The Thing That Wouldn’t Die

(There’s a creepy farmhand in this movie who always dons a cowboy hat. Virtually every time we see him, Mike and the ‘Bots sing something, like “There’s a bright yellow stain on my back brace!” or “There’s a thick greasy smudge on my pillow!” At one point, the farmhand is peeping on the Virginal Heroine, who’s taking off twelve layers of clothing, it seems like…)
Mike (singing loudly): There’s a bright golden haze on the meadow!
(the farmhand is walking slowly down a road…)
Tom (singing): Poor Jud is dead.

All of the songs Mike and the ‘Bots sing are from Oklahoma! Mike’s loud line during the peeping is, in fact, directly from the movie. It’s a line from the first song sung, “There’s a Bright Golden Haze”. Tom’s line about Jud is from the end of the movie, when the bad guy gets into a knife fight with the Good Guy and is killed. This is one of the earliest movies I remember seeing but I haven’t seen it in years, so I can’t give you detailed information on it.


(Smarmy, Possessed Woman is showing Virginal Heroine into her room)
Tom: I better go ask Mitch how the little Brenner girl is doing…

There’s also a little reference earlier in the film about the woman being Suzanne Pleshette. She really does look like Suzanne Pleshette, even more so than the Japanese lady in Prince of Space. Tom’s line about the Brenner girl is alluding to The Birds, although I don’t think she ever actually went to go see how the Brenner girl was doing. Mitch Brenner was her former boyfriend, and Tippi Hedrin’s love interest. I always thought that Mitch and the schoolteacher should have gotten back together, but that might have been because I wasn’t fond of Tippi Hedrin very much.


(The box is opened to reveal… a head!)
Mike: Mrs. Muir!

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir starred Gene Tierney (whom I consider one of the prettiest ladies in Hollywood) as a widow who buys a house haunted by none other than Rex Harrison. Gene Tierney starred in Laura and was made famous by it, in the same way that Rita Hayworth (also one of the prettiest actresses) was made famous by Gilda. After becoming unimaginably famous for these movies, they unfortunately never got out from the shadow of their roles. The head in this movie looks a little like Daniel the Ghost in The Ghost and Mrs. Muir in that he is dead and has a beard. Rex Harrison was one of those lucky dogs who had success on both stage and screen—he won several Tony’s and at least one Oscar that I know of. He was also notoriously amorous—he was married five or six times and had numerous affairs; one wife and a girlfriend committed suicide. Nevertheless I consider him a rather cool and talented man—just go see The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Midnight Lace (which is one of the few movies that manages to creep me out), and My Fair Lady, where he pretty much verbally abuses Audrey Hepburn for most of the film until she gives him an ultimatum, he realizes he loves her (“I’ve grown accustomed to her face/ Like breathing out and breathing in”), and she comes back. That’s all well and good, I say, but she of course didn’t know of his realization. So why does she come back? Because he’s Sexy Rexy, that’s why.