Daughter of the Mind

Plot synopsis:
Professor Samuel H. Constable is shown leaving the cemetery where his ten-year-old daughter Mary is buried. She was killed in a car crash several months earlier. He was injured in the crash and spent several nights in the hospital.On the way home, Constable sees an apparition of his daughter standing in the road. He swerves to avoid her and runs off the road. Mary runs to him and opens the car door. Constable cannot believe it is her. He gets out of the car and she backs away. Before disappearing, she warns him to stop what he is doing. She also says she hates being dead.Convinced that his grief is driving him insane, Constable seeks help from Dr. Alex Lauder, a young scientist who studies ESP. Alex is thrilled to meet the well-known Professor Constable but is skeptical of his story. Constable invites Alex to his home and introduces him to his wife Lenore and the housekeeper Helga. Lenore is confined to a wheelchair due to severe arthritis. She is no longer able to do sculpture. Her treatment is provided by Dr. Paul Cryder and his daughter Tina, who is a physical therapist. The Cryders are frequent visitors.Since Mary's death, her bedroom has remained locked. Constable invites Alex to view the room. Stuffed animals and dolls are sitting around a table, just as Mary left them. But Constable recently noticed that the toys had been moved. He is positive that no one has been in the room.Alex agrees to spend the night at the Constable home in case Mary's ghost appears again. Sure enough, her voice is heard from her bedroom calling "Daddy." Armed with a recorder and camera, Alex gets it all on tape. Mary again begs her father to stop what he is doing. Constable assumes she means his work with the government, which is top-secret. As far as anyone knows, he works for a private foundation.Alex learns that the FBI is providing surveillance in an apartment across the street. Later he discovers that they have bugged Mary's bedroom. They are concerned that enemy spies might be out to harm Constable or force him to defect.The Constables are contacted by a young couple, Arnold and Devi Bessmer. He is from India but raised in London. Devi is also from India and speaks very little English. She is a medium and has a message from Mary. The Constables, Alex, and the Cryders hold a seance in Mary's room. Still skeptical, Alex ties Devi to her chair with thread which will snap if she gets up.An unfinished bust of Mary is in the room, along with Lenore's sculpting tools. She was unable to finish it due to the arthritis in her hands.Mary's head and shoulders appear and seem to rise to the ceiling. She says she cannot come again unless her father stops his work. She reminds him that he is his brother's keeper. The tooth that was loose before her death has come out and she leaves its impression in a block of wax. Then the wax heater is switched on. When the lights come on, a wax hand is floating in a bowl of water. It is apparently Mary's hand.While this might seem to indicate that Mary's ghost is real, Alex knows there has to be an explanation. Lenore agrees with him. But Constable is convinced that he needs to follow Mary's instructions. Alex takes the hand back to his lab to figure out how it was made and how Mary's fingerprints came to be on it.On the way to the lab, Alex shared a cab with Constable. The scientist explains that he is leaving early the next morning for parts unknown. He needs to be alone with his thoughts. Alex takes this to mean that he is planning to defect. The cab stops and Constable exits.Alex wonders if Mary's body has been stolen from the mausoleum but learns she was cremated. He consults an authority on ghosts who tells him that behind every ghost there is an operator. Back at his lab, he is surprised when Tina Cryder pays him a visit. It is very late and no one else is in the building. They briefly chat before Alex tells her he needs quiet if he is to concentrate. They argue and she leaves in a huff. Outside, she meets her father and another man who is wearing a custodian's uniform. Cryder orders her to take the man into the building only as far as Alex's lab.Alex asks where the regular custodian is and the man mumbles that he is out sick. After asking for the keys to the audio-visual lab, Alex suddenly realizes that the man intends to do him harm. They struggle and Alex gets away. He turns on the fire alarm and runs into the street.After returning home, Constable visits his wife and tells her of his plans to leave. He promises to send her postcards. Lenore is distressed but realizes