"Burnt Offerings" with Karen, Oliver, and Miss Bette

[Auggie27]

Posted: 6/22/08 at 10:06pm

It's back, after disappearing into the black hole/camp maw of cable. And as shockingly dreadful, shockingly watchable as ever. Who decided Karen Black, a highly erratic character actress, is a leading lady? (She went directly from this to AIRPORT 1970-WHATEVER, when she famously flew a plane with a hole in its nose toward safety and the waiting cold, dead hands of Charlton Heston). This role should've gone to ... I dunno, Katherine Ross, from hunger? But there's la Black, with her high-pitched hillbilly dialect, whining crazily about the creaking homestead she tends to with a lysol soaked rag with increasingly OCD zeal, fending off the moonlit, animalistic advances of a sweaty Oliver Reed (in his post WOMEN IN LOVE prime -- despite a few porkier shots -- fellow Reed fans.) And then there's Miss Bette Davis, acting her brains out in scenes opposite the robotic, cross-eyed gaze of Black.

If you've never seen it, you'll wonder why it was made. If you saw it in the 70's, you'll happily revisit its soapy banality, its by the numbers horror literalness -- noting, too its lack of suspense, and its agonizing portrait of the once smoldering Oliver Reed going beserk as a horny husband who, to serve the gothic plot machinery, cannot stop himself from damn near killing his obnoxious kid in the roiling waters of a miraculously restored swimming pool. Not to be missed, not to be overly invested in, either.

Updated On: 6/22/08 at 10:06 PM

[nmartin]

Posted: 6/22/08 at 10:30pm

Oh My God!! I can't believe you brought up this stinker. I saw it twice when it originally came out. What about that scene when Karen Black is in that chair at the end! "I've been waiting for you, Ben." (Cue overwrought music!)
Oh, and that chauffeur with all those teeth.
I LOVE IT!!
Updated On: 6/23/08 at 10:30 PM

[nmartin]

Posted: 6/22/08 at 10:33pm

[thatgirl712]

Posted: 6/23/08 at 2:19am

Yes, it's usually hard to find, but lots of fun.

[Auggie27]

Posted: 6/23/08 at 9:09am

Whoa, that poster capitalizing on Bette. And I forgot about Eileen Heckert, in a small cameo ("you've got an old gal, too?!") A bizarre film, made after EXORCIST, and in the tradition of other B movies with bigger budgets, like THE SENTINEL -- remember that? What it has in common with OFFERINGS is an over-the-top Burgess Meredith.

[nmartin]

Posted: 6/23/08 at 9:25am

I remember The Sentinel. Ava Gardner was in that. It has a connection to Burnt Offerings. Burgess Meredith was in both. I love it.

[best12bars]

Posted: 6/23/08 at 9:43am

I was all into Burnt Offerings and The Sentinel. I read the books too, as a kid.

And I still have a soft spot in my heart for them, trashy as they are.

[nmartin]

Posted: 6/23/08 at 9:55am

Best, I feel the same way about both movies, and I also had those books. In the 70s I went to the movies at least twice a week and have a great deal fondness for all the movies I saw, even the stinkers. That's why I get so excited when someone starts a thread like this.

[doodlenyc]

Posted: 6/23/08 at 10:21am

Great movie...up there with "Die, Die, My Darling".

How about that pic of Burgess Meredith on the cover! He looks like Miss Jane Hathaway!

[nealb1]

Posted: 6/23/08 at 5:25pm

When I first saw "Burnt Offerings" on tv as a small kid, that Chauffeur sacred the CRAP out of me. Those looks that he would give spooked me. But, it's still a classic "bad movie."

[nmartin]

Posted: 6/23/08 at 5:29pm

Does anyone else remember the chauffeur pushing a coffin at Bette Davis,and you could see hands stopping the coffin? Worthy of Ed Wood!

Neal, that chauffeur scared me too. Those teeth!

[nealb1]

Posted: 6/23/08 at 5:39pm

No, I never noticed that in the movie. I remember that scene, where the chauffeur pushed the casket. I'll have to look for the hands moment.

In this day and age, of virutally every movie on dvd, I'm surprised that it isn't out on dvd yet.

