Review: Tormented

Richard Carlson is a jazz pianist named Tom, whose wandering eye is about to bite him in the butt. About to marry the lovely Meg (Lugene Sanders), his mistress Vi (Juli Reding) threatens to expose their affair when Tom wants to break it off. A lighthouse accident and refusal of rescue later, and Tom finds himself tormented by the ghostly presence of Vi. Joe Turkel plays the ferryman who brings Vi to Tom at the outset, and subsequently blackmails him. Susan Gordon plays Meg’s young sister Sandy, who might just know more about what has been going on than anyone else realises.

 

The films of director/producer Bert I. Gordon are somewhat infamous but generally not very well-regarded C-and-D-grade cheapies generally in the monster movie/creature feature realm (“The Amazing Colossal Man”, “Empire of the Ants”, “Food of the Gods” etc.) According to my IMDb stats, this 1960 film is my first excursion into the world of Mr. Gordon. Despite not having the best reputation amongst the few who seem to have seen it (it’s not one of Gordon’s more notorious works), I’ve gotta say IMDb users are dead wrong on this one. A mixture of creepy, silly, campy, interesting, and funny, this one worked for me.

 

It’s closer to B-grade than C or D, with particularly nice B&W cinematography by Ernest Laszlo (“Apache”, “Inherit the Wind”, “Judgement at Nuremberg”, “The Last Sunset”), and a really strange atmosphere. If you like “The Twilight Zone” and the works of Edgar Allan Poe, you might just enjoy this one. In fact, the only debit here for me is the insanely intrusive, loud jazz score by Albert Glasser (“The Amazing Colossal Man”, “Confessions of an Opium Eater”) and Calvin Jackson. Even though our lead character is a jazz pianist, the score just doesn’t work and hits all the wrong notes (it’s not a piano score at all).

 

The plot is really interesting and underrated lead actor Richard Carlson is solid. In fact, the cast on the whole is solid, including Lugene Sanders (who is still alive in 2024 but only made one feature film and a couple of TV appearances around the same time) and adorable little Susan Gordon (the director’s then 9 year-old daughter who sadly passed away in 2011) who handles some tough stuff really, really well. Joe Turkel’s adoption of late 50s/early 60s youth lingo isn’t convincing, but he does bring the necessary smarm as the creepy blackmailer. Even though Carlson is a bit of a jerk from time to time, the characters are interesting enough that you genuinely care how this is all going to go. Yes, Lillian Adams’ blind lady is a touch corny, but she’s also really interesting for being the only other character who can sense the ghost’s presence. There’s a funny use of footprints in the sand to show the presence of a ghost, though only Carlson can ‘see’ this ghost. Things get real loopy when the dead woman’s disembodied ghost head (!) starts lecturing Carlson on fidelity etc. It’s funny stuff and in my view I’m pretty sure it’s intentional. However, as cheesy and amusing as this starts, boy does it head into some dark, interesting territory for a 1960s cheapie with young Susan Gordon’s character going into some interesting directions.

 

Strange, sometimes funny, and certainly underrated film with solid performances and some really interesting twists and turns. Kind of a supernatural (or is it all psychological?) film noir, this one’s worth seeking out so long as you’re not expecting A-material or budget. This is pure B-material and filmmaking but I don’t mean that pejoratively at all. That jazz score is absolutely terrible, however. The screenplay is by George Worthing Yates (“Them!”, “The Amazing Colossal Man”), from a story by the director, and has a pretty appropriate ending too.

 

Rating: B-