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Greetings, and welcome to VIEWING THE CLASSICS. Here you'll find capsule reviews of vintage movies from the early days of cinema through the 1970s, with a special emphasis on sci-fi, horror, and mystery movies. Be sure to check out the Pages links, where you can find a Film Index of all my reviews, links to the reviews organized by cast members, directors, and other contributors, and links to my reviews of the films of talented young director Joshua Kennedy.

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Tuesday, June 11, 2013

It! (1967)

Starring Roddy McDowall, Jill Haworth, Paul Maxwell, Aubrey Richards, Ernest Clark
Directed by Herbert J. Leder
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)

A mentally unbalanced museum employee discovers that one of the museum's statues may be the legendary Golem, and seeks a way to bring it back to life.

I'm very fond of this movie, an exciting mixture of sci-fi and horror with Roddy McDowall excellent in the leading role.  It had to have been a difficult part to play, as in some scenes he's perfectly rational, and in others completely whacko, but still manages to evoke audience sympathy at times.  The staging of the statue's rebirth scenes is very well-done, and the lighting, photography, and editing cleverly enhance its presence as a foreboding figure.  Where the film's a bit weaker is in its screenplay, which borrows a bit too much from Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho to explain McDowall's strange unbalanced behavior.

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