Crew
Director/Producer – Bert I. Gordon, Screenplay – Robert Sherman, Photography – Ellsworth Fredricks, Music – Robert Drasnin. Production Company – Embassy Pictures/Berkeley Productions, Inc..
Cast
Susan Gordon (Susan Shelley), Don Ameche (Edward Shelley), Martha Hyer (Francine Shelley), Maxwell Reed (Anthony Flagmore), Zsa Zsa Gabor (Jessica Shelley), Wendell Corey (Clayborn), Signe Hasso (Sister Rene)
Plot
Teenager Susan Shelley has been placed in a convent since the death of her mother Jessica in a fire. She is now brought home by her father Edward and his new wife Francine, her former governess. Susan is taken before a lawyer where she learns that her mother’s will stipulates that the house will go to charity but not as long as she lives in it. Her father urges Susan to move back in because he is impoverished and needs to sell off the artworks and furnishings. As she settles in, Susan is haunted by visions of her mother’s ghost and half-forgotten memories where she believes her mother is telling her that her death was a murder. As these cause evident distress for Susan, Francine urges Edward to commit her so that they can take control of the estate. At the same time, Francine and others are trying to find the valuable necklace that Jessica was wearing when she was killed.
Bert I. Gordon (1922-2023) is a name familiar to anyone who watched any number of 1950s B movies. Gordon was at his height during the 1950s making cheap copies of the giant monster cycle with the likes of King Dinosaur (1955), The Cyclops (1957), The Amazing Colossal Man (1957), Beginning of the End (1957), Attack of the Puppet People (1958), Earth vs the Spider (1958) and so on. Into the 1970s, Gordon made cheap occult films – Necromancy (1972), The Coming/Burned at the Stake (1981) and Malediction/Satan’s Princess (1990) – and the occasional throwback to the cheesy B-budget science-fiction film with the likes of The Food of the Gods (1976) and Empire of the Ants (1977). (See below for a full list of Bert I. Gordon’s genre films).
With Picture Mommy Dead, Gordon moved into the Psycho-Thriller that had taken off in the 1960s following the success of Psycho (1960). There were a great many copies featuring elaborating gaslighting schemes and, as here, ones to label an heiress crazy or kill off heirs to a fortune. Another popular hit of the era was What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) that was centred around stars Bette Davis and Joan Crawford going bonkers. This created the Grand Dame Guignol genre, featuring aging actresses going crazy. Picture Mommy Dead looks initially set to fall into the same with its starring Zsa Zsa Gabor, although in the end it elects not to go in that direction.
Picture Mommy Dead assembles all the elements of this kill the heiress psycho-thriller plot. The characters are bitchy and unlikeable – Martha Hyer snipes at husband Don Ameche with lines like “I loved you but then you became poor and I became bored.” There is a particularly hilarious performance from Wendell Corey, who gives the impression he is a real iron warhorse of an actor, as the lawyer regarding everything going on around him with barely concealed sarcasm.
On the other hand, Bert I. Gordon does nothing particularly sophisticated with his plot. There’s a sort of scheme to put Susan Gordon in a mental hospital but this is mostly Martha Hyer alighting on any opportunity to persuade her father Don Ameche to commit her. The plot circles among several suspects who might be Zsa Zsa Gabor’s murderer – Ameche, governess turned mother-in-law Martha Hyer and the scarred brother Maxwell Reed. Gordon delivers one or two shock effects that might be borrowed from a William Castle – bloody claw marks on the portrait of Zsa Zsa (which may well be the picture that the rather puzzling title Picture Mommy Dead refers to) and Zsa Zsa’s ghost appearing to Susan Gordon and then bursting into flames.
The film has an eclectic case including Zsa Zsa Gabor, the actress more known for her number of husbands and life as a socialite, than doing anything significant, who turns up as the ghost (?) of the mother. Susan Gordon was Bert I. Gordon’s eleven-year-old daughter, who Gordon had pushed to perform in front of the camera with Attack of the Puppet People. She went on to appear in a handful of other parts for her father and others. This was probably the best of Susan’s performances, although would also be her last.
Bert I. Gordon’s other films are:- King Dinosaur (1955), The Cyclops (1957), The Amazing Colossal Man (1957), Attack of the Puppet People (1958), Earth vs the Spider (1958), War of the Colossal Beast (1958), the fantasy adventure The Boy and the Pirates (1960), the ghost story Tormented (1960), the fantasy The Magic Sword (1962), Village of the Giants (1965), the occult film Necromancy (1972), The Mad Bomber (1973), The Food of the Gods (1976), Empire of the Ants (1977) and the witchcraft films The Coming/Burned at the Stake (1981) and Malediction/Satan’s Princess (1990), and Secrets of a Psychopath (2015).
Trailer here