I suppose you'd have to list this as a hag horror film although Joan Crawford ( in her penultimate film ) is in very good shape for a woman in her sixties and her character is still sexually active. This is a decent effort, made in collaboration with Billy Smart's Circus , although the shocks are a bit too widely-spaced. Craword is supported by a good cast with the glaring exception of dwarf actor George Claydon who's irredeemably wooden. The surprise ending certainly fooled me.
Crawford plays Monique Rivers , the thick-skinned , autocratic proprietor of a circus who finds that the odd grisly death pays dividends at the box office. She becomes the chief suspect, investigated by dapper detective Brooks ( Robert Hardy ) and manipulated by her toy boy Frank ( Ty Hardin ).
Diana Dors ( as Matilda )
Sex : Matilda tries to seduce Frank. Awesome cleavage
Death : Sawn in half ( not very graphically ) by her partner Lazlo after his equipment is sabotaged
Diana's story is well known. The former Diana Fluck was groomed by Rank and sent to Hollywood in the fifties as a British rival to Monroe. Her brief association with RKO was sabotaged by the behaviour of her husband Dennis Hamilton. She returned to the UK , got fat and eventually became a well-loved character actress up to her premature death from cancer in 1984.
Judy Geeson ( as Angela Rivers )
Sex : Angela looks very fetching in her ringwear
Death : Electrocuted in a rainstorm
Judy was just 18 at the time of filming this, her third film though she was becoming well known on TV. She became one of Britain's best known actresses in the seventies but emigrated to California in the mid-eighties. She acted on TV over there with a regular role in Mad About You in the nineties. She appeared to have retired around 2002 but has made a comeback in films in the last few years. She s now 68.
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