Pretty Poison (1968)

Don't listen to the negative reviews

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

PRETTY POISON is one of those movies that I'd heard of but never had the opportunity to see. For some reason it never appears on various movie channels or if it does it's on at such a late hour that I've missed it. And I check for movies that I've missed to DVR on these channels! So I was glad to finally get the chance to see this film.The movie stars Anthony Perkins as Dennis Pitt, a young man who's spent most of his life in an institution because while a youngster he was responsible for a fire that killed his aunt. Having gone through rehabilitation and psychiatric care he is about to finally be released. His probation officer Morton Azenauer (John Randolph) tells him it is best to avoid the creative fantasies that Dennis tends to place himself in and stick with reality, working the job he's found for him and getting on with his life.Dennis begins work at a lumber yard where he does his job well enough but still has moments where he is distracted. Dennis' boss Bud (Dick O'Neill) is a jerk of a boss who looks for reasons to give Dennis a hard time. Of course this will lead to Dennis resentment of both Bud and the job he now works at.On lunch break one day Dennis sees a beautiful young girl (Tuesday Weld), a cheerleader he spies marching with the band. He bumps into her, passing her a small vial and tells her to be quiet, they're watching and he'll meet her at a theater that night. Once there he takes the vial and thanks her, leaving. She follows and he concocts a story that he's a secret agent on a mission. Her name is Sue Ann Stepanek and she's not intrigued by this supposed spy.The two begin to spend time with one another going so far as Dennis meeting her mother and taking her out on a date. The make a stop by a local make out area where the cops harass them and take them back to Sue Ann's house. It is there that we get our first glimpse of what Sue Ann is capable off as we see her slap her mother when they argue after the police leave. Dennis is shocked and leaves the house.Sue Ann contacts Dennis again and at just the right time. It seems that his Azenauer has let Bud know about Dennis' past and Bud then fires Dennis. When Dennis lets him know Azenauer is upset since Bud promised not to fire Dennis. Once more Dennis makes up a story about a new job and has Sue Ann play the part of a secretary confirming the job.Angry at Bud, Dennis convinces Sue Ann that they have to perform an act of sabotage on the lumber mill, weakening the supports of a run off. In the middle of doing so the night watchman catches Dennis but Sue Ann knocks him unconscious with the wrench she's carrying. She takes his gun and shoots him, then pushes him into the river. Dennis is shocked but Sue Ann convinces him that when the run off falls it will look like it collapsed on the watchman and killed him.The two love birds move forward from here into more potential threatening incidents before deciding to run off together. All the while we watch as Dennis, the man who is supposed to be the one with mental issues, is matched with this young all American girl who seems to be much more disturbed than he ever was. Where they will end up is anyone's guess.The film moves along at a slow pace, at times distracting because of this, but never quite enough to make it boring. It has a made for TV look from that time rather than a feature feel and I'm not sure if that helps or hinders. This is not to say it looks bad, just mediocre. The performances by both leads are well done, more so for Weld than Perkins. Watching you can't help but recall all of the other times he's played mentally unstable characters, especially Norman Bates in PSYCHO. Perkins would go on to play other characters with questionable mental issues in several more films. While he hoped to put Bates behind him he somehow always found himself in these roles.What makes this movie so interesting is the role that Weld plays here. Far too often you can tell just who the bad guy, who the person is most likely to commit a crime is in film. Here we're presented with a wholesome young girl who's held in high regard but who underneath is the pretty poison the film's title speaks of. It makes for an interesting character and performance.The movie is being released by Twilight Time so you know up front that the image on screen will be the best possible to be found for this release. Extras include the isolated music and effects track, audio commentary with executive producer Lawrence Turman and film historians Lem Dobbs and Nick Redman, audio commentary with director Noel Black and film historian Robert Fischer, deleted scene script and commentary and the original factory trailer. I say this all the time but once more, Twilight Time has released this with only 3,000 copies available so if you want one make sure you order before they sell out.

