‘Eight murders and Arnold is the suspect!’
Arnold is a 1973 American darkish comedy horror movie about an previous useless man whose preserved corpse marries his younger lover to spite his widow.
Produced and directed by Georg Fenady (Terror within the Wax Museum) from a screenplay co-written by Jameson Brewer (The New Scooby-Doo Films; The Addams Household sequence) and John Fenton Murray (The Misplaced Saucer sequence; Sigmund and the Sea Monsters sequence; The Atomic Child).
The Fenady Productions-Bing Crosby Productions (BCP) film stars Stella Stevens (Megaconda; Glass Lure; Wacko; The Manitou), Roddy McDowall, Elsa Lanchester, Shani Wallis, Farley Granger and Victor Buono (The Evil; The Mad Butcher; The Strangler; Hush… Hush, Candy Charlotte; What Ever Occurred to Child Jane?)
Our assessment:
Arnold, distinguished by a quick however memorable advert marketing campaign within the early Nineteen Seventies (sadly, the opening theme music belted out by supporting actress Shani Wallis by no means charted), was the work of divers fingers who had accomplished many sitcoms and youngsters’s materials for American TV. One senses these stressed creatives making an attempt to push boundaries additional past the period’s normal small-screen strict censorship and attending to luxuriate within the “sick humour” development of the period that discovered greatest expressions in black comedies resembling Harold and Maude or The place’s Poppa?
Nonetheless, even with the artistic multiple-deaths framework quickly to be gleefully adopted by the slasher style, it’s a really delicate comedy-thriller by most any fashionable requirements – a little bit of gore right here and there, some mildly titillating innuendo (primarily Stella Stevens in lingerie) and overtones of corpse carnality that might hardly make a dent within the Jorg Buttgereit legacy.
Maybe one of the simplest ways to observe it’s as a type of embryonic type of the colorful, star-laden, eye-rolling gothic-kitsch horror-comedy that might later be related to Tim Burton (who would go to the eye-watering expense of simulating the garish color of what had been most likely just a few leftover backlot units and costumes and character actors right here).
Lord Arnold Dwellyn (Norman Stuart), an industrial chemical business tycoon who made his fortune in cosmetics (and a few extra deadly concoctions), has simply died. Weird phrases of his will go away his property to his curvaceous younger mistress Karen (aforementioned Stella Stevens), however solely so long as she `faithfully’ lives together with his embalmed corpse within the mansion.
The silent, smiling Arnold is ever-present round the home in his cell coffin. Because of a gradual provide of audio-cassette tapes and handy tape gamers (which was fairly superior know-how again then, [sigh]) across the place, Arnold additionally usually, sardonically feedback on the state of affairs amongst his disgruntled relations, who’re, after all, dissatisfied with the phrases of the inheritance.
The relations embrace Arnold’s caddish youthful brother Robert (Roddy McDowall) (with whom Karen has been indulging in a secret affair), his widow Woman Jocelyn (Shani Wallis) and his aged solicitor cousin Douglas Whitehead (Patric Knowles); Arnold’s sister Hester (Elsa Lanchester) seems to be just one who’s pleased with the weird scenario.
Arnold has additionally allegedly hidden an enormous sum of cash someplace on the property. As his dejected household and workers skulk round in the hunt for the elusive fortune, they fall sufferer to fiendish loss of life traps that the rich useless man seems to have ready prematurely. It’s as if Arnold uncannily anticipated everybody’s actions. Or is Arnold not likely useless? Or is he undead?
The movie just isn’t notably scary, or shocking, however to complain very a lot about that might be like being offended at not getting nightmares from trying on the whimsical-macabre illustrations of artist Edward Gorey. Arnold is nonetheless welcome as a style spoof that flirts with bad-taste naughtiness and employs quite a few stalwart troupers.
To notice how occasions and tastes had modified, evaluate Arnold to Paramount’s 1944 dark-and-stormy-mansion comedy-thriller One Physique Too Many, which can be a few rich ever-present corpse and an inheritance; such was the censorship in that period, nevertheless, that the deceased isn’t truly proven on digital camera, solely his coffin.
Charles Cassady Jr., MOVIES & MANIA
Selection dialogue:
Robbie: “Damned Hindu zombie. He’s the proper houseboy for a corpse.”
Launch:
Within the USA, Arnold was launched by Cinerama Releasing Company (CRC) on November 16, 1973. It was launched on VHS by Lightning Video however there doesn’t appear to have been a DVD launch. Vinegar Syndrome launched Arnold on Blu-ray in 2023.
Forged and characters:
Stella Stevens … Karen
Roddy McDowall … Robert
Elsa Lanchester … Hester
Shani Wallis … Woman Jocelyn Dwellyn
Farley Granger … Evan Lyons
Victor Buono … Minister
John McGiver … Governor
Bernard Fox … Constable Hooke
Patric Knowles … Douglas Whitehead
Jamie Farr … Dybbi
Norman Stuart … Lord Arnold Dwellyn
Ben Wright … Jonesy
Wanda Bailey … Flo
Steven Marlo … First Dart Participant
Leslie Thompson … Second Dart Participant
Filming areas:
Paramount Studios – 5555 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California
Technical specs:
1 hour 34 minutes
Facet ratio: 1.85: 1
Audio: Mono
Trailer:
Free to observe on YouTube:
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