Cult Movie Theatre: The Girl in Black Stockings

Let's clarify one point upfront: There is no girl in black stockings in this 1957 low-budget thriller about a serial killer. Instead, you get Anne Bancroft and Mamie Van Doren before they became stars--plus an eclectic supporting cast, some nifty black-and-white photography, and the famous Parry Lodge (more on that later).

Beth screams as she sees the victim.

The opening is the film's highlight: a Hitchcockian sequence in which two would-be lovers, Beth (Bancroft) and David (Lex Barker), discover a mutilated corpse by a lake when David lights a cigarette. The scene is set up perfectly with the couple discussing their relationship in a secluded area not far from an ongoing outdoor dance. You can view the full 2:48 scene on the Cafe's YouTube Channel by clicking here or, depending on your browser, just click the link in our sidebar).

We're soon told that "they don't stop with just one" and, sure enough, other murders follow. There is no shortage of suspects, including Beth (whose apparent vulnerability could easily hide a deranged mind) or David (allegedly a lawyer who got into his car and drove from L.A. until he felt like stopping--in Kanab, Utah).

He hates women!

Then, there's Edmund Parry (Ron Randell), who owns the local lodge with his care-giver sister Julia (Marie Windsor). Parry  can't walk due to psychological paralysis that started when his wife left him 10-12 years earlier. As a result, he hates all women and makes sure everyone knows about it. (Randell's off-the-wall performance has only enhanced the film's cult reputation.)

Indeed, the only character I ruled out as a suspect was the alcoholic Indian trapper that's initially arrested. That's part of the fun of The Girl in Black Stockings. It helps, too, that the possible killers are played by familiar faces such as John Dehner, Stuart Whitman, and Dan Blocker.

A young Anne Bancroft.

Anne Bancroft gives a credible performance in the title role. She would win a Tony the following year for Two for the Seesaw, directed by Arthur Penn (Bonnie and Clyde). She followed that with a Tony for Best Actress for The Miracle Worker in 1960. It proved to be her ticket to film stardom when she repeated her performance as Helen Keller's teacher for the 1962 movie version. That earned Bancroft her only Oscar (though she would later be nominated for The Pumpkin Eater, The Graduate, The Turning Point, and Agnes of God).

Mamie Van Doren.

As for Mamie Van Doren, she has little to do in a small role in The Girl in the Black Stockings. Not surprisingly, though, she is featured prominently on the poster.

William Margulies' crisp black-and-white photography gives this low-budget thriller a nice noirish edge. He had a long Hollywood career as a camera operator and later cinematographer. He worked almost exclusively in television from 1958 to 1974. He earned four Emmy nominations for his cinematography (two of those being for Have Gun--Will Travel).

Finally, we come to the Parry Lodge, the real-life hotel that figures prominently in The Girl in Black Stockings. Brothers Whit, Chauncey, and Gronway Parry opened the lodge in 1931 in Kanab, Utah, to provide housing for film crews and casts shooting in the area. Over the years, numerous movies (mostly Westerns) have been partially filmed near Kanab, to include Western Union, My Friend Flicka, Westward the Women, Duel at Diablo, and even Planet of the Apes. The lodge has different owners today, but is still open to business.

You can even visit the Parry Lodge website. I did--though I admit I was disappointed. It includes a list of movies made in the area...but doesn't mention The Girl in Black Stockings.

This Week's Poll: Who's Your Mommie Dearest?

This week we're taking a look at monstrous moms. While most of my blogs have featured good mothers - Emma Newton in Shadow of a Doubt, Anna Smith in Meet Me in St. Louis, Martha Hanson in I Remember Mama - it's time now to shine the spotlight on some of the nastier moms on film (with a nod to the great actresses who portrayed them). Which of these lethal ladies would you least like to tuck you in at night?

