Dementia

Dementia (1955)

Runtime: 55 minutes

Directed by: John Parker

Starring: Adrienne Barrett, Bruno VeSota, Ben Roseman, Richard Barron, Lucille Howland

From: J.J. Parker Productions

What was it that I saw last night?

Earlier in the year I stumbled upon the existence of this strange horror/film noir/experimental/avant-garde motion picture, not even an hour long. Due to a reason I'll explain later this sounded fascinating; somehow, I missed that this was on the Criterion Channel until I went through their list of what was leaving on the last day of the month and Dementia was on there.

The most noteworthy aspect is that this contains zero lines of dialogue-that's right, no lines are spoken at all. Instead, it's the images and music that try to tell this story; it's abstract and I'll best describe the scenario as “a random woman on Skid Row appears to be in Purgatory for a few hours and it happens to look like a large city at night.” She is forced to hang out w/ skeevy dudes (including Bruno VeSota, one of the two names of any note who were in this; the other was dwarf actor Angelo Rossitto who was in everything from Freaks to Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome), tries to avoid a cop that looks just like her late father, and is even at a jazz club where real life musicians Shorty Rogers and his Giants perform. It's all quite peculiar and while the noir aspects look nice, there are some gruesome moments for the time-no wonder that was one of the reasons this did not get released for a few years-and it has a great score which includes an ethereal vocal from famed ghost singer Marni Nixon-meaning that she actually was the singing voice for the likes of Natalie Wood in West Side Story and Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady but the story and plot I did not love.

Even if others love this more than I do, it's amazing to me that something this odd got released in 1955, then had another release two years later that had narration... from ED MCMAHON. I heard that ruined the mood this set, and I bet it did. That version was titled Daughter of Horror (why, I dunno) and more people likely know that than its original title for one reason only: it was the movie on the marquee in the original The Blob-no kidding. For all the flaws inherent in its wordless gimmick, it was still a motion picture I'll never forget.