(1970) TVM ***
Allan develops hysterical blindness after a fire he was ultimately responsible for kills his esteemed professor father and permanently scars his attractive sister, Katherine. After 3 months of hard work with a shrink in an institution he is released to his sister and moves into his father’s spacious home where Katherine has been residing. Katherine informs him that she has been having trouble paying the mortgage on her meager typist salary and has advertised for a boarder. Allan gets all uppity about this but really isn’t in a position to complain given that he brings nothing to the table but (slightly improved) hysterical blindness. Katherine is dutiful and very patient with Allan despite the fact that he’s a completely ungrateful asshole throughout the entire tale. Olive, the woman he was to marry before the fire also attempts to work with Allan despite also being at the receiving end of Allan’s rancor.
With Katherine working and the new graduate student boarder away with his studies most of the time, Allan is left with a lot of downtime, which is not good for Allan. He soon becomes obsessed with the new boarder, whom he has never been able to see due to his “blindness”, and becomes convinced that the boarder is really Katherine’s ex-fiancé, Eric, who supposedly moved to Europe. He tells Olive that he believes that Katherine and Eric are scheming to drive Allan crazy so he will be committed once again and they can have the house to themselves.
Admittedly I chose this film for the goofy title alone without knowing a thing about it including the fact that it starred Anthony Perkins. Poor Anthony Perkins, after 1960 he was pretty much stuck playing Norman Bates over and over again, sometimes literally (Psycho II, III, IV). In How Awful About Allan he once again channels Norman Bates and as usual he does it damn well. Without Perkins’ participation HABA (yep, I’m already tired of typing How Awful About Allan) would be notable for absolutely nothing. Yet Perkins ability to ratchet up tension with his piercing gaze of sociopathy was enough for me to give it an extra 1.5 stars.
7 comments:
"HABA (yep, I’m already tired of tying How Awful About Allan) "~you do realize you had to type out How Awful About Allan to explain why you were typing HABA right. Too funny!
Who thought up that goofy title anyway.
Hysterical! I love that he complains about the border, and out of therapy in three short months.
Shouldn't it be HAAA?
I can see why you were drawn to the title. Was this a TV movie?
You're totally right, HAAA!
HAAA is even funnier then HABA. At least he was an effective psychopath.
a photoshopped "how awful about gretchen" poster would be awesome -- if *somebody* were to make one.
On titles alone I think you're killing this year, JPX. HAAA is only a tiny bit funnier than HABA.
Excellent review, equal parts savvy and funny.
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