Mrs. Henry Vale (Gladys Cooper) in Now, Voyager (1942)

Tyrannical Mrs. Vale is matriarch of "the Boston Vales," an extremely wealthy, well-established WASP family. The granite-jawed dowager has her daughter, ugly-duckling Charlotte, firmly in her iron grip - treating her, by turns, as child or servant. Autocratic and manipulative, Mrs. Vale has all but devoured the young woman. Enter Dr. Jaquith, eminent psychiatrist, who meets with Charlotte and declares, "My dear Mrs. Vale, if you had deliberately and maliciously planned to destroy your daughter's life, you couldn't have done it more completely." Unruffled, she imperiously snaps back, "How, by having exercised a mother's rights?"

Later in the game, Mrs. Vale is not above faking a tumble down the stairs in a determined last-ditch effort to regain her hold over her daughter.

Madame Sebastian (Leopoldine Konstantin) in Notorious (1946)

Madame Sebastian and her son, Alex, are part of a post-war Nazi enclave in Brazil involved in a vague but fiendish plot. Thanks to the Madame, Alex is something of a movie anomaly - a Nazi mama's boy. Ice-cold and demeaning, Madame Sebastian verbally bludgeons Alex whenever he seems to be straying from her steely domination. When he asks that she at least smile occasionally at the woman he will marry, his mother retorts, "Wouldn't it be a little too much if we both grinned at her like idiots?"

Alex later discovers his new wife is a spy and tells his mother. She grimly lights a cigarette, inhales and takes charge: "Let me arrange this one." And she plots to slowly poison her daughter-in-law to death, something we suspect she's wanted to do all along.

Violet Venable (Katharine Hepburn) in Suddenly, Last Summer (1959)

A mother written by Tennessee Williams is bound to be a piece of work, and Mrs. Venable is surely that. A wealthy New Orleans widow, she has recently lost her son Sebastian. He met his death while abroad with his cousin Cathy. Mrs. Venable is now seeking a lobotomy for Cathy who is talking too much about Sebastian and how he died. Though it becomes clear that Sebastian was gay, his mother seems to have been oblivious...she recalls a conversation with him when she was his travelling companion: "...what a lovely summer it's been. Sebastian and Violet. Violet and Sebastian. Just the two of us. Just the way it's always going to be. Oh, we are lucky, my darling, to have one another and need no one else ever." It's not surprising that Mrs. Venable has a Venus Flytrap in her garden.

Mrs. John Iselin (Angela Lansbury) in The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

Mrs. Iselin, the brains behind her dim, rabble-rousing U.S. Senator husband, is also the mother of 'war hero'/assassin Raymond Shaw. A skilled demagogue, she easily controls others. But she inspires little love, as evidenced by her son's words: "My mother...is a terrible, terrible woman...You know... it's a terrible thing to hate your mother. But I didn't always hate her. When I was a child I only kind of disliked her." Mrs. Iselin's manipulations are part of a larger plan; she's out for world domination and has sacrificed Raymond's soul as well as the lives of his wife and others in her quest. She has stage-managed everything, from the sentence that will cue an assassination, to its desired aftermath. All she has schemed for is about to become hers...but Mrs. Iselin may have overplayed her hand at Solitaire...

Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft) in The Graduate (1967)

Mrs. Robinson suffers from a bad case of Affluenza; her life is comfortable but unsatisfying. Though she and her husband are living the good life and their daughter is away at college, the marriage is dead and she's an alcoholic who habitually seduces young men - including Benjamin, son of her husband's law partner. While Mrs. Robinson's attitude toward Benjamin and their liaison has been cavalier, she comes unhinged when he succumbs to family pressure and takes her daughter, Elaine, on a date. Mrs. R instantly transforms into a vengeful virago and, when Ben and Elaine hit it off, she begins a vicious campaign to derail their romance, bring her daughter back in line and eviscerate Ben in doing so...coo coo ca-choo, Mrs. Robinson...

Cast your vote for one of these five nefarious nominees at the sidebar to the right...