The Screaming Woman (1972)
What do you call a thriller that reveals not only the killer’s identity, but also its major plot points, all within the first ten minutes? I call it brilliant. Based on a story by Ray Bradbury (who turns 90 this week), The Screaming Woman also shows a good TV movie can make substantial changes to its source material without ruining it.
#1 by The Beerman on August 17, 2010 - 10:40 pm
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I remember reading the EC version of this story in “Tales from The Crypt.” Definitely gonna have to check this out. Thanks for the YouTube link.
And Will, if this warning doesn’t come too late, I would avoid “The Candy Snatchers” at all costs.
#2 by El Santo on August 18, 2010 - 9:34 am
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Radio play, short story, comic book, TV movie… In case all that isn’t enough for you, there’s yet another version of The Screaming Woman, this one shot for HBO in the mid-80’s as an episode of their “Ray Bradbury Theater” anthology series. I remember the preview much better than I remember the show itself, but my impression at the time was that it was the second-best episode of the whole series, surpassed only by “The Crowd.”
#3 by jason farrell on August 18, 2010 - 11:07 am
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El Santo is correct. I recently bought the RBT box set; Drew Barrymore stars in that version, a version which also has a lot of unexpected kick to it as well. But it sounds as if this TV movie posits what might have happened after the conclusion of the original story, with an older and more damaged narrator.
#4 by Jen S on August 18, 2010 - 3:02 pm
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Happy Birthday Ray Bradbury! You wrote Dandelion Wine as though it was just for me-it was the first book that really made me feel transported, and dazed when it was over. Thanks.
I will watch this movie tonight, after work. Alone. As it should be.
#5 by ProfessorKettlewell on August 18, 2010 - 11:50 pm
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“Seeing the face of this woman, buried under a ton of brick and dirt, gasping for help with her fading breath, would have left me a wreck for weeks”
In my case, it did. I never knew the name of this film until today, but that image has stuck with me for a looong time.
And on the subject of made-for-TV movies about Burial Alive, what about “80 Hours ’till Dawn” (I think that’s right.) Another one that messed me up and good when I were a lad.
#6 by lyzard on August 21, 2010 - 11:53 pm
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I have seen this once, perhaps thirty years ago. I recorded it off the TV in the middle of the night, as I got most of what I watched back then; and Tv being what it was then, I missed the start.
Not all the start: it cut in with Olivia crawling around on her hands and knees looking increasingly distressed. And then the voice. And then the face.
“The HELL!!??” my brother and I exclaimed in unison (or whatever expression we used back then to express mingled shock, horror, and delight), and – hooked.
#7 by supersonic on August 24, 2010 - 5:07 pm
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How the fuck can a TV movie from the seventies be public domain under the same system of law in which a melody written in 1893 (Happy Birthday) remains the property of AOLTimeWarner until 2030?
#8 by Braineater on August 24, 2010 - 6:38 pm
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It probably the fuck can’t. I’m being naïvely optimistic that the video won’t get smacked with a takedown notice as soon as a couple of readers go from my site to watch it.
I know that Financial Syndication (Fin-Syn) rules used to prevent networks from owning most of their content. Those rules were rescinded in the 1990’s, but in the 70’s TV movies were produced by other companies (like Universal, Lorimar, or a whole host of others). I’m not an expert on copyright law, but it seems to me from the number of TV movies currently available as PD properties (from archive.org, for example, or included in those bargain DVD sets you find at your local supermarket) that if the company that owned the rights no longer exists, or at any rate doesn’t give a shit about enforcement, then the movies are pretty much fair game.
That said, though, I think The Screaming Woman was made by Universal, so… umm… watch the YouTube version while you can.
#9 by Read MacGuirtose on August 25, 2010 - 12:14 am
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Actually, there’s some doubt that Happy Birthday really is still protected — at least one legal expert says it is “almost certainly no longer under copyright.” That being said, it’s probably still a very bad idea to try to use it without permission, since even if they’re not legally in the right Warner could easily outspend just about anyone and make their lives miserable if a case went to court.
However, while copyright can be a very sticky and complicated thing when dealing with works published previous to the most recent revision to copyright laws, I’m pretty sure anything published in 1972 like The Screaming Woman would still be under copyright unless explicitly released. I won’t go into all the messy details (especially since IANAL and would probably get them wrong anyway), but there’s a good summary chart here that indicates that anything published since 1964 with a copyright notice would still be under copyright until 95 years after the publication date — so the only way this movie could have fallen into the public domain is if the studio neglected to include a copyright notice on it, which seems very unlikely. (Though not impossible, I suppose — Night of the Living Dead is in the public domain for exactly that reason.)
Okay, nope; just checked out the YouTube video, and there is indeed a copyright notice at the end. So, yeah, unless there’s some other technicality I’m missing (which I’m pretty sure there isn’t, but, again, IANAL), The Screaming Woman should still be under copyright. Whether Universal particularly cares to enforce that copyright is, of course, another question altogether.
#10 by ProfessorKettlewell on August 26, 2010 - 9:14 pm
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[Self-correction].
I made a mistake with the title in my last post: seems like the TVMOW I was remembering is called “The Longest Night” . And is apparently stuck in litigation limbo, and never re-shown since 1972. Which is odd, because I definitely saw it around 1980.