Confessions Of A Psycho Cat
(1968)
Director: Herb
Stanley
Cast: Eileen Lord, Dick Lord, Jake LaMotta
Sometimes, usually when I am bored and my mind starts to
wander, I imagine myself being stalked and hunted by an enemy of some
kind. The enemy could be someone from my past, a particular someone in
the present day, or a totally imaginary one. The setting for the hunt
could be anywhere, from the city I live in to the remote wilderness.
When I imagine the scenario, I find myself eventually getting the upper
hand and ultimately winning the struggle. This is not due to being in
great physical shape - I happen to be out of shape from avoiding
exercise in order to repeatedly sit in front of the television to watch
B movies. But it's because of repeatedly watching B movies that I am
positive I would gain the upper hand in a real-life struggle. You see,
those countless hours of watching action and violence have taught me
what I could do if I found myself being hunted down. For example, I
could take a cab to the entrance of a building, and make an arrangement
with the cab driver to pick me up at the rear entrance, which would
throw off any pursuers on foot who got out of their cars at the
entrance as well. Out in the wilderness, I could do things like leave
footprints in mud, then walk backwards on the footprints out of the
mud, which would hopefully send the pursuer away in the wrong
direction. Even if the pursuer managed to catch up with me, I think I
would do well. I'm not strong, but I know things like stomping on feet
if grabbed from behind, or grabbing a handful of dirt and throwing it
into the pursuer's eyes if I was thrown to the ground during the
struggle.
As you may have concluded from reading the above, I have
high expectations when it comes to movies that involve pursuit
sequences, either as a small part of the movie, or for the bulk of the
running time. Having been educated so much in the art of the chase, it
just seems natural to me what the pursued (or even the pursuer) should
do at any moment, and I get frustrated when they do something both
completely different and wrong-headed. Sometimes I have to wonder if I
would enjoy the movie more if I hadn't seen so many pursuit scenes and
movies in my past. That doesn't mean that I can't enjoy a pursuit movie
where the pursued make wrong-headed decisions. Take the case of Confessions
Of A Psycho Cat, where all of the pursued make extremely dumb
decisions while they are on the run. These scenes are kind of
frustrating, but the movie manages to be very entertaining all the
same, because much of what else is in the movie is utterly deranged, so
much so that the experience is very amusing and keeps you watching in
order to see what kind of insanity is coming next. That's not to say
that there isn't anything genuinely good to be found, but almost the
entire bulk of the entertainment comes from the twisted nature of the
movie.
The setting is New York, and the events of the movie
center around Virginia Marcus (Eileen Lord), a woman that we learn has
had severe mental problems in the past. After her brother leaves her in
order to go on a safari trip to Africa, and despite her getting
psychiatric care, she finally snaps. She
decides to have her own safari; more exactly, she decides to hunt down
human prey right in the Big Apple. To put some spice (and maybe a
little danger) in the game, she decides to hunt down people who have
murdered in their past but have been acquitted of the crime. The three
people she selects are a varied bunch. Charles Freeman is an actor who
slashed to death his girlfriend's husband when he stumbled upon the two
of them together. Buddy is a junkie who accidentally gave his
girlfriend a lethal dose of drugs. And Rocco (played by former boxer
Jake Lamotta) is an ex-wrestler who killed an opponent during a bout.
Gathering the three men together, she explains the game to them,
enticing them by giving them a generous offer. Each man will, at the
beginning of the game, will be given a post-dated check for $100,000.
If any of the men are subsequently able to avoid Virginia and stay
alive for the next 24 hours, they will be able to cash their check.
There is reluctance at first, but in short order all three men agree to
play the game. And in short order as well, the hunt commences...
Now, if you were one of those three men, what would you
do in this situation? Probably the same thing that I would do: Find
some reasonably secure place to hole up for 24 hours, then come out and
enjoy your payday. But none of the men end up doing that. I realize
that there would be no movie if the men didn't go out in the open, but
it's still frustrating to see the men leaving their sanctuaries, and
for the most ridiculous reasons. (Freeman goes out after his agent
calls him about a part in a play available to him, Buddy goes out to
attend a party, and Rocco is moved to get out of his apartment after
getting mocking phone calls from Virginia.) But it's not like this
provides enough material for its 69 minute running time. In a desperate
attempt to reach feature film length, the story comes to a complete
halt a number of times in order to show nudity and soft-core footage.
This is almost entirely at the party Buddy attends, though there is
also a topless hooker in the room that Rocco temporarily holes up in.
There's a funny thing about this footage - not once do you see any of
the principle actors appear with the nudity and sex. It doesn't take a
good eye to figure out that this material wasn't in the original cut,
but was filmed and edited in later in order to spice up things. It may
have been considered quite hot footage in the '60s, but by today's
standards it's quite dull, slow-moving and more posing for the camera
than any erotic movements.
The movie isn't just padded with soft-core footage.
There are other instances where the running time has been padded, like
when Buddy wanders around the New York streets for several minutes, or
when Virginia visits the sanitarium where she once was kept in. But
there are a few other problems that don't have to do with padding.
There are a few audio problems, like some poorly recorded audio at the
party. Another audio problem is with the music, namely some poorly
chosen stock music for some specific scenes. There is also a problem
with the way the movie chooses to tell the story. One of the first
scenes of the movie consists of Buddy walking down the street, suddenly
being attacked by Virginia, and fleeing from the attack. At this point
in the movie, we don't know who is who, so we are unsure of what to
react to all this - are we on the side of the woman, or should we be on
the side of the man being attacked? A few minutes later, Buddy makes it
to the apartment where the party is taking place, and he starts to
explain to his friends (and the audience) just what happened and why.
This is fine, except for one thing: His explanations (shown via
flashback) also include the experiences of Freeman and Rocco,
experiences where Buddy himself was not involved in or anywhere near.
How he knows just what happened to them is never explained.
A problem like that last one may have been a major one
in another movie, but strangely enough in Confessions Of A
Psycho Cat, it's part of the charm. The movie is endearingly
goofy, having so much fun with itself that you find yourself caught up
in its spirit. Though the soft-core footage ultimately becomes a little
tiresome, it at least provides some early laughs, seeing how out of
place it is with the rest of the movie. There are individual outrageous
moments, like when a dog is thrown off the roof of a tall building, and
the camera peeks over the edge so that we can see its long plummet to
the ground. But much of the fun comes from Virginia. To call Eileen
Lord's performance over the top may not be a strong enough term. She
rips into her role with a clenched teeth giggle, snarling away while
barely keeping back her laughter. She enthusiastically throws herself
into whatever the screenplay dictates she should do, such as dress as a
matador and do some bullfighting with one of her targets. Obviously
Lord is having a lot of fun in her role, and it's unbelievable (and a
shame) that this was her only screen credit. At least you can say that
she began and ended her acting career on a high note.
Although the movie goes for a goofy tone, there are
individual moments that are more serious in tone that prove to be
surprisingly effective. While we don't know who is who in that
previously mentioned sequence where Virginia hunts Buddy, it manages to
be a surprisingly tense scene. There is excellent use of hand-held
cameras that rush backwards with great speed as Buddy dashes towards
the lens, quick cuts of dips and shakes to represent the shaky
viewpoint from Buddy's eyes, as well as longer cuts as when Buddy finds
a drainage tunnel and races inside. It climaxes with a struggle in a
pond where the participants really seem to be fighting for their lives,
giving everything that they've got to win and stay afloat at the same
time. Another effective sequence is the flashback where Freeman slashes
to death his girlfriend's husband. Except for background music, there
is actually no audio to be heard. The reason it is effective is that it
forces us to observe the visuals more closely than if we were to use
the audio as a crutch. When the camera swoops down towards the face of
the victim, we are forced to fully absorb his tortured look, and it
provides a genuine chill, especially since it's surrounded by all that
previously mentioned goofiness. Come on, confess it; by now it sounds
like your kind of movie. I must confess that I found it that way.
Check
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See also: Overkill, Raw Courage, Survival Run
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