DADDY' S GONE A-HUNTING
US, 1969, 108 minutes, Colour.
Carol White, Scott Hylands, Paul Burke, Mala Powers, James Sikking.
Directed by Mark Robson.
Daddy’s Gone A- Hunting is a rather bizarre murder mystery thriller. A child and its mother are threatened by a deranged ex-husband. Carol White suffers valiantly as the heroine and Scott Hylands in sufficiently menacing as the ex-husband. There are some ugly sequences especially a doll being run over - with the suggestion that it is the baby. The screen play is co-written by Larry Cohen and Lorenzo Semple Jnr. Cohen was to go on to write and direct bizarre thrillers like It’s Alive, It Lives Again and God Told Me To as well as The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover. Semple has written many screen plays. Direction in by Mark Robson who had mastered a variety of genres and competently directed popular best seller work as well as action adventures. He began in horror with Val Lewton and such films as Bedlam.
1. How enjoyable and successful a thriller?
2. Audience expectations of thrillers, in terms of plot, characterization, suspense and mystery? How conventional and successful this film?
3. What were its particular techniques of plot and characterisation to provide thriller action and suspense? The use of coincidence, fright, climax? How well were they unified?
4. The tone and ambiguity of the title? The song and the overtones of nursery rhymes?
5. Audience identifying with Kathy, her arrival in America, the type of person she was? The attraction to Ken? job, romance? The pressures on her and the breaking of their relationship?
6. Audience response to Ken? His obsession in following Kathy? His irresponsibility as regards work etc? The inevitability of the clash between the two?
7. The importance of the abortion and the conflict? The role of Meg Stone and her advice? The psychological repercussions of the abortion on Kathy? On Ken? Audience attitude towards the abortion question in responding to this conflict?
8. The importance of Kathy's marriage and its irony? Her pregnancy fears? The political overtones and the threat of scandal (why was this not followed up)? The birth of the baby, Ken arriving for the photos? His sinister presence during the marriage?
9. The significance of the policeman's photos and the threats?
10. Audience response to the kidnapping? The atmosphere of fear and quiet? Ken with the baby? The repercussions on Kathy and Jack?
11. Ken's plan for the destruction of the baby and getting Kathy? The chase, the irony of the theatre playing 'Medea'? His escape? All this in the atmosphere of the experience of killing the child, for example at the garage?
12. The climax on the height? Its use at the beginning and the end? The melodramatics of the climax and audience relief? The broken box?
13. How well established and interesting were characters? And the emphasis on fears, plots, kidnapping, children?
