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• Strait Jacket - Review No. 3

  • Bruce Reber
  • 10/25/11

  I have reviewed the campy horror film "Strait Jacket" (1964) starring Joan Crawford 2 times already and I'm posting my third. I saw it again on TCM 10/24/11, and it seems every time I watch it I enjoy it more and more. Director William Castle used gimmicks to draw the audience into his other films (i.e. flying skeletons, buzzers under the seats and ghosts that could only be seen by wearing special glasses), but felt he didn't need a gimmick with "Strait Jacket", since the spectacle of Crawford trying to look 20 years younger than she was by wearing a wig, tight dress and those awful jangly earrings was enough of a gimmick already. Maybe it could have been helped by a gimmick - whenever Lucy Harbin (Crawford) swung that huge axe while she was beheading one of her victims, several severed heads could either come rolling down the aisles or fly across the theater. Or maybe a Crawford look-alike tied up in a strait-jacket screaming her lungs out running around the theater at various intervals in the film. At the end when Lucy's daughter Carol, who was the one doing all of the murders is committed to an insane asylum, Lucy says she must go stay with her because Carol needs her. Why would she want to go back again after 20 years? The guilt over making Carol who she was I guess. I'd still like to know where Lucy got those god awful earrings. Even a gypsy wouldn't be caught dead wearing those things!

• Joan is Awesome

  • Tim
  • 10/24/11

  You can put Joan in any movie even a bad B-movie, and she still pulls it off. No acadamy awards here folks but still worth the time to sit back with the kids and enjoy.

• straight jacket

  • claudette McCormack
  • 10/24/11

  Everyone in this movie is dressed for the era, (1960s), but Joan has a 1940s hairdo, dress, and shoes. She looks like a murdering Mildred Pierce! Still lots of campy fun though.

• Great camp!

  • Pam
  • 10/23/11

  Seriously? What's up with all the negativity here people? Saw this recently and thought it was a real hoot. Genuine suspense, Joan Crawford at her campiest best - what more could you ask for?

• Strait-Jacket (1964)

  • James Higgins
  • 6/10/10

  Joan Crawford gives a delightfully melodramatic and campy performance makes this one worth watching. The story is suspenseful and it always held my interest. It’s a bit corny and it's overdone in just about every way, but that is part of it’s appeal.

• Review of Strait Jacket - Part 2

  • Bruce Reber
  • 10/27/09

  I saw "Strait Jacket" starring Joan Crawford again on TCM Tuesday 10/20/09 and would like to expand on my first review. The sight of Joan (I think she was about 60 at the time) wearing that tight fitting dress, cheap wig, gaudy earrings, and of course that spooky face of hers is to me at the same time laughable and a bit pathetic. I also said in my first review that she killed her lover (in fact it was both her husband and HIS lover that she treated to the business end of an axe). I also noticed some shameful product placement (in the kitchen there's a six-pack of Pepsi Cola sitting on the counter). Of course everyone knows that Joan was married to Pepsi CEO Alfred Steele, so I guess she felt she had to plug her husband's product whenever possible.

• Not Great, But Not Horrible

  • Josh
  • 10/20/09

  This movie isn't as awful as some have suggested. Personally, I like the old TV Guide description that used to accompany listings for it: "After an axe murderess is released from a mental hospital, strange things start happening, like axe murders."

• Swing That Axe Joan!

  • Bruce Reber
  • 10/13/09

  Joan Crawford looks pretty convincing as just released from the looney bin axe murderess Lucy Harbin in "Strait Jacket" (1964). Twenty years earlier her daughter witnessed Lucy lopping off her lover's head with an axe, and when she returns home she finds history repeating itself when several more victims turn up minus their noggin. At first she thinks she may be the one doing the murders, but soon discovers it's her daughter who is imitating Mommie Dearest by doing a little headhunting herself(pardon the two bad puns) as she witnessed Lucy doing twenty years earlier. She should have made this film her swan song instead of "Trog" (1970). "Strait Jacket" certainly isn't one of the better films she made, but at least it's a fairly good and scary horror flick, unlike "Trog" which is arguably the worst (and last) film she ever made. As for "Trog", it's just a horror in every sense of the word!

• Nail in the Coffin

  • LeslyeMould
  • 7/23/09

  Next to "Texas Chainsaw Massacre," this is the worst film I've ever seen. Castle and Crawford had to have been in another realm to create something this monstrous. To think that either one of them actually got paid to do this extremely violent, sick and twisted film seems in incredulous. What were producers thinking? Seeing this film was the end of me ever watching another film with Joan Crawford in it. That's how bad it is.

• Strait-Jacket Review

  • Vic_Kennedy
  • 7/13/09

  To write that this is a hatchett job isn't about the axe that Miss Crawford's wielding. But rather, it's my over all impression of this...film? The plot is awful, the acting's worse, the direction is backwards, and scene after scene prove to be simply terrible. This is one mess to avoid.

• A Horror(ible) Film

  • MarieAndrews
  • 7/10/09

  This film is not a classic, it's a horrible horror. The low-budget film director, William Castle, reached an all time low to make this one. He added, for box office draw sake, a movie star who was in desperate need of resurrection for name's sake: Crawford. Then, he got a cult to follow it. Castle the magician or Castle the trickster? Joan's playing Crawford, instead of Lucy Harbin. This time, Crawford's supposed to be a mother (?), who, in front of her young daughter, murderered her husband and mistress by axing them to death. The horror is that this film was ever made. It doesn't surprise me in the least that Crawford was cast in the lead. It was probably easy to go on set and rage out as herself. The film's not worth one minute or a penny.

• Castle and Crawford Go Insane Together

  • Oscars
  • 6/8/09

  Another fitting revelation about how bad Crawford depended upon having her name on a marquis. Please don't bother with this one either. It's horrible.

• Horror

  • pburnsky56
  • 5/23/09

  Once again, as was his habit, director William Castle stoops to another low to bill his film with a has-been's pop-cult attracting name, Joan Crawford. Again, a semblance of Joan, being resurrected from a career grave only for name's sake, depicts a woman stereotypically sexist. This time, the horror's Joan's performance. It's more fatuous than the screenplay! Joan's Lucy Harbin, an insane, jealous asylum convict, who axed her husband & his lover to death in front of their little girl (& didn't get the death penalty or prison time?). 20 years later, the murderer selfishly wants a kinship with the adult daughter she traumatized as a child. Brutal murders begin again. That the film, director, lead actor & screenwriter were left uninstitutionalized after making this film is horrorifying.

• shocker, couldnt believe it

  • rick
  • 3/23/09

  my jaw dropped when lucy cut off george kennedy's head with the axe, i mean this is 1964, how did that make it past the censors. this movie kind of blew me away, no cheap graphics, no cheap fx, and the acting was genuine ( plus joan crawford - schwinggg!!)

• Great film

  • Jimmy
  • 10/26/08

  All I have to say is- underrated!

• Method Acting?

  • ws jones
  • 9/20/07

  the role mommie dearest was born to play

• About time!

  • ws jones
  • 9/20/07

  It's been a long time since TCM aired this classic of grand guignol

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