What’s the Matter with Helen? ***½ (1971, Debbie Reynolds, Shelley Winters, Dennis Weaver, Micheál MacLiammóir, Agnes Moorehead) – Classic Movie Review 4,818

The 1971 horror thriller film What’s the Matter with Helen? is a prime slice of deliciously hammy, creepy melodrama, in which Debbie Reynolds and Shelley Winters have a grand old time as Thirties Hollywood mothers who run a dance school for child stars.

Director Curtis Harrington’s 1971 horror thriller is a prime slice of deliciously hammy, creepy melodrama, in which the delightful seasoned troupers Debbie Reynolds and Shelley Winters have a grand old time as 1930s Iowa mothers, Adelle Bruckner and Helen Hill, who run a dance school for child stars in Hollywood, after their notorious sons are convicted of a murder.

Adelle Bruckner and Helen escape Iowa, change their surnames to become Adelle Stuart and Helen Martin, and head for Hollywood, where they open an academy for little girls who want to be the new Shirley Temple. Weird elocution teacher Hamilton Starr (Micheál Mac Liammóir) then offers his services to the dance school.

Adelle falls in love with Lincoln Palmer (Dennis Weaver), father of one of the girls (Samee Lee Jones). Jealous Helen takes comfort in faith, listening to a radio show hosted by evangelist Sister Alma (Agnes Moorehead).

This chiller is succulently camp and eerie, exactly as it should be, and ideally performed, with Reynolds excellent playing against type (and dancing too!), Winters enjoyable as a religious nut, Micheál MacLiammóir sinister as Hamilton Starr, Dennis Weaver as Linc Palmer, and Agnes Moorehead a special asset as evangelist Sister Alma.

Other assets are the attractive period settings designed by Eugène Lourié, Lucien Ballard’s cinematography, David Raksin’s score and Harrington’s spot-on direction. It is tastily written by Henry Farrell (What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte).

Also in the cast are Sammee Lee Jones, Robbi Morgan, Helene Winston, Molly Dodd, Peggy Rea, Yvette Vickers, Paulle Clark, Pamelyn Ferdin, Debbie Van Den Houten, Tammy Lee, Swen Swenson, Timothy Carey, Harry Dean Stanton, James Dobson, and Minta Durfee as Old lady, Logan Ramsey as Detective Sergeant West.

Interiors were filmed at General Service Studios and exteriors on the Columbia Pictures Movie Ranch Modern Street.

Curtis Harrington and producer George Edwards approached writer Henry Farrell for a screenplay soon after his What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? was a hit. He offered them a story outline titled The Box Step about two contemporary women who ran a dance studio. Later Harrington and Edwards changed the setting to a 1930s dance academy for little girls and called the screenplay The Best of Friends. But it had to be changed after Otto Preminger protested to the Motion Picture Association that he had registered the similar title Such Good Friends.

Studio executives wanted Winters to tone down the latent lesbian aspect of her character. She recalled: ‘They didn’t want me to play it too directly, but I played it very clearly. I hope I did, anyway.’

Reynolds recalled that Winters’s psychiatrist had advised her not to portray a woman having a nervous breakdown because she was having an actual nervous breakdown! ‘But nobody knew that, and so all through the film she drove all of us insane! She became the person in the film.’