YOU'LL LIKE MY MOTHER

US, 1972, 90 minutes, Colour.
Patty Duke, Rosemary Murphy, Richard Thomas.
Directed by Lamont Johnson.

You'll Like My Mother is a small-scale minister thriller of mistaken identities and menace. Pattie Duke is suitably terrorized as the heroine and Rosemary Murphy effective an the mother. Richard Thomas in the star. Directed by Lamont Johnson, the maker of a number of effective small-scale movies.

1. The meaning of the title, its tone, ironies introduction to the characters, emotional attitudes towards them, themes?

2. The film as an example of American domestic drama? The types of people involved, family issues?

3. The film and its horror conventions, mystery, a defenceless heroine, the sense of menace, mystery and fear, overtones of madness?

4. How well did the film blend the horror conventions with the domestic drama? Audience involvement? Fear? A good blending for horror impact?

5. The journey structure of the film: the introduction to Francesca and the audience's identifying with her and journeying with her into the town? The mystery? Her moving into the house, gradually discovering the truth, sharing in the birth of the baby and its being taken away, sharing her suffering, the climax and the terror? Leaving with her? The journey structure as the equivalent of the nightmare?

6. The importance of the atmosphere, the colour, Francesca's bus journey, the farm and the house, the distance from town, the snow?

7. How attractive a character was Francesca: as portrayed by Patty Duke, audience sympathy for her being a widow, pregnant? The background of her husband, love death, leaving her alone? The importance of his saying that she would like his mother? The money implications? The arrival in the town, her bags and leaving the clues? People and their friendliness? The atmosphere of isolation, the winter, the snow? A subjective look at the situation, the audience seeing with Francesca's eyes?

8. The build-up in the trip to the house, the snow, the further isolation? How did this prepare us for the madness and mystery?

9. How well did Francesca cope with meeting Mrs Kinsolving, with Kathleen? Trying to square Mrs Kinsolving's presence with the memory of her husband's words? The strangeness of the house, the various details unsettling her? The build-up to the birth of the baby and its disappearance? Her suffering?

10. The impact of Mrs Kinsolving: the audience sharing Francesca's appreciation of her, a strong character, charm and yet harshness, treatment of Kathleen, the puzzle of her behaviour? Relating this to "you'll like my mother"? The relationship with Kathleen and Kenny? The build-up of the conspiracy, the menace? The audience realization of the truth and all that it implied, especially in death?

11. Kenny as the horror character? The explanation of his background and his pathology? His lurking in the household, the menace to his mother, to Kathleen? The ugliness of his behaviour, the encounters with Francesca and her fear of him? The build-up to her fighting him? The inevitability of his death? The irony of Kathleen killing him? Comment on the various details in which the horror of his character was built up for example newspaper items, glimpses, the association with deadly weapons?

12. The contrast with Kathleen as a humane element in the house, her retardation, an attractive character in herself, being oppressed by Mrs Kinsolving, by Kenny? The bond with Francesca and Francesca's helping her? Her love for the baby and helping? Her place in the solution?

13. The build-up to the birth of the baby and audience response? Issues of life and death?

14. The atmosphere of menace after the birth, with the lies, the self-protection, Francesca being locked in her room and the build-up of anguish and terror? The inevitability of the fight after Kathleen showed the way, the melodramatics in the barn, Kenny's death?

10. The appropriateness of the happy ending? The relief for the audience, hopes for the future? The audience response to the domestic side of things and identifying, sharing then in the terror? The value of this kind of terror film?