Unconventional Self-Quarantine Looong DVD Review: The Uncanny (Blu-ray, 1977)

The Uncanny (1977)

(Released on Blu-ray May 28, 2019 by Severin)

Another Looong DVD Review by Joe Torcivia

...Gosh, it FELT GOOD to write THAT!

Summary: Fear, kitty, kitty! 

As many of you know, I attend a "Thursday Night Film Group", in the basement of a friend and independent film maker, whom Esther and I met as a adult-ed college lecturer.  

Weeeelll... We can't really do that anymore!  So, what did I do on a Thursday night?  Decided to watch a horror film, of course.  

Looking through my shelves for something I bought a long time ago, but never watched (I've got quite a few of those!), I stopped on "The Uncanny" (1977), and popped it in the player.  

Here is the review I submitted to the group... 

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Being self-quarantined, I honestly don’t miss all that much. 

The person I love is self-quarantined with me… The places I love, should (hopefully) still be there when it’s over – and it’s not like I can go to them anyway right now.  And the things I love are mostly locked up in here with me as well. 

So, what do I miss?  Averi aside, I’d have to say PIZZA!  Yeah, I know I could go out and get some but, somehow, it doesn’t seem worth it to me.   But, last Thursday night, when our group would normally have met… I decided that I missed… Peter Cushing!  …Talk about your strange cravings!

As was the case with the previous Thursday’s choice “The Return of the Living Dead” (1984), I walked over to my DVD shelves… and (if you’ll forgive the expression) “scratched that Peter Cushing itch!”  And did so with…

“The Uncanny” (1977)” …Or, as *I* would have titled it: “Fear, Kitty, Kitty!” 

“Years ago, people used to believe a cat was the devil in disguise!  I’m beginning to think they were right!” – Peter Cushing as writer Wilbur Gray, in “The Uncanny”.

Not only do I get the great Peter Cushing, but the also-great Ray Milland, and the equally-and-also-great Donald Pleasance. 

Co-produced by Milton Subotsky (formally of “Amicus Films”, or as I call them “Hammer Film’s Little Brother”), “The Uncanny” follows the Amicus formula of separate and distinct, but thematically-linked, stories within a surrounding story framework.

That “surrounding framework” being that nervous and paranoid Montreal writer Wilbur Gray (Cushing) is delivering a manuscript to his publisher Frank Richards (Ray Milland).  Gray’s manuscript warns of the dangers posed by ordinary cats, as exemplified by his quote above.

Richards is naturally skeptical and dismissive of so baseless and fearful a work, forcing Wilbur to produce and discuss in gory detail his research notes – which form the three “cat-horror” vignettes that make up the bulk of the picture. 

Wilbur and his notes! 

LONDON 1912: A wealthy old cat lady changes her will to leave her money and property to her herd of cats, rather than her irresponsible spendthrift nephew.  The nephew’s girlfriend is Janet, the old woman’s housemaid, who tries to get the copy of the new will and destroy it, so that she and nephew-dear will be rich.  The cats beg to differ… playing into Wilbur’s narrative. 

QUEBEC PROVINCE 1975:  Poor little Lucy’s parents died in a plane crash, leaving her with little more than the clothes on her back, her black cat “Wellington” … and her mother’s set of books on magic and the occult.  She is placed in the care of her Aunt Joan, to live in her prissy and snobbish home, where the quiet, introverted girl just wishes to be left alone with her cat.

Aunt Joan did not anticipate her niece arriving with a cat, and her mean, spoiled daughter Angela did not anticipate ANYTHING that would take even the slightest attentions away from her.  While Joan’s husband likes the girl and treats her as fatherly as he does Angela, Joan merely tolerates Lucy, and despises the cat (whom Joan views as a needless distraction and inconvenience).  The less nuanced Angela hates both Lucy and Wellington.

Angela is mean and dangerous to Lucy, going as far as to repeatedly buzz the girl and cat with the propeller of a flying radio-controlled model plane. (She must have seen “North by Northwest”!) When Angela blames house messes and breakage on Wellington, Joan decides the cat must go – and has her husband “take Wellington away” while Lucy is asleep. 

I’ll spoil no more, save to say that Lucy and Wellington have their horrifying and satisfying revenge on Angela – tying in to Wilbur’s fear-based theories on cats.   

As a totally delightful aside for me, copies of THE FLASH # 246 (January, 1977) and BATMAN # 283 (also January, 1977) can be seen in this segment! Yes, I have them both, and yes – even at a filmed distance – I could tell which issues they were on a big screen TV with DVD clarity, using freeze frame! 

HOLLYWOOD (1936):  Egotistical ham-actor “Valentine De’ath” (Donald Pleasance) and his wife Madeleine are the “First Couple” of 1930s horror movies, until Madeleine, imperiled beneath a swinging pendulum blade, is killed by a real blade where a prop-blade should have been used!  Val takes this… er,  “opportunity” to have Madeleine’s stand-in (and Val’s mistress), Edina Hamilton (Samantha Eggar), replace her in the role – that would lead Edina to certain stardom. 

When Val takes Edina to his large and ornate home to begin the rest of their lives (...mark those words) together, Edina is surprised to find that Madeleine had a cat!  As they were privately discussing Madeleine’s death at the time, Edina feels that the cat “heard” the details of Madeleine’s death.  

True or otherwise, the cat, who was so quiet that Val didn’t even know its name (or gender), began to become a problem for the happy couple – and finally had a litter of kittens.  (Val even thought it was a “he”!)

Fed up with the inconveniences, Val flushes the kittens down the toilet (!) and vows to get rid of the cat in the morning.  Comes the dawn, the cat is nowhere to be found… until it turns up in the “catwalk” of the studio where Val and Edina are continuing their horror film roles. 

The cat’s opening shot of revenge is to chew through the ropes supporting a heavy stage-light and having it crash down upon the two actors.  And that is only the beginning… leaving Wilbur more frightened by felines than ever, and Richards all the more disbelieving in Wilbur’s crackpot cat-demon claims.

This segment, so totally carried by Donald Pleasance, has its share of humor in Val’s slapstick-ish attempts to catch the cat up to and including the use of a “wind-up toy mouse” – something I have never seen outside of a cartoon!

The cartoon influences are also felt in Edina’s line upon first laying eyes on the cat: “Oh- I though I saw a pussy cat! I did! I did!” – spoken without Tweety’s endearing speech impediment.   

And considering the year depicted was 1936, when Warner Bros.’ only animated star was Porky Pig, she would have originated this classic line! 

We’ll stop short of ending-spoilers here.  But I will point out that “Janet”, the maid in the “LONDON 1912” sequence was played by Susan Penhaligon, whose name might not be immediately familiar to you (as it also wasn’t to me) but she played the young nurse at the center of one of our group-collective favorite films… “Patrick”!  

The DVD also had a 11:47 feature on her, produced in 2019!  …YAY, DVD! 

  

I give “The Uncanny” a “10”!  …Surprised?  Naahh!  You knew it all along!  

Will I continue do this on other Thursday nights?  Still undecided... But, perhaps my decision will be revealed in the form of another "Self-Quarantine Looong DVD Review"!
 

...If the cats don't get me first!