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 6/23/08 at 6:08pm

Ah, yes. BURNT OFFERINGS. Saw it when I was about eleven with my childhood friend Billy. We stayed up late to watch the midnight showing on a syndicated station, certain that we were going to freak ourselves totally out beyond imagining. What happened was we found ourselves laughing hysterically when the thoroughly obnoxious son gets crushed under a chimney. I think I may have discovered camp that night!

Burgess Meredith was also in THE MANITOU, maybe even the same year, which is just bug sh*t crazy, beyond description. Don't miss it.

Interesting note: The book is one of Stephen King's favorites and he considers it a major influence on THE SHINING.

[nmartin]

Posted: 6/23/08 at 6:20pm

The Manitou plot is a lulu. Big Cast including Stella Stevens.

[sondheimboy2]

Posted: 6/23/08 at 6:42pm

Dan Curtis directed that either right after or during his work on "Dark Shadows" and his television work shows in that movie. Almost every scene ends in a blackout, with an ominous music cue (which made it perfect of showing on television.)

Robert Marasco, the author of it, wrote a hit, weird play about evil doings in a Catholic boys school in 1970 called "Child's Play" that won a bunch of Tony Awards that year: Actor (Fritz Weaver), Supporting Actor (Don Howard), Director (Joseph Hardy), and Jo Mielzner won for his set and lighting designs.

[nmartin]

Posted: 6/23/08 at 6:48pm

Burnt Offerings was made well after both the Dark Shadows tv series and the two Dark Shadows movies.

[roquat]

Posted: 6/24/08 at 1:01am

You know you're in trouble when Bette Davis is giving the most realistic and restrained performance. (Karen and Oliver? What deranged soul thought that up? In their very first shot together, they look as if they want to bite each other's heads off). And yes, it's impossible to mourn Lee H. Montgomery (of the rat-invasion movie "Ben" with its preternaturally creepy theme song delivered by Michael Jackson). Please tell me he's left show business.

Miss Black has certainly come down in the world. I just watched (actually, tried to watch) RED DIRT, a pseudo-Tennessee Williams movie melodrama (with vaguely homoerotic undertones). In it, Black plays a character named "Summer", who is both crazy and Southern. You can imagine the result. The rest of the actors just stare at her, appalled, through most of the movie.

[WindyCityActor]

Posted: 6/24/08 at 11:12am

Burnt Offerings - The Trailer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yr4LvUoILHM

[doodlenyc]

Posted: 6/24/08 at 11:36am

That creepy kid, Lee Montgomery, grew up to be kinda hot, and starred opposite Sarah Jessica Parker and Helen Hunt in "Girls Just Want to Have Fun"...he hasnt been seen since the mid 80's. Wonder what he's up to...

Updated On: 6/24/08 at 11:36 AM

[WindyCityActor]

Posted: 6/24/08 at 12:09pm

Is it just me, or is Anthony James (who plays the Chauffeur) kinda strangely hot?!!?

[doodlenyc]

Posted: 6/24/08 at 12:55pm

Lee Montgomery in "Mutant"

[Harper3]

Posted: 6/24/08 at 1:14pm

GREAT MOVIE in a Mommie Dearest way!

My mom was telling me she read the book and it was great. So, in 8th grade, I picked up the book. Well, about 30 pages in there's an explicit sex scene where the wife is begging her husband to come so the sex can stop. I told my mom about it and she's like, "Well, clearly there were some things I forgot about that book."

I never finished it.

[MrMidwest]

Posted: 6/24/08 at 3:00pm

I'll find a way to recruit you into the Karen Black fan club someday, Auggie.

[nmartin]

Posted: 6/24/08 at 3:52pm

This movie came out when I was 15. My best friend and I always referred to Anthony James's character as "Chauffeur with Teeth". Of course, we also filmed our own 8mm version of Chinatown and added a character we called "The Albino Drag Queen". We were strange.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 6/24/08 at 4:18pm

I remember being terrified by the chauffeur when I was a kid. I watched this movie for the first time since I was a kid a couple of months ago. It was truly one of the dumbest films I've ever seen. The chauffeur is still creepy as hell, but the rest was just random and ridiculous.