The Screaming Woman (1972 TV Movie) User Reviews (40)

great thriller of the 70's

[ggcook · 8/10 · 6 April 2007]

Like many others, this is the one horror movie that really affected me when I saw it as a child. I used to have nightmares and get chills thinking about it. I remember really being frightened of the sounds coming out of the ground. Probably shouldn't have watched this type of movie at such a young age. As an adult, I have talked about this movie to friends who had never heard of it and told them that it would be great to find a copy so that they could see it. I'm sure it would still scare the heck out of me now. I would love to get it and invite a bunch of friends over and watch it in our theater room. The impact of this movie would be so much greater on a large screen versus the small television that we had in the 70's. It would be interesting to see how my teenagers would react to it and how they would compare it to the scary movies of today.

Obviously, for me, this horror movie did what it intended to do! SCARE ME!!!

A fantastic story and a terrific Olivia de Havilland

[Coventry · 8/10 · 30 December 2017]

TV-movies from the early '70s, and particularly those legendary "ABC Movies of the Week", make it look so easy to deliver tense and compelling thriller stories! I truly love most of these gems, and "The Screaming Woman" instantly became a new personal favorite! Like the very best of its kind, this film is short and sober but tremendously compensates in atmosphere and plot-intelligence what it lacks in action footage. When a film is based on a story written by Sci-Fi genius Ray Bradbury, you can rest assured the script is pure quality. The plot is simple and straightforward, but oh-so ingenious and intriguing! The ageing and wealthy but mentally unstable Mrs. Laura Wynant returns home to her country estate to recover from a period in an institution. During her first estate tour, out on the horse carriage, however, she hears petrified woman's screams coming from underneath the soil. While Laura is convinced that an innocent woman is buried alive at her property, her greedy family members see her hysterical behavior as the ideal opportunity to control her finances. The already capturing story is made extra stirring thanks to the grisly sub plots and mysterious supportive characters, like the constant bickering between Laura Wynant's son and daughter-in-law and the odd-behaving neighbors. The amazing Olivia de Havilland is phenomenal as the misunderstood and disrespected elderly lady in distress, but she also receives good support for the entire rest of the cast, notably Ed Nelson, Charles Knox Robinson and Laraine Stephens. Jack Smight ("Airport 1975", "Damnation Alley") was one of the most underrated directors of his generation and he delivers some of his best work with this film. My only main complaints are that Joseph Cotton (one of my favorite actors of all times) should have had more screen time and that also the luscious Alexandra Hay's role is too small. The climax is genuinely spine-chilling and guaranteed to haunt your memories for the rest of your life.

A Rather Strange Film But Pretty Good

[Rainey-Dawn · 8/10 · 5 December 2016]

Laura Wynant has come home from an institution. She lives with her son Howard who seem genuinely concerned for her and her heath and her crabby, money-hungry stepdaughter Caroline. Laura goes for a walk on her large property, all the way out to where the old smokehouse used to be. She sees a dog out there and then hears a cry for help, locates the voice in the cellar that wasn't destroyed of the old place and goes for help. She runs home to tell the story of the woman buried alive out there. No one believes Ms. Wynant's story, they are all thinking she's still not well, but her story is real - quite real.

Who is the woman buried out there? Why is she there? Was it some weird accident or was she buried there deliberately? Will Ms. Wynant find help and get to her before she suffocates? Pretty interesting film. I enjoyed it.

8/10

Was the villain

[ednelson-1 · 15 November 2007]

Working with this wonderful performer was a great thrill for me. She was like and beginner with great joy and loved every suggestion I made and wanted to rehearse over and over again. I was shocked somewhat because few Oscar winners seem to want to do that with and "unknown" which I kind of was in those days. When waiting around we talked once about Errol Flynn who I think did 8 pictures with her, back in the Warner Bros, days. She said all the bad press he got on being Pro Nazi and other things, was to quote Her. "was ridicules, and believe me I knew him better then anyone." Joe Cotton,all the way back with Wells in "Citizen Kane," was a regular guy, and was the star of the first film I did, still in New Orleans, It was entitled "The Steel Trap" with the wonderful Teresa Wright. I was an extra and scared to death standing next to him in a big scene. The title of this ABC TV movie was something else and they changed it after we started shooting. Olivia really hated the title saying, "All the audience will see is my face screaming from this title."

