A HOWLING IN THE WOODS

US, 1971, 100 minutes, Colour.
Barbara Eden, Larry Hagman, John Rubinstein, Vera Miles, Tyne Daly, Ruta Lee, Ford Rainey.
Directed by Daniel Petrie.

A Howling in the Woods is a psychological thriller. Barbara Eden, popular on television as was Larry Hagman and soon to be more popular with Dallas, are husband and wife. She inherits a hotel, remote from home, she hears a howling in the wood and hears the story of a six-year-old drowned in the woods. In the meantime, her husband wants her to come home. Complications and interconnections begin here.

The film was directed by Daniel Petrie who had a fifty-year career in television with some feature films including, in the early 1960s, The Bramble Bush and A Raisin in the Sun and returning to films in the mid-70s with Buster and Billy as well as The Betsy followed by Resurrection and, probably his most accomplished film, Fort Apache the Bronx with Paul Newman in 1981.

1. A good thriller? Murder mystery? What were its best features? The overtones of the title and the implications? Did this create atmosphere?

2. Comment on the value of the credit sequences and their eeriness. How visually well done? How did they introduce the audience into the atmosphere of the film?

3. The overtones of the journey. The fact that the heroine was journeying into an old world that she knew and a strange world? The fact that she would eventually leave it after changing it and being changed? Did this add to the impact and intensity of the film?

4. Comment on the success in communicating the atmosphere of unwelcome when she arrived? Visually, without words. What curiosity did this arouse in the audience?

5. How was the girl the central character? How were we meant to identify with her? Her entering into a strange world? Her joy and hopes of being changed? The emotional situations to which she was put? Her relating to the different people and their lack of response?

6. How successfully ambiguous were the attitudes of her stepmother? The friendliness and hostility? What atmosphere of suspicion did this arouse? Her absent father? The fabrication of the situations to convince her that he was alive? (This combined with the story of the little girl anddeath at the beginning of the film?)

7. How ambiguous a character was Justin? His welcoming her and being unwelcome? The enigma of his relationship to the stepmother?

8. How did the atmosphere change when the heroine's husband arrived? Did this give a sense of urgency to the film? The emotional complexities for the heroine?

9. The atmosphere of evil in the town? The anxiety of the mother of the dead girl? Her relating to the heroine and her warning her to leave and asking for her help? The suspicions of this woman's brother and father? The little girl who gave the information to the heroine and was warned of her?

10. How well were these personalities and the atmosphere communicated by the film and its eeriness?

11. The importance of the dog and the howling in the woods and the suspicions of the heroine?

12. Were the plot complications successful in keeping audience attention? The interplay of the various characters? The complexities of what happened?

13. Was the resolution then satisfactory? The revelation of who had killed whom? The body in the woods? The whole town being implicated in the guilt? The shooting of Justin? surprise at the relationship between Justin and the stepmother? Or was this adequately prepared for? How mad was Justin? How melodramatic was the final sequence in the cellar? Or was this to be expected in this kind of film?

14. How good a thriller was this? What points did it make about human behaviour?