classicsoncall You know how young kids sometimes get their consonants mixed up when they're learning new words? Well if you ax me, this flick has one seriously demented performance by the late, great Joan Crawford in what has to be one of her better remembered films on the way down. She actually had me a little frightened watching the picture in scenes where people still had their heads on straight. Man, that scene with her daughter's boyfriend was creepy wasn't it? Sidling right up to him and putting her paws all over his face like that made me wonder why Carol Harbin (Diane Baker) wanted to take the patience and understanding route with dear old Mom in the first place. We find out later why, but gee, swinging the old axe the way she did was a little extreme just so she could blame it on Mommie Dearest and marry Michael (John Anthony Hayes) above his parents' objections. But I guess having seen it up close and personal as a kid, it wasn't too surprising to see where Carol got her instincts from. With a bit of a '"Psycho" flavor to keep things moving, this has just enough misdirection to keep you guessing, and the final ten minutes of the story will have you at the edge of your seat. So much so that even the Columbia logo lady lost her head over the end credits. If you ax me.

mark.waltz You've got to give Joan Crawford credit. Like any good ball player, she remained on the team, pitching, catching and batting, sometimes in the minor leagues, but always giving it her best shot. Yes, "Straight Jacket" is schlock, but thanks to a truly sincere performance by Miss C., it rises above what it may have been had not such a big star stepped up to the plate to take on this part. Visually, Crawford looks silly as the be-wigged murderess who chopped of the heads of her much younger husband and his mistress, her masculine face defying anybody to believe that she's in her late 20's/early 30's in the opening scenes. Crawford really worked hard to make her character someone interesting, instilling her with practically every emotional element that she could lay her hand on. Her bangled wife and mother who commits the murder is a trashier version of Stella Dallas; Her returning to public life has her as a shy, insecure woman afraid of facing strangers and being discovered for her shameful past. A child-like innocence comes out of her which has her appearing as if she is suffering from arrested development. Finally, she is a drunken floozy, throwing herself at her daughter's boyfriend without shame, caressing his face as if she was tenderizing a steak. Those moments are truly awkward to watch and indicate that even in spite of how everything turns out, she truly isn't recovered from her mental illness.As for Diane Baker as Crawford's troubled daughter, she is helped from the benefit of having worked with Crawford before (on 1959's "The Best of Everything"), their relationship as mother and daughter realistic as a result in spite of the young Carol having witnessed the horrors of her father's murder. The only issue is Baker's insistence that Crawford dress as she did 20 years before. The wardrobe and wig she wears is definitely low-class considering that Carol is engaged to a member of the upper class. Crawford actually looks better with the mousy brown hair and more sensible outfits, minus those cowbells she wears on her wrists. But Baker is credible in the role, showing both love and resentment towards her mother whose actions have obviously left her scarred.A young George Kennedy plays the sleazy farm hand who appropriately appears disheveled while working with the pigs. The beheading scenes are extremely silly looking, and the apparent nightmares and voices that Crawford hears are delightfully silly, the conclusion obvious. When "Mommie Dearest" utilized a scene with Faye Dunaway swinging an axe, I'm sure many of Crawford's fans thought of this film and had a good laugh at both film's expenses.

