It! (Curse of the Golem)

What do you get when you cross Hitchcock's Psycho with a Universal Monster movie?  Well, according to star Roddy McDowall (The Ballad of Tam Lin) the answer lies in the 'SH' he added to the film's title when he gifted a copy of the movie poster to his co-star, Jill Haworth.

McDowall plays Arthur Pimm the assistant curator of London Museum who keeps his dead mother in his apartment and steals jewellery from the collection for her to wear.  Following a fire at the museum's warehouse and the death of the curator the sole surviving artifact, a giant stone Golem, which according to the workmen tasked with installing it, is "full of 'ate!" is put on exhibition.  Pimm soon learns how to control the Golem and sends it off to do his nefarious bidding.

Roddy McDowall, Paul Maxwell & Jill Haworth

So the obvious question to be asked has to be was McDowall - and co star Haworth (The Haunted House of Horror, Tower of Evil) who also hated it - correct in his renaming of the movie? Well, kind of.  It's pretty much trash but personally I like it very much.  McDowall is far too likeable to be taken seriously as the villain and the excellent Haworth is inevitably relegated to eye candy but there's a lightness here and an understated acknowledgenment of the absurdity of the subject matter that culminates in the daftest of finales. 

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