rdoyle29
Stefanie Powers stars as a graduate student who travels to the home of a recently deceased composer to study his work. In addition to his widow, his son (James Olsen) lives in the house. He was a tennis player who has been bound to a wheelchair due to an accident. Powers discovers she bears a striking resemblance to his girlfriend who left him after the accident. She falls for him, but things are not exactly what they seem to be. One of the last psycho-thrillers made by Hammer. The cast is good, with Joss Ackland also appearing as a household servant. The film really drags during the laborious set up, but it has a satisfying and somewhat surprising climax.
MARIO GAUCI
This was the last of Hammer's 10 psycho-thrillers to get watched by me: in the long run, it is a middle-of-the-road effort, not particularly good but neither is it among the worst. Still, the film has palpable deficiencies, first and foremost because it is severely undercast (though lead Stefanie Powers had already co-starred in the above-average FANATIC aka DIE! DIE! MY DARLING {1965} from the same stable: incidentally, I regret not giving that one a spin as part of my recent tribute to its late director Silvio Narizzano!) and over-familiar – to say nothing of being essentially dreary – in plot line. In fact, it borrows the French setting, wheelchair-bound protagonist and the mysterious room from TASTE OF FEAR aka SCREAM OF FEAR {1961}, the hallucinations pertaining to a past crime from NIGHTMARE {1964} – both among the company's top outings and both also scripted by the late Jimmy Sangster, who here reworked Alfred Shaughnessy's original scenario…which had actually been intended for Michael Reeves, the promising but short-lived director of WITCHFINDER GENERAL {1968}! – and the domineering mother from FANATIC itself. By the way, the pool-as-murder-setting owes its origins to Henri-Georges Clouzot's seminal DIABOLIQUE (1955), which – along with Alfred Hitchcock's even more celebrated PSYCHO {1960} – was virtually the template for all of these Hammer shockers to begin with! Another clear link to the latter's cinematic universe is the molding of one character into the personality of another, now deceased, which was at the center of both his REBECCA (1940) and VERTIGO (1958)! One additional motif here is the eerie presence of broken dolls, which may very well have already been employed by some earlier Hammer shocker but was certainly a vital feature of Freddie Francis' THE PSYCHOPATH (1966): while this was made for the company's rival Amicus, its director had contributed a trio of titles to the British House Of Horror's Grand Guignol-infused subgenre.The afore-mentioned dreams that afflict hero James Olson (who had just starred in Hammer's goofy 'Space Western' MOON ZERO TWO {1969}) do rather give away the final twist (much-abused over the years), especially with the repetition but, then, the plot does incorporate a number of red herrings which makes one think the narrative will be going a certain way only for it to change direction before long. These have to do with the sordid goings-on in the central mansion and the sleazy characters that inhabit it, the others being Margaretta Scott – whom I was mainly familiar with from the mammoth Alexander Korda/William Cameron Menzies sci-fi THINGS TO COME (1936) – as Olson's "obsessed" mother (determined to keep the memory of her late and distinguished composer husband alive), Jane Lapotaire as the "sensuous" maid (who procures Olson with his heroin fix for sexual services rendered – the film is reasonably explicit in this regard – though at the same time deluding herself that she can one day become his wife) and "sinister" manservant Joss Ackland (who seems to have something going with the latter as well but nothing is eventually made of it!). I deliberately quoted the adjectives utilized in the accompanying theatrical trailer (for the record, though CRESCENDO was recently issued on DVD-R as part of Warners' "Archive Collection", the copy I watched came via a serviceable VHS source) to describe each of these three characters! To the house arrives young, pretty music teacher Powers who has decided to research the life and work of Scott's husband for her Masters degree; the main piano theme, while quite good in itself, does receive a thorough work-out amid the proceedings. Another quibble I have with the script expressly concerns her presence there (though it is not limited to the film under review), that is to say, if the household obviously concealed some dark secret that would invariably bring the whole crushing down (thankfully, not literally) on its occupants, why tempt Fate by inviting an outsider into their fold? The climax, then, is appropriately intense but also not exactly inspired (with Ackland's demise proving especially unconvincing) and abrupt into the bargain. Indeed, even if the handling here of Hammer newbie Alan Gibson was appreciated by some, I had always been somewhat wary of his involvement since he would subsequently helm the notorious last two entries in the company's "Dracula" franchise, which brought the mythical vampire Count uneasily into contemporary times (though he still could not tarnish the reputation of genre icons Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee)! Even so, I did enjoy one of his two contributions to the HAMMER HOUSE OF HORROR (1980) TV series (which had also starred Cushing) and was intrigued enough by the picture that would follow CRESCENDO, namely the obscure but impressively-cast telepathic horror GOODBYE GEMINI (1970), that I acquired it soon after this viewing...
misterfarkyharse
This is one of those films that rarely gets a good review. In fact it's been pretty much forgotten! It probably isn't one of Hammer's greatest achievements but it is by no means one of the worst. There are some rather uneventful scenes but I think they add to the suspense. The photography is very effective in places and the setting is quite haunting in a picturesque kind of way. The music which obviously is a major part of the story also adds to the more sinister scenes. The best performance comes from the seductive and eccentric maid, Lilliane (played by Jane Lapotaire) and Joss Ackland also puts in a fine performance as Carter (the butler/minder). It is not available on DVD and probably never will be, so if it's ever shown on TV it's certainly worth a look at.
The_Void
Hammer studios were obviously most famous for their horror flicks, but they did produce some work in other genres; and the thriller genre was one of their strongest outside horror, especially during the sixties with films such as Paranoiac and A Taste of Fear. I had rather high hopes for this one going into it despite its poor reputation simply for the fact that Hammer produced it and they have produced some good thrillers; such as those mentioned, but unfortunately it would seem that the studio's success in this genre didn't continue into the seventies as Crescendo, despite some good moments and positive elements, is a largely lacklustre thriller. The plot focuses on a young girl who goes to stay at a house in France to help her with a thesis. The house used to belong to a famous music composer but is now owned by his wife and son after the composer's death. The girl soon gets to meet the family as well as the staff and soon it becomes apparent that not everything is as it should be; mostly because everyone in the house is a weirdo!The film's main problem is that it largely fails to be interesting; the story is derivative and not all that interesting anyway, and this isn't compensated for by the characters (who are also largely uninteresting) so we end up with a film that doesn't fit the 'thriller' bill very well. Most of the film takes place in an old, large house; although director Alan Gibson doesn't really make best use of this in terms of atmosphere. The director would go on to make the latter two films in the popular Dracula series - the fun Dracula A.D. 1972 and the disappointing Satanic Rites of Dracula and both of these lacked atmosphere too. Crescendo was apparently made for TV and this is pretty obvious as it's all quite tame; there are actually a few murders in this film but we never get to see much blood and they're not very brutal. Nobody in the cast particularly stands out either; Stefanie Powers is the biggest standout in the lead role, though not particularly for her performance. There is a twist at the end which comes as something of a surprise, but as the build up to it is quite dull; the twist doesn't come off all that well. Overall, I can't say I enjoyed this film much and I'd only recommend it to Hammer Horror completists.
