I saw this in 1970 at the age of 11 and was very confused. Having just rewatched it 49 years later, I'm still confused. But amused.
SPOILERS. !!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!
SSA is just as weird as I remembered. Milton Subotsky produced. It feels like a major section was just lifted out for the sake of trimming the running time, but it left the plot almost incomprehensible.
Soooo.... an unnamed European country has become a fascist state. Most of the inhabitants sound German but Cushing plays the Chancellor. He has a brief, meaningless scene of exposition about torture going too far.
England is secretly making Frankenstein-ish super beings -- called "Composites" -- with American Price as the master surgeon, out in a country mansion painted Pepto Bismol pink on the inside.
Lee is some kind of civil servant who knows about the plan, and has an uneasy alliance with the fascists. He spends a lot of time on the phone.
When one of the Composites gets loose in England, it goes on a rape and murder spree. But first he spends a lot of time checking out babes in swinging night clubs. Every Composite needs a hobby, I guess. ;) There is a "Scream & Scream Again" rock theme song played at the club.
Most of the film is devoted to local police superintendent and a doctor from the city morgue who are trying to piece the puzzle together. Mostly, they yell at each other.
There's a long car chase around 30 minutes in that eats up a lot of screen time buy never pays off.
Price turns out to not only be a mad scientist, but also one of the Composites. (How he performed an operation on himself is left unexplored.) Lee shows up at the country lab. With almost Dracula like powers, he stares Price down -- into a vat of acid. The end. Actually "it's just the beginning," Lee intones.
Scream is sort of like an Avengers episode, though not nearly as stylish. Had Robert Feust had directed, maybe Scream would be a bizarre masterpiece like Phibes. But it's just bizarre.
SPOILERS. !!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!
SSA is just as weird as I remembered. Milton Subotsky produced. It feels like a major section was just lifted out for the sake of trimming the running time, but it left the plot almost incomprehensible.
Soooo.... an unnamed European country has become a fascist state. Most of the inhabitants sound German but Cushing plays the Chancellor. He has a brief, meaningless scene of exposition about torture going too far.
England is secretly making Frankenstein-ish super beings -- called "Composites" -- with American Price as the master surgeon, out in a country mansion painted Pepto Bismol pink on the inside.
Lee is some kind of civil servant who knows about the plan, and has an uneasy alliance with the fascists. He spends a lot of time on the phone.
When one of the Composites gets loose in England, it goes on a rape and murder spree. But first he spends a lot of time checking out babes in swinging night clubs. Every Composite needs a hobby, I guess. ;) There is a "Scream & Scream Again" rock theme song played at the club.
Most of the film is devoted to local police superintendent and a doctor from the city morgue who are trying to piece the puzzle together. Mostly, they yell at each other.
There's a long car chase around 30 minutes in that eats up a lot of screen time buy never pays off.
Price turns out to not only be a mad scientist, but also one of the Composites. (How he performed an operation on himself is left unexplored.) Lee shows up at the country lab. With almost Dracula like powers, he stares Price down -- into a vat of acid. The end. Actually "it's just the beginning," Lee intones.
Scream is sort of like an Avengers episode, though not nearly as stylish. Had Robert Feust had directed, maybe Scream would be a bizarre masterpiece like Phibes. But it's just bizarre.