BACK FROM THE DEAD (1957; d. Charles Marquis Warren, w. Catherine Turney)

Fem voiceover (anima-consciousness in which film takes place, scripted by source-novelist – title return transfiguration from page to screen) reinforces belief in God (story effort to resurrect same in postwar/Atom Age) over unspecified They (nebulous dark forces aka death/repressions – "in secret places under cover of night" aka sleep/dreams; film precursor to Rosemary’s Baby [+ Devil’s Hand], via The Seventh Victim: young woman’s introduction to society of upper-class devil worshipers [treacherous, "corrupt" adulthood] her politicization) in 20th Century America (struggling w/ country’s own demons) "in time of need" (followed by sdtrk scream – cri de cœur for nation lost on way), criticizing Others’ (novel THE OTHER ONE – trad recipient of unconscious projections, aka scapegoat) need for sacrifices (self not willing to make [+ which Biblical ancestors were]: possibly pseudo-widowed speaker trying to reconcile own loss w/ equally "occulted"/hidden God) – while camera trawls from crashing waves (inner turmoil, ocean symbol of similarly unfathomable unconsc) to house (manifest mind, narrator recoiling from what goes on in there) to door (block against contents) to robed dagger-wielder (mysterious, "religious" power, offscreen shriek "victim’s" loss of virginity; robes à la husband’s shroud, scream also her unfaceable grief over his loss), climaxing w/ two figures tossing 3rd off cliff (archaic loss of Kristevian 3rd Party, intermediate figure btwn loving mom + dad enabling passage to own romantic maturity; also, maiden-self discarded on lovers’ consummation) then embracing (voila).

Cathy (cf scrw Catherine) Hazelton vacationing (mind on break from conscious grind) w/ sister Mandy (her OTHER ONE; blonde + brunette yin + yang, C’s bowed-up primness vs M’s lacy voluptuousness repressing the sexual, projected outwd by 40-yr-old celibate) + her husband Dick Anthony (2 1st names ideal in conformist 50s + his undifferentiated boyhood), notes fog coming in soon (ambiguity – btwn un/consciousness, past/present, spiritual/physical, self/OTHER), pregnant sister (regenerating Self, à la singsong Mandy Anthony name) noting "something trying to get at me" (intuition à la fog + child; suspicion gestated for month à la similarly cyclical menses, impregnation by rebellious notion to bear fruit in next decade); back home (all 3 incorporated into psyche from restless borderline, plus dog Copper: animal physical-self to Cathy-soul + Dick-mind [fem writer/masc dir], Mandy unity of 3 [body in whose mind battle for soul unravels]), Dick plays ethereal-voice record Mandy hates (cf 1960 Tormented’s similarly vexing single, that film another haunting-wmn-from-past-wrecking-marriage-by-turbulent-seashore story), triggering epileptic fit (rendered à la sexual ecstasy; possession impregnation out of eerie natural depths) causing her to lose baby (paranoia of willful wmnhood displacing barefoot+pregnant hausfrau; child also Turney’s miscarried career in this, her last produced script), she waking in (50s-standard separate) bed (from couch: sexualized; pregnancy not literal/physical but metaphorical) claiming "I’ve come back to you, Dicken" (1st-wife Felicia his unresolved mother-issues + doubts over own masculinity [his later confession "I don’t know why I came back [to this house; cf ’77 inversion, Shock]" relating events/personalities] threatening many a film marriage, her name either ironic "Happiness" or coded-earnest; cf author’s 1946 A Stolen Life + ’50 No Man of Her Own, each involving wmn’s assumed identities).

