Death at Love House

[arashi]

While perusing the mall this past weekend I came across a boxset of 4 movies packaged together called "Ghost stories" or something like that. At $7 and noticing one movie starred Kate Jackson, I couldn't pass it up.

Death at Love House is Aaron Spelling flick aired on TV in 1975. I have to wonder if Kate got deja vu. She plays a woman in a husband-wife writer team. (The husband is played by Robert Wagner). They move in to an old mansion, the home of a former silent movie star and former mistress of the husband's dead father. Things start to get "spooky" and after one failed murder attempt involving opening a gas line in a radiator (in a room with burning candles no less!) Kate starts to believe the ghost is trying to kill her to get to her husband who is a dead ringer for his father. She becomes even more alarmed when he starts to get possessive and defensive of the dead actress. Things actually turn out to be much creepier in an "ewwww gross" kind of way and the ending is pretty lame. There's the threat of witchcraft laced throughout the movie as well, but in a real inconclusive kind of way. There is one genuinely creepy moment though where the husband is viewing a silent movie starring the actress and she starts talking to him from the screen.

There are a number of real glamour-era movie stars in it, Sylvia Sydney, Joan Blondell and Dorothy Lamour. John Carradine has a small part as well.

There were a lot of things to laugh at otherwise. The 1930's actress is alarmingly 1970s in style and dress. At the end of the movie movers are trying to put her GIGANTIC portrait in the back of a tiny van, which they cut away from before you can see them make the attempt. I'm at work otherwise I'd throw up a few screencaps. If you can find it for cheap, it's worth the price.

I have to believe though that if Dan had done this (and admittedly he kind of did with 1970PT and NoDS) it would have been a LOT better.

[Midnite]

IINM, this set also contains the 70s' "Dominique," with the title character played by DS alum Jean Simmons.  JS plays a socialite who, after hanging herself, returns to exact revenge and whose one song keeps mysteriously playing on the piano.  Naturally, her mean hubby has her coffin exhumed to check for a body.  Maybe the writers of this one were Angelique fans?

[David]

The same DVD distributor also offers a 4 movie set called Evil Places.
It includes Satan's School For Girls with Kate (original version)  and  Silent Night Bloody Night with Lisa Richards.

David

[Mysterious Benefactor]

On April 25, 1975, production of this movie was announced with much fanfare in Variety, under its original title The Shrine Of Lorna Love (with the intention of it being one of ABC's Big-Event movies of the upcoming '75-'76 season):

Not only was it a big deal because of the casting of "Classic Hollywood" stars like Sylvia Sydney and Dorothy Lamour, but because it was being shot at the Harold Lloyd estate in Beverly Hills just before all of its mementos and furnishings were to be auctioned off due to the estate's huge financial problems. Though, as is often the case, the finished product didn't quite turn out the way ABC had hoped it would, and the movie was shelved. It didn't actually air until what back then was the throwaway slot of the first Friday in September '76 - and then only because Kate Jackson was in it and there was huge hype surrounding the upcoming premiere of Charlie's Angels. And while many reviews were certainly less than flattering (citing "illogic of action" and "dreary cliches of awkward dialogue"), interestingly, several others were actually quite favorable (complimenting both Jackson and Wagner's performances in "a good old-fashioned Hollywood whodunnit").

And I totally agree that some of the similarities between this film and NoDS are striking. 

[arashi]

Midnite - That one was on my list to check out next!

David - Whoa! I had no idea Lisa Richards was in that! I think I have Silent Night Bloody night in another set. These cheap-o sets are great for finding DS actor flicks. (and other Dan Curtis vehicles).

MB - Thanks for all the info on the movie! I had an idea due to what it looked like that a good amount on $$ spent on the movie and  it was meant to be bigger than it was. That portrait couldn't have been cheap, and the make up at the end was pretty well done for TV.

[Gothick]

MB--it's amazing that you saved that ad!  Very cool.

I remember the original broadcast of Death at Love House fairly clearly.  The set-up for the story was quite promising but as I recall it, the whole thing fizzled out with a rather limp ending.  I do remember some great sets and wardrobe and some fun bits and pieces here and there, and it would be fun to see it again.

I wonder whether another telefilm in which Sylvia Sydney appeared at this time, "Do Not Fold, Spindle or Mutilate," will ever surface again.  I remember taking great delight in the broadcast of that movie and my Mom looking on with furrowed brow saying something like "What's up with all the old biddies?"  I'm afraid that to this day she finds my adulation of old Hollywood dvias rather puzzling.

G.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

MB--it's amazing that you saved that ad!  Very cool.

Well, you're talking to someone who back then saved everything that he came across that was even remotely DS-related.