Top Five Movie Screamers
Top Ten Movie Screamers: 10 to 6
5 – Janet Leigh in Psycho (1960)
I don’t recall myself recoiling in horror while watching Janet Leigh’s shower scene in Psycho, but I do recall quite vividly one night long ago when I was showering at an acquaintance’s place and imagined myself facing the same fate as Leigh’s unlucky bank teller. So, I guess that sequence did leave a lasting impression on me. (Needless to say, I was out of that acquaintance’s shower stall and all dried up in a matter of seconds.)
4 – Fay Wray in King Kong (1933), Doctor X (1932), and The Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933)
Fay Wray has to be here. To her belongs the title of Scream Queen, thanks to a giant ape with a healthy appetite for good-looking blondes.
Though not as effective as King Kong, Doctor X and The Mystery of the Wax Museum, two early two-strip Technicolor horror flicks directed by Michael Curtiz, should be better known. Fay Wray, as usual, is thoroughly convincing as both screamer and fainter, which is pretty much all she does in both movies. In fact, that seems to be pretty much all she did throughout the 1930s, in pictures such as The Most Dangerous Game, The Clairvoyant, The Vampire Bat, Black Moon, etc., etc. (And of course, I know that’s a very general — and quite unfair — assessment of Wray’s range in the ’30s. For instance, she was excellent in the 1934 comedy The Affairs of Cellini and held her own opposite Miriam Hopkins in The Richest Girl in the World.)
3 – Edwige Fenech in The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh (1972)
A mix of kinky sex, suspense thriller, and more kinky sex, Sergio Martino’s giallo The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh makes most Alfred Hitchcock movies feel as thrilling as a Mickey Mouse cartoon. The scene in which gorgeous Edwige Fenech is caught off guard after waking from a long slumber made me not only jump, but scream even louder than she did.
2 – Barbara Stanwyck in Sorry, Wrong Number (1948)
Every plot hole in this melodrama directed by Anatole Litvak is forgiven thanks to Barbara Stanwyck’s unnerving performance as a psycho-invalid who believes there’s someone in her house ready to kill her. Thanks to Stanwyck, the last moments in Sorry, Wrong Number are some of the most disturbing I’ve ever seen on film.
1 – Lee Patrick (above) in The Sisters (not pictured above, 1938)
Another Anatole Litvak movie, The Sisters is sheer (but highly watchable) melodrama, what with Bette Davis and Errol Flynn meeting and unmeeting, not to mention all the emotional travails faced by Davis’ sisses Anita Louise and Jane Bryan. But there’s one sequence in the film, in which the ground starts to shake in San Francisco (it’s 1906), that is pretty remarkable — and not just because of the first-rate special effects. Neighbor Lee Patrick, best known for her wisecracking assistant to Humphrey Bogart’s Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon, comes running into Bette Davis’ crumbling apartment. While clinging on to Davis, Patrick lets out a never-ending, blood-curdling scream the likes of which I’ve never heard on film — and that I hope I’ll never hear in life.
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Tags: Barbara Stanwyck, Classic Movies, Edwige Fenech, Fay Wray, Horror Movies, Janet Leigh, Lee Patrick, Psycho, The Sisters, The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh
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8 Responses to “Top Five Movie Screamers”
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Great list! Fenech would be pleased knowing she is in such good companion. But one of the most amazing screams I will always rememeber is from a silent movie (!) and from a guy(!). Yeah, I’m talking about great Lon Chaney in The Unknown, when he declares his love to Joan Crawford and… I’ll stop here for those who haven’t seen it yet. It’s one of the strongest and most emotionals scenes in whole movie history for me. Anyway, rains in Rio…
Oh, forgot about another Euro great screm: astonishingly beautiful Romy Schneider in Robert Enrico’s 1975 WWII thriller/drama Le Vieux Fusil, with Phillipe Noiret. When Schneider screams, things get really hot! Literally for her… It’s a great picture and was released in America as The Old Gun, and later in video as Vengeance One by One. Both titles are very suitable. It must have been released by the same time as Jaws here in Brazil, André. Do you know this movie.
Will you please send some of that rain to Los Angeles?
It’s as hot as the Sahara — and a little drier.
Well, okay, I’m exaggerating for effect, but you get the picture.
Anyhow, you’re right. Lon Chaney is greatly grandiose in THE UNKNOWN.
Ah, before I forget — I’ll be interviewing the author of the Edwige Fenech bio that came out in Italy…
I know of LE VIEUX FUSIL — because it was a good friend’s all-time favorite film, and Romy Schneider was her all-time favorite actress. But in the mid-1970s I was a kid interested in JAWS and EARTHQUAKE, not World War II dramas. Gotta look for it, though. Who knows? Perhaps I’ll include Romy Schneider in my Halloween 2010 list of Great Screamers.
This Fenech bio must be awsome!!!!! Here in Brazil we had a Edwige Fenech, it was gorgeous Helena Ramos. They even have quite a resemblance.
I do love Fenech, but my most desirable Euro star of European, mostly Italian, popular cinema was Austrian born Marisa Mell. Don’t forget to ask how was Fenech relationship to the other Eurostars from the period: Mell, Barbara Bouchet, Rosalba Neri, Erika Blanc, Karin Schubert (a fave of mine, who turned adul star in mid 80’s and tried to kill herself two times!). Fenech was know to have an affair with producer Luciano Martino. That’s what everybody say. I wonder if Fenech has anything to say about Anthony Steffen.
Fenech didn’t have an affair with Luciano Martino. They were married! Lucky guy!
And that’s Ivan Rassimov in the picture with sweet Edwige above.
Thanks, I’d forgotten his name!