Robert J. Maxwell It may help to be a Joan Crawford fan in order to enjoy this inexpensive slasher/thriller. I guess I'm not a big enough fan because I found "Straight-Jacket" almost ludicrous. I don't HATE Joan Crawford. It's just that, as an actress, she's pretty pedestrian. I'm afraid I feel the same way about that other actress in the Pantheon, Greta Garbo. Bette Davis had some flair and flash, and she made a couple of good movies although she was never a stunner. But Joan Crawford? The best thing I've seen her do is suffer under Bette Davis's sadism in "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" The worst of her acting appears when she's required to signal an emotion -- "disbelief," "anger," "sadness," "lying," "seductiveness", "lunacy" -- whatever. It's as if a switch in her internal milieu is toggled and she occupies the psychological state. And she holds onto it like a yoga position. On top of that, she was a terrible mother if you believe even half of her daughter's memoirs.However, she fits rather well into this schlock axe-murderer movie. She's recently released from a booby hatch after slaughtering two people who have offended her. Her daughter, the excessively sweet Diane Baker takes her in. But Baker owns a farm, and it's a chicken farm and there are a lot of chickens and axes around. Then there is the handyman, the greasy, disheveled, snaggletoothed George Kennedy -- but we don't get to worry about his being the murderer for long.And there ARE murders. Two people get it in the neck. I more or less figured out who was doing it about half-way through the movie without trying very hard. In between pages of Will Durant's "Story of Philosophy" as a matter of fact, which I can recommend heartily because it actually has almost as many laughs as this movie. Those eloquent 1926 locutions of Durant's! Reminded me of another classic, Paul de Kruif's "Microbe Hunters", written in the same year. Hilarious stuff. Haven't laughed so hard since my last visit to the proctologist.Where was I? The mind wanders compulsively when it tries to focus on Joan Crawford garbed in a flowered dress, adorned with jangling bangles, wearing a hideous black wig, and staring wild-eyed at the axe in George Kennedy's sweaty hand.This isn't bad enough to be funny. Few films are. It's just an inexpensive melodrama enlivened by a couple of shadows showing a swinging axe. Oh -- and the Pepsi-Cola on prominent display.

Spikeopath ..when she saw what she had done, she gave his girlfriend 41.Strait-Jacket is produced and directed by William Castle and written by Robert Bloch. It stars Joan Crawford, Diane Baker, Leif Erickson, Howard St. John, Rochelle Hudson and George Kennedy. Music is by Van Alexander and cinematography by Arthur E. Arling.Lucy Harbin (Crawford) has spent 20 years in a mental asylum for the brutal axe murders of her husband and his mistress. Released back into society, Lucy goes to live at the farm of her brother Bill (Erickson), where Lucy's grown up daughter Carol (Baker) also resides. Pretty soon, though, Lucy is plagued by horrible visions and begins to hear upsetting things, and now it seems that the people she is coming into contact with are being brutally murdered….with an axe.Grand Dame GuignolIt seems on odd blend on first glance, Oscar winner Crawford paired up with Castle, maestro of the gimmick led movie, producing a film written by Bloch, author of the novel that would become Hitchcock's Psycho. Yet while it's hardly a true horror picture, the kind to have you gnawing away at your nails, it's unashamedly fun whilst carrying with it a bubbling under the surface sense of dastardly misadventure. Sensibly filming it in moody black and white, Castle, who certainly wasn't the most adventurous of directors, did have a sense for tone and an awareness of what worked for his target audience. Strait-Jacket is a solid murder mystery on the page, and on the screen it's coupled with some flashes of axe wielding terror. Having a woman who is the protagonist-who may be the antagonist-also adds bite to Castle's production, but he, and his film, are indebted to Crawford and her wonderful OTT trip into self parody.Joan Blondell was all set to play Lucy Harbin, but an accident at home meant she was unable to fill the role. Castle got lucky, he needed a star, and with Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? Reinvigorating Crawford's career two years previously, Crawford was once again a name actress. Bumping into Crawford at a party, Castle sold the pitch to her, even bluffing her that the part was written with her in mind. It was a goer, but Crawford held sway with all the decisions, including script rewrites and choice of staff to work on the picture with her. It paid off, because after what was largely a trouble free shoot , film was a success and Castle had one of the best films of his career. Here Castle had the ultimate gimmick to sell his film, Crawford herself, although he couldn't resist some sort of tie-in so had millions of tiny cardboard axes made up to give to paying punters at the theatre.Sure it's a film that nods towards Psycho and Baby Jane et al, but the denouement here more than holds its own, while there's also a glorious bit of fun to be observed at the end with the Columbia Torch Lady logo suitably tampered with. Those actors around Crawford invariably fall into her shadow, but it's a mostly effective cast and Arling's photography blends seamlessly with the unfolding story.So not outright horror, then, more a psychological drama with some horror elements. But, which ever way you look at it, Crawford's performance is value for money as she files in for a bit of psycho- biddy. 7.5/10