey for the manipulative Howard.
For veteran character actress Washbourne, this depression-budget thriller would exist followed upwards past a final bout of success with her co-starring with Glenda Jackson in "Stevie". She had previously played a similar function in the remake of "Night Must Fall", and it's painful to watch her being manipulated past Nicholas who keeps telling her these false plots confronting senior citizen, with Howard at one points calling up pretending to be a census taker. Surprisingly, the interim by the young people is equivalent to the veteran Mona, but it's the cheap appearance of the film that makes this look trashy. Piece of cake to enjoy, but certainly not something that I'd recommend to older members of the family.
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A Druggy Out To Kill His Grandmother
A stupid druggy and his dumb drugged-up girlfriend wants to impale his grandmother for her house and coin. They are irritating as they can be. Information technology'due south really easy to experience bad for the grandmother who's seemingly stuck with her atrocious and evil grandson caring for her. Information technology'due south i of those films concerning youthism, power to the youth and down with the "oldies" (as said in the pic).
The picture had a couple of moments of existence a little scrap interesting only kept falling flat afterwards the "moments" each time. Information technology's slow, irksome mainly and the two youths are irritating as all hell. Allow's just say I was unimpressed with the motion-picture show for the well-nigh role.
2/x
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Wasted youth
Although nowhere well-nigh as disturbing as Amicus thought, What Became of Jack and Jill is still pretty grim by the British standard of the mean solar day. The film would be a lot less without Vanessa Howard and not merely for the obvious reasons, few actresses can play unhinged quite as well. Paul Nicholas is clearly doomed from the commencement equally Johnnie and Mona Washbourne'south Alice manages to exist sympathetic without laying information technology on too thick. The whole thing looks drab beyond belief as if all the colour is slowing draining from the world, the Summer of Dearest isn't only over, it never happened.
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