Dick relates Felicia’s death to doc (obstetrician psychoanalyst helping birth new personality) as mysterious drowning (submersion/repression), identified only by wedding ring (mandalic continuity of fe/male past/present self/other) found by fisherman (psychic angler, bkgd recounted à la dream) in belly of shark (femininity subsumed under tough masculine exterior: all males’ questioning of own character post-Hiroshima; possible reason, also, scrw left vicious Hollywood), doc’s advice "Don’t oppose her" (senex [wise one w/i]’s prescription for betterment of gender/race) punctuated by nurse introducing next patients the Porters (blonde + brunette girls Mandy + Kate reborn, his RX to heal rift btwn light + dark sides of wmn as well); at post office in town (mind dipping into "social" consciousness for fresh material to complement dredged-up old), Dick bumps into old army buddy (brothers in time of conflict, returned during similar) + "2nd greatest architect i/t world" (after God, we presume, He ultimate OO from whom all separated) Joe Mitchell (again o/t 2 1st names, he muscular spiritual strength – masc counterpart to fem-from-past Felicia – of which Self in need, also; dream-replacement for dead hubby [whom later character alleges bogus: spectral not-the-father, bridge btwn family romance – sister Mandy – and worldly lover] + real-world replacement for God) + intros him to Cathy (love at 1st sight indicating mtg btwn lost ½s of self), who’s seen his name in HOME & GARDEN (aka Eden, he lost Adam to her adrift Eve).

Mandy/Felicia wants to go to parents’ house (own, troubled Garden, where Father in disharmony w/ Mother: trauma at heart of drama friction btwn masc + fem aspects of Self), mom/Mrs Bradley drawn by her playing piano (à la Felicia’s musical summons: wordless/irrational call o/t Spirit), convinced it’s her daughter by reminiscences (by portrait at 14: part of self splintered off at puberty à la wartime Dick/Joe + nuptial Cathy + sis), as is her decrepit father (waning conscious "authority"); outside, Kate convinces Dick to fight Mandy's possession (exert masc will over self – his awa hers, she another in painfully long line of 50s wmn – many scripted by wmn – neutering selves to become marriage material) same time "Felicia" conspires w/ mom to off sister (conflict btwn desire for worldliness + virtue, sect also indie filmmakers for mainstream Turney), Mr B (on stairs aka moral highground; he also bearing first-lastname) threatening God’s punishment on straying wife (never meted in course of film: saying something?).

As Cathy pops sleeping pills (on Joe’s recommendation: subduing virginal aspect, he confident physical self having expressed understanding how Dick cd love "wmn like Felicia", nudge nudge), bustier-clad Mandy/F (sister stitched up even in pj’s) puts moves on Dick, accusing him of keeping sis around as "wedge" (à la mother-in-law, wife’s "unnatural" advances other-wmn behavior: role-reversal, Mandy’s transformation throwing Kate out of own safe, defined character [perceived threat to all wmn o/t liberated fem]), he sleeping downstairs (Kat herself spectral-slender ambiguity intruding on others’ lives) then enters Kate’s room (sexuality creeping into vulnerable/diminished-inhibition unconscious mind) + turns up gas fireplace (she "in heat" night of unofficial 1st date w/ Joe, hearth both heart of self + synonymous for sex organs) + goes out to sickle growling dog (angel of death for animal-physical as mind descends into sleep); on waking + turning off gas (cf Mandy’s waking out of own sedative into Feliciahood: film/self starting over), Cathy tells Dick she dreamed she was "in a lonely place" (w/drawn into private self) + heard sister call (attraction o/t sanctioned-sexual married self, telling her to "wake up") tho she cdn’t answer (work yet to do), convinced it happened + Mandy not lost (becoming aware of project, to reciprocally summon/reclaim Mandy part of self).

At Joe’s (moved back in after 2 yrs, he return of dead hubby/father to resolve undead issues), Cathy asks blonde neighbor Nancy Cordell (who calls Dick by Felicia’s nickname for him: not-F + hint she’s devil-worshiper; she + Joe à la F + D, making Cathy eternal 3rd wheel) to introduce her to cult’s Maître ("French for 'Master' – ptui!" as later character points out – tho actor Otto Reichow German), told "must have imagination + daring 2B accepted" (Christianity = bland security, real "dark force" the unknown – sexuality, adulthood + the unconscious), warned NC went berserk when her husband died (Cathy’s unlived grief, her "joining" dabbling in world of death; prevalence of loss in people’ss lives postwar emotional fallout, cult Despair claiming some); at Maître’ss (self-opening + -closing door dreaming mind "on automatic" admitting revelation of "occulted" ["hidden"] information), he urges her to "throw off shackles of childhood beliefs" (ie c’shood itself, cult à la Orphic Mystery leading to maturity) + she urges he help her overthrow rogue Mrs Bradley’s’scraftiness (calling on own dark masculine animus pwr to "master" manipulative mother-w/i aka superego, whose resurrection of buried anima-self [shock reaction to loss of animus] necessary but now threatening to own ego + in need of restraint once brought to consciousness [cf thematically similar Black Sunday 3 yrs later]; Mrs B aspect of novelist/scrw giving birth twice to same baby) on way out, jealous Nancy observing him addressing Felicia photo (she apparently driving force behind cult aka Eros) "I will never let you go again" (NC wounded Electric child on recognition of Daddy’ss love for another, reflecting Cathy’ss own readiness to break free from Family Romance [insular cult] haunting/possessing her + to consummate love outside it).

