Asylum (1972 film)
Encyclopedia
Asylum is a 1972 British horror film
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...

 made by Amicus Productions
Amicus Productions
Amicus Productions is a British film production company, based at Shepperton Studios, England. It was founded by American producer and screenwriter Milton Subotsky and Max Rosenberg.-Horror:...

. The film was directed by Roy Ward Baker
Roy Ward Baker
Roy Ward Baker , born Roy Horace Baker, was an English film director, credited as Roy Baker for much of his career. His best known film is A Night to Remember which won a Golden Globe for Best English-Language Foreign Film in 1959...

, produced by Milton Subotsky
Milton Subotsky
Milton Subotsky was an American TV and film writer/producer. In 1964, in England, he formed Amicus Productions with Max J Rosenberg.Together they produced a number of low budget science fiction and horror films....

, and scripted by Robert Bloch
Robert Bloch
Robert Albert Bloch was a prolific American writer, primarily of crime, horror and science fiction. He is best known as the writer of Psycho, the basis for the film of the same name by Alfred Hitchcock...

 (who adapted four of his own short stories for the screenplay).

It is a horror portmanteau film, one of several produced by Amicus during the 1960s to 1970s. Others were Dr Terror's House of Horrors: Torture Garden
Torture Garden (film)
Torture Garden is a 1967 British horror film made by Amicus Productions. It was directed by Freddie Francis and scripted by Robert Bloch. It stars Burgess Meredith, Jack Palance, Michael Ripper, Beverly Adams, Peter Cushing, Maurice Denham, Ursula Howells, Michael Bryant and Barbara Ewing...

; Tales from the Crypt
Tales from the Crypt (film)
Tales from the Crypt is a British horror movie, made in 1972 by Amicus Productions. It is an anthology film consisting of five separate segments, based on stories from EC Comics. Only two of the stories, however, are actually from EC's Tales from the Crypt...

; The House That Dripped Blood
The House That Dripped Blood
The House That Dripped Blood is a 1970 British horror anthology film directed by Peter Duffell and distributed by Amicus Productions. It stars Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Nyree Dawn Porter, Denholm Elliott, and Jon Pertwee...

; The Vault of Horror
The Vault of Horror (film)
The Vault of Horror is a British portmanteau horror film made in 1973 by Amicus Productions. Like its predecessor, Tales from the Crypt, it is based on stories from the EC Comics series written by Al Feldstein and Bill Gaines...

; and From Beyond the Grave
From Beyond the Grave
From Beyond the Grave is a 1974 British anthology horror film from Amicus Productions, directed by horror director Kevin Connor, produced by Milton Subotsky and based on stories by R. Chetwynd-Hayes...

. (Tales That Witness Madness
Tales That Witness Madness
Tales That Witness Madness is a 1973 British horror film produced by Norman Priggen, directed by veteran horror director Freddie Francis, and written by actress Jennifer Jayne....

was a similar film from a different company.)

Framing Story

Dr Martin (Robert Powell
Robert Powell
Robert Powell is an English television and film actor, probably most famous for his title role in Jesus of Nazareth and as the fictional secret agent Richard Hannay...

) arrives at a secluded asylum "for the incurably insane" to be interviewed for a job by the wheelchair-using, authoritarian Dr Lionel Rutherford (Patrick Magee
Patrick Magee (actor)
Patrick Magee was a Northern Irish actor best known for his collaborations with Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter, as well as his appearances in horror films and in Stanley Kubrick's films A Clockwork Orange and Barry Lyndon.-Early life:He was born Patrick McGee in Armagh, County Armagh, Northern...

). Rutherford explains that he owes his current incapacitation to an attack by an inmate. Rutherford reveals his unorthodox plan to determine Martin's suitability for the post of head Doctor. One of the asylum's current inmates is Dr B. Starr, the former head doctor who underwent a complete mental breakdown. Martin is to interview the inmates of the asylum to deduce which one is Dr Starr. If his choice is correct Rutherford will "consider" him for the post.

The attendant Max Reynolds (Geoffrey Bayldon
Geoffrey Bayldon
Geoffrey Bayldon is a British actor. After playing roles in many dramas including Shakespeare, he became known for portraying the title role of the children's series Catweazle , after turning down the opportunity to play both the First and Second Doctors in the long-running BBC science fiction...

) admits Martin through the security door to the inmates' solitary confinement cells where he interviews each in turn.

"Frozen Fear"

Bonnie (Barbara Parkins
Barbara Parkins
Barbara Parkins is a Canadian television and film actress.-Early life and rise to stardom:Parkins was born in Vancouver, British Columbia. At the age of sixteen, she and her mother moved to Los Angeles, where she enrolled at Hollywood High School and began to study acting, tap, ballet, and...

) recounts the plot to murder Ruth (Sylvia Sims), the wealthy wife of her lover Walter (Richard Todd
Richard Todd
Richard Todd OBE was an Irish-born British stage and film actor and soldier.-Early life:Richard Todd was born as Richard Andrew Palethorpe-Todd in Dublin, Ireland. His father, Andrew William Palethorpe Todd, was an Irish physician and an international Irish rugby player who gained three caps for...

