Berserk!

Berserk! is a 1967 British horror-thriller film directed by Jim O'Connolly and starring Joan Crawford, Ty Hardin, Diana Dors and Judy Geeson. The screenplay was written by Herman Cohen and Aben Kandel.

Berserk! marks Crawford's penultimate feature-film appearance.

Plot
Monica Rivers and Albert Dorando own a travelling English circus. Monica acts as ringmistress and Dorando is business manager. During one performance, tightrope walker Gaspar the Great is strangled when his tightrope breaks. An investigation reveals his rope may have been interfered with, but police are unable to solve the murder. When Monica suggests aloud Gaspar's death will yield the troupe needed publicity, Dorando is shocked. He asks her to buy out his share of the company, but she is unable. Instead, she hires daring, handsome tightrope artist Frank Hawkins, who performs his act over a carpet of sharp bayonets. Monica is impressed, especially with his physique. 

Shortly after, Dorando is found gruesomely murdered. The troupe suspect Monica is the perpetrator. Hawkins, who witnessed her leaving Dorando's trailer shortly before his body was discovered, attempts blackmail. He confronts Monica with what he witnessed. He then demands a share of the action for his silence. She concedes.

After a series of successful performances throughout the UK, Monica's daughter Angela, recently expelled from school, shows up. Monica hires her to perform in a knife-throwing act. Matilda, another circus performer, unsuccessfully attempts to seduce Hawkins and Monica is jealous. Matilda is killed when the magician's trick involving the illusion of being sawn in half malfunctions. 

A few evenings later, during Hawkins' high-wire performance, Angela is spotted throwing a knife, striking him in the back. He falls from his tightrope onto the bayonets and is killed. Angela confesses and reveals her motive, that it was all Monica's fault because she had ignored her and was absent throughout her childhood. The circus murders were attempts to eliminate the people who consumed Monica's time and attention. She tries to kill her mother but is stopped. While trying to escape capture, she is electrocuted by a live wire outside the circus tent during a rainstorm. Monica sobs inconsolably over her daughter's body.

Cast

 Joan Crawford as Monica Rivers
 Ty Hardin as Frank Hawkins
 Diana Dors as Matilda
 Michael Gough as Albert Dorando
 Judy Geeson as Angela Rivers
 Robert Hardy as Detective Supt. Brooks
 Geoffrey Keen as Commissioner Dalby
 Sydney Tafler as Harrison Liston
 George Claydon as Bruno Fontana
 Philip Madoc as Lazlo
 Ambrosine Phillpotts as Miss Burrows
 Thomas Cimarro as Gaspar
 Peter Burton as Gustavo
 Golda Casimir as Bearded Lady
 Ted Lune as Skeleton Man
 Milton Reid as Strong Man
 Marianne Stone as Wanda
 Miki Iveria as Gypsy Fortune-Teller
 Howard Goorney as Emil
 Reginald Marsh as Sergeant Hutchins
 Bryan Pringle as Constable Bradford

Production
It was the first of a new deal that Herman Cohen had signed with Columbia Pictures. In August 1966, Joan Crawford signed to star, with filming to begin in October in London. Cohen stated that the script was written with Crawford in mind.

Crawford described her role in the film as "mistress of the ceremonies, lock stock and barrel. She's colorful, she's exciting, she's the most definite dame I've ever played. She knows what she wants and she gets it."

Cohen wanted to cast Crawford's daughter Christina Crawford as Angela, but Joan vetoed the idea, and Judy Geeson played the role instead. Diana Dors played a key support role.

Crawford claimed that the filmmakers wanted to title the film Circus of Blood or Circus of Fear, but she insisted on Berserk! "and I got my way in the end." The title was changed in April 1967.

Release

Box office
Box office receipts for Berserk! were considerable. In North America, the film grossed more than $1,100,000 and ranked #85 on Varietys list of top money makers of 1968. Box office receipts overseas nearly doubled that amount at $2,095,000. This made Berserk! the most successful film that Herman Cohen had produced.

Critical reception
Howard Thompson wrote a mostly negative review in The New York Times, comparing it unfavorably to Circus of Horrors, but also commented, "It's also hard to make a hopeless movie with a circus background and sawdust aroma. This is the one solid thing the picture has going for it—the intriguing workaday routine of circus folk and some good, spangly ring acts, all handsomely conveyed in excellent color photography. And under the reasonable direction of Jim O'Connolly, the film does project a kind of defiant suspense that dares you not to sit there, see who gets it next and, finally, why." Thompson stated that Crawford "... is professional as usual and certainly the shapeliest ringmaster ever to handle a ring microphone."

Lawrence Quirk wrote in Hollywood Screen Parade that "[Crawford] is all over the picture, radiant, forceful, authoritative, a genuine movie star whose appeal never diminishes."

Home media
Berserk! was released as a manufacture-on-demand Region 1 DVD on 6 September 2011, available online through the Warner Archive Collection and ClassicFlix in the U.S. only.

Mill Creek Entertainment released the film along with Strait-Jacket (1964) as a double-feature Blu-ray on 2 October 2018.

Notes

References

External links
 
 
 
 
 Review at TVGuide.com 
 Berserk! movie stills
 Berserk! at the Joan Crawford website

1967 films
1967 horror films
1960s slasher films
1960s horror thriller films
British horror thriller films
Circus films
Films directed by Jim O'Connolly
Films scored by John Scott (composer)
Columbia Pictures films
British slasher films
Psycho-biddy films
1960s English-language films
1960s British films