A very well written view of increasing mental illness coming out ofvthe already disturbed Michael Higgins as a bookstore clerk who stays with kind-hearted Lois Holmes and daughters Jean Allison and Doris Fesette, and becomes obsessed with them, thinking of them as family even though they are not related. Falling in love with one of the girls, he becomes insanely jealous when she basically shows no interest while the other one does. His behavior goes from quietly bizarre to violin and finally exploded into a horrific accident, all the while when he had the opportunity thanks to his boss Mary Boylan wanted him to take a vacation and seek help. The obsession he feels for this family shows that he has abandonment issues as well as perhaps arrested development, far more than just a strong case of bi-polar behavior.
Movie fans will recognize Mary Boylan as the sick woman on the bus in the film version of "The Night of the Iguana", and she gives a very natural performance filled with worry as she tries to be strict with Higgins (obviously knowing his mental history) over his obsession with Holmes and her daughters. Holmes is also very good as the very understanding mother, liking Higgins in spite of the fact that she sees his issues but isn't worried too much about them when she should be. This drama really builds with intense music, waves coming from the beach, and montages in the photography that reveals the spinning mind he's dealing with. You wish that Higgins would take the money that Boylan gives him and get help, but then the script wouldn't so what behavioral disorders like this can lead to.
This is a very disturbing subject to see on film, but it's one of those social dramas that somehow escaped getting attention simply because it it ended up as a B feature release, and on the surface looks like something you'd see in the drive-in. But it is so much more, and very powerfully done. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more outstanding I realized it was. With the cast of mostly unknowns, it really makes a better point, because had it been cast with Jack Palance or James Dean or Brando, it would have gotten the recognition but probably wouldn't be as stunning. It's almost like watching a reality unfolding because it's not movie star driven, but character-driven. It takes a lot to stomach everything that happens, but films aren't necessarily always meant to just entertain. Sometimes they need to show the ugliness of society that moviegoers get enough of on their national news and have a hard time facing when it is in a motion pictures theater.
Movie fans will recognize Mary Boylan as the sick woman on the bus in the film version of "The Night of the Iguana", and she gives a very natural performance filled with worry as she tries to be strict with Higgins (obviously knowing his mental history) over his obsession with Holmes and her daughters. Holmes is also very good as the very understanding mother, liking Higgins in spite of the fact that she sees his issues but isn't worried too much about them when she should be. This drama really builds with intense music, waves coming from the beach, and montages in the photography that reveals the spinning mind he's dealing with. You wish that Higgins would take the money that Boylan gives him and get help, but then the script wouldn't so what behavioral disorders like this can lead to.
This is a very disturbing subject to see on film, but it's one of those social dramas that somehow escaped getting attention simply because it it ended up as a B feature release, and on the surface looks like something you'd see in the drive-in. But it is so much more, and very powerfully done. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more outstanding I realized it was. With the cast of mostly unknowns, it really makes a better point, because had it been cast with Jack Palance or James Dean or Brando, it would have gotten the recognition but probably wouldn't be as stunning. It's almost like watching a reality unfolding because it's not movie star driven, but character-driven. It takes a lot to stomach everything that happens, but films aren't necessarily always meant to just entertain. Sometimes they need to show the ugliness of society that moviegoers get enough of on their national news and have a hard time facing when it is in a motion pictures theater.