I wrote this because you all liked the picture so much. Thanks Ed Nelson

The scariest times of my 2nd nd 3rd grade years

[FriedAlive · 7/10 · 8 December 2007]

Someone hit it on the head when they talked about the dirt caked on the woman's face. It made her look like a monster herself! When the side views of her were on screen I was so scared, I would hide my face against the couch and it was like somehow I could magically still see the horror of it. She looked 500 years old with the dirt! And the moaning, "Helllllp Meeeeeeee" over and over. Id love to see it again now, Im sure like many movies that used to scare me it would seem much tamer now, but anyway, it was so good to find any reference to this movie from my long ago, that I've never met anyone who has seen it. I guess this will be my last post on here. I'm not sure that I can always write ten lines about everything I've seen, and I hate taking the time to apostrophe words when I am typing on the internet. This was an incredibly scary movie to me when I was 7-8 years old but I didn't have 10 lines of material prepared for it, so I guess I will just be enjoying everyone else's posts about obscure movies that I thought I was the only one who had seen it. Anyway, Thanks for listening, and hopefully I have 10 lines and no apostrophe errors, goodnight.

THE SCREAMING WOMAN was filmed in Montecito, California.

[casaw · 6/10 · 12 July 2008]

The location of the areas attributed to the estate of Olvia DeHavilland's character and surrounding homes is unknown to me (possibly Pasadena, California), but her mansion, inside and out, is located on the Bliss Estate in Monetcito, Califoirnia, which is directly south of Santa Barbara. It sits on 35 acres purchased by the Blisses after their marriage at the beginning of the 20th Century. The mansion has 100 rooms, half of which devoted to servants' quarters. (The exteriors of DeHavilland running from the woman for the first time, passing walls, pillars and a fountain, is not part of the estate.) During WWII Mrs. Edward G. Robinson used the mansion as headquarters for her "Desert Battalion" of 500 women who entertained GIs around the world. For a while after the war it was a girl's school and today it's a retirement village. The main house is still intact.

Fun TV movie

[BandSAboutMovies · 7/10 · 2 January 2021]

Jack Smight did some great directing, with his films No Way to Treat a Lady, Airport 1975 and Damnation Alley being favorites of the B&S About Movies household. Here, he's working from a short story by Ray Bradbury* and delivers a quick and suspenseful reminder that in 1972, TV movies could really get under your skin.

Olivia De Havilland plays Laura Wynant, a wealthy former mental patient who has gone to the country to continue healing. That'd be easier if she didn't keep hearing the pleas of a woman who has been buried alive on her property. Arthritis has robbed her hands of the ability to save the woman and as she brings others in to help her, her family starts to think that she is losing her control over her sanity again.

Beyond scoring De Havilland, Joseph Cotten and Walter Pidgeon show up.

This is a movie that builds and builds its suspense and doesn't let up. I may have said it before this week - and certainly will again - but they don't make them like this any more.

*Merwin Gerard wrote the screenplay. I'm a big fan of another TV movie he wrote, The Invasion of Carol Enders.

The lady who cried body and there was an actual body...

[ThunderKing6 · 6/10 · 29 October 2022]

Another movie of the week. DVDs are off the table. This week I rely on The Tube.

About: A lady finds another lady buried in the ground. She pleads for help but everyone denies her like people deny Zackary K Hubbard.

Genre: Suspense

Duration: A short movie. Over exactly an hour long

Story and production: this movie had potential. It's not the worse it's just slow at times and refuses at times to focus on the actual plot. The story is interesting, it makes you hate the stupid rude characters but the movie lacks the momentum.

Production its a good film. It caused a few head fakes. I thought this movie was a late 1800s time period film. Then it felt like a 1950s time period.

Highlight: quality and age for such an old film.

Do any worthless Mutts appear? Yes. Sorry.

Main Intelligence: Lady a 5 because she could just undig the buried lady. She ran about like a headless chicken. Generally a 2 because people were rude and lacked productive social skills.

Soundtrack: Classical. It's nice

Is this movie worthy? I'll say Kind of.

Should you watch this? Sure, I guess. The movies main problem was focusing on the actual main plot.

