The Bit I Like More Than Maybe I Should #5: Record, Meet Match
| Strait-Jacket (William Castle, 1964) |
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The William Castle Collection has been recently released on DVD by Sony, reminding me of a bit in Strait-Jacket that I enjoy to an indefensible level. Joan Crawford – our Joan, All-American Joan, self-debasing as a first instinct Joan – plays Lucy Harbin, a woman released from the nut house twenty years after chopping her philandering husband to death. The film chronicles Lucy’s perilous attempts to reintegrate with her family and reclaim a normal life, free of axe murders. She’s still at least a little nutters, chipper and zestful one moment, nervous and depressed the next. Any resemblance between this film and Psycho 2 is completely predictable. |
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| Joan happily taps in time to a dance record. |
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| She sashays over for a cigarette, bopping to the beat. |
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| She manages to fumble out a cancer stick, but fails to get a match to light on the cup in front of her. No matter, she slides back over to the record player… |
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| …and strikes it on the spinning record, knocking the needle off and stopping the music. She scarcely notices. |
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| Sixty-something year old Joan flashes a lot of leg at her visitor. |
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| Why not some knitting? While holding the cigarette? What don’t I love about this? |
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| Records, matches, ciggies, knitting. Joan’s a national treasure, and I don’t want to hear any more about it. |
