Die! Die! My Darling!

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In the tradition of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? Hammer Studios drew aging Tallulah Bankhead out of retirement to play the fanatical matriarch of Die! Die! My Darling! (in Britain the film was simply titled Fanatic). Stefanie Powers, fresh from a string of juvenile and ingenue roles, plays her first adult, a thoroughly modern (and sexually liberated) woman who steps out of her time and into Bankhead's decaying mansion, a bit of southern Gothic nestled in the rural England countryside. Her courtesy call to the mother of her deceased lover turns into a cat-and-mouse thriller as the dotty, scripture-reading old lady dedicates herself to "cleansing" the befouled girl in memory of her son. Richard Matheson's smart screenplay (from the novel Nightmare by Anne Blaisdell) gives Powers a scrappy character, defying Bankhead and struggling to escape at every turn, while Bankhead's increasingly deranged campaign is given a delicious dimension with a marvelously schizophrenic backstory. Director Silvio Narizzano tends to overplay his hand at times and at one point steals a scene right out of Psycho, but he happily makes the battle of wits the central focus, letting the gothic elements stand as flourish. Peter Vaughan costars as a sleazy, salacious caretaker who can't keep his paws of their captive and Donald Sutherland has a small role as an idiot odd-job man devoted to his bizarre little family. --Sean Axmaker

Description

An elderly religious fanatic whose son was killed in an auto wreck several years ago kidnaps her dead son's former fiancée and keeps her locked up in the basement in order to cleanse the girl's soul, making it fit to be reunited with her son in heaven. Stars Stefanie Powers (TV's "Hart to Hart") and screen legend Tallulah Bankhead in her last film.

Customer Reviews:

An out-of-the-way nook in the Hammer catalog worth checking out........2007-05-12

Die!, Die!, My Darling! (Silvio Narizzano, 1965)

How can you not like any movie called Die! Die!, My Darling!? Especially when it contains Tallulah Bankhead's final onscreen performance, as a religious wingnut determined to preserve the purity of her dead son by imprisoning his former fiancée, Pat (Stefanie Powers), in her secluded house. Pat, however, is engaged again, and new fiancée Alan (The Abominable Dr. Phibes' Maurice Kaufmann) is sure to notice her disappearance eventually. (Isn't he? You never know, this IS a Hammer horror film, after all.)

Ah, the scenery-chewing! Powers and Bankhead are great foils for one another, with Bankhead lording it over Powers (and the rest of her equally insane household) while Powers tries to find various methods of escaping, getting a note to Alan, or anything else that might help her out of her jam. There are other characters of note-- specifically, rising star Donald Sutherland in one of his early roles for Hammer-- but the movie would be just as fun if it were just Bankhead and Powers in one room. No one will ever confuse this for immortal cinema, but if you happen to catch it on the Saturday afternoon creature feature, you'll find it a pleasant surprise. ***

Legendary Talullah Bankhead Chewing The Scenery In Her Final Film Performance .......2007-04-19

I admit to being one of those movie fans who totally enjoys the efforts from the "twilight years" of the careers of the great actresses of the 1930's and '40's. Call them camp or the last gasps of talent often stretching back 40 years these women always gave their all in these lesser efforts which nowadays are often among the best remembered film roles from their long and distinguished careers. Starting off with veterans Bette Davis and Joan Crawford verbally and physically destroying each other in the classic "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?", that film's huge success with audiences in 1962 officially began a decade that provided a goldmine of work for ageing actresses as diverse as Barbara Stanwyck, Shelley Winters, and Dorothy Lamour, in macabre horror efforts that provided these women with starring roles when no other work was being offered . While the infamous Tallulah Bankhead never enjoyed a super successful film career like Crawford and Davis she nevertheless represented "Old Hollywood", and was thus ideal casting for Hammer Studios production of "Die! Die! My Darling!". The famed British "Studio that Dripped Blood", often imported American actresses for their efforts and the year of 1965 saw then use both Bette Davis (The Anniversary) and Bankhead for some of their non Gothic efforts. I only saw this effort for the first time recently but I must admit I was very impressed with both the overall production and the ageing Bankhead's performance which made me regret that she had not done more film work like this in her later years.

Not as good as I thought!.......2007-01-04

This movie was a good movie to watch on a dreary weekend. I thought that it would have been better but overall it was ok.

MRS. TALLULAH BANKHEAD'S BEST PERFORMANCE!!!.......2006-07-18

THIS IS A FANTASTIC HAMMER STUDIO PRODUCTION STARRING TALLULAH BANKHEAD IN WHAT MANY WOULD CALL HER GREATEST PERFORMANCE!!
SHE PLAYS AN EVIL OLD WOMAN IN THIS FILM!
IN THE STYLE OF WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE AND HUSH HUSH SWEET CHARLOTTE, THIS IS A CLASSIC THRILLER!!

Camp Classic.......2005-08-03

I remember seeing this movie when I was a small child and it gave me hell's own heebie-jeebies at the time. Watching it now, however, all I could do was laugh at how Tallulah Bankhead slaps Sefanie Powers around. **GO TALLULAH!** Everything is so "stagey" and theatrical, from the acting itself to the sets and lighting--particularly so in the scenes set in the basement of the big, ol' spooky mansion that Mrs. Trefoile (Bankhead) lives in.

'Die! Die! My Darling!' is a MUST SEE for any Bankhead fan.

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