234) What's the Matter with Helen? (1971)

"I offered you my blessing, but you refused it. Now move along."

Director
Curtis Harrington

Cast

Debbie Reynolds - Adelle Bruckner
Shelley Winters - Helen Hill
Dennis Weaver - Lincoln Palmer

Micheál Mac Liammóir - Hamilton Starr
Agnes Moorehead - Sister Alma
Logan Ramsey - Detective Sergeant West

The 1971 psychobiddy horror flick, "What's the Matter with Helen?" has more tap-dancing, smeared eyeliner, and guilt-ridden older women than any other movie in the horror subgenre I've ever seen and written about. It'll unsettle more than it'll inspire jazz hands.

In my commentary on the movies, "Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?," "Funeral Home," and "Mountaintop Motel Massacre" - of course all real cinematic gems and true masterpieces - I've discussed the horror/thriller subgenre known as hagsploitation, or psychobiddy horror. I'll reiterate.

Movies in this subgenre center on the lead role played by older women who fall into psychological instability, usually brought on by some traumatizing scenario. And this pushes them to violent behavior. So, it's all about old women going berserk.  

The subgenre began to spring up on movie screens sometime around the 1950s and into the 1960s with such movies as, "Sunset Boulevard" (1950) "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" (1962), "Straight Jacket" (1964) "Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte" (1964) and "The Nanny" (1965). There's also the movie "What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice?" (1969). I guess when it comes to hagsploitation, that's the imperative question. What ever happened?
I'd say one of the more well-known movies of the subgenre is Stephen King's novel turned film, "Misery" (1990). That movie really demonstrates how much these cock-a-doody psychobiddy movies can be jarring to watch.

"What's the Matter with Helen?" has been on my radar for a couple years. I have a copy down in my horror collection paired as a double-feature with "Whoever Slee Auntie Roo?" Both movies, which star Shelley Winters, are packaged together as part of the "Midnite Movies" collection from MGM Home Entertainment.  

If she hasn't been dubbed "the queen of hagsploitation" already, I'm bestowing the title on Shelley Winters right here, right now on this platform. Between Winters's performance in this movie, and in "Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?" the title fits for her two unhinged woman roles.

"What's the Matter with Helen?" also stars "Singin' in the Rain" star and Carrie Fisher's mom, Debbie Reynolds. 

Shelley Winters and Debbie Reynolds in "What's the Matter with Helen?"

The movie is set in 1934. It kicks off with a period newsreel to make sure the audience knows exactly where and when they are. Among the news items in the newsreel, Eleanor Roosevelt is broadcast cheerfully touring Puerto Rico. The mood swerves hard as the final story is broadcast. It regards two mothers, Adelle Bruckner (Debbie Reynolds) and Helen Hill (Shelley Winters), swiftly exiting a courtroom after watching their respective sons each receive life sentences for the murder of a girl named Ellie Banner. Nothing says “nostalgia for America's golden era” quite like watching some happy news followed immediately by a soul-crushing tragedy.

As the mothers jump into a car at the courthouse, Helen claims someone in the rabbling crowd sliced her hand. 

Helen and Adelle decide to leave Iowa, change their identities, move to Hollywood, and open a dance studio and live in apartments above. There, they can teach young girls how to dance and perhaps become the next Shirley Temple. 

As they get accustomed to their new lives, Helen receives calls from an unknown stalker claiming to be the culprit who sliced her hand. He threatens to gain revenge on both of them for what their sons did.

Meanwhile, elocution instructor Hamilton Starr (Micheál Mac Liammóir) pays the ladies a visit to offer his assistance with their dance studio. 

Adelle welcomes his assistance. Helen, meanwhile, is weary and nervous about his presence, especially considering the phone calls she has been receiving. 

Helen is also certain she has seen a strange man watching them from across the street on a few occasions. 

Helen doesn't know who the strange man she claims to be seeing is, but the whole scenario is clearly wreaking havoc on her nerves and mental well-being.

Adelle ends up falling in love with a suave looking guy named Lincoln Palmer (Dennis Weaver) who's the father of one of the dance students. 

She regularly tunes into an evangelical religious preacher on the radio named Sr. Alma (Agnes Moorehead from the TV sitcom "Bewitched") which bolsters up a sense of guilt within Helen. It certainly doesn't help her frame of mind. Increasing paranoia stacked upon guilt, repression and religious anxiety slowly consume Helen. 

Plus, Adelle's romance with Lincoln arouses jealousy in Helen, too. Watching Adelle focus her attention to Lincoln has Helen feeling alone. Her mental stability is breaking down. 

One night, the two ladies have a nasty fight, and Adelle demands Helen move out. After all, she needs to tend to her own inner struggles without having Helen pull her into her problems. Besides, this new life and her budding romance with Lincoln are quickly becoming Adelle’s new escape.

While Adelle is on a date with Lincoln one evening, a stranger walks into the studio and heads up to their rooms calling for Helen while she is preparing to move out. 

