Even though the story doesn't stand up under close scrutiny, I had the greatest time with this flick. I'm not going to be one of those people who say they saw the twist ending coming from a mile away because I didn't. In fact the real twist came right at the end when Jean Arless (real name Joan Marshall) revealed her role as both Emily and Warren. You could have blown me away at that point, I just couldn't believe the same person played both characters, and even then, I thought it would have been a male impersonator. Which made me think back to whether Emily and Warren ever appeared in a scene together in the picture, and I would have bet they did, but turns out only in that late night scene in the bedroom, and that was another gimmick of the story. Pretty cool.
But it's a Castle film, so I guess you have to expect the gimmicks. The opening admonition from Castle himself was a decent set up, but I roared when the countdown clock showed up on screen. I guess I was part of the brave audience that persevered to see what happened when Miriam Webster (Patricia Breslin) stepped through the door, no fright break worth it's salt was going to stop me.
I didn't think I'd seen Breslin in a movie before but she sure did look familiar so I had to look up her other credits on IMDb. Somewhat surprisingly, my memory dredged up another TV show from my childhood past I used to watch all the time - 'The People's Choice'. In it, Breslin was married to Jackie Cooper's character, 'Sock' Miller. The name of the series was a play on words, Breslin was Amanda Peoples Miller, daughter of the town mayor John Peoples. None of this would probably have been memorable if not for Sock's pet, a sad looking basset hound named Cleo, who's thoughts about what was going on was provided by a narrator. His insights were meaningful but hilarious. Now I've got to hunt down some of those episodes.
Anyway, all you have to do is think about the story line here and it all falls apart pretty quickly. Since Warren and Emily were the same person, an opening scene in which Warren took the doll away from half-sister Miriam could never have happened the way it did. And if Warren and housekeeper Helga (Eugenie Leontovich) moved away to Denmark after the death of Warren's abusive father, who wound up raising Miriam? But the real kicker while all this was going on was the way anyone in contact with Helga simply stood there during any of her frantic attempts to get attention - why didn't someone just hand her some paper and a pencil?
But it's a Castle film, so I guess you have to expect the gimmicks. The opening admonition from Castle himself was a decent set up, but I roared when the countdown clock showed up on screen. I guess I was part of the brave audience that persevered to see what happened when Miriam Webster (Patricia Breslin) stepped through the door, no fright break worth it's salt was going to stop me.
I didn't think I'd seen Breslin in a movie before but she sure did look familiar so I had to look up her other credits on IMDb. Somewhat surprisingly, my memory dredged up another TV show from my childhood past I used to watch all the time - 'The People's Choice'. In it, Breslin was married to Jackie Cooper's character, 'Sock' Miller. The name of the series was a play on words, Breslin was Amanda Peoples Miller, daughter of the town mayor John Peoples. None of this would probably have been memorable if not for Sock's pet, a sad looking basset hound named Cleo, who's thoughts about what was going on was provided by a narrator. His insights were meaningful but hilarious. Now I've got to hunt down some of those episodes.
Anyway, all you have to do is think about the story line here and it all falls apart pretty quickly. Since Warren and Emily were the same person, an opening scene in which Warren took the doll away from half-sister Miriam could never have happened the way it did. And if Warren and housekeeper Helga (Eugenie Leontovich) moved away to Denmark after the death of Warren's abusive father, who wound up raising Miriam? But the real kicker while all this was going on was the way anyone in contact with Helga simply stood there during any of her frantic attempts to get attention - why didn't someone just hand her some paper and a pencil?