Macabre (1958)

After the Q&A wrapped up, Macabre was set to screen. As I mentioned before, I had done a little research on the film beforehand, and what I found was pretty fascinating, so I was definitely excited to watch the movie!

 

Macabre’s plot is quite simple and utterly outrageous: small town doctor and widower Rodney Barrett (William Prince) has a daughter, Marge (Linda Guderman), who has been playing at the house of his fiancée, Sylvia Stevenson (Susan Morrow) all day. After Sylvia drops the girl off with Barrett’s housekeeper, Miss Kushins (Ellen Corby), Rodney goes to pick Marge up at home with his nurse, Polly Baron (Jacqueline Scott). After a few minutes searching the house for the young girl, Polly receives a terrifying call informing her that Marge has been kidnapped and buried alive. Apparently, she’s among the dead, but not dead yet, though she only has about 4-5 hours to live.

 

Rodney has made quite a few enemies in town, like Police Chief Jim Tyloe (Jim Backus), whose wife, Nancy (Christine White) died the night before and is being buried, weirdly, at midnight (Jim is convinced Rodney could have saved her). With no one in town who he really trusts, Rodney brings along Polly to the town graveyard in an attempt to locate his daughter. In between digging through fresh graves, Polly and Rodney somehow jump into memories/flashbacks of all the strange happenings around town, stories which include Nancy, Chief Jim, and Rodney’s blind former wife, Alice (Dorothy Morris), who also passed away. Their reminiscing occurs while they both try to hide - in a graveyard with open plots, no less – from Chief Jim and also Marge’s grandfather, Jode (Philip Tonge), who they didn’t want to tell about Marge’s disappearance because of his weak heart. Of course someone has a weak heart in this situation!

 

Nancy’s middle-of-the-night funeral begins as rain pours down. The clock is ticking away and it’s only a matter of time before Marge will be gone for good! That is, unless they can find and save her in time…

Macabre publicity from Terry Castle's collection. (Picture by Kim Luperi)

Castle recalled Macabre’s production story in his autobiography. As mentioned previously, it all began with Les Diaboliques. After witnessing the power this particular movie had over audiences, Castle challenged himself to find a more frightening book, which is where The Marble Forest (1950) comes in. Centered around a doctor who has mere hours to find his daughter who has been buried alive in a graveyard, The Marble Forest actually was written by 13 different writers: each author, a member of the San Francisco division of the Mystery Writers of America, penned one chapter, and an editor adjusted each author's writing style to make it seem as if one person wrote the entire book.

 

Castle purchased The Marble Forest, and his first point of business was to brainstorm a one word box office worthy title that somehow exemplified a "dance of death:" Macabre. It didn't matter that some people wouldn't know how to pronounce it; Macabre sounded creepy enough (135).

 

Castle took the idea for Macabre to Columbia with the intent to produce and direct. Though he never produced a movie, he figured how hard could it be? Very, according to the studio, who agree to Castle as director but not producer. However, Castle wanted more control over the property, and the only way to do that was to undertake the whole thing himself. When he approached his wife with the idea, she already knew what was coming: "I know. You want to mortgage our house and go into business for yourself. It's about time!" (136).

 

Writer Robb White, who would go on to pen the script, partnered with Castle to put up the $90,000 necessary to finance the film. However, Castle quickly realized the studio was right: he didn't know anything about producing. The director contacted his friend Howard Koch and Koch's partner Aubrey Schenck, both of whom became the movie's "guardian angels." Production kicked off on August 15, 1958 and ended a mere nine days later. Exteriors were shot in Chino, California, while interiors, including the massive graveyard, were filmed on sound stages in Hollywood (136).

 

With the film in the can, Castle was now worried that it didn't possess that "blood-curdling quality." White suggested adding more horror, but the duo didn't have enough money to reshoot any scenes. What else could they do to ensure that audiences would attend? An idea popped into Castle's head in the middle of the night: an insurance policy! "I had heard that Lloyds of London would insure anything or anybody," he recalled in his autobiography (137). Jackpot. 

 

Of course, getting an insurance policy for each person who saw Macabre was no easy task, and Castle's recollection of his meeting with Lloyds of London was so hilarious that I would have paid to travel back in time to be a fly on the wall in that room. The representatives from Lloyds of London flat out told Castle it was impossible to insure 2 billion people, the largest number of people who could see the film since that was the population of the world back then. No, no, no, Castle tried to explain: this was just a gimmick, though he did want a real insurance policy. Since there was obviously no protocol for a request like this, one of the representatives suggested that Lloyds insure Castle against any claims from the audience; basically, if anyone died, Castle would collect from Lloyds and pay the deceased's beneficiary (138).