Summoned to tête-à-tête w/ Mr Bradley (father-figure ascended from kiss-on-forehead EuRomantic to frail, elderly Dad step in Cathy/"daughter’s" development), who accuses Felicia of drawing Mrs into deviltry (he peripheral: weakened/wounded consciousness permitting instinctual influence; taxing, tho necessary) + warns her against Maître (reinforcing step in maturity) before sending her away (crossing paths w/ Mrs in doorway as on devt’l threshold); crashes car at Joe’s (leaving body/old self at drwy to future), where he finds her battling wills w/ self (fem element in himself manifesting inner struggle) + confesses complicity in F’s death (as if to quell Cat’s distress: troubled waters of opening punctuating whole film his guilt over loss of own wild anima-femininity, he also Cathy’s agent in transcending her vestigial aspect to establish self as mature lover – how she quashed wild pwr w/i to gain his affection) when he rebuffed her advances (Jezebel spirit transient character lingering past shelf-date; he resisting her temptation troubled start of New Eden) + she left his car (arising, hidden, from back seat as from back of mind, never seen full in face: ambiguous – again, transient; amorphous – figure resembling Cat herself, Joe animus connecting her to lost earlier tempestuous soul-img) + plunged off cliff (again, à la Tormented: asleep, film her long descent into oblivion 2B transfigured in likeness of another) – at which point MandyFelicia + Dick arrive (after long absence from drama, C+J playing out their psychic issues to conclusion at heart of narrative labyrinth).

All hit Bradleys’ (corporate self achieving maturity), where Mrs has yelled Mr to death (extinguishing of consciousness, his 2nd film death after dog-body [threat of cult mainly symbolic/psychological]) + collapsed, herself (blaming Renall, he psychic tool for clearing out old attitudes/behaviors to make way for new [as dead Felicia in new body]); locked-up Felicia (need to keep her away from Maître need to separate desire from intermediate figure until all issues resolved + attentions locked-in on Joe) pretends 2B Mandy (M/F/M enclosing/integrating Her personality) then clobbers gullible Cathy (putting ego out of commission long enough to let instinctual action play out) + high-tails it to Renall (converging w/ jealous Nancy: network of rivalries – btwn not-F + D over Cathy; Mr + Mrs B [as Nancy + Renall] over F; and Mrs B + Renall over black pwr – amplifying Electric one at core + mirroring larger rift btwn fe/male on Father/father/hubby/consciousness’s abandonment) + plots to frame Molly (not-Mandy recently arrived, as all others, from Elsewhere: mind convening constituent Selves [film endless series of introductions] in order to sort out by process of elimination, then integrate) + make her next sacrifice (for what, never clear: symbolic; vulnerable self who must go if Cathy to steel self alone in unfriendly world [rehearsal for all wmn in coming Liberation]), others arriving to break up Mass (ritual acting out of archetypal actions aka dream) + overpwr Maître (consciousness regaining control) before he shot dead (fall of "spiritual" self to complement Bradley-mind + dog-body, making way for new integration of all 3).

Back home (comfortable, familiar Self), Mandy revives + recounts dream (as did Cathy mid-film, after dog-death: life restarting – again – sisters’ experiences intertwined because part of same identity) of being alone in cold dark place (grave, revival both rebirth + suggestion dead "Felicia" now part of psyche); knows baby lost (she whom she was gestating), two couples then embracing (experience having multiplied love in world, double fe/male aspects – outside + in – brought into harmony once more: reiterating Satanists’ opening clinch illicit/illegitimate romance – both Family + w/ despair – transfigured into healthy, positive).