A low-budgeted romance-cum-crime dark comedy from director Noel Black, his debut feature PRETTY POISON was dead on arrival upon its release, but its reputation has been rescued ever since, arguably categorised as a "Neo-noir", it stars Anthony Perkins, 8 years after PSYCHO (1960), as an apparently self-referential young man Dennis Pitt, who was a teenage arsonist and has been recently released from mental institution on parole and works in a lumber mill, he looks normal, a breezy lad is ready to embrace his freedom. But a forewarning from his parole officer Morton Azenauer (Randolph) "you steps into a tough world where it got no place at all for fantasies" reveals his concerns.Dennis has a crush on a blond local high-schooler Sue Ann (Weld) and tries to impress her by claiming himself as a secret agent, and it works! A guileless Sue Ann believes him and spurs him to do something exciting together. Smitten with her, Dennis invents a series of missions including sabotaging the chute of the mill where he works, under the fancy of a water-poisoning conspiracy theory. But during their jejune mission, things escalate into murder, and guess who is the perpetrator, it's Sue Ann, it turns out that she has no conscience of killing at all, she is the real psychopath and from then, the scale has been tipped. Dennis behaves more like a normal person while Sue Ann's escape plan goes wilder and scarier, there is no way this will end like Oliver Stone's anti-social affidavit NATURAL BORN KILLERS (1994), so the only safe way for Dennis to cut off with her completely, is that he goes back behind the bars and leaves the pretty poison to the next victim and hopes one day, she can get her comeuppance.The passive, self-preserving ending where vice gets away with murder is shockingly at odds with most Hollywood commodities, but the story itself has a semblance of food for thought. Anthony Perkins credibly juggles levity and seriousness with his unique greenness, he is less neurotic and more sympathetic here. Tuesday Weld, on the other hand, is much too calculated to underline an 18-year-old murderess' twisted frame of mind, and Beverly Garland is quite memorable as her controlling mother who doesn't have any inkling about the true nature of her daughter - surprised but not scared, when her doom abruptly arrives, that's the bloody irony of parenting.

An insightful and witty script, assured but understated direction plus inspired performances by Anthony Perkins and Tuesday Weld make "Pretty Poison" a unique experience.Towards the end of the film, Anthony Perkins' character, Dennis Pitt, is visited in jail by his case officer, Mr Azenauer, played by John Randolph. Azenauer has begun to realise that Dennis is innocent of the crime for which he has been jailed. Asked why he doesn't protest his innocence, Dennis replies with a classic line: 'I've learned that people only pay attention to what they discover for themselves'. "Pretty Poison" is full of offbeat wisdom such as this. The story begins as Dennis Pitt is paroled from the mental institution where he has been for a number of years. Among other issues Dennis is thought to have an overactive imagination and trouble separating fact from fantasy. Before he leaves he is warned that he is going out into a very tough and real world that has no place at all for fantasies. Dennis travels to a small town where a job has been arranged for him at a chemical plant. He becomes involved with a 17 year-old high school student, Sue Ann Stepanek, played by Tuesday Weld. He attracts her by pretending to be an undercover agent. Sue Ann goes along with this pretence but it seems more a way of injecting excitement into her dull and restricted life, much of which she blames on her mother.Alarmed at pollution to the waterways caused by the chemical plant, Dennis plots a little sabotage. He involves Sue Ann in the plan, but this proves to be the catalyst for her to reveal her sociopathic tendencies. She gets her hands on a gun, and has a scheme of her own with matricide in mind. It is a reversal of roles; Sue Ann now takes charge while the increasingly apprehensive and guilt-wracked Dennis is no match for her ruthlessness or cunning. Their feelings for each other change with the changing circumstances. At the end, Dennis is back in prison, a far wiser soul with few illusions left; only Azenauer suspects he is innocent.As the plot gets darker, the film retains a lightness of touch – its wry humour helped by the great screen chemistry between Anthony Perkins and Tuesday Weld – although their roles seemed to be the stereotypes from which both actors were trying to free themselves. In Perkins' case it was from the neurotic, arrested personality of Norman Bates that he had made famous in "Psycho". Tuesday Weld, on the other hand, brings to her role memories of Thalia Menninger, the gap-toothed nymphet she portrayed in "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis". Both their parts in "Pretty Poison", while not parodies of those earlier roles, are beautifully realised variations with a twist. Perkins invests Dennis Pitt with a vulnerability and sensitivity that makes him the most worthwhile character in the movie, especially when contrasted with the meaner-spirited but more 'normal' people around him.Don't be put off by the 1968 date of manufacture – other than superficialities such as cars, hairstyles and lack of iPhones, "Pretty Poison" hasn't really dated, it is still a surprising and rewarding experience that, to paraphrase Dennis Pitt, is waiting for people to discover for themselves.

A fine, atmospheric thriller and an absorbing psychological drama that makes a few cogent sociological observations as well, the aptly titled Pretty Poison is based on Stephen Geller's novel She Let Him Continue and is the only film of note from director Noel Black who gets uniformly persuasive performances from the entire cast especially Beverly Garland and John Randolph, and the finest, most nuanced performances of their careers from Anthony Perkins and Tuesday Weld who as Dennis and Sue Ann are more complex than Bonnie and Clyde, Butch and Sundance, and Thelma and Louise. The highest compliment I can pay to Perkins and Weld is that they are simply believable, and they are a credit to Lorenzo Semple Jr.' script which won the NY Film Critics Circle award for best screenplay. This sleeper along with four other 1968 releases: Night of the Living Dead, Faces, Rosemary's Baby, and Rachel,Rachel, is one of the essentials of 60's American cinema. Released without fanfare by 20th Century Fox, Pretty Poison is rarely shown and the remake is, UNsurprisingly, inferior. The original is available on DVD, and definitely worth your time and money.