she cannot stop her husband.The fake custodian gets away in a car. Alex has no car to follow him but FBI Agent Wiener drives up. He tells Alex that they have been trying to get enough evidence to arrest Constable so he cannot defect. They chase the car and temporarily lose it. Then they see the driver in a phone booth. Wiener gets out of the car and chases him. The telephone receiver has been left dangling. Alex picks it up and hears the Cryders talking. He realizes that they are probably the masterminds behind Mary's supposed return from the dead.The Cryders are shown in their apartment burning documents, including many pictures of Mary. Alex drives there and enters the building from the basement. He shouts "police" and Dr. Cryder commits suicide with a whiff of poison gas. Tina struggles to get away but eventually confesses.It turns out that Dr. Cryder was not Tina's father. They were able to obtain Mary's fingerprints for the wax hand by lifting them from objects in her bedroom, then etching them onto the fingers of the hand. Dr. Cryder brought the hand to the seance with him. While everyone was occupied watching Mary's image float upward, he switched on the wax heater and dropped the hand in the bowl of water. Tina made the images appear by use of a hologram laser beam. The "ghost" who opened Constable's car door was a living child made up to look like Mary. The Bessmers were in on the scheme and were arrested at the airport, but they weren't talking.The experience helped Constable begin to move on. He promises Lenore that he will have Mary's room cleared out, which was what she had wanted. As a surprise, Lenore has managed to finish the bust of Mary.

Tags: paranormal

Review:
Scientist Ray Milland believes he's seeing and speaking to his late young daughter in "Daughter of the Mind," also starring Gene Tierney and Don Murray.
I suspect this was a pilot for a series on psychic phenomenon that was to star Murray; hence the "guest starring" credits for Tierney and Milland.This is an intriguing drama.
Milland is a scientist involved in sensitive government work, and our side is convinced that the messages he's getting from his daughter to quit what he's doing - bringing into play the possibility of defection - are a conjurer's trick by the other side.
George MacCready, who plays Murray's boss, asks him to investigate.
He sees the girl's image, he hears her voice - and then, during a séance, a wax replica of her hand appears in water, with verifiable fingerprints yet!
John Carradine, who plays an expert in the field of séances and mediums, advises him, "You're going about it the wrong way.
Ask yourself, if you were going to do it, how would you?" Gene Tierney plays Milland's wife.
1969 was the last year she worked with the exception of one appearance in 1980.
Ray Milland is fine as the devastated father though his bad hairpiece is distracting.
Pamelyn Ferdin, a popular child actress of the day, plays the daughter.
I can't tell you a thing about this movie plot-wise, but I can tell you that this was, hands-down, the scariest thing I ever saw on TV as a child.
I remember images, like a ghostly image of the girl floating in air, and someone replicating the effect with mist and a projector, but that's about it.
(I feel like I grew up with her, because I kept seeing her in everything.)Even the odd title still haunts me, 30-something years after first I saw the movie.
Would love to see this again...but then, maybe it's better if I didn't.
Some things are best left to the (childish) imagination..
First saw this made for TV film back in the 1970s when I was about the same age as the little girl in the movie.I wasn't able to understand it properly at the time,but the ghost theme captured my imagination.I found it very appealing and intriguing when I saw it again much later on as an adult..
Like Curtis, this movie freaked me out when I was eight years old.
I always thought that it was Cathy Silvers and tonight I was watching the 30 year reunion for Happy Days and thought, Let's Google!!
Well, her filmography didn't list any TV shows (I would have never remembered Daughter of the Mind ) and found the Pamelyn Ferdin website and then ended up here.
Ray Milland has been grieving his dead daughter, Mary.
As a result, he goes to see a parapsychologist (Don Murray)--perhaps he can help Milland figure out if he's going crazy or if the child really is trying to contact him.
Along the way, they learn that a government agent (Ed Asner) is watching them--unsure if maybe, perhaps, these manifestations are the result of the work of a hostile nation.
