Twisted Nerve

Hayley Mills in a late 60’s psychological drama-thriller

A 22 years-old man (Hywel Bennett) cops a childlike personality to get close to a winsome library worker in London (Mills). He seeks to get his foot in the door of her mother’s boarding house. Havoc ensues.

“Twisted Nerve” (1968) was influenced by Hitchcock’s “Psycho” (and even borrows Bernard Herrmann for the score), but it’s more dramatic and less over-the-top. Hayley was 21 years-old during shooting and thoroughly winsome, as usual, but she needed to eat some cheeseburgers. Meanwhile Billie Whitelaw is sultry as the mother in a subdued way.

There’s a curious voiceover at the beginning that states: “there is no established scientific connection between mongolism (aka Down Syndrome) and psychotic or criminal behavior.” Yet this was unnecessary in light of the fact that the key character in the movie doesn’t have Down Syndrome. Secondly, so a relative of a person with Down Syndrome has psychological issues and commits a serious crime or two, so what? Who in their right mind would draw the conclusion that EVERYONE related to a person with Down Syndrome would be that way?

Interesting tidbit: Tarantino borrowed the whistling tune from Herrmann’s score for “Kill Bill” (when Elle Driver impersonates a nurse) and “Death Proof” (heard as Abernathy Ross’ ringtone).

It runs 1 hour, 58 minutes, and was shot in Twickenham, which is just southwest of London (I’m talking about the Harper house, which happened to be the residence of Hayley’s family). Studio stuff was done in Shepperton, which is about 5 miles southwest of there.

GRADE: B-