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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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