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From my favorite movies..

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

Stefanie Powers got more than she was wishing for when she meets and stays in the home of a wealthy widow, whose husband was a great composer. Powers is there to do research on the latter in order to obtain her master's degree; however, she encounters much more as the film descends quickly into the macabre.James Olson is the paralyzed son in this way over-the-top drama. Margaritta Scott does quite an imitation of Joan Fontaine here. She sounds just like her, and she can become quite eerie as well.Powers realizes quickly that it's time to exit as all sorts of strange things seem to happen. There is absolute mayhem, drug addiction, murder, seduction, you name it.Of course, we have the resolution of the twin. Normally, a cop-out, but the film is so dreadful by then that you just don't care.

Taking a look at a DVD sellers page,I spotted a Hammer Horror that I had never heard about before.With having been very interested in seeing Hammer take on the Psycho Thriller,I got set to see the studio reach their crescendo.The plot:Writing a thesis on deceased classical composer Henry Ryman, Susan Roberts decides to do research on the thesis by visiting Ryman's family,and staying at their villa in France (talk about going the extra mile for a thesis!) Arriving at the villa,Susan is greeted by Henry's wife Danielle,and introduced to their wheelchair-bound son Georges.As she begins researching on an unfinished crescendo that Henry wrote,Susan begins to fall in love for Georges,who suffers from seizures,and uses medicine that causes Georges to have black outs.During the blackouts,Georges experiences horrific nightmares,which involves him having sex with a women,who are both killed by a duplicate of Georges.Feeling unsettled after she catches a glimpse of someone who looks just like Henry playing a composition,Susan begins to fear that the Ryman's are keeping something secret from her,when the family maid suddenly disappears,and Danielle orders for the pool to be emptied.View on the film:Opening with a surreal dream sequence, director Alan Gibson & cinematographer Paul Beeson compose an extraordinary ,operatic Giallo-style Horror Chiller.Despite taking place in one building,Gibson & Beeson gives the title a strikingly tense atmosphere,with elegantly stylised tracking shots locking Susan in the villa,and lavish "corner" shots subtly showing Susan being unable to get a clear view of the Ryman's.Filmed on location in France,Gibson basks the film in vibrant primary colours,which along with giving the dream sequences an off- beat mood,also heats up the movie for the light blues and bright red splashes of blood to shiver across the screen.For the dazzling dream sequences,the screenplay by Jimmy Sangster/ Alfred Shaughnessy & Michael "Witchfinder General" Reeves dips Hammer back into their Film Noir roots,as Georges fragmented memories of the dreams leads him to questioning how "real" Susan is being.Whilst the excuse to get Susan to meet the Ryman's is a bit of a stretch,the writers make up for it by cleverly continuing Hammer Horror's theme of women being the main holders of power. The writers also superbly cross proto-Slasher hack & slash terror with a psychologically bleak Giallo edge,with each murder/disappearance leading to Susan getting closer to uncovering the Ryman's secret,which leads to the writers unleashing a wonderfully wicked twist ending.Looking gorgeous when entering the villa, Stefanie Powers gives an excellent performance as Susan Roberts,with Powers delicately displaying a mix of care and fear towards Georges,whilst also giving Susan a gripping sense of curiosity.Giving the challenge of carrying the twist,James Olson gives a great performance as Georges,as Olson wraps Georges in a warming sense of nervousness which is shattered by the scrambled nature that the dreams are turning Georges brain into,as Susan gets set to hear the Ryman's final crescendo.

