Product Details

• Actors: Joan Crawford, Diane Baker, Leif Erickson, Howard St. John, John Anthony Hayes
• Directors: William Castle
• Format: Black & White, Color, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Sony Pictures
• VHS Release Date: January 19, 1999
• Run Time: 89 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (81 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6302799171
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #109,436 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Poor Joan Crawford just can't get a break. She hacks her husband to pieces and is sent away to a mental hospital; then after she comes back and tries to adjust to a normal life, there's more ax-swinging and more noggins rolling. Her pretty sculptress daughter (Diane Baker) just wants Mom to return to society and a happy, well-adjusted life... or does she? The plot is a little trite and predictable, the direction a bit staid, but it's all Joan's show anyway. Obviously director William Castle told her to play up her character's insanity, and Crawford turns the knob on the acting meter up to 10, then breaks it off and throws it away. She spectacularly mugs her way through the whole film, abruptly changing from severe schoolmarm to trampy vamp and back again several times. The scene where Mom meets her daughter's fiancée for the first time is particularly memorable; Mom guzzles half an iced-tea glass full of bourbon, then crawls all over the boyfriend while the viewer squirms uncomfortably. Back in '64, lucky moviegoers were given little cardboard axes when this feature made its run in the theaters. Sadly, the cardboard axes are long gone, but this is still highly recommended for fans of Crawford, Castle, and high-powered thespianism in general. --Jerry Renshaw

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

56 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars SWING ALONG WITH JOAN....., September 15, 2002

By 

Mark Norvell (HOUSTON) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Strait Jacket (DVD)

I gave this movie 5 stars for two reasons: William Castle and Joan Crawford. What a combo! And the movie's pretty good too. 20 years ago, Lucy Harbin caught her husband with another woman and chopped them up with an axe. She gets committed to an asylum for the criminally insane. Now, she's released in her daughter's (Diane Baker) care on a farm with other relatives and wouldn't you just know it---someone's at it again, chopping up the extra characters. Poor Joan tries to please her daughter in every way to make up for lost time---but daughter dearest still wants her to look like she did 20 yrs ago---like Sadie Thompson! Well things just get downright messy and there's more murders and screaming and then it all blows open. Someone's crazy alright but it's not our Joan. The extras on this DVD are great. There's a telling interview with Diane Baker and a costume test for Crawford that's hysterical. But wait till you see the "axe test"!..."Strait-Jacket" is a must have for fans. Joan (as Lucy) gets all dolled up like an aging hooker, jangling her bracelets and vamping it up while she wonders if she's going off her rocker again. Her portrayal is strong and she seems to be having a good time. Highly recommended for Crawford fans and William Castle afficianados. Get it and enjoy it.

26 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Whatever Happened to Mildred Pierce?, January 12, 2001

By 

Michael M. Wilk "Eccentric" (Howard Beach, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Strait Jacket [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Joan Crawford plays Lucy Harbin, a woman who has been institutionalized for 20 years, after having hacked her unfaithful husband and his girlfriend to pieces with an axe. She is reunited with her estranged daughter, Carol (played by Diane Baker, who specialized in playing devious females at the time). Carol encourages her mother to dress like she did 20 years earlier,i.e. flower-printed dresses, jingly charm bracelets, and a black, 40s-style wig. Lucy does, and watch out! In what is my favorite scene in the film, Joan, looking like the world's oldest hooker, comes on to her daughter's handsome YOUNG fiance. It is almost obscene to watch this, but try and take your eyes off the screen! Mysterious axe-murders begin to take place. Joan's psychiatrist, (played by Mitchell Cox, Vice-President of Pepsi!)sleazy farmhand Leonard Kraus, played by George Kennedy, and then Carol's future father-in-law, played by Howard St. John. Naturally, we assume it's Joan, right? Wrong! I won't tell who the real murderer is, but I DID drop a clue earlier on. William Castle directed this Robert "Psycho" Bloch- scripted opus, and it is just what you'd expect from Castle-low-budget, full of cheap shocks, and just plain FUN. Miss Crawford is a hoot to watch, especially in her later films, such as this one. The film also has an entertaining cast, which includes Rochelle Hudson, Leif Ericson, and Edith Atwater, as Carol's bitchy future mother-in-law.

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hack Hack Sweet Has-Been, March 23, 2001

By 

tmp "snippy reviewer" (Solar System, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Strait Jacket [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This is a stunner. From the opening when we see Joan's Lucy "all woman, and very much aware of the fact" Hardin hacks up her two-timing hubby (Lee Majors!) and his girlfriend, to the very end where we find out who is committing all of those pesky axe murders after Joan gets sprung from the institution, this is a Crawford tour-de-force. She looks as if she crancked her own personal acting switch up to 11, and let 'er rip. She also alternates between wearing a grey wig and a frumpy muu-muu to a tight dress, black wig and about forty pounds of bangle bracelets (How could she have snuck up on anyone who was not in a coma making all that noise?), all of which succeeds in making her look twenty years older than she looks as an old woman!

Wildly inappropriate line readings were a hallmark of Joan's performances in later years- but these are the best. The scene where she tells her prospective son-in-law's parents about her incarceration is a corker- she alternates between mewling terror and screaming demented harpy from moment to moment. And though other reviewers have mentioned it, the scene where she comes on to said son-in-law is jaw dropping; she starts out downing about a milk jug full of bourbon, drags the poor boy over to the sofa and sits him down by shoving him with her hips- while having him in a death-grip- drawling "I wouldn't want my daughter to think I was moving in on her fella" then proceeds to stand across the room from him and give him a pick-up look more appropriate to the leather bar scenes in "Cruising" than to an early 60's B movie. The rest of the cast just sit there, visibly aghast at the spectacle. So will you.

I demand that this movie be released on DVD right this second!