I Watch Films: Diary Of A Madman
Diary Of A Madman
Simon Cordier (Vincent Price) is a 19th century French magistrate and widower. He encounters a murderer in prison who is due to be executed. The man blames an outside force, the Horla, then attacks him, and is killed by Cordier in self defence. After this Cordier starts hearing voices and discovering things appearing that were in locked cabinets.
He goes to an alienist (a therapist) who suggests he gets out and meets people, maybe takes up a hobby. So he goes to an art gallery, and while admiring a painting of a ballerina, meets the model, Odette. He admits he used to sculpt clay and she volunteers to model for the extravagant price of 10 francs an hour.
She is married to the painter, but his career hasn’t taken off so they’re very poor, which is why she has broken her promise to only model for her husband. Cordier is making a bust of a laughing woman, so although she loosens her top to expose shoulders and decolletage, she’s not in the nip (Price suavely deals with this in what could have been a very awkward scene).
However the Horla makes a reappearance. As Cordier falls in love with Odette, the Horla tries to convince him she is just a golddigger (which she probably – but not absolutely proven – is). The sculpture is transformed from laughing to scowling (supposedly she looks sly and conniving) and then one more time as Cordier finds himself at the centre of a murder.
Watch This: Though a stylised melodramatic period piece,
it works as a horror
Don’t Watch This: Ambiguity, especially through an awkward
framing device (the reading of the diary) just leaves you cold
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