The Screaming Skull (USA, 1958)

Not the best slice of cinematic ham to be found on the public domain shelf, at least not in the bleached and savagely cut PD versions generally found online and on cheap DVDs.

Loosely based, if uncredited, on a short and forgotten horror story, also titled The Screaming Skull (1908),* by the now generally forgotten American-Italian author Francis Marion Crawford (2 Aug 1854 – 9 Apr 1909), the script came from the American Samoan playwright John Alexander Kneubuhl (2 Jul 1920 – 20 Feb 1992),** whose time in Hollywood was spent mostly writing for TV — he created, for example, the character of Dr. Miguelito Loveless for the series The Wild Wild West (1965-69) and wrote five of the ten episodes the good doctor appeared in. Kneubuhl's narrative in The Screaming Skull also makes free use of plot points cribbed from Gaslight (1944 / trailer) and Rebecca (1940 / trailer), both of which are indefinitely better films that also had/have noticeably larger budgets and better acting.

* Crawford's short has been adapted again since: in 1973, it was adapted as a not very scary, shot-on-video, ABC TV movie by Gloria Monty (12 Aug 1921 – 29 Mar 2006) for the forgotten five-film series The Classic Ghosts (new trailer), originally broadcast within the scope of ABC's late-night Wide World of Mystery (1973-76) slot. 

** Among Kneubuhl's rare filmscripts, his mostly notable projects for a wasted life readers, aside from The Screaming Skull, would be The True Story of Lynn Stuart (1958 / full film) and the exceptionally cheesy and cheery Two on a Guillotine (1965 / full film). 

Trailer to

The Screaming Skull (1958):

Actor Alex Nicol* (20 Jan 1916 – 29 Jul 2001), who felt that his thespian career was stalling a bit when he shot this film, made his directorial debut with The Screaming Skull. An independent, low-budget production, the B&W flick was eventually released by API on double bills, usually with Earth vs. the Spider (1958 / trailer) or, as below at the Majestic in Abilene, Planet Texas, with Terror from the Year 5,000 (1958 / trailer).

 

The Casper cartoon that was screened above,

Fright from Wrong (1956):

Nicol is also present in the film as the slightly simpleminded and unevenly convincing gardener, Mickey. Although his character might seem to be the unhealthily loyal servant ala Judith Anderson's Mrs Danvers (see: Hitchcock's Rebecca), his loyally ultimately plays out in a more positive direction.

* Nicol, looking slightly unfamiliar with his longer, lanky hair, tended to play manly men and did a lot of trash in his days. His only other directorial project we ever found interesting is the "incompetent to perfunctory" Point of Terror (1971 / trailer), with Dyanne "Ilsa" Thorne. Nicol himself is found in Paul Hunt's The Clones (1976 / trailer), Paul Leder's hilarious Ape (1976 / trailer), the obscure The Night God Screamed (1971 / full film), Roger Corman's great Bloody Mama (1970 / trailer), and 5 Branded Women (1960 / full movie), among other fun stuff.

Although set in a mansion in the US of A — a long-gone structure on the former Huntington Hartford Estate — the movie is redolent of the gothic horrors of Italy in which a woman in a flowing white nightgown wanders around a huge, deserted structure endangered by some mysterious non-corporal or corporal threat. But, as The Screaming Skull is a bit older than the golden age of Italo gothic horror, the violence is less graphic, there is no blood, the effects are even cheesier, the lead woman far less ethereal, and the film on a whole lot less enthralling.

The plot is simple, if not familiar: recently widowed Eric Whitlock (John Hudson [24 Jan 1919 – 8 Apr 1996] of Hue and Cry [1947] and Mohawk [1956, with Allison Hayes]) brings his newly wed "impressionable" wife, Jenni Whitlock (Peggy Webber of Orson Welles's Macbeth [1948 / trailer], Hitchcock's The Wrong Man [1956 / trailer], and The Space Children [1958 / trailer]) home to the estate that he inherited when his previous wife passed away. Is the ghost of Eric's first wife out to do the new wife harm? Or is Jenni, who once spent time in an asylum, once again losing her marbles? Or could there be another, more prosaic reason behind the reappearing screaming skull and the thumps in the night?

Actually, the moment one of the tertiary characters lets it drop that loving hubby Eric, who drives a mid-50s Mercedes-Benz 300SL gullwing, only inherited his wife's house and not her money, and that former asylum-patient Jenni is independently wealthy, the viewer has few doubts about what's going on, "real" ghost or not. But then, perhaps one should take into consideration that Eric's dead wife has more reasons to be angry at Eric than at Jenni...

At roughly 88 minutes in length, The Screaming Skull doesn't overstay its welcome – but, oddly, it nevertheless does drag a bit. Of the small cast of five, only two — Russ Conway (25 Apr 1913 – 12 Jan 2009), as the staid and calm Rev. Edward Snow, and Tony Johnson (whose only other film appearance is in the intriguing Crime & Punishment USA [1959 / scene]), as his wife Mrs. Snow — actually convince as their characters. Hudson is okay as Eric, but he is also playing a relatively bland '50s husband and thus hardly stands out; nor, for that matter, does Nicol as the long-time gardener, whom Nicol plays as a generically mental deficient. As for Peggy Webber, who was three months pregnant when she filmed the role, she truly fills her white bra and nightgown admirably but is downright terrible as the one-note nervous snowflake Jenni. True, the characters are all stereotypes, but even the worst one-note character can be intriguing or likable if the acting is done well — which it isn't in The Screaming Skull. 

The Screaming Skull —

the full, colorized film:

Visually, there seems to be a few nice dolly shots in the movie — the cinematographer was B-movie staple Floyd Crosby (12 Dec 1899 – 30 Sept 1985), who actually began his career as the cameraman on F.W. Murnau's Tabu: A Story of the South Seas (1931 / full film) — but unluckily the PD version of the movie we watched was so bleached that any technical finesse or moody lighting was basically reduced to visual atonality. Thus, it is perhaps unjust to criticize the weak atmosphere and lack of dread the movie displays, but, unless you happen to find a restored version somewhere — is there one? — you ain't gonna get anything else. (We haven't watched the colorized version above so, who knows, maybe you get more in that one.)

In any event, The Screaming Skull is far from a forgotten or underappreciated film of note. Not essential viewing, but fun enough for a rainy day.

Two trivial points of note: 

1. The Screaming Skull does open with a notable, if obviously time-stretching scene that is good for a good giggle, in which a coffin is shown and a voiceover explains that the film is so scary that all viewers are insured for a paid burial should they die of fright. A card in the coffin reads: "Reserved for You."

2. The gravestone of Eric's wife features a version of the famous death mask of L'Inconnue de la Seine, or the Unknown Woman of the Seine. The death mask was taken from the body of an unknown dead woman fished from the Seine in the late 1880s, and the mask went on to become, for decades, the in-thing to have hanging on your wall if you were hip. You can still easily get a copy of it today (on e-bay for example).