Neil Doyle
So much of the dialog exchanges between a French mother and daughter is hardly discernible (to American ears), that MANIAC, with its complex plotting, is sometimes difficult to follow. Only Kerwin Mathews, as the hunky artist who finds himself attracted to both women, is fully understandable. Not so understandable is why he allows himself to be taken in so easily by the manipulating Nadia Gray.The acting is only so-so, almost indifferent when it should be strong, so the suspense is further undercut by the underwhelming performances of the principal cast. Only Donald Houston, as the villainous Henri, gives a vivid and chilling performance.Filmed in B&W amid some interesting locations, it has too many twists and turns before it ends rather limply in a deserted quarry. But those thick French accents really needed a good dubbing job.
ferbs54
Up until recently, I had been aware of only two films with the title "Maniac": the 1934 camp classic directed by Dwain Esper and the repugnant 1980 picture with Joe Spinell as a deranged mannequin lover. The existence of the British "Maniac," a 1963 product from the great Hammer Studios, thus came as a nice surprise for me. Part of the Hammer "Icons of Suspense" six-film box set, the picture shares a DVD with the studio's 1958 film "The Snorkel," with which it shares many similarities. Both are finely crafted exercises in suspense, shot in beautiful B&W, written by Jimmy Sangster and taking place on the Mediterranean coast. In "Maniac," we meet a hunky-dude American artist, Geoff Farrell (appealingly played by Kerwin Matthews, who many viewers will recall from the Ray Harryhausen films "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad" and "The 3 Worlds of Gulliver"), who finds himself marooned in the wild southern region of France known as the Camargue after breaking up with his wealthy girlfriend (Justine Lord, known to this viewer best as Sonia, from my favorite episode of "The Prisoner," "The Girl Who Was Death"). Staying at a small "pension," he gets lustily involved with the attractive proprietress, Eve (Romanian actress Nadia Gray, who I'd only previously encountered in another "Prisoner" episode, "The Chimes of Big Ben"), AND her beautiful young stepdaughter, Annette (Liliane Brousse, who reminds this viewer a lot of the young Marianna Hill). Too bad, though, that the gals' husband/father--a homicidal nutjob who had, four years earlier, grotesquely murdered a man with an acetylene blowtorch(!)--has escaped from his asylum and is now seeking new victims...."Maniac" is surely a film that will keep the viewer guessing, and has been cleverly plotted--perhaps overly plotted--by Sangster. Indeed, there are at least three plot twists in the film, one too many for this viewer, although the story does manage to cohere together. Personally, I preferred the simpler story line and greater suspense of "The Snorkel," but that's just me. To his credit, director Michael Carreras does a fine, imaginative job here, exhibiting a shrewd sense of camera placement; he would go on to helm such Hammer entertainments as "The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb," the shlocky camp dud "Prehistoric Women" and "The Lost Continent." Like "The Snorkel" again, "Maniac" features some beautiful nighttime photography, and its evocation of place is very well brought off, whether the film was shot in France or not (I don't believe it was). Matthews, as usual, makes for an enormously likable leading man, here playing a basically decent person who suddenly finds himself in way deep over his head. Viewers, by the way, might enjoy making a drinking game out of "Maniac," taking a shot every time Farrell does (I counted at least 10 such instances!). The film features an unfortunately weak ending, taking place in what appears to be a deserted quarry of sorts, and, at the risk of belaboring a point, this denouement pales greatly in contrast to the supremely satisfying double ending to be found in "The Snorkel." Still, the 1963 picture remains a perfectly acceptable and riveting entertainment, and easily the best exemplar of the filmmaking craft as compared to those other two "Maniac"s mentioned above!
cynthia_h_49509
I enjoyed the first part of this thriller produced by Hammer. Kerwin Matthews is very appealing as the leading man and the first half of the movie I wasn't sure where it was going, who to trust and who was deceiving who. But the twist at the end made the actions of some of the characters in the first half of the movie illogical. When a films gives you a twist at the end, I like to be able to look back and say, oh wow, now I see it. "Ten Little Indians", 1965, and "The Sixth Sense" ,1999, both are good examples of surprise endings that make sense when you look back. This one doesn't. "Spoiler" When Eve's real motivations are revealed at the end and we find out who Georges really is, the whole first part of the film unravels and Eve and "Georges" behavior is inexplicable. " Spoiler" I would recommend this to other fans of 60's English Cinema with the caveat that it is worth watching for the actors, and the scenery (even in black and white) but the plot has lots of holes.
MartinHafer
The film begins with a very sick and brutal murder with a blow torch!! While you could understand why the man killed, how he did it was naturally quite unsettling! Four years later, Kerwin Mathews is wandering about Europe aimlessly when he arrives in a small town in Provence, France. Here he stumbles upon a beautiful pair of ladies who are mother and daughter. What happens next, I really don't want to say as it would spoil the excitement and twists.The early 1960s brought us a lot of films about maniac killers. PEEPING TOM seemed to be the film to start the craze back--debuting just before PSYCHO. PEEPING TOM was probably the best of these films and for about six years afterwords, there were a bunch of similar productions that focused on a mad killer. STRAIGHT-JACKET, HOMICIDAL, DEMENTIA 13, PARANOIAC and HUSH HUSH SWEET CHARLOTTE are among scores of psychopathic killer films.In the middle of this mad killer craze came the film MANIAC. Like the others, it involves a brutal killer who was seen as hopelessly crazy and the film had lots of nice twists and turns to keep the viewer guessing. Compared to these other films, I'd say that MANIAC is about average--very engaging but not among the cream of the bloody crop. Well made--just now good enough to put it among the best of the genre.
