just watch it!

It is a performances centric movie

Fantastic!

Beautiful, moving film.

I Saw What You Did (1965) *** (out of 4)Libby (Andi Garrett), Kit (Sara Lane) and Libby's younger sister Tess (Sharyl Locke) are home alone when they decide to have some fun by prank calling people. They start telling people "I saw what you did and I know who you are" but unfortunately for them they say this to Steve Marak (John Ireland) who has just murdered his wife.William Castle's I SAW WHAT YOU DID is an extremely entertaining and satisfying thriller that manages to be the director's best film next to HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL. The film has such a simple set-up and the director manages to do so much with it that it's a real shame the movie has never gotten the credit it deserves. This here is certainly much better than the other psychological thrillers that he was making during this period and he didn't have to resort to any sort of gimmick.What works so well here is the fact that the story is simple. I'm sure most people watching the movie has done something childish and stupid like the teens did here and of course sometimes you do it to the wrong person. The idea of saying something innocent as a prank to someone who has actually killed their wife just makes for a person story and it really gets hammered home thanks to Castle's direction. There are a couple terrific sequences here including the murder of the wife, which takes place in the shower and is rather violent. The other great moment happens at the very end when the two sisters are being chased around the house by the killer. There's some real tension in this sequence and it's certainly the highlight of the director's career.Another thing that works perfectly here are the performances. Both Garrett and Lane are wonderful in their roles and I thought both of them were very believable playing the naive teens. You've also got strong supporting performances by Leif Erickson and John Archer. There's also Ireland who turns in a wonderful and sinister performance as the man who just snaps and then has to resort to more murder to cover up his crimes. Ireland really nailed the part and sold it so well that you could believe he was this creep. Joan Crawford got top-billing but she's really not in much of the film. It's still fun to see her however and she's still quite good.I SAW WHAT YOU DID certainly deserves to be much better known than it is. Of all the film Castle did this one here contains his greatest director and proves that he could build up suspense and tension if he needed to.

In my earlier review of William Castle's HOMICIDAL (1961), I had stated that not only was that film obviously patterned on Alfred Hitchcock's PSYCHO (1960) but also that it looked forward to the "Grand Guignol" cycle that followed in the wake of the critical and box-office success of Robert Aldrich's WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? (1962) which had obviously co-starred Joan Crawford. Well, the film under review (which, incidentally, also features Crawford) is not only the third of four successive 'official' Castle efforts in that vein – including the bona- fide superior Crawford star vehicle STRAIT-JACKET (1964) – but also subverts two of PSYCHO's most infamous elements: the nominal star of the film here shows up more than half-way through its running-time but still gets bumped off well before the end; and while there is a (very effective, I might add) shower murder sequence here too, it is the killer who is naked under the faucet and is surprised by his aggressive victim, his departing wife!! Despite all these derivations and influences, I SAW WHAT YOU DID itself got remade for TV in 1988, not to mention inspired the "slasher" mini-franchise I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER more than 30 years later…Unfortunately, for all the atmospherically fog-laden black-and-white lighting and decent star names in the cast list (which, curiously, also includes male actor John Crawford as a providential highway patrolman!), the prototype does not perhaps hold up as well as expected in retrospect. Indeed, despite all three being billed ahead of the title, only psychopathic villain John Ireland gets a meaty role and a considerable amount of screen time; on the other hand, as already mentioned above, Crawford's unflattering part of Ireland's overzealous, overcoiffeured and ultimately blackmailing neighbour is only a star cameo (and her last appearance in a Hollywood feature film to boot!), while Leif Erickson's businessman father is just an unconvincing excuse to get the parents away from home for the night so that the trio of girl protagonists can indulge in the titular prank and resultant danger! Even that joke is played out for far more than it is worth and, like the cutaways to the elders' bland dinner engagement, gets to feel repetitive before long. Thankfully, the actresses chosen to fill in the shoes of the menaced pranksters are an engaging lot…even if Castle's reprise of the upbeat opening music cue (heard over the credits cleverly displayed through opening and shutting eyes!) for the ending was perhaps a bit misjudged seeing how the two sisters had just been threatened by a knife-wielding serial killer! Incidentally, for the typically ingenious ad campaign for the film, Castle proudly proclaimed to cinema patrons that the film they were about to watch involved "uxoricide" and had selected seats strapped with belts intent on keeping viewers from leaping out of them in shock!