After all, Milland is a top cybernetics scientist--maybe someone is deliberately messing with his mind.
I don't want to say more, as it might divulge where it's going next.Overall, it's a very tense and interesting made for TV film.
However, there are quite a few plot holes and the whole thing seems overly complicated and far-fetched.
Some of the film relies on technology that isn't even possible today--more than 40 years later!!
Still, it is entertaining and it's nice to see such an accomplished cast (also including Gene Tierney and John Carradine) in a TV movie that often has more light-weight actors!
By the way, Pamelyn Ferdin who plays Ray Milland's dead daughter, Mary, should be a very familiar face and voice if you grew up when I did.
She played on a bazillion TV show, such as playing Felix's daughter on "The Odd Couple" and was the voice of Lucy in three Charlie Brown movies/TV shows.
Just saw part of Daughter of the Mind after many years....
I just was channel surfing and ran across "Daugher of the Mind", which have not seen since I was a young child (I am now almost the big 50), however, much to my dismay the movie was 3/4 over and I only got to see the last 1/2 hour.
But this was enough to bring back memories of seeing it as a young girl and how haunting the movie was to me.In now seeing the credits and getting the name of Pamelyn Ferdin I was able to go online (something I was not able to do 36 years ago) and find her web-site with all of this wonderful biography information.I had no idea how many movies and TV shows she had done and I am sure that I must have seen many of them in order to have such fond and vivid memories of her.To Pamelyn, "thanks for the memories" and hopefully this movie will be on again so I can see it from the beginning or better yet, obtain a copy for my collection.
I had read the book, "The Hand of Mary Constable" in my dad's Reader's Digest Condensed Books, so I was thrilled when I saw that it was going to be a Movie of the Week.Unfortunately, it didn't live up to the book, as is frequently the case.
In particular, the technology supposedly employed by the hero (which was actually the protagonist's name in the book, Alexander Hero) was ridiculously inadequate.The book had a real downbeat Cold War mood to it and was a highly effective and timely thriller.
But, just when you think you are watching an unsung classic, just when you are scratching your head to come up with a resolution, you realize that the film makers do not have one and instead leave us with the ultimate cop-out ending.
Very Creepy Sad Movie but Hopefull ending.
I remember this movie as a young child.Pamela Ferdin and Ray Miland were great in it.It was actually kind of creepy and depressing about a young girl who had died.It actually upset me as a little kid that the characters daughter died so young.I never knew kids could die and this freaked me out as a kid.In some ways I guess it made me realize that anyone can die young and old,but the ending was hopeful and made me feel a bit less freaked out.The musical score was very well done and the acting was good also.TV movies in the late 60's and 70's,80's were SO much better than they are today.They actually had a STORY and Characters that were more realistic and original.Today,writers have no talent as they need to RE DO like every movie in a remake.Sad.I like the Originals.Wow,now that I think about it,I must have seen this in the 70's as I am still in my late 30's and this was made in 1969,the year I was born.I probably saw it at age 11 or 12 sometime in the mid to late 70's on a rerun.It really scared me..
I remember watching it (10 yrs old) and being petrified!
I think the Baby Boomer crowd appreciates this kind of stuff far more than the younger ones.
Made for TV movies are sometimes the best, but the hardest to get a copy of!.
Government officials become involved after a cybernetics professor and a parapsychologist record evidence of life beyond death: the professor's recently-deceased daughter, whose spirit has apparently come back to stop her father from proceeding with his work for the military.
Made-for-TV adaptation of Paul Gallico's novel "The Hand of Mary Constable" wants to be more complex than the usual bump-in-the-night ghost story, but the questions and answers the film does offer us are nonetheless unexciting.
The casting also seems off, with Ray Milland and Gene Tierney both far too old to be the parents of a little girl (grandparents would be more appropriate).
Young Pamelyn Ferdin, however, excels once again in a difficult part for a child, and John Carradine pops up in a colorful cameo as an illusionist expert.
