Dementia 13 (USA, 1963) 80 min B&W DIR-SCR: Francis Ford Coppola. PROD: Roger Corman. MUSIC: Ronald Stein. DOP: Charles Hannawalt. CAST: William Campbell, Luana Anders, Bart Patton, Mary Mitchell. (Filmgroup)
Tired of late fifties/early sixties horror flicks that offer more yawns than thrills? You could do worse than check out Dementia 13, Francis Ford Coppola’s first legitimate feature film as a director. Coppola began his career in Hollywood as an assistant to Roger Corman, doing a variety of odd jobs, such as supervising the American release of the Russian sci-fi epic Battle Beyond the Sun. In addition, he directed two little-seen nudie pictures for another distributor (including Tonight for Sure, which was reportedly filmed in two days in a motel room).
While shooting second-unit for The Young Racers in Ireland, Coppola hatched plans for a quickie axe-murderer thriller. Corman gave him $20,000.00 and a three-day shooting schedule, and Dementia 13 was born. The story follows a wealthy family still grieving over the loss of its youngest member, Kathleen, six years after she drowned in a pond. Soon some of the minor characters wind up dead, which launches the rather unlikable family doctor on a search for which family member is the killer.
Originally playing on a double bill with Corman’s X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes, Dementia 13 was not greeted as the work of a future master. “Under the stolid direction of Francis Coppola,” said The New York Times, “the picture stresses gore rather than atmosphere, and all but buries a fairly workable plot.” That reviewer got it completely wrong – it’s true that Dementia 13 is one gory movie (with a memorable decapitation scene), but the movie is also practically drenched in atmosphere. Using gritty black-and-white photography, smart lighting, and creepy music by Ronald Stein, Coppola was able to make a stylish, highly effective chiller with practically no budget. Coppola’s young talent is most evident in the suspenseful, well-shot scene where Luana Anders raids through a shelf of Kathleen’s old toys.
Corman and Coppola had some disagreements in the editing room – “more gore”, said Corman – but relations between the two remained positive. In fact, eleven years later, Coppola cast Corman in a cameo role as a Senator in The Godfather Part II, becoming the first of many Corman discoveries to give his former boss an acting job.
Originally published in The Roger Corman Scrapbook.
Will Sloan
Will Sloan first encountered ESR at Word on the Street circa 2004 (age: 15) and started contributing not long after. He is now a fully-grown writer and raconteur, and hosts two film-related podcasts: The Important Cinema Club and Michael & Us. You can follow him @WillSloanEsq on Twitter and at willsloanesq.wordpress.com.