Tormented (1960)

Director: Bert I. Gordon
Producers: Bert I. Gordon, Joe Steinberg
Screenplay: George Worthing Yates, based on a story by Bert I. Gordon
Cinematographer: Ernest Laszlo
Music: Albert Glasser
Visual Effects: Bert I. Gordon, Flora Gordon
Allied Artists; 76 min; B&W

Cast:
Richard Carlson (Tom Stewart), Susan Gordon (Sandy Hubbard), Lugene Sanders (Meg Hubbard), Juli Reding (Vi Mason), Joe Turkel (Nick, The Blackmailer), Lillian Adams (Mrs. Ellis), Gene Roth (Mr. Nelson)

Tom Stewart, a jazz pianist who lives and works in an island lighthouse, is about to be married to the wholesome Meg, but receives a visit from his old flame and former singer Vi, who isn't about to leave their relationship buried in the past. During an argument, a piece of lighthouse railing breaks free, and Vi hangs for dear life onto the twisted piece of steel. Tom purposely hesitates to save her before the metal gives way, and she falls to her death in the rocky shore below, thus ensuring that Vi is out of his new life for good. However, Tom finds out that the old phrase "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned" also applies even in death.

This engaging little ghost story is a change of pace from Bert I. Gordon, best known for his movies featuring giant monsters (such as Cyclops or The Amazing Colossal Man) or giant bugs (Beginning of the End; Earth Vs. The Spider). Those films are also notorious for the primitive special effects (which either featured normal sized animals running around glaringly obvious miniature sets, or showed obvious matte lines) usually designed by Gordon himself.  Likewise, Tormented has moments with crude super-impositions as Vi's ghost comes back to taunt Tom. But this movie perhaps works better than those that give Mr. B.I.G. his namesake, because there is still a good movie without the effects.

I first saw Tormented on The Cat's Pajamas (pause- sigh) on their Sunday "Science Fiction Horror Night" program just before Christmas of 1985, shown with Roger Corman's The Wasp Woman (and found it to be far more inventive and creepy than the latter).  In 2006, I programmed this film as part of the Creepy Kooky Double Bill screening in October of that year; surprisingly, it became the hit of the evening over the headliner- another Roger Corman film (Creature from the Haunted Sea).  Even more surprisingly, despite that this little horror gem has been circulating in the public domain for years, no-one in that night's audience had yet seen it! It was a delight to see that this movie still worked with an audience.

Because it doesn't rely so much upon dated technical effects to deliver the goods, this movie succeeds as a mood piece about guilt. Tom is essentially a good man who yearns for a wholesome lifestyle, yet is now paying the price for a single stupid act. Whether it is due to ghostly encounters that only Tom sees, or that her watch shows up on the beach, his new life is constantly dismantled due to his momentary lapse of judgment. Further, he is being blackmailed by a jive-talking ship captain who initially chartered Vi onto the island, and knows that she never returned, especially in light of Tom's upcoming marriage. Despite all of this, we care enough about Tom to wonder how he'll get out of his plight. However, the heart of the movie actually belongs to Sandy, Meg's younger sister, who has a great friendship with Tom- it is largely through her eyes that we see his character change from a passionate human being to a paranoiac who will stop at nothing to erase the memory of Vi on this island. And once she knows too much, will her life be endangered as well?

Admittedly, I re-watched this movie the other night in memory of Susan Gordon, daughter of the director, who passed away this month.  Yet, I was surprised to discover that I had remembered absolutely nothing of her substantial role as Sandy.  (In truth, it is Joe Turkel's beatnik blackmailer who steals the picture performance-wise.)  Instead, one more recalls this film for the visceral experience it produces- its atmosphere is conveyed through such subtleties as shadows, wind, cold, shredded garments. I must also confess that I have an affinity for suspense films which are set on shorelines (The Fog; Play Misty For Me)- something about the waves and the wind, plus the elements of forbidden desire that the milieu recalls, and perhaps I value this picture more than others do for these ingredients. As such, this movie benefits greatly from its atmosphere: its setting upon an island detached from the rest of the physical world adds to the feelings of despair and helplessness. However, there is a great visual touch that I've always remembered from my first viewing 26 years ago: in one sequence on the beach, we see a pair of footprints gradually appearing in the sand next to Tom.

Low-key touches such as this make Tormented much than what it is: a programmer designed for a quick sell to the drive-in circuit. The movie is so fun that you forget the odd casting troika of 48 year-old Richard Carlson, 26 year-old Lugene Sanders (as his fiancée) and 11 year-old Susan Gordon. (She's young enough to play his granddaughter.) Although I watch Gordon's Empire of the Ants every Christmas Eve while I wrap gifts, perhaps his superior films are those peculiar fables which do not rely upon giant monsters or colossal men. It may be time to revisit such works as Picture Mommy Dead and The Magic Sword to re-evaluate where Gordon's talent truly lies.