This was the first television movie for 20th Century Fox, and the technical aspects (aside from Milland's heavy eye makeup and the cheapjack music score) are above-par for a TV feature..
Ray Milland and John Carradine.
1969's "Daughter of the Mind" was one of ABC's earliest Movies of the Week, and like so many from that first decade left an indelible impression on younger viewers, based on the 1964 novel "The Hand of Mary Constable" by Paul Gallico, best known for writing "The Poseidon Adventure." Ray Milland and Gene Tierney, reunited from 1951's "Close to My Heart," again portray a married couple, Professor Samuel Constable and his wheelchair-bound wife Lenore, being visited by an apparition which claims to be their late daughter Mary (Pamelyn Ferdin), who was killed in an automobile accident some two months earlier.
Enter parapsychologist Alex Lauder (Don Murray), keeping an open mind on the supernatural, while C.I.C. inspector Saul Wiener (Ed Asner) suggests that foreign agents may be involved due to Constable's private government work.
Everything is played with total conviction, keeping the audience guessing for the first two thirds, and even if there aren't any paranormal phenomena on hand it's still an enjoyable watch.
Among the many guest stars present is venerable scene stealer John Carradine, around for only two minutes but making an impression on Lauder; his character, Mr. Bosch, is a lifelong illusionist who points the way to the final answer: "don't try to figure out how it was done, that's a waste of time...just start from zero and say this is the illusion I want to create, now how will I go about it?" Though only 49, the still beautiful Gene Tierney looked much older, in what turned out to be her final feature film role..
Daughter of the Mind (1969) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Mildly entertaining made-for-TV thriller about a father (Ray Milland) who lost his daughter in a car crash thirteen-months earlier but on the way home from her grave one night she stops him and passes along a message.
The father seeks the help of his doctor friend (Don Murray) and soon the two try to figure out if this is really her ghost or if something else is going on.
The supporting cast includes Gene Tierney as Milland's wife and we get small roles with Ed Asner and John Carradine.
The film isn't a total success because it tries to be a lot smarter than it actually is with a couple plot twists that take place in the film.
The first part of the movie plays out like a horror film but then we switch gears with some espionage thrown in for good measure.
I can't say the spy and horror genre mixes too well together but the cast never let things get too boring.
Milland, at this point in his career, will certainly be love-him or hate-him because he does have the ability to go over the top and something this hampers a film.
Murray is a tad bit too laid back in his role but Tierney turns in a good performance even if it's pretty much a thankless role.
The plot twists are extremely silly and don't work too well and when the movie is over you're going to think back and catch about fifteen other plot holes but while watching the film it isn't too bad thanks to the actors.
Cold War and Ghosts?.
I saw this way back in 1969 when it first aired, and I saw it as a plain old ghost story, since I knew nothing of the Cold War when I was 12 years old.
But...seen today, I think that maybe we could have a really cool horror movie with the Ghosts of all of our American Heroes who have died while fighting in Iraq coming back to haunt and terrify George W Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condi Rice ...
and all of their peers and cohorts who put our American Heroes in Iraq in the first place--all because George W Bush had to prove himself to his old man since Saddam tried to kill the older Bush.
Now that's a movie I would pay to see!!!.
(POSSIBLE SPOILERS)...Tale of supernatural is taut, interesting, but ultimately unbelievable....
An exploration of the supernatural with only lukewarm success is DAUGHTER OF THE MIND from a novel by Paul Gallico and starring DON MURRAY as a parapsychologist helping RAY MILLAND discover the mystery behind the appearances of his dead daughter.
GENE TIERNEY is Milland's worried wife, wheelchair bound and not having much to do aside from showing concern for the unexplained events.Young Don Murray gives the strongest performance here, making the viewer feel the need to solve the daughter's strange appearances and he is completely convincing as he gradually becomes more and more involved in the weird circumstances.
