Thursday 19 December 2013

Yuletide Old Movie Spot - The Evil Mind (aka The Clairvoyant)


The holidays were a time for old films when I was a lad. Nowadays it's all fancy blockbusters and the like, but I prefer obscure stuff in black and white when I'm a bit drunk and full of pudding. 

Anyway, here's a little gem I stumbled across earlier this week. It's Claude 'Weather Report' Rains and screen beauty Fay Wray in a British (maybe a 'quota quickie'?) film that neatly tackles the perennial question - What if someone really could see the future? Does this mean they can help avert disaster, or do their prophecies actually shape events? And was three hundred pounds a week really an unthinkably vast wage back then? (Yes, it was.)

It's fascinating to see two big-name stars in a relatively cheap and cheerful horror movie (albeit one without actual monsters). But it's good stuff, from the opening when the 'Great Maximus' finds his act going wrong due to simple human error to the big trial scene at the end. Some nice visual effects, too. Just don't listen to the accents too closely...

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