Joan Fontaine Centennial: The Witches (1966)
Tuesday, October 24, 2017 at 8:56PM by Jason Adams
Tell me if you've heard this plot before: a closed-minded outsider with a sordid spiritual history comes to a rural UK village where they slowly unravel a plot involving each and every member of the town being in on the ritual sacrifice of a virginal young woman, with a twist. You're thinking The Wicker Man, right? Well seven years before Christopher Lee did his exuberant little dance beside that infamous flaming totem Joan Fontaine got there first in 1966's The Witches, an actual Hammer production (I always think The Wicker Man is from Hammer, but it ain't) that really doesn't get the love it earns...
Joan plays Gwen Mayfield, a Christian Missionary who in an opening flashback is seen being surrounded by marauding witch doctors in Africa. (This movie has some great big Race Issues, for sure.) Cut to some time later (after a nervous breakdown, it seems) and Gwen's moving to the small village of Heddaby to become the local teacher and pick up the remnants of her life. Only... everybody's a little bit off in Heddaby. The church is in ruins, the townspeople will just stare off as if in trances all of a sudden, and what's the deal with those dolls anyway?
The Witches is the closest that Fontaine ever got to the "Hag Horror" trend that devoured all actresses who dared to grow old in public in the 60s and 70s - this was two years after Joan's older sister Olivia DeHavilland made Lady in a Cage and Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte, for example - but it really isn't "Hag Horror" at all, except for as far as the spectacle of watching an esteemed actress like Joan reel in horror from silly puppets goes. Joan maintains a sense of glamour, looking exceptionally well-crafted in her schoolteacher tweeds and shift-dresses...
... well okay she does get trampled by a bunch of sheep at one point. There is that. And the film does ultimately become explicitly about the pursuit of youth by those women who have lost it - Kay Walsh as the head of the coven gives what becomes a deliriously campy performance in the last act that must be seen, and then rewound and watched three more times, to be appreciated.
But the film, for all its cats in sacks and orgiastic dance routines, is actually kind of thoughtful on the subject of female subjugation - after the nefarious plot's been uncovered The Witches trades the typical fisticuffs that something like the more manly Wicker Man traffics in for a lengthy scene of... two older women chatting at length about their place in the world?
It's also for Hammer an astonishingly chaste film - there's not a hint of heaving cleavage on display. And the topic of Feminine Hysteria, which Joan's character is undermined by on several occasions, is knotted through the plot and tweaked in curious, forward-thinking ways. Could it be? Could The Witches actually kind of be a Feminist Picture? I think it could! Take that to your cage and mount it, Olivia.
Reader Comments (5)
This was more sedate than I expected...except for Kay Walsh who just goes deliciously for broke at the end. It does have a very British feeling to it, I did expect Christopher Lee or Peter Cushing to pop in at any moment.
This was Joan's last theatrical feature and really the end of her consistent appearance before the cameras. She did stage work but only dabbled in TV over the next three decades. Her autobiography was enjoyable-clear eyed and matter of fact though often obviously self serving. Still full of interesting tidbits.
I am desperate to see this now and love the stab at Olivia at the end. Hee. well done, Jason
Lord and master, someone has got to prevent you from a big mistake: Do not watch this god-awful film. I'd never believed that someone could actually like this piece of shit. Then again, after the warm critical response It received this year...
Unfortunately, this witch trash was also the final film of genre icon Martin Stephens who was the focal point of the actually worthwhile horror movies Village Of The Damned and The Innocents. But unlike Joan Fontaine, Stephens was at least lucky enough to vanish relatively early from The Bitches.
Does any1 know the reason Fontaine didn't make any features after this.
It's always on the British Horror channel.I like it.
I've always enjoyed this film. Especially the footsteps in the mud/trampled by sheep scene.
Love Fontaine and it made me want to seek out more Kay Walsh performances.