Another of William Castle's horror films from the 1960's. This one "I saw What you Did" from 1965 is delightful. Castle was known for this low-budget films; however, being fair, this is one of his better entries.Two teen-aged girls (Sara Lane, Andi Garrett) are alone in one of the girl's isolated homes; her parents are out of town. For fun, the two make prank phone calls. They pick random names out of the phone book (males, of course) and say in a breathy voice "I Saw What you Did." Most of the folks on the other end laugh it off. Just their luck, a man who just murdered his wife (John Ireland) takes them literally, although they have randomly picked his name. Brought into the mix of all this is the man's lover (Joan Crawford) who listens in on the extension phone, thinking he's carrying on with another woman! Not knowing who the girl is (this is 1965, long before the days of caller ID, cell phones, or even touch-tone) he is left stewing and scared someone has actually seen him murder his wife. It all gets quite complicated and implausible, with the curious teens driving to the man's home, spying on him from the windows. They are caught by an enraged Crawford snooping around her lover's property (she lives next-door) and, in a hilarious scene, she calls the teen girl a tramp and forces her back into her car. The film does turn deadly serious when the murderer finds out where the girls live, with an ending that is quite suspenseful. First, a bit about the cinematography; it is quite good, using the most of the darkness and creepiness that surrounds the isolated house. A word about the performances: the two teen girls are delightfully bad actresses, but we don't care because they are fun to watch. John Ireland is quite good, but stone-faced and lethal throughout. Crawford is dressed to the nines, in formal evening attire and a huge necklace that looks like it could have been worn by Cleopatra! She is oddly so in love with Ireland, that she tries to blackmail him into marrying her. It's all a hoot and a holler, but there are some genuine moments of suspense. Worth checking out!

Libby Mannering's parents are going out for the night. The regular sitter had to cancel because of illness, so the elder Mannerings figure Libby can take care of herself and her younger sister Tess. Kit Austin, a friend of Libby's, is coming to spend the night with her friend. Libby is into mischief. She loved to make phone crank calls at random, so she proposes a game: how about calling people for kicks. Libby concoct stories as she goes along. Kit has second thoughts, but goes along with her friend.The people that answered the girls first calls took the prank in stride, but not so Steve Marak. When he answers the phone, Libby, pretending to be older and more sophisticated, proceeds to tell the man she saw what he did. Had he been another man, he would have dismissed the statement, but not so Steve, for a reason: he had just killed his wife, who was in the process of leaving him. So Steve's guilt feelings begin to get the best of him since he had figured he had covered his tracks.Added to the suspense is a woman of a certain age, Amy Nelson, a neighbor, who had set her eyes on Steve as a possible romantic partner. Steve, who had no intentions of starting anything with Amy, goes to bury the body of his slain wife. Amy figures there is something more to the man she likes, than really meet the eye. Amy begins spying on Steve to see what really is going on with him.When the girls, on a whim, decide to visit Steve's house, they had no idea as to how deep they had gotten and the mess they had created. Amy, noticing the girls outside Steve's house, figures the young women are up to no good. Amy pushes her luck with the man she wants and does not live long after her would be lover decides to eliminate her. Now Steve must get back to the teenagers to get rid of them.Not having seen the film before, we decided to take a look when it showed up on cable recently. This was a William Castle product, a man that had great success in the horror genre. The director enjoyed a long career in the movies, but he was not lucky in the way he planned to present the film. The premise was good. Of course, it is dated, by today's standards when not many people engage in those pranks, something that is not easily condoned, or justified by present laws that would consider Libby's actions as a kind of harassment, punishable by law. Basically, our main interest in watching was to see Joan Crawford, who is featured in the film, but whose presence is only minor within the context of the narrative. John Ireland does not impress as Steve. The production is made more creepy by the use of a fog that envelops most of the scenes involving the suburban house.