Dementia 13 *** (1963, William Campbell, Luana Anders, Bart Patton) – Classic Movie Review 3641

Producer Roger Corman gives writer-director Francis Ford Coppola his chance in 1963 to make his first mainstream legitimate directorial feature film. After graduate work at UCLA in film-making, Coppola trained as assistant to Corman, working as sound-man, dialogue director, associate producer and, finally, director of Dementia 13 (1963).

Coppola’s early cheapo horror shocker is all about a family at an Irish castle, axe killings and their child’s death years before. It stars Luana Anders, William Campbell, Bart Patton, Mary Mitchell and Patrick Magee.

Luana Anders stars as Louise Haloran, a scheming young woman who, while visiting her husband John’s family castle in Ireland, inadvertently causes his heart attack death while out in a rowboat on the lake. She throws his body overboard and later tells the family that he has left on an urgent business trip.

Then she bids to have herself written into her rich mother-in-law’s will since her husband (Peter Read) has pre-deceased his mother (Ethne Dunn). But her plans are interrupted by an axe-wielding maniac who stalks and slashes the family.

It’s a good plot but Coppola mostly makes his mark with imaginative and bold use of photography in Eire by Charles Hannawalt, locations (an Irish castle), Gothic atmosphere and music by Ronald Stein for eerie effect. It is quite grisly and gruesome for its day, stronger on gore than clarity and comprehensibility.

Also in the cast are Eithne Dunn, Ron Perry, Barbara Dowling and Derry O’Donovan.

Though Coppola was involved in at least two nudie films previously, Dementia 13 is his first mainstream legitimate directorial feature film.

Corman offered Coppola the chance to direct a low-budget horror film in Ireland with funds left over from his recently completed The Young Racers, which Coppola worked on as sound technician. Coppola quickly wrote a screenplay for the cheap Psycho copy with Gothic atmosphere and brutal killings that Corman required.

Given total directorial freedom during production, Coppola kept Corman updated on the shoot in letters that promised lots of sex and violence in the film – ‘enough to make people sick’. But, after the film was completed, Coppola found himself fighting with Corman, who declared the movie unreleasable and demanded that several changes that Coppola did not approve.

Coppola said his boss ‘insisted on dubbing the picture the way he wanted it, adding voice-overs to simplify some of the scenes. Worse, he wanted some extra violence added, another axe murder at least.’ Corman hired Jack Hill to film additional scenes with Karl Schanzer as a comical poacher who is beheaded by the murderer.

Corman also complained the film was too short and insisted on at least five minutes of padding. Gary Kurtz, one of Corman’s assistants, recalls: ‘So we shot this stupid prologue that had nothing to do with the rest of the film. It was some guy who was supposed to be a psychiatrist, sitting in his office and giving the audience a test to see if they were mentally fit to see the picture. The film was actually released with that prologue [directed by Monte Hellman]’.

It was released in autumn 1963 as the support in a double bill with Corman’s X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes.

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© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3641
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