Dementia 13. (15.)
Directed by Francis (Ford) Coppola. 1963.
Starring Luana Anders, William Campbell, Bart Patton, Mary Mitchell, Eithne Dunn and Patrick Magee. Out on Blu-ray from Lionsgate UK Vestron Collector's Series. 69 mins.
Francis Ford Coppola has spent much of the last two decades re-editing and rejigging some of his films, usually the less successful ones, while refusing to call the new versions Director's Cuts: Apocalypse Now was a Redux; Godfather III became a Coda; Cotton Club an Encore and The Outsiders came to us as a Complete Novel. Now he has revisited his first film as director, a low budget Roger Corman producer horror, to put it back the way he wanted to be and has finally just given in and called it a Director's Cut.
The making of this director's cut seems to have been a fairly straightforward task, involving cutting out a gimmicky prologue and an additional murder. These were shot by Corman after a (pre-Ford) Coppola had finished work on the film. Corman felt that Coppola's version was a lot milder than had been promised, and a bit too short. I have to say it is a failing of this disc that there isn't a short feature explaining what exactly this shortened version consists of; the edited prologue, enjoyable naff but completely inappropriate, is included, but you'd have to go all the way through Coppola's commentary to find out the rest.
Is it any good? Does it merit the effort? Yes, just about, though watching this it is hard to imagine that Coppola was initially acclaimed as a screenwriter and won his first Oscar in 1970 for co-writing that year's Best Film winner Patton: Lust For Glory. The script for this, which Coppola was writing and rewriting nightly after filming, is the chief problem. The film starts with a married couple going for a midnight row on the lake, (cause that's very much a thing married couples like to do) where she nags him about his mother leaving them out of her will, which is all being left to a charity. She also chides him to go easy with those oars because of his heart condition at which point he says that if he dies she'll get nothing anyway and no sooner have the words left his mouth then he gasps and clutches his chest. And you wait for the twist, for it to be a joke, but that really is the scene and he really does die of a heart attack the moment after he talks about dying of a heart attack.
The bulk of the film is a kind of Agatha Christie country house mystery with a mad axe murderer. The three brothers are gathered with their American wives/ fiancés at the creepy Irish manor house where the mother (Dunn) lives in perpetual mourning for the daughter that tragically drowned seven years earlier. The now-widow from the first scene (Anders) has hidden her husband's body and concocted a scheme whereby she has made it look like he had to rush back to New York on business in the middle of the night and is now trying to work on the mother to change the will. I'm not sure how that plan would work in the long term but it is interrupted by the appearance of an axe murderer. But who is it: one of the brothers (Campbell, Patton) or the mysterious doctor Caleb (Magee)?
The plot doesn't hold together, but everything else is pretty good. The black and white photography is crisp and eerie and the cast is strong; Anders is an interesting lead and any film with Magee in it is never a totally lost cause. As Corman requested, Coppola is ripping on Psycho and there are plenty of creepy and unnerving scenes. If we're honest there's nothing in Dementia 13 that points to this being the work of a monumental filmmaking talent but it's impressive enough for a man barely into his twenties, and it's quite a long way from being the worst thing he's ever directed.
Extras
A minute-long introduction from Coppola.
A commentary from the director.
The deleted Dementia 13 test prologue.
Directed by Francis (Ford) Coppola. 1963.
Starring Luana Anders, William Campbell, Bart Patton, Mary Mitchell, Eithne Dunn and Patrick Magee. Out on Blu-ray from Lionsgate UK Vestron Collector's Series. 69 mins.
Francis Ford Coppola has spent much of the last two decades re-editing and rejigging some of his films, usually the less successful ones, while refusing to call the new versions Director's Cuts: Apocalypse Now was a Redux; Godfather III became a Coda; Cotton Club an Encore and The Outsiders came to us as a Complete Novel. Now he has revisited his first film as director, a low budget Roger Corman producer horror, to put it back the way he wanted to be and has finally just given in and called it a Director's Cut.
The making of this director's cut seems to have been a fairly straightforward task, involving cutting out a gimmicky prologue and an additional murder. These were shot by Corman after a (pre-Ford) Coppola had finished work on the film. Corman felt that Coppola's version was a lot milder than had been promised, and a bit too short. I have to say it is a failing of this disc that there isn't a short feature explaining what exactly this shortened version consists of; the edited prologue, enjoyable naff but completely inappropriate, is included, but you'd have to go all the way through Coppola's commentary to find out the rest.
Is it any good? Does it merit the effort? Yes, just about, though watching this it is hard to imagine that Coppola was initially acclaimed as a screenwriter and won his first Oscar in 1970 for co-writing that year's Best Film winner Patton: Lust For Glory. The script for this, which Coppola was writing and rewriting nightly after filming, is the chief problem. The film starts with a married couple going for a midnight row on the lake, (cause that's very much a thing married couples like to do) where she nags him about his mother leaving them out of her will, which is all being left to a charity. She also chides him to go easy with those oars because of his heart condition at which point he says that if he dies she'll get nothing anyway and no sooner have the words left his mouth then he gasps and clutches his chest. And you wait for the twist, for it to be a joke, but that really is the scene and he really does die of a heart attack the moment after he talks about dying of a heart attack.
The bulk of the film is a kind of Agatha Christie country house mystery with a mad axe murderer. The three brothers are gathered with their American wives/ fiancés at the creepy Irish manor house where the mother (Dunn) lives in perpetual mourning for the daughter that tragically drowned seven years earlier. The now-widow from the first scene (Anders) has hidden her husband's body and concocted a scheme whereby she has made it look like he had to rush back to New York on business in the middle of the night and is now trying to work on the mother to change the will. I'm not sure how that plan would work in the long term but it is interrupted by the appearance of an axe murderer. But who is it: one of the brothers (Campbell, Patton) or the mysterious doctor Caleb (Magee)?
The plot doesn't hold together, but everything else is pretty good. The black and white photography is crisp and eerie and the cast is strong; Anders is an interesting lead and any film with Magee in it is never a totally lost cause. As Corman requested, Coppola is ripping on Psycho and there are plenty of creepy and unnerving scenes. If we're honest there's nothing in Dementia 13 that points to this being the work of a monumental filmmaking talent but it's impressive enough for a man barely into his twenties, and it's quite a long way from being the worst thing he's ever directed.
Extras
A minute-long introduction from Coppola.
A commentary from the director.
The deleted Dementia 13 test prologue.