). Ruth is a possessive heiress who studies voodoo, and this interest stands in the way of Bonnie and Walter being together.

"The Weird Tailor"

Bruno (Barry Morse
Barry Morse
Herbert "Barry" Morse was an Anglo-Canadian actor of stage, screen, and radio best known for his roles in the ABC television series The Fugitive and the British sci-fi drama Space: 1999...

) recounts how poverty forced him to accept the unusual request of a Mr Smith (Peter Cushing
Peter Cushing
Peter Wilton Cushing, OBE was an English actor, known for his many appearances in Hammer Films, in which he played the handsome but sinister scientist Baron Frankenstein and the vampire hunter Dr. Van Helsing, amongst many other roles, often appearing opposite Christopher Lee, and occasionally...

) to produce an elaborate suit of clothing from a mysterious, scintillating, fabric that can animate
Animate
is the retailing arm of MOVIC and is the largest retailer of anime, games, and manga in Japan. The first and headquarters store of Animate opened in 1983 and is located in Ikebukuro, a district in Tokyo, Japan. Currently, there are 38 Animate stores in Japan, and two in Taipei, Taiwan...

 anything, including the dead.

After learning what the suit will be used for, Bruno fights Smith and accidentally kills him. He returns with the unsold suit. His wife Anna (Anne Firbank) dresses their store mannequin
Mannequin
A mannequin is an often articulated doll used by artists, tailors, dressmakers, and others especially to display or fit clothing...

 in the suit and its true powers are revealed.

"Lucy Comes To Stay"

The ebullient Barbara (Charlotte Rampling
Charlotte Rampling
Charlotte Rampling, OBE is an English actress. Her career spans four decades in English-language as well as French and Italian cinema.- Early life :...

) informs Martin she has been in an asylum before. After her release from that asylum she was closely monitored at home by her brother George (James Villiers
James Villiers
James Michael Hyde Villiers was a British character actor and a familiar face on British television...

) and a nurse, Miss Higgins (Megs Jenkins
Megs Jenkins
Muguette Mary "Megs" Jenkins was an English character actress who appeared in British films and television programmes.-Life and career:...

). This frustrated existence is relieved when her mischievous friend Lucy (Britt Ekland
Britt Ekland
Britt-Marie Ekland is a Swedish actress and singer, and a long time resident of the United Kingdom. She is best known for her roles as a Bond girl in The Man with the Golden Gun, and in the British cult horror film The Wicker Man, as well as her marriage to actor Peter Sellers, and her...

) comes to visit.

"Mannikins of Horror"

Finally Martin interviews Dr Byron (Herbert Lom
Herbert Lom
Herbert Lom is a Czech film actor, best known for his role as former Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus in the Pink Panther movie series.-Life and career:...

) who holds Rutherford in deep contempt. Byron explains he is working towards soul transference with a small automaton
Automaton
An automaton is a self-operating machine. The word is sometimes used to describe a robot, more specifically an autonomous robot. An alternative spelling, now obsolete, is automation.-Etymology:...

 whose head is a likeness of his own, and shows Martin several earlier models. Byron plans to "will" his mannequin to life, and explains the interior of the robot is organic, a miniaturised version of his own viscera. Martin concludes his interview and Max shows him downstairs to deliver his judgement to Rutherford.

Byron successfully brings his mannequin to life: it makes its way to Rutherford's office and kills him with a surgical knife. Then, Martin destroys the mannequin and seeks help from Max Reynolds, and Dr. Starr's true identity is revealed.

Soundtrack

Though Douglas Gamley
Douglas Gamley
Douglas Gamley was an Australian film composer, who worked on British and American films.He was particularly influenced by Modest Mussorgsky, creating a full orchestral version of his Pictures at an Exhibition, and adapting his Night on Bald Mountain for his score for Asylum...

 is credited as having composed the music for this film, the majority of the score is drawn from public domain
Public domain
Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...

 pieces by Modest Mussorgsky
Modest Mussorgsky
Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky was a Russian composer, one of the group known as 'The Five'. He was an innovator of Russian music in the romantic period...

. In particular Night on Bald Mountain
Night on Bald Mountain
Night on Bald Mountain is a composition by Modest Mussorgsky that exists in, at least, two versions—a seldom performed 1867 version or a later and very popular "fantasy for orchestra" arranged by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, A Night on the Bare Mountain , based on the vocal score of the "Dream Vision...

(heard over the opening and closing credits). Selections from his Pictures at an Exhibition
Pictures at an Exhibition
Pictures at an Exhibition is a suite in ten movements composed for piano by Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky in 1874.The suite is Mussorgsky's most famous piano composition, and has become a showpiece for virtuoso pianists...

are also used – "Gnomus" is heard over both an early display of artworks depicting lunatics and medical practice
Medical practice
A medical practice or practice of medicine is the practice of medicine, as performed by a medical practitioner—a physician...

and during the sequence of Byron's mannequin coming to life and making its way downstairs. The booming crescendo of "The Hut on Hen's Legs" is heard over the sequence where the tailor's dummy is animated and rampages in Bruno's shop.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK