"Night" Schtick!

Since the afternoon my mother and I caught What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) on a local UHF channel back in the mid-1970s, I've had an affection for the "psycho-biddy" or "hag horror" (or whatever you may call it) genre, in which once-glamorous actresses turn up in late-career parts either terrorizing one another or being terrorized. We've covered several here, some of them pretty obscure, like Savage Intruder (1970) with Miriam Hopkins or Blood and Lace (1971) with Gloria Grahame. To us, they are irresistible, whether they are good or bad. And today in time for Halloween, we have another one to offer up and it is obscure...!  Do you even know which star of the 1940s and '50s is the featured centerpiece of The Night God Screamed (1971?)

Well now you do!

It's Miss Jeanne Crain, pert little Margy Frake from State Fair (1945), the heroine Ruth from Leave Her to Heaven (1945), the fretful Deborah from A Letter to Three Wives (1949) and the mixed race title character in Pinky (1949), among many other roles. Then 45, this is about the last sort of thing most folks would have expected to see her in. The following year, after one more movie, she exited stage right.

The film opens in a wooded area near a pond where religious fanatic Michael Sugich (clearly taking his lead from the still-recent Manson Family cult murders of 1969) is baptizing one of his followers.

The Charles Manson-ish Sugich raves on about how he and his cult members consider getting high as a way of obtaining further closeness with Lord Jesus.

Nearby, a cross-wielding, cloaked "Atoner" watches over the proceedings.

Sugich begins to preach out about interlopers from the outside who've infiltrated the group with the intention of betraying them. He calls out anyone there who hasn't been properly baptized into the family.

Then he gets a little more specific and calls out one particular girl.

She protests and proclaims her devotion, but Sugich isn't having it...

The Atoner drags her out into the middle of the pond for her baptism. And it doesn't end well.

Cut to our star, Jeanne Crain, walking down a dilapidated city street with a bag of groceries in each hand.

The unnamed city is presumably part of Los Angeles and it looks seedy! It's movies like this with authentically run-down neighborhoods (so common in 1970s films) that ensured I would spend virtually my entire life in the suburbs or further out than that!

As she approached her destination, a grizzled bum with summer teeth ("summer there, sum ain't!") grabs one of her grocery bags and runs off with it!

She calls after him, exclaiming that he doesn't have to steal from her, but it's no use... He's gone. And where was she headed?

Her minister husband Alex Nichol runs a soup kitchen. He's inside pouring coffee to a steady line of homeless men.

I never quite got why there wasn't a single female to be found among the attendees there. Was it segregated by sex? Women weren't homeless in 1971? I have no idea.

I couldn't for the life of me figure out the schematic of the soup kitchen either. Some men got deli sandwiches, there was a teeming pile of glazed doughnuts that even I couldn't make a dent in. The others got a disgusting pinto bean-ish gruel that looked like vomit.

In the face of all that's on site being passed out, I don't know what Crain's two flimsy bags of more food was going to do, but she has to confess to Nicol that she lost one to the pilferer out front. She's getting really weary of the whole enterprise.

Nicol lets her know that he's rented a hall in a nicer part of time in which to hold a revival meeting and bring in more and better offerings. He says things will be better when they have their own church. She points out that after 25 years, they're still struggling to get any sort of foothold.

On their way to the hall, Crain is dismayed that with their rent behind, the cost of the hall looming and newspaper advertising, Nicol has spent $50.00 (a dearer sum in 1971 than now) for a huge cross!

The weary couple pulls over to put some gas in their ramshackle truck.

Also there is the dreaded Sugich, who tries the cross on for size!

Self-proclaimed prophet Sugich and minister Nicol engage in a discussion over their professions and their interest in Jesus.

Not one to turn away a potential customer, Nicol invites him to the revival meeting that evening.

Meanwhile, Crain (wearing a wig from The Grapes of Wrath, 1940, or something) is fending off one of Sugich's followers.

He tells her how good he is at handling a machine, but... uh... as he strokes the door frame and gazes at Crain, I don't think he's really referring to the truck!

This location, by the way, was a very frequently used one in the 1970s. Apart from popping up in various movies, it seems like virtually every TV show of Quinn Martin's from Barnaby Jones to Cannon and beyond, had scene filmed here multiple times.

As the preacher and his wife pull away, Sugich tells his buddy that he believes that they will attend the revival that night.

Somehow on the way, Crain's hair is now fuller (not to mention real!) as they approach the hall. She watches as Nicol and a friend put the cross in place on stage.

Said associate is played by James B. Sikking, later to gain fame on Hill St. Blues.

Nicol goes through his paces of encouraging salvation before the smattering of attendees, then sends Sikking out with the collection plate.

Sikking gets a jolt when he heads down the rows and comes to a stoic and menacing-looking Sugich, who has no intention of donating so much as a penny to the cause.

When the service is over, Nicol begins to close up the hall and receive (scant) collection while Crain heads outside with Sikking.

I can't see this ending well...

Sugich and two of his followers, along with the ever-unseen Atoner, confront Nicol.

They want his collection money, which he's reluctant to hand over. He refers to them as hoodlums, which isn't exactly endearing to Sugich.

Meanwhile, outside talking with Sikking, Crain vents about how she has nothing at all, including no children, after 25 years of alignment with Nicol.

On her way back in, Crain hears voices, a scuffle and, eventually, blood-curdling screams! She fumbles for change to call the police, but is too distraught to focus.

When it seems to have calmed down, she opens the door to the hall. (Had I been calling the shots, this image would have made it onto posters.)

She lumbers through the hall towards the stage-turned-altar.

Finally near some light, she discovers a gruesome scenario!

Cut to a trial, in which Sugich and his two buddies (but no Atoner) are accused of Nicol's murder.

The judge Stewart Bradley struggles to maintain order in the court (in which virtually every attendee besides Crain seems to be a teen or twenty-something!)

The prosecutor Jack Donner (known for having played a Romulan on an early episode of Star Trek) calls for the death penalty.

A rather glazed-over Crain watches with downtrodden interest.

Traumatized as she is by the death of her husband, at least she gets the vindication of a guilty verdict in the case, even though the Atoner, who carried out the physical act, was never arrested.

When the verdict (death row) is read, Sugich launches into a wild reaction that must be seen to be believed.

As he's taken into custody and Crain departs the courtroom, he swears vengeance on her.

A gaggle of Sugich's followers confront Crain on the courthouse steps with further threats of retaliation.

Crain finds work as a Mrs. Bates stand-in at the Psycho house at Universal Studios. (Just kidding... She's understandably despondent after her ordeal.)

After 25 years as a minister's wife, her career options are limited. Finally, the judge at the trial for her husband's murder employs her as a cleaning lady at his sizeable estate.

One evening, he asks if she'll go there and spend a long weekend as guardian for his four teen children. He and his wife want to get away and he wants the kids to stay home the entire time. She's reluctant, but he offers her an extra $50.00 (The same amount that doggone cross cost...! If you're curious, the value today is about $390.00.)

The house is huge and semi-remote.

On the way there, Crain is unnerved when some motorcyclists seem to be following the judge's car. After what happened to her, she's instantly distrustful of anyone who seems as if they might be a follower of Sugich.

She arrives at the house and gets attitude right away from the eldest son Daniel Spelling.

He's pissed because he has to stay home when he is supposed to be playing in some sort of tournament the next day. (And why shouldn't be be?! He's a grown man, quite obviously. All the kids are old enough to be alone for a couple of days, for Pete's sake.)

As Spelling is helping his father pack the trunk, he's told once more to stay home all weekend or he won't get the new car he wants...!

The already tense Crain doesn't find things any easier once the phone starts to ring, but no one's there.

Sometimes no one's there. Sometimes it's the mother of the kids. Sometimes it's a cretinous voice proclaiming "Vengeance is mine!"

One of the daughters (Dawn Cleary) is annoyed by the calls because she's expecting one from a boy she had intended to go on a date with the next day until the edict about staying home came about. Crain is about to call the police after one threatening call, but now the line is dead!

Before long, mysterious figures are being spotted outside! Crain and the kids lock all the doors and turn the lights out so that they might see out the windows better.

When a lurking figure is seen out in the garden, Crain is elected to go see who he is (!) while Fred, Daphne, Shaggy and Velma watch through the window!

With trepidation, Crain heads towards the cloaked intruder.

He turns out to be a dummy (even a bigger dummy than me for sitting through this movie!) Attached to it is a note with a skull on it that reads "Vengeance."

Back inside, she relays that it was a stuffed dummy, but keeps the "Vengeance" thing to herself.

Creepy happenings are far from over, however. Someone's turning the front doorknob, trying to get in!

She rallies the children together, telling them to be sure the place is locked up. Spelling informs her that he knows about the trial and the cult followers, believing it is she that they're after, not the quartet of sibling.

Crain has the youths all gathered around the dining room table, demanding that they stay put. If they didn't want to stay home all weekend, they sure as hell don't want to sit around a table like this till morning! Ultimately, they break away from her.

But then Crain is forced to defend herself from an intruder who bursts his arm through the window!

The kids finally agree that someone has to go to a neighbors for help. After some discussion, Spelling calls upon his younger brother Gary Morgan to do it.

When Morgan is seen and pursued by a hooded baddie with a knife, Crain can't bear the guilt and horror of it.

It falls to her to break it to his sisters that Morgan did not make it to The Johnsons, but she can't bring herself to do so.

When Spelling produces the ominous note, he confronts her with the fact that she is the one that the lurkers are after.

The siblings are none too pleased that the put-upon Crain has apparently led a band of cult members to their home. Wracked with fear, Crain searches for a weapon...

What the fork....!?!

Now that's more like it...

They're baaacck. The kids think it might be Jimmy returning from the neighbors, but Crain secretly knows that it can't be.

Since the judge is anti-gun, Crain sends Spelling upstairs to grab one golf club apiece for him and his sisters.

A short while later, one of the sisters (Barbara Hancock) is practically in shock.

She and Crain go in search of Cleary and find...

The infamous elevator blood splatter from Earthquake! (Ha ha! Just kidding. That epic was yet to come...)

Now things are just plain not good... Crain hears noises and heads to a hall closet.

...and finds this! (I normally wouldn't do this much of a spoiler, but this shot is practically the only skin visible in the movie.)

Fix it, Jesus!

Now Crain really gets a chance to demonstrate pure terror.

They're dropping like flies around here, I tell ya!

Finally, Crain is forced to confront the evil that's lurked around the house all evening. And if you think you have it all worked out, you may be in for one last surprise. Should you want to risk being tricked or treated, the obscure movie can be seen in its entirety here.

As I noted at the beginning, Crain had led a career since the mid-1940s, as a young 20th Century Fox contract player, as ingenues, pretty girlfriends and daughters and the occasional meatier role. Oscar-nominated for 1949's Pinky, she lost to Olivia de Havilland in The Heiress. One role I remember in which she was tormented (though not to this degree) is 1953's Dangerous Crossing, about a newlywed whose husband disappears from a cruise ship. In the mid-1950s and 1960s, she could occasionally be seen as a guest on television, but continued to do the occasional movie such as Madison Avenue (1961), though several of them were made overseas such as Queen of the Nile (1961), Pontius Pilate (1962) and Invasion 1700 (1962.) Back home it was sometimes low-rent drek like Hot Rods to Hell (1966), which is nonetheless entertaining. Her final movie was Skyjacked (1972), in which she was given precious little to do, but looked nice at least. A Catholic wife and mother of seven children, there was plenty off-screen to keep her busy. She died in 2003 at age 78 from a heart attack. 

Miss Crain in brighter days.

Nicol was the son of a prison armskeeper and a detention center matron, whose fertile imagination led to enrollment in an acting school and ultimately some success on Broadway, though WWII did interrupt his progress for several years. He understudied Henry Fonda in Mr. Roberts, but never got to go on - even on the night Fonda's wife committed suicide! Later, he replaced Ralph Meeker in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and toured in that show. By 1950, the movies had come calling and he landed a contract at Universal, often appearing in westerns. Always gainfully employed, in projects of varying quality, he never really got that one iconic role or household name classic movie that would ensure he'd be well-known. Perhaps The Man from Laramie (1955) with James Stewart came closest. We've seen him in the hooty Look in Any Window (1961), of course. Having spent several years in Europe making movies there, he returned to the US and wound up in things like Roger Corman's Bloody Mama (1970) and this. By 1976, after the atrocious A*P*E, he'd had enough. He died in 2001 at age 85 from natural causes.

Sikking was a highly familiar character actor who appeared in many movies and on TV from the early-1960s on. Though effective as kind characters, he excelled when playing more snide ones. He played all sorts of doctors, officials, policemen as well as agents and hitmen. Finally in 1981, his role on Hill St. Blues led to notoriety and an Emmy nomination (losing to his costar Bruce Weitz.) After that, he was gainfully employed as the father of Doogie Houser, M.D., followed by a stint on Brooklyn South.  Retiring in 2012, he passed away in 2024 with complications from dementia at age 90.

It's barely worth it to delve much more deeply into the other actors to be found in The Night God Screamed. For Sugich, it was his first and last film role. He only did a couple of eps of Mod Squad and one Ironside beforehand.

Barbara Hancock, top left, had appeared in Finian's Rainbow (1968) as "Silent Sue" along with a couple of other appearances, but this was her swan song. She was principally a dancer. Diminutive Morgan had been a pretty busy child and teen actor (his face might be familiar to you from Logan's Run, 1976) but generally remained in small parts. He ultimately became a regularly employed stuntman who could also deliver lines. Cleary had but only one other credit, a bit part in a 1971 film called The Christian Licorice Store. (This highly-obscure flick starred Beau Bridges and Maud Adams.)

As for Spelling, he'd guest-starred on two episodes of a 1969 show called The New People, about college students surviving a place crash on a Pacific island. It was produced by one Aaron Spelling. His uncle... Though not every credit he ever won was through his uncle, his resume is nonetheless dotted with small roles in Spelling productions such as Mod Squad, The Rookies and S.W.A.T. By 1978, following a couple of bit parts in small films, his on-screen acting days were over.

That's it for this installment of Poseidon's Underworld. Wishing all of you a Happy Halloween!