Live Life Team
This is quite the creepy little thriller from the 1960s. Bette Davis plays the title character of Charlotte Hollis. At the start of the story, she lives as a complete recluse, shut away in her antebellum mansion. Years ago, her fiancé was decapitated and savagely stabbed, and everyone in town believes she did it. Yet, without proof, she was never charged.
Now comes progress to the community; a new highway is going through the area, and her land is needed for the road. Well, she isn’t giving up without a fight. She calls in her cousin Miriam (Olivia de Havilland) to help her fight the battle to save the family home, and the cousin promptly turns on Charlotte. It seems she’s next in line to inherit the property; so she’s got a real incentive to break Charlotte.
As with any good thriller, the terror starts, and builds up. Yet, are these things real, or is Charlotte slipping into madness, Joseph Cotton plays Dr. Drew Bayliss. He is called in to help poor Charlotte. At one point, Miriam drops a box as she’s coming down the stairs, and a head tumbles out and lands at Charlotte’s feet! Yet, Miriam and Drew deny the event ever took place. As a little side note, that scene was shot in one take; the head landed in just the right position the first time.
What makes the film interesting is the odd twist at the end. Charlotte, just about convinced that she’s insane, overhears Miriam and Drew laughing about their success, and pushes a huge flowerpot down on them. Quite the surprise ending.