The final explanation requires a suspension of disbelief since the details are not exactly plausible.Nice to see John Carradine, Virginia Christine and George Macready giving good support in minor roles--both men showing the ravages of age but still recognizable as the sterling character actors they always were.Tierney and Milland were clearly coming toward the end of their careers in underwritten roles and neither one is particularly well served by the script, a muddled one that offers a rather unsatisfying explanation behind the mystery.
The end result is only mildly satisfying, but still--while not a classic of suspense--the supernatural elements should intrigue many viewers.Interesting to note that the director is Walter Grauman, the man who directed LADY IN A CAGE five years earlier, and then went back to directing mainly TV movies..
I, too, saw this one afternoon on the 4 o'clock movie when I was less than 8 years old.
(My mother must have been off caring for my baby sister or cleaning to have let me watch this.) I had nightmares for years.
This movie comes to me sometimes when I think about other movies.
It's a natural tie in when I think of "Barton Fink" (Theater of the Mind!
. Daughter of the Mind).
Thank God for the internet we can remember these things.
Back then I don't think I knew how many big stars were in it.
I guess with all the outlets today, the chance of anything resembling the once great Movie of the Week formula is gone.
I remember another Movie of the Week that I think had George C Scott in it as a man who was bit by a rabid skunk and slowly went mad - wish I could remember what that was.
Anyway, you just never knew when you were going to run into something good - but with three channels, you didn't have much choice!.
**SPOILERS** devastated by the loss of his ten-year-old daughter Mary, Pamelyn Ferdin, in a car accident that he holds himself responsible for well known cybernetics professor Samuel Constable, Ray Milland, has been visiting her grave almost every day.
This was starting to worry his invalid wife Lenore, Gene Tireny, in feeling that he's going insane.
It's some three months after the accident that Prof.
Constable starts to believe that there may well be something very psychologically wrong with him when one evening driving home he runs into, and almost runs over, a live Mary Constable walking along a lonely road.Being a man of science Prof.
Constable doesn't believe in anything like ghosts or the supernatural but after seeing and talking to Mary he starts to believe in it.
At the insistence of a friend Dr. Frank Furgerson, George Macready, Prof.
Constable goes to see a man who could help him solve this dilemma Dr. Alex Lauder, Don Murray.
Dr. Lauder is one of the worlds biggest expert in the field of parapsychology.
Dr. Lauder is so impressed by what Prof.
Constable tells him and what he sees and hears himself, in Mary's sudden appearance at the Constable home.
That makes Dr. Lauder almost a true believer, like Prof.
Constable, in the supernatural.
This leaves the door open for Dr. Lauder to investigate if all these ghostly events are real or somehow manipulated by people behind the scenes.Not what you would expect at first "Daughter of the Mind" is a lot more then a ghost story it also has a lot to do with the defense of the United States that Prof.
Constable is very much involved in his top secret work for the Pentagon.
Mary in her appearances keeps telling her father, Prof.
Constable, about all the bad he's doing in helping develop weapons of war for the US military.
Constable's weird behavior also attracts the US governments intelligent agencies in the person of CIC agent Saul Wiener, Edward Asner, who's having him and now Dr. Lauder followed day and night.
The CIC and Agent Wiener feels that Prof.
Constable is being duped into defecting to the Soviet Union by these "visions" that he's been having about his dead daughter Mary.Very well made-for-TV movie that's as good as any film that was released in the theaters back in 1969.
with an intelligent script and believable ending, an ending far too believable for a movie about the world of the supernatural and dark sciences.
The supernatural is handled in a very unusual and honest way in the film by at first not trying to disprove it and then trying to make those who believe in look like gullible and mindless fanatics.
At the same time not hit the audience over the head with it, the supernatural.
By making it look like anyone who doesn't believe that such a world, beyond the proof of modern science, exist is a slave to what he, or she, was thought in school.
Which over the years brought into being some of the greatest achievements and advancements in the world of science and medicine.