Often described as ‘the Master of Gimmicks’, William Castle is best known for the outrageous publicity stunts that characterised his genre films in the 1950s and ‘60s, including offers for an insurance policy against death by fright, vibrating seats, a skeleton that flew over the audience, and a ‘punishment poll’ to determine a film’s conclusion. But far from being ‘the world’s craziest filmmaker’, Castle was also a dependable studio director who made more than 50 films between 1944 and 1974, and who produced films for Orson Welles and Roman Polanski. ReFocus: The Films of William Castle assembles fourteen essays on the full sweep of Castle’s career, including his horror films, westerns, film noirs and more. With an influence felt on directors like Joe Dante, Robert Zemeckis and John Waters, this volume reappraises Castle’s legacy as an innovator as much as a showman.
Author(s): Murray Leeder (editor)
Series: ReFocus: The American Directors Series
Edition: 1
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Year: 2018
Language: English
Pages: 280
Tags: Film Criticism, Cinema
ReFocus: The Films of William Castle
Copyright
Contents
Figures
Notes on Contributors
Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Many Castles
Part 1 The Early Castle
1 When Strangers Marry: Film Noir as Mediated Gothic
2 Gender in William Castle’s Westerns
Part 2 The Gimmick Cycle
3 He Earned Our Forgiveness: William Castle and American Movie Showmanship
4 Collective Screams: William Castle and the Gimmick Film
5 Ghost Show Ballyhoo: Castle’s Macabre Will Scare You to Death
6 How to View 13 Ghosts
7 Chaos Made Flesh: Mr. Sardonicus (1961) and the Mask as Transformative Device
Part 3 Castle, Authorship, and Genre
8 A Sick Mind in Search of a Monstrous Body: William Castle and the Emergence of Psychological Horr
9 “What a Wicked Game to Play?”: Playfulness, Generic Hybridity, and Cult Appeal in Castle’s 1960s
10 “Where Did Our Love Go?”: The Case of William Castle’s Disintegration of the American Marriage i
Part 4 Castle’s Legacy
11 Homo/cidal: William Castle’s 1960s Killer Queers
12 The Cinematic Pandemonium of William Castle and John Waters
Index
