Stylish but barely mediocre overall

Pretty Good

I gave this film a 9 out of 10, because it was exactly what I expected it to be.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Hypersensitive Chet (endearingly overplayed with considerable scenery-gnashing panache by Darrell Howe) is left despondent over the conviction and execution of his hoodlum older brother. Despite the fact that his brother was guilty, Chet nonetheless decides to exact revenge by setting up the son of a witness for murder. The tepid direction by Boris Petroff and the blah script by Jane Mann and Don Devlin alas allow the meandering narrative to never pick up the steam it needs in order to really cook and be effective; as a direct result of this, the movie fails to build much in the way of both tension and momentum (for example, a major trial set piece doesn't pack any real dramatic punch to speak of). Moreover, the sudden moments of violence tend to be clumsily staged and hence unconvincing. That said, the decent acting from the game cast prevents the picture from being a total wash-out, with especially commendable work by Ronnie Burns as the likable Mickey, Pamela Lincoln as Chet's sweet sister Pat, Michael Granger as the diligent Lt. Mac, co-writer Devlin as the short-tempered Moe, and Frank Killmond as the wimpy Bobbie. Howe's occasional hilariously histrionic outbursts provide a few unintentional belly laughs. Joel Colman's snazzy black and white cinematography makes nifty use of fades, dissolves, and super-impositions. Michael Terr's overwrought score hits the rousing melodramatic spot. A merely acceptable time-waster.

Decided just for fun to view this film in black and white and it sure was one of the worst films I have seen in a long time. Apparently in the 1960's there was a great deal of interest in the film Psycho and this film was introduced as another Psycho thriller.This is the story about two brothers and one gets sentenced to prison for killing a man and the younger brother feels that his brother is innocent and should not go to the gas chamber and seeks revenge.There is a great deal of poor acting and this is definitely a very low budget film with unknown actors doing very poor acting. If you want to fall asleep real fast, then don't miss this so called film.

It takes a certain type of person to enjoy Anatomy of a Psycho. If you like watching good movies, this will not be your thing. I mean imagine a horror movie in which no one dies. (Unless you count that opening scene with the gas chamber. And I suppose technically one guy did semi-accidentally get stabbed.) This has to be the most mild mannered psycho of film history. He comes up with a pretty good plan to get back at the witness, which seems to contradict the end of the movie where the main character has no idea what he's doing. But, I enjoyed Plan 9 From Outer Space, so to everyone out there who has a love for bad movies, this one is kind of fun. If you don't get enjoyment out of bad movies save yourself some time and watch your wife knit for a while.

(Some spoilers) Can be said to be one of bad movie director Edward D. Wood's forgotten masterpieces in that the movie was ghost written by the Great One using the name Larry Lee and even had in its soundtrack the music from Wood's greatest work "Plan Nine from Outer space". One of the many "toubled youth" movies that came out of Hollywood in the 1950's and 1960's "Anatomy of a Psycho" has to do with young and confused Chet Marco, Darnell Howe. Chet's really a good boy who got caught up in the emotional whirlwind that he finds himself in with his older brother Luke a convicted murderer and sentenced to death now facing a one way trip to the gas chamber when the clock strikes midnight. Chet who looked up to his brother as a father figure since Luke brought up both him and his sister Pat, Pamela Lincoln, when his parents either died or deserted him and his two siblings. Chet honestly believes what his brother told him when he visited him on death row the night before his scheduled execution. Luke swore to his baby brother Chet that he was totally innocent of murder despite the evidence, including an eye-witness, against him. There's no doubt in Luke's guilt but the stubborn and delusional Chet has convinced himself that Luke was railroaded and nothing, not even his and Luke's sister Pat, can change his mind. After Luke was executed Chet went slowly insane getting together a number of his friends to get those individuals, the D.A Judge witnesses & jury, responsible for Luke's death. This results in the brutal beating of the D.A's, who prosecuted Luke, son and the burning down of the judges, who sentenced Luke to death, home.Slow moving at first with Darrell Howe playing the fast losing it Chet and becoming more and more unpredictable due to his deteriorating mental condition as he begins to look and act as if he were lobotomized or suffering from an OD of downers. The movie picks up when Mickey, Ronnie Burns, Pat's boyfriend gets into the act by first asking Pat's hand in marriage, and she accepting, and then going to talk things over with Chet at his and his friends clubhouse known as the shack. Telling a shocked and totally nuts Chet that it was his own father Frank, Russ Bender, who's secret testimony sent his beloved brother Luke to the gas chamber Mickey's foolishly thinks that it would make things better if that fact came out!We get to see Chet go out of his head ranting and talking to himself as well as talking to his now departed brother Luke, as if his ghost were somehow trying to contact him, as all hell breaks loose in the shack. It's there that Chet gets belted silly by, as he tried to attack, Mickey and then his friend Moe, Don Devlin, getting into the act and ending up with a knife, that the mindless and out of control Moe landed on, through his chest. Chet now seeing his chance to get even with Mickey and his father for Luke's death instead of calling for help to save the badly wounded Moe's life rams the knife into his heart killing him.It's then that Chet concocts, with the other person in the shack at the time, his best friend Bobbie (Frank Fillman) that it was Mickey who actually killed Moe.It's when Mickey, who was convicted of the murder of Moe, is about to be sentenced that Chet starts to feel that he's not all there up stairs. With the help, or friendly persuasion, of friend and police let. Mac, Michael Granger, and a guilt-ridden Bobbie that Chet after almost killing himself, by jumping off a telephone pole, decides to go straight and set the record right so that he could be able to sleep at night and get back to sanity.