Pretty Poison

The Pitt and the Poison.

Pretty Poison is directed by Noel Black and adapted to screenplay by Lorenzo Semple Junior from the novel She Let Him Continue written by Stephen Geller. It stars Anthony Perkins, Tuesday Weld, Beverly Garland, John Randolph and Dick ONeill. Music is by Johnny Mandel and cinematography by David Quaid.

Pure definition of a culter movie? Probably Pretty Poison. A wonderfully odd neo-noir thats as cunning as a fox, Noel Blacks movie flummoxed many upon release but the underground swell of the cult enthusiasts has ensured this particular poison is still around to be swallowed.

Plot finds Perkins as troubled Dennis Pitt, an arsonist as a youth and fantasist as an adult, hes just been released from a mental healt...

A psychopath is loose in western Massachusetts

When a young man is released from a mental institution for a crime committed when he was 15 (Anthony Perkins), he gets a mundane job at a chemical factory while drawn to a fetching high school cheerleader (Tuesday Weld).

"Pretty Poison" (1968) is a psychological drama with a couple crime-oriented thrills that some consider a subtle black comedy. It comes in the tradition of Gun Crazy from eighteen years prior. Debuting eight years after Perkins breakout success with Psycho, hes still relatively young at 35, but looks ten years younger. It came out between Welds Lord Love a Duck and I Walk the Line (1970) and is sort of a meshing of those two films.

While it failed to acquire an...