She panics and pushes this stranger down the stairs. This guy slams his head against the wall causing a fatal gash in his head. Seeing this guy bleed out on the bottom of the stairs causes Helen to have visions of her late husband who died in a plowing accident. She also can't help but think about Ellie Banner as she watches this random stranger lose his life right in front of her. 

Helen is beside herself in fear at what just happened. When Adelle arrives back from her date and sees this guy lying dead in the studio, she fears what sort of press this will surely receive. 

So, she convinces Helen to wrap the guy up so they can both dump him into a ditch at a nearby construction site. Since it happens to be raining, it will easily look like the guy was out walking or something and had himself a nasty accident. 

Helen is an emotional mess after this. She's desperate for redemption and forgiveness. So, she goes to the church where Sr. Alma preaches in order to ask her for that forgiveness. But as they say, never meet your heroes. 

During the religious service, Helen approaches Alma and begs for forgiveness. Alma reluctantly plays along and offers her a blessing which is nothing different from what she's offering everyone else in the church. This isn't what Helen feels she needs. She wants forgiveness poured on her, but Alma doesn't do much to just humor this emotional woman, and tells her to move along. Helen's anguish erupts into a scene in front of the entire congregation. She's then dragged out in front of everyone and left to wallow in her complete shame and embarrassment. It's a thrust for Helen that pushes her into a darker and depressing phase. 

Despite a doctor's visit, and his advice for her to stay in bed and rest, Helen's mental state declines to the point of dangerous insanity. Not only is the question "what's the matter with Helen" a crucial one, but so is, "what's left for Helen to do now?" 

It's worth mentioning that Reynolds also stars in the 1959 dark comedy "The Gazebo" where she plays a wife caught in the middle of a plot that involves murder, a cover-up, and escalating tension. So, she's not a novice to psychological horror. There's solid chemistry between Winters and Reynolds as they play almost opposite characters trying to deal with a tragedy that fell on them and changed their lives. The key point is how each of them deal with their grief, and clash in the process. I sense a very slight hint of inspiration from Thelma Todd and ZaSu Pitts minus the slapstick comedy, replaced with anguish and mental breakdowns.

The story in this movie about Helen is quite a blend of psychological suspense, blame, festering guilt, the dire human need for forgiveness and redemption, and emotional repression. Despite this emotional salad, there's a lack of gusto that should push the movie forward. Still, Shelley Winters creates a truly sympathetic character as the audience watches her mental breakdown. 

The effort to make a serious psychological horror picture is clearly present. However, it feels a little too much like a made-for-TV movie of the week as it moves forward a little too cautiously.  

The biggest take-away from this movie - the blatant underlying plot point - is the immense guilt each mother carries after their sons are sent to prison for murder. However, no one ends up a winner or victor in this story. There's no happy ending because story has no room for one.

Helen and Adelle certainly deal with their terrible burdens in different ways though they both go into the same business together to push down their grief. It's an intriguing plot, indeed. 

The whole movie has a real unsettling atmosphere about it even outside all the psychological turmoil. There's a lot of psychological fear upon more psychological fear packed into this movie. It's all set against a backdrop of faded Hollywood glamour and glittered moral decay. 

Their depression-era dance studio setting makes the overall atmosphere feel darker and unsettling. That flows from these eager happy parents watching their children gleefully sing and dance, and work towards a potentially promising future while Helen and Adelle just watched their sons get put away for murder.  

But that singing and dancing  as a cynical tone to it. The movie gets even more awkward and uncomfortable to watch during a scene when an underage girl performs a song and dance number dressed as Mae West during a recital. She puts on her best sultry singing and dancing style, repeating the phrase in the best Mae West voice she can provocatively bellow out, "Oh, you nasty man!" The audience, with their trapped souls, sit there and pretend this is perfectly normal children’s entertainment. It's clearly a cynical depiction of parents pushing their children into the glamourous life. 

 "What's the Matter with Helen?" is directed by Curtis Harrington. He's no newcomer when it comes to psychological horror movies. Harrington also directed Shelley Winters in "Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?" the same year as this movie. He directed other B-horror movies such as "Queen of Blood," as well as the psychological horror movies "Game" (1967), and "The Killing Kind" (1973) plus the supernatural horror movie "Ruby" (1977).

It's worth mentioning that Harrington also directed the 1961 fantasy horror movie "Night Tide" with Dennis Hopper in his first starring role.

"What's the Matter with Helen?" has a truly intriguing, horrifying and original plot. How would a mother, or a pair of mothers, handle having sons who were convicted of murderers? What did these boys do to their moms? Meanwhile, all of America is looking in as they try to hide and start life anew. 

The movie tries but lacks conviction. It displays the entire facade of both of these women but feels a little too reluctant and a bit too reserved to allow the real horror to claw its way out so the audience can see it. It tries, but proceeds with a just a little hesitiation - just enough to notice.