Few in Hollywood understood more what the "show" in Show Business meant than William Castle. Despite the fact that his films were rarely very good, he promoted his pictures and himself so well that he even elicited comparisons to Hitchcock.
Jeffrey Schwarz' Documentary mainly focuses on the period between MACABRE (1958) and I SAW WHAT YOU DID (1965). Castle went heavy on promotional stunts like Death Insurance, nurses in theaters, Emergo's flying skeletons, Percepto's seat buzzers, Illusion-O's 3D-like ghosts, Punishment Polls and Fright Breaks to sell his films. It worked, and Castle was able to distinguish his low-budget movies from that of his competitors such as Roger Corman (who is interviewed).
The movie clips, vintage newsreels and photographs are well-chosen to document Castle's career (too bad Schwarz chose to have everything presented in the same aspect ratio which cuts off the heads, text and other visual information in a number of them). Castle's daughter Terry gives family insight into his personal and professional life along with some of the filmmaker's friends and colleagues like Bob Thomas, actor Darryl Hickman and actress Jacqueline Scott (who just recently passed ). John Waters has some gleeful stories to tell among the the other interviewees like Joe Dante, Leonard Maltin, Michael Schlesinger and Bob Burns.
Castle's reign may have been fairly brief, but, his career stretched all the way back to Columbia Pictures' B unit in the early 40s. It's too bad more time isn't spent on the films for there are a few like the original THE WHISTLER (1944) and JOHNNY STOOL PIGEON (1949) that are on a par with his best known work like HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL (1959) and HOMICIDAL.
While Castle enjoyed his exploitation success, he wanted to get more respect as a filmmaker, and two stories bookend his career that must have rankled him to his grave. In 1947 Castle found the book that would become LADY FROM SHANGHAI (1947). Castle's version is that he asked Orson Welles to pitch the story to Columbia honcho Sam Cohn with the proviso that Castle Direct. Of course, Welles ended up with the assignment himself. Castle's version probably would have made more sense, but, it would never have had Welles' baroque stylings. In the 60s Castle managed to read and purchase the rights to the galleys of Ira Levin's novel Rosemary's Baby and then flipped those rights for a healthy profit to Paramount Pictures. Again, Castle intended to Direct, but, Paramount's Robert Evans instead hired the the up & coming Roman Polanski. Here again, there is no way to imagine that Castle's Direction could have matched Polanski's bravura style that also captured the zeitgeist of the swinging 60s (to the tune of over $200M in today's dollars). Castle had to settle, again, for a Producing credit. Castle managed to Produce and/or Direct a few more films (including 1975's BUG) before passing away at only 63 (his lifelong smoking of cigarettes and enormous cigars no doubt contributed).
SPINE-TINGLER! is a pleasurable look back at one of the great cult figures of cinema.