One of the great 70's horror TV flicks

[DiggityDogg · 10/10 · 22 January 2004]

This movie is WONDERFUL. I remember this was one of many great horror flicks ABC made for TV. Others included "When Michael Calls" and "Haunts of the Very Rich". I'd be first in line to buy a DVD box set of those old flicks.

old veteran pitching

[SnoopyStyle · 7/10 · 26 March 2023]

Laura Wynant (Olivia de Havilland) is riding her buggy around her vast estate. She finds disturbed grounds and discovers a woman buried alive. She runs screaming back to her home, but her family doesn't believe her. She had recently left psychiatric care.

This is a TV movie on ABC based on a Ray Bradbury short story. My biggest complaint is that they should have kept the buried woman a mystery. The audience should question whether Mrs. Wynant had actually seen something or imagined it all. They should not be shown the buried woman and also the man covering up the hole. On the other hand, I really liked her scrambling to find help from her neighbors. That's when the intensity sky rockets. It leads up to a terrific scene with Nesbitt. At the end of the day, this is a showcase to revisit an old Hollywood veteran. She could have done so much more during her later period. I don't know if it's her or the industry. She definitely still has a fast ball.

More screaming than substance

[moonspinner55 · 5/10 · 16 August 2015]

Nobody will listen to dotty widow Olivia de Havilland when she tries to convince anyone and everyone--her son, the police, her neighbors, her doctor--that she hears a woman's voice calling for help from below the ground on her property. Although hysterical, Olivia is able to relate her findings succinctly--however, since she was just released from a sanitarium, her anxiety is determined to be the product of a faulty mental state. Infuriating TV-made adaptation of a Ray Bradbury short story (initially a 1940s radio play) is top-heavy with villains, although the leading lady is riveting while trying to stay one step ahead of her relatives. Writer Merwin Gerard doesn't have enough main narrative to work with, forcing him to pad the proceedings with background detail on a cheating husband, also a wicked daughter-in-law eager to take control of Olivia's estate. Eliminate the dross and you might have a solid thriller here. Remade again for television as part of "The Ray Bradbury Theater" in 1986.

A Shocker At The Time!

[riverheadestelle · 10/10 · 25 November 2005]

Yes, this was one of ABC's more graphic 'Movie of the Week' thrillers. What shocked me was seeing a woman buried alive still being able to communicate as dirt is falling down on her face. A few years ago, I had acquired this longing for finding most, if not all, of the ABC movie titles I had grown up watching, and this movie was hard to find! I managed to get a grainy but still watchable copy through Ebay after bidding and losing on it a few times.

This is another one of those flicks which hasn't been rebroadcast in over thirty years. The great thing about this movie was that the son seemed more sympathetic to his mother's story. It's almost as if he never wanted to believe that she was crazy to begin with. The daughter-in-law, on the other hand, comes across as a greedy you-know-what who is anxious to have Laura committed for the sole purpose of getting control of the estate through her more reluctant husband. One gets the feeling that she hates her mother-in-law and only married the son because he comes from money.

The scene where Laura bribes a kid to dig up the area where the voices are coming from is unforgettable. She gives the kid two dollars, I think, to do it, but he is scared off by the shock of such a gruesome discovery. Great movie!

It is too bad that the Hollywood industry doesn't see fit to preserve television movies or give them the same consideration. Back in the 70's, the television movie was still a relatively new art form that left a great deal of room for experimentation. Perhaps that's why many of these features still strike a chord with many folks today.

The Screaming Woman

[CinemaSerf · 7/10 · 28 May 2023]

For some reason I kept seeing Helen Hayes in the role played here by Olivia de Havilland. She is a wealthy woman who claims to have heard screams from a body buried in the grounds of her estate. When she reports this to her family, they seize on the chance to have the old girl certified and to take control of her fortune. Can she get to the truth before she ends up in a padded cell? I liked her performance here. For a star of this calibre to play a scatty, and frankly unglamorous, elderly woman showed a skill and a courage that few of her peers would ever have tried to do. Joseph Cotton also joined in the mystery and, along with the imperious Walter Pidgeon, helped generate a frequently amusing and engaging thriller. The writing is a bit ropey and the ending is shocking - it really lets the whole thing down - but as television movies go, this moves along well for just over the hour and is quite entertaining.

