VIOLENT MIDNIGHT - Wilford L. Holcombe - "Psychomania" - Molly Scott - "Black Autumn" (1963)

Seems like everybody knows about the Del Tenney produced and directed films like "The Horror Of Party Beach", "Curse Of The Living Corpse" and "Zombies" aka "I Eat Your Skin", but you don't hear a lot about this film, "Violent Midnight", that he didn't direct, but was the producer for!! Made the year before his other films, Del must have spent a lot of time on the set with director Richard Hilliard, honing his directorial skills. Richard Hilliard besides writing this film, also wrote and was the cinematographer for "The Horror Of Party Beach."

Here's the basic premise, you've got an artist who's not right in the head because he shot his father, you've got a violent hothead rebel, an old teacher pervert, and a school full of girls, and somebody is going around killing people!! It's greasy and sleazy and really quite the twisted tale!! Kaye Elhardt has the role of the very statuesque model Dolores!!!

James Farentino was actually prettier than Sylvia Miles!!!

The last time I wrote about Del's "The Horror Of Party Beach," I was lamenting what a shame it was that the cool rockin' bar music in the background of the two drunks scene was barely audible, now I know why!! They had used that same music originally in this film only a year earlier as a recurring theme, so now, we get to hear an extended version of the music loud and clear, and even including some cool horn breaks and sax solos!! The music here is credited to one Wilford L. Holcombe who also got credits on "Curse Of The Living Corpse" and Richard Hilliard's other non-horror outing, "Wild Is My Love" but Wilford didn't get any credit for "The Horror Of Party Beach" for some reason!! So, Here You Go!!! it's one of my favortie pieces of Music From The Monster Movies and a genuine treat for all you guys and ghouls!

All right, what do we have here? The artist actually kicks the biker rebel's ass!! It will come back to haunt him just as you would suspect when James as Charlie Peron sneaks up later and smacks Elliot upside the head with a two by four!!

Although having acting on a bit of TV, this movie was the film debut for both James Farentino and Dick Van Patten! As a matter of fact, they have a fight scene, and Dick Van Patten throws a pretty good punch!

Dick's got one of the coolest cop cars ever, a 1959 Chevy!!

So Dolores the model got murdered, and Dick had to go to James' grimy apartment to question him! You can see Sylvia is there to back up his story!!

Lee Phillips does a great job as Elliot Freeman! Here he waits for his sister to arrive on the train! Great portrait of the artist!!!

Meanwhile back at the school, the Professor does some learning himself!! Seems he's very interested in the subject of anatomy!!

Wow, those are some swim suits!!! The gal on the left is Sheila Forbes as Janet 'Lolita' Terhune and, the gal on the right is Margot Hartman as Elliott's bland sister Lynn Freeman!!

Along with some of the gals at the school, this place is kind of developing a bad reputation!!!

James gets very lucky and gets to hook up with bad girl blonde bombshell Lorraine Rogers as Alice more than once, and it's not hard to figure that she's going to be trouble!!

This film also included an appearance by prominent 60's folksinger Molly Scott, who you can read all about at her site! She also has a ton of cool fotos and stuff, but for some strange reason, I didn't see any reference to her appearance in this movie. I guess it wasn't her proudest moment, but we like it!!! Molly is a very fascinating person, and still quite active today, so for an xtra special treat, go check out her 'sound of light'!!! Your head might just fall off!! Here she performs another alternative title to this film, "Black Autumn"!!!

James is just a little ticked off at Sylvia, so he rips off her earrings as a sign of affection!!! Her face is almost distorted to 'Jokeresque' proportions!!!

I sure prefer the alternate title "Psychomania", that really describes it well!! This movie is available on Netflix and Amazon and should be in your library too. 5 Thumbs Up!!! Who do you think the killer is???