What's the Matter with Helen?
| What's the Matter With Helen? | |
|---|---|
Original theatrical poster
|
|
| Directed by | Curtis Harrington |
| Produced by |
George Edwards Executive: Edward S. Feldman Associate: James C. Pratt |
| Written by | Henry Farrell |
| Starring |
Debbie Reynolds Shelley Winters Dennis Weaver Agnes Moorehead Micheál MacLiammóir Robbi Morgan |
| Music by | David Raksin |
| Cinematography | Lucien Ballard |
| Edited by | William Reynolds |
|
Production
company |
Filmways Pictures
Raymax Productions |
| Distributed by |
United Artists Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Orion Pictures |
|
Release date
|
June 30, 1971 |
|
Running time
|
101 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
What's the Matter With Helen? is a 1971 American horror-thriller film starring Debbie Reynolds and Shelley Winters.
Leonard Hill and Wesley Bruckner are seen being loaded into a paddywagon to face life sentences in prison for the Iowa murder of Ellie Banner. Their mothers, Helen Hill (Shelley Winters) and Adelle Bruckner (Debbie Reynolds) fight a crowd to their car.
In the car, Helen reveals that someone in the crowd cut the palm of her left hand. Soon at home and tending to her wound, Helen receives an anonymous phone call from a man, "I'm the one who cut you.... I wanted to see you bleed." This caller threatens to make the mothers pay for the sins of their sons. Helen and Adelle change their names, leave Iowa, and head to Hollywood, where both Helen and Adelle opens a dance academy for little girls who want to be the next Shirley Temple.
Soon after arriving, Hamilton Starr (Micheál MacLiammóir), an elocution teacher offers his services to Helen and Adelle's school, and Adelle takes him up on his offer, much to Helen's chagrin, as Helen is frightened of the menacing man. Soon, the phone calls resume and Helen believes a strange man is watching their home. She has hallucinations, especially at a show where she think she sees Starr with a knife.
Adelle falls in love with Lincoln Palmer (Dennis Weaver), the father of a student (Sammee Lee Jones), and Helen grows jealous of the budding relationship. Helen takes solace in her faith, listening to a radio show hosted by evangelist Sister Alma (Agnes Moorehead).
Helen's jealousy of Adelle's romance with Lincoln leads to a fight, at which point Adelle demands that Helen move out. Adelle then heads for her date with Linc. As Helen readies herself to move out, a mysterious intruder enters the house, walks up the staircase, and calls her real name. Helen reacts by pushing him down the stairs. When he lands at the bottom, his head is gashed open, blood is seeping onto the floor, and Helen envisions her late husband, who was mutilated by a plow, and the dead Ellie Banner.
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