Susan Gordon (1949 - 2011)

Susan Gordon, who as a child appeared in several films by her father Bert I. Gordon, has passed away in New Jersey after a battle with cancer at the age of 62. Mr. Gordon's is best remembered for his giant monster movies (a la Earth Vs. The Spider or The Amazing Colossal Man)- and she was cast in his Attack of the Puppet People, but also appeared in some of his less typical (and ironically, stronger) efforts. She made a strong impression in the kiddie matinee fantasy The Boy and The Pirates, the underrated ghost story Tormented and the gothic melodrama, Picture Mommy Dead. In addition to her father's films, she also appeared on the big screen with Danny Kaye in The Five Pennies and Alan Ladd in The Man In The Net. Ms. Gordon was also busy on television, with a live presentation of Miracle on 34th Street (airing on Thanksgiving of 1959), and appearances in such series as "The Twilight Zone" and "My Three Sons".

For more on her career, visit her official site.

First Lady of the Late Late Show

In 1954, tall, slender Finnish emigre and struggling actress Maila Nurmi went to a masquerade party dressed in long black hair and gown, and caught the attention of TV producer Hunt Stromberg Jr., and quickly got the novel idea to cast this starlet for a show to jazz up the schedule in the midnight hour. Soon, Vampira was born, as the swinging-est beatnik chick from beyond the grave, caked in white makeup, wiggled her 17-inch waist down a hallway of dry ice and cobwebs, introducing poverty row chillers with a trademark blasé delivery and tongue-in-cheek approach... at once campy and kittenish. Although "The Vampira Show" lasted one season (1954-55) and was only shown on one TV station (KABC in Los Angeles), this late-night filler became a cultural icon whose influence left a mark in fantasy movie fandom for half a century, and counting.

In short order, TV stations across the country began having their own horror hosts, and for the next three or four decades (until those rotten informercials killed the insitution of the late show), they would still fill running time in the wee hours of the morning by having some local celebrity in ghoulish make-up introducing and poking fun at the movies. For cinema insomniacs, a host (or hostess) introducing the late night movie offered a surrogate companion in the witching hour. As such this piece of pop culture is much like the drive-in... a beloved piece of movie-going iconography that forged a sense of community... and equally in dire need of revival today.

Vampira's legacy remains intact today, ironically, considering that no known copies of her show exist (only a recently-discovered kinescope of a promo offers to contemporary viewers any hint of the experience). It has been reported that Maila Nurmi was blacklisted, thereby harming her chances of getting substantial roles after her hit show. This is why she begrudgingly accepted an assignment from the great Edward D. Wood Jr. to star as the "ghoul woman" in his infamous Plan 9 From Outer Space, shambling around his cardboard graveyard set with arms outstretched. And thanks to the posthumous interest in the career of Mr. Wood, Vampira has a new legion of fans. Any subsequent roles were mere walk-ons: in Albert Zugmsith's daft The Beat Generation, wearing short bleached hair and holding a rat, she was a beatnik poet rambling about square parents, and in Bert I. Gordon's colourful but cardboard fantasy The Magic Sword, she was an old hag. Whether as Vampira or Maila Nurmi, her all-too-brief screen moments stole the show.


Tor Johnson and Vampira in Plan 9 From Outer Space

Maila Nurmi initially patterned the Vampira character after Morticia in Charles Addams' cartoons, and when Vampira the actress had already faded from view, Carolyn Jones modelled herself from the Vampira image for the Morticia role in "The Addams Family." And then of course, in the 1980's, she began a comeback to horror hostess for KHJ-TV. But when she bowed out of the project, the show was reworked into "Elvira Mistress of the Dark", featuring Cassandra Peterson uncannily reviving the Vampira legacy by introducing cheesy movies, albeit with a lot more cleavage and more overacting. After an unsuccessful lawsuit against the Elvira show for copying her image, she faded from the spotlight again, only to be seen as a lively interviewee in countless documentaries of Ed Wood after the release of Tim Burton's mighty biopic. (In fact, she also appeared in I Woke Up Early the Day I Died, an unreleased and highly bootlegged adaptation of an Ed Wood screenplay, starring Billy Zane.)

In Passport Video's otherwise dreadful DVD presentation of Plan 9 From Outer Space, there is an interesting interview with Maila Nurmi, discussing the differences in character between Maila Nurmi and Vampira, as though the latter was a real person. In this moment she is separating the personalities of Maila Nurmi and Vampira, which is something that pop culture has seldom achieved. But this eccentric interview nonetheless proves that the character of Vampira has taken on a life of her own.

The life of Maila Nurmi, beatnik Hollywood fringe dweller, friend and (it is said) one-time lover of James Dean, would make for an interesting movie alone with her unusual screen presence, and on-again off-again flirtation with stardom, and we can hope that Kevin Sean Michael's documentaryVampira: The Movie, which makes the rounds this year, does justice to such a bizarre career.

Her passing yesterday at the age of 86 is another closing of the door to our collective pop culture. She was one of the last surviving people who had company with that Grade Z Genius Ed Wood- and while perhaps she would rather be remembered for her legacy on the small screen, this brief screen appearance ensures that her image will endure for generations to come.

Below: view the original promo to "The Vampira Show".