Tales That Witness Madness Blu-ray Review
Tales designed to drive you. . .mad!
Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, June 14, 2012
The little British production house (actually founded by two expat Americans) Amicus became famous for its so-called
portmanteau horror productions, so famous in fact that many people think the genre originated with the studio.
Portmanteaus, films which offer short vignettes that are tied together with bridging segments, had of course
been around virtually since film began, at least in one form or another. While the term
portmanteau came to be
associated with horror films (especially with regard to the Amicus brand), there are scores of films outside of the horror
genre that share at least some elements in common with traditional
portmanteau structure. With regard to
horror films, one of the most famous
portmanteaus is the chilling Ealing Studios 1945 film
Dead of Night,
a production that shares more than a passing resemblance to the 1973 British horror opus
Tales That Witness
Madness, a film that is often mistakenly branded with the Amicus label but which was in fact a World Film Services
presentation that was distributed stateside by Paramount.
Tales That Witness Madness also harkens back to
one of the very earliest horror films, the iconic 1920 silent
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, though in the interests of
discretion, certain correlations won't be mentioned so that those who haven't seen either that film or the one currently
under discussion won't have twists revealed.
Tales That Witness Madness takes place in an ultra-modern
insane asylum, a glistening white expanse of hallways that recalls the denuded environments of the space station in
Kubrick's
2001: A Space Odyssey. A visiting psychiatrist (Jack Hawkins) has arrived to congratulate the
asylum's director (Donald Pleasance) on what seems to have been a recent breakthrough in treating four problem
cases. Pleasance then leads Hawkins from room to room (actually, cell to cell) and recounts the case histories of each
of the four subjects in question, leading to the traditional
portmanteau structure.
There's a certain amount of goofiness that runs through
Tales That Witness Madness, a just slightly dry sense
of humor that is rather reminiscent of a television
portmanteau, Rod Serling's
Night Gallery, a series
which, unlike
The Twilight Zone, typically featured more than one segment bridged of course by Serling's walks
through a demonic art gallery. Also like
Night Gallery, the segments here are highly variable and some don't
offer exactly surprising twists. Probably the most predictable of the set is the film's opener, a kind of unseemly tale of
bickering parents (one of whom is Georgia Brown, the original Nancy in the West End and Broadway versions of
Oliver!) whose son has forged a friendship with an imaginary playmate. This is no typical imaginary playmate,
however, it's a tiger, which of course neither of the parents (who can't lay eyes on one another without breaking into a
heated argument) believes. Three guesses what happens to the parents in the episode's gruesome climax.
The next episode is somewhat more interesting and less predicable, and it in fact utilizes a piece of art—albeit a
photograph—much like
Night Gallery used to. Timothy (Peter McEnery) has inherited a bunch of stuff from his
deceased and evidently quite dotty Aunt, including an old Penny Farthing (one of the huge-wheeled bicycles that were
part of the iconography of the Patrick McGoohan series
The Prisoner) and a photograph of Timothy's pompous
Uncle Albert (Frank Forsyth). The photograph seems to have a mind of its own, as evidenced by the various poses it
assumes throughout the episode, one of which involves glaring eyes which seem to such Timothy toward the Penny
Farthing, literally lifting him into the air and depositing him on the cycle, which then rather incredibly becomes a time
machine, taking Timothy back to what looks like Edwardian times. There, he has become Albert as a young man, where
he meets a woman who looks surprisingly like his wife Ann (Suzy Kendall) but who seems to be involved in an illicit affair
with Albert. This episode has all the hallmarks of a fun time travel story, but it's too rushed to ever fully develop its
content, and it devolves into some silly histrionics at its climax.
The always reliable Joan Collins shows up in the third episode as Bella, the increasingly jealous wife of Brian (Michael
Jayston, rather incredibly appearing in this film a mere two years after having starred in
Nicholas and
Alexandra), although the source of her jealousy is a bit unusual: it's a dead tree Brian has brought home and
ensconced
in their "modern" (meaning early seventies chic) home in the woods. Brian notices an inscribed name on the tree's
trunk and begins calling the tree by that name, Mel, slowly seeming to come under the spell of some spirit inhabiting the
tree. Bella isn't about to just stand by and see herself bested by a bunch of dead wood, and fireworks ensue. This is
frankly a patently silly episode, but it's weirdly enjoyable, especially with the decidedly lo-fi "special effects', which see
little moments like Mel "turning" to "face" Brian or Bella. Mel herself is rather a bizarre looking creature as well, adding
to the surreality of this outing.
The last episode is unfortunately not very effective, due largely to the miscasting of Kim Novak as an insanely ambitious
literary agent who isn't much pleased that her new client is showing an untoward interest in her daughter. That
actually plays to her advantage due to a scheme that her client's aide brings to her with regard to how to plan a lavish
luau. The elements here are actually great, in a Grand Guignol sort of way, and the denouement is appropriately
disturbing, but Novak has neither the menace nor the sly, winking humor that's needed for an approach like this, and as
a result the episode plays more like parody than anything else. (Evidently Novak was a last minute replacement for Rita
Hayworth, which may at least partially explain her inadequacy in the role.)
We return to the framing device as
Tales That Witness Madness concludes, with the two psychiatrists involved
in a discussion about methods and madness. There are not one but two little surprises bring the film to a close. This is
probably not top tier Freddie Francis, a director who had initially made his name as a top cinematographer before
carving out his little niche in horror films like this (he would return to cinematography again later and do a number of
high profile projects like David Lynch's
The Elephant Man). But there's a degree of campy fun running through
this piece which exonerates it from some of its built in weaknesses. Any film that has Alexis Carrington Colby duking it
out with a tree certainly has something very special to offer a certain class of discriminating viewer.
