The Screaming Woman

Is the aged rich woman crazy or not?

The owner of a large estate near Santa Barbara in SoCal has returned from a mental health facility (Olivia de Havilland). When she hears the sounds of a desperate woman on her grounds no one believes her and those who lust for lucre want her declared incompetent. Charles Robinson plays her son and Laraine Stephens his witchy alcoholic wife. Meanwhile Ed Nelson is on hand as a shady neighbor. Joseph Cotton and Walter Pidgeon show up for bit parts.

"The Screaming Woman" debuted as a movie-of-the-week in January, 1972. Im a fan of 70s TV flicks as many of them are quite good and some even great, like "Tribes, Duel, Gargoyles, Home for the Holidays, Go Ask Alice, Scream of the Wolf, Winter Kill, ...

For some reason I kept seeing Helen Hayes in the role played here by Olivia de Havilland. She is a wealthy woman who claims to have heard screams from a body buried in the grounds of her estate. When she reports this to her family, they seize on the chance to have the old girl certified and to take control of her fortune. Can she get to the truth before she ends up in a padded cell? I liked her performance here. For a star of this calibre to play a scatty, and frankly unglamorous, elderly woman showed a skill and a courage that few of her peers would ever have tried to do. Joseph Cotton also joined in the mystery and, along with the imperious Walter Pidgeon, helped generate a frequently amusing and engaging thriller. The writing is a bit ro...