The Couch *** (1962, Grant Williams, Shirley Knight, Onslow Stevens) – Classic Movie Review 9666

Producer-director Owen Crump’s 1962 film The Couch is a grisly suspense horror thriller with a screenplay by Robert Bloch (the author of Psycho) about a murderously inclined psychiatric patient (Grant Williams), who, instead of heeding his continuing therapy analysis, continues his murder spree after telephoning the police before each murder, and goes berserk armed with a handy ice-pick.

The Couch is a workman-like Psycho-style horror movie, which proceeds in a gruesome but familiar sort of way. Harold Stine’s flashy black and white cinematography is stylish, but the script is slightly flat in places, given the fascinating premise and sensational possibilities. Grant Williams is effective as the serial killer, Charles Campbell, and Shirley Knight makes something of her role as the psychiatrist’s assistant, Terry Ames.

It is directed and produced by Crump from his story, written with his nephew Blake Edwards (aka under his real name of William Blake Crump).

Also in the cast are Onslow Stevens, William Leslie, Anne Helm, Simon Scott, Michael Bachus, John Alvin, Harry Holcombe, and Hope Summers.

It is Onslow Stevens’s last film.

Shirley Knight Hopkins (July 5, 1936 – April 22, 2020).

RIP Shirley Knight, who earned two Oscar nominations in her 20s (for The Dark at the Top of the Stairs in 1961 and Sweet Bird of Youth in 1963), won a Tony Award in 1975, won a Golden Globe in 1996, and won three Emmy Awards, died on 22 April 2020, aged 83.

She is also remembered for House of Women (1962), The Group (1966), The Counterfeit Killer (1968), The Rain People (1969), Dutchman (1966), Endless Love (1981), As Good as It Gets (1997), Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (2002), and Grandma’s Boy (2006).

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9666

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