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Download, Watch online Maniac (1963) Movie.
| Genres: | ThrillerHor |
| Starring: | Arnold Diamond, Donald Houston, Nadia Gray, George Pastell, Jerold Wells, Norman Bird, Kerwin Mathews |
| Director(s): | Michael Carreras |
| Country: | UK |
| Year: | 1963 |
| IMDB Rating: | 5.7 |
Kerwin Matthews, playing a dissolute drifter down on his luck, is stranded in a cheap bar in France where he falls for Annette, the pretty daughter of the proprietor, played by Nadia Gray. Nadia Gray gradually shifts the young mans attentions to herself, rather than her daughter, and together Matthews and Gray concoct a plot to help Grays estranged husband, now a homicidal maniac confined in an institution after a grisly series of killings dubbed The Acetylene Murders by the press, out of the mental institution so he can escape from the country.
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Maniac (1963) (DivX) | Resolution: 608x256 px | Total Size: 698 Mb |
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Movie Photos: We have taken some photos of "Maniac (1963)". They represent actual movie quality.
Visitor Reviews: (2)
ferbs54 19 May 2012
Carrying A (Blow)Torch For His Lady Love
Up until recently, I had been aware of only two films with the title"Maniac": the 1934 camp classic directed by Dwain Esper and therepugnant 1980 picture with Joe Spinell as a deranged mannequin lover.The existence of the British "Maniac," a 1963 product from the greatHammer Studios, thus came as a nice surprise for me. Part of the Hammer"Icons of Suspense" six-film box set, the picture shares a DVD with thestudio's 1958 film "The Snorkel," with which it shares manysimilarities. Both are finely crafted exercises in suspense, shot inbeautiful B&W, written by Jimmy Sangster and taking place on theMediterranean coast. In "Maniac," we meet a hunky-dude American artist,Geoff Farrell (appealingly played by Kerwin Matthews, who many viewerswill recall from the Ray Harryhausen films "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad"and "The 3 Worlds of Gulliver"), who finds himself marooned in the wildsouthern region of France known as the Camargue after breaking up withhis wealthy girlfriend (Justine Lord, known to this viewer best asSonia, from my favorite episode of "The Prisoner," "The Girl Who WasDeath"). Staying at a small "pension," he gets lustily involved withthe attractive proprietress, Eve (Romanian actress Nadia Gray, who I'donly previously encountered in another "Prisoner" episode, "The Chimesof Big Ben"), AND her beautiful young stepdaughter, Annette (LilianeBrousse, who reminds this viewer a lot of the young Marianna Hill). Toobad, though, that the gals' husband/father--a homicidal nutjob who had,four years earlier, grotesquely murdered a man with an acetyleneblowtorch(!)--has escaped from his asylum and is now seeking newvictims...."Maniac" is surely a film that will keep the viewer guessing, and hasbeen cleverly plotted--perhaps overly plotted--by Sangster. Indeed,there are at least three plot twists in the film, one too many for thisviewer, although the story does manage to cohere together. Personally,I preferred the simpler story line and greater suspense of "TheSnorkel," but that's just me. To his credit, director Michael Carrerasdoes a fine, imaginative job here, exhibiting a shrewd sense of cameraplacement; he would go on to helm such Hammer entertainments as "TheCurse of the Mummy's Tomb," the shlocky camp dud "Prehistoric Women"and "The Lost Continent." Like "The Snorkel" again, "Maniac" featuressome beautiful nighttime photography, and its evocation of place isvery well brought off, whether the film was shot in France or not (Idon't believe it was). Matthews, as usual, makes for an enormouslylikable leading man, here playing a basically decent person whosuddenly finds himself in way deep over his head. Viewers, by the way,might enjoy making a drinking game out of "Maniac," taking a shot everytime Farrell does (I counted at least 10 such instances!). The filmfeatures an unfortunately weak ending, taking place in what appears tobe a deserted quarry of sorts, and, at the risk of belaboring a point,this denouement pales greatly in contrast to the supremely satisfyingdouble ending to be found in "The Snorkel." Still, the 1963 pictureremains a perfectly acceptable and riveting entertainment, and easilythe best exemplar of the filmmaking craft as compared to those othertwo "Maniac"s mentioned above!
MARIO GAUCI 18 May 2012
MANIAC (Michael Carreras, 1963) **1/2
This was one of two Hammer thrillers (even if it was watched on a"Fantasy" day) that had eluded me thus far; for the record, theremaining title  CRESCENDO (1970)  has, controversially, just beenreleased on DVD-R as part of Warners' U.S. exclusive "ArchiveCollection". While MANIAC has a reasonable reputation, I have to saythat I was ultimately let down by it and I would place the film in thelower rank of the studio's efforts in this vein. Its main fault,basically, lies in a not very interesting plot (courtesy, as were manyof these outings, of screenwriter Jimmy Sangster): besides, it tries Âbut fails  to recapture the sense of eeriness inherent in a remoteseaside location (in its case, the Camargues) already seen in the muchsuperior TASTE OF FEAR (1961) and THE DAMNED (shot in 1961 but onlyreleased 2 years later). That said, characterization is quite wellrounded: Kerwin Mathews, infrequently seen in a modern-day setting,makes for a surprisingly effective lead (in fact, he had previouslystarred in Hammer's splendid adventure film THE PIRATES OF BLOOD RIVER[1962]); Nadia Gray is sultry and conniving, Liliane Brousse heringenue  but no less sexy  stepdaughter (who gets raped in the film'svery opening sequence!). Coming into play during the latter stages isDonald Houston as the titular figure, though he proves to be someoneother than who the audience had been led to believe; therefore, we havea number of nice twists (and implied violence) here but, then, end upwith a rather ordinary mystery  actually anticipating a number ofgialli in this regard! Unfortunately, my enjoyment of the film wasfurther dampened by all kind of technical problems (after the picturein the copy I acquired initially failed to visualize)  with stretchedimage (fixed by altering the TV setting to 16:9), fuzziness, combing(the latter also causing the audio to drop out a couple of times) andlip-synch issues all rearing their ugly head throughout the viewing!