William Castle is one of my favorite film makers. (Notice that I didn’t say favorite directors.)
One of my Best Days Ever was spent at New York’s Film Forum with my best friend James Graham — for a screening of Castle’s The Tingler (1959) in Percepto. From the excellent The Whistler series to cheap Sam Katzman Westerns like Masterson Of Kansas (1954) to gimmick-y horror pictures like The Tingler, a William Castle film is pure entertainment.
So I guess it only makes sense that one of the best times I’ve had in a theater in recent years was seeing Jeffrey Schwarz’s Castle documentary Spine Tingler! The William Castle Story at The Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in Durham. I’d never seen a film that felt like it was made Just For Me — 80-something minutes of movie geek bliss.
I’m really excited about its upcoming deluxe DVD release from Schwarz’s Automat Pictures (a couple years ago, it was part of Columbia’s Castle boxed set). This solo disc piles on hours of extras, from commentaries to interviews to the thing I’m dying to see: footage of Castle lecturing at USC in the 70s. Can’t wait.
One of my preferred movie is Castle’s “Project X” with Christopher George, which has an intelligent plot and beautiful Hanna & Barbera animated sequences.
I saw the Tingler at Film Forum, too! That summer, there was a whole festival of ‘gimmick’ pictures — and what fun was had!
This is a great blog for western buffs — I never miss it.
I also House Of Wax.
And at some poster store, over that same weekend, I bought an original Ghost Viewer from 13 Ghosts.
Boy, I wanted to steal that fake Tingler really bad.