Hammer studios were obviously most famous for their horror flicks, but they did produce some work in other genres; and the thriller genre was one of their strongest outside horror, especially during the sixties with films such as Paranoiac and A Taste of Fear. I had rather high hopes for this one going into it despite its poor reputation simply for the fact that Hammer produced it and they have produced some good thrillers; such as those mentioned, but unfortunately it would seem that the studio's success in this genre didn't continue into the seventies as Crescendo, despite some good moments and positive elements, is a largely lacklustre thriller. The plot focuses on a young girl who goes to stay at a house in France to help her with a thesis. The house used to belong to a famous music composer but is now owned by his wife and son after the composer's death. The girl soon gets to meet the family as well as the staff and soon it becomes apparent that not everything is as it should be; mostly because everyone in the house is a weirdo!The film's main problem is that it largely fails to be interesting; the story is derivative and not all that interesting anyway, and this isn't compensated for by the characters (who are also largely uninteresting) so we end up with a film that doesn't fit the 'thriller' bill very well. Most of the film takes place in an old, large house; although director Alan Gibson doesn't really make best use of this in terms of atmosphere. The director would go on to make the latter two films in the popular Dracula series - the fun Dracula A.D. 1972 and the disappointing Satanic Rites of Dracula and both of these lacked atmosphere too. Crescendo was apparently made for TV and this is pretty obvious as it's all quite tame; there are actually a few murders in this film but we never get to see much blood and they're not very brutal. Nobody in the cast particularly stands out either; Stefanie Powers is the biggest standout in the lead role, though not particularly for her performance. There is a twist at the end which comes as something of a surprise, but as the build up to it is quite dull; the twist doesn't come off all that well. Overall, I can't say I enjoyed this film much and I'd only recommend it to Hammer Horror completists.

In musical terms, a crescendo is an increase in intensity as a piece nears its end. In this little-seen Hammer thriller from 1970, the title has a double meaning – there's the musical meaning as just described, but there's also the fact that the film-makers try to intensify the film's suspense and air of mystery as it draws to its climax. Directed by Alan Gibson, and written by Hammer regulars Jimmy Sangster and Alfred Shaughnessy, this busy thriller is a departure from the Gothic horror entries most associated with the studio. It feels much more akin to a Hitchcock-style piece, with Psycho the most obvious source of inspiration.Music student Susan Roberts (Stephanie Powers) visits the home of a deceased composer in order to write a thesis on his life and works. The home is an elegant but remote villa in France, peopled by the various family members and housekeepers of the dead man. It isn't long before Susan realises that she is surrounded by some pretty weird characters. The composer's widow Danielle (Margaretta Scott), the nymphomaniac housemaid Lillianne (Jane Lapotaire), and the sinister butler Carter (Joss Ackland) in particular seem strange. But at least the composer's son Georges (James Olson) – a wheelchair-bound drug addict – offers a sense of normality to the place, as he helps Susan through her first days. Alas, even Georges turns out to have disturbing demons of his own – there's his recurring nightmare about making love to a rotting corpse for starters, not to mention the fact that his disability seems to come and go when it pleases. Weirder still, his outlandish nightmares usually end with him being shot by an identical double who creeps up on him with a shot-gun. Seems Georges' drug-fuelled mind is plagued by some pretty bizarre desires and phobias. Soon enough, Susan realises she is effectively the prisoner of these assorted junkies and weirdos – but her predicament gets even scarier when the villa is plunged into panic courtesy of a series of gruesome murders.Crescendo features some sex and drug abuse that was daring for the time of its release (though time has certainly made such scenes seem dated). Apart from that, it is fairly derivative stuff – the links with Psycho (sane but vulnerable female finds herself at the mercy of weird person/people with identity issues) are there for all to see. Heck, Crescendo even borrows liberally from earlier Hammer pictures (Paranoiac and Maniac, for instance), therefore making itself almost a rip-off of a rip-off! The performances are OK, with Powers holding things together quite well as the only truly normal character with whom the audience can identify. Debutant Jane Lapotaire spends a good deal of the film naked, but her character is so unattractive and irritating that it makes her nudity feel peculiarly un-erotic. Olson handles the role of the disabled drug addict reasonably well. If you're a veteran of these kinds of movies, you might see the twist coming before it arrives, but others will probably be pleasantly surprised by the film's climactic ingenuity. On the whole, Crescendo is passable but unremarkable fare – it's a hard one to track down, but is probably worth a look if you can find it.