She was a "Lady in a Cage", and now she's helping the "Lady in the Ground".

[mark.waltz · 5/10 · 11 February 2017]

There are some genuinely frightening visuals in this "movie of the week" where a seemingly rotting but still living woman calls for help from deep down in the dirt. Olivia de Havilland is a wealthy lady, recently released from a mental institution, happens to come across a dog digging, and upon further discovery happens to see the mud covered woman, and runs screaming into her mansion where her greedy son (Charles Robinson) and dipsomaniac wife (Laraine Stephens) don't seem to believe her.

Joseph Cotten as de Havilland's attorney and Walter Pidgeon as her doctor, become involved, revealing the truth and bringing on more shocks. Pretty decent for a "hag horror", and de Havilland gets to do a lot of running around and huffing and puffing, giving motivation for de Havilland's breathy line delivery. At times a bit over the top, at least here she's got a motivation for her melodramatic behavior. Ed Nelson also appears as a character seemingly unrelated to the main plot, second billed, but having less to do than Robinson, whose character is despicable from the moment he comes in. It's all cleverly tied together in an intelligent manner, with the twists and turns deeper than the poor unfortunate lady in the ground.

More tension than you can handle

[colefusion · 10/10 · 16 September 2005]

I saw this movie on TV as a child and haven't seen it since but still remember it vividly. It gave me nightmares for days. I remember feeling like it was all too much tension for me to handle. The whole time your rooting for the old lady she just keeps facing one setback after another until YOU want to scream! The husband I don't remember well, just that he was quietly noticing trouble was brewing and he had a menacing look. It's too bad more 70's TV movies aren't on DVD. Seems like the stars may have blocked the rights in the past but these days everybody wants a comeback no matter where it comes from. This one was definitely creepy. I never knew Bradbury wrote the short story it was based on.

Still sends chills up my spine

[ecalhoun · 17 July 1999]

I saw this TV movie as a kid with a babysitter and ended up so freaked out that I spent the night in tears waiting for a hand to reach up from under the bed and grab me. I saw it again as a young adult and it still sent chills up my spine with the side profile shots of the buried woman. Very haunting images.

Is the aged rich woman crazy or not?

[Wuchakk · 5/10 · 20 August 2022]

The owner of a large estate near Santa Barbara in SoCal has returned from a mental health facility (Olivia de Havilland). When she hears the sounds of a desperate woman on her grounds no one believes her and those who lust for lucre want her declared incompetent. Charles Robinson plays her son and Laraine Stephens his witchy alcoholic wife. Meanwhile Ed Nelson is on hand as a shady neighbor. Joseph Cotton and Walter Pidgeon show up for bit parts.

"The Screaming Woman" debuted as a movie-of-the-week in January, 1972. I'm a fan of 70's TV flicks as many of them are quite good and some even great, like "Tribes," "Duel," "Gargoyles," "Home for the Holidays," "Go Ask Alice," "Scream of the Wolf," "Winter Kill," "Pray for the Wildcats," Satan's Triangle," "Trilogy of Terror," "Summer of Fear" and many more.

This is cut from the same low-budget cloth, but I found it kinda underwhelming, albeit still enjoyable. It effectively balances two plots, that of the wealthy woman of questionable mental state staving off greedy relatives and that of a compromised husband. One memorable scene was later borrowed for the theatrical "Carrie" (1976).

Blonde Alexandra Hay is notable on the female front in a small part.

The movie is short-and-sweet at 1 hour, 13 minutes, and was shot at Bliss Estate, Montecito, California, which is just east of Santa Barbara, near the coast, about an hour's drive west of Malibu; other scenes were filmed in Pasadena and Universal Studios.

GRADE: C+

Frightening....

[snoopy-11 · 9/10 · 29 December 2003]

I saw this on TV way back in the early 70's and it truly frightened the living daylights out of me.

Anyone from the industry reading this should surely consider a DVD release of this engrossing masterpiece

I love Olivia de Havilland but here she is not at her best...

[planktonrules · 3/10 · 28 October 2016]

Olivia de Havilland is one of my all-time favorite actresses. She's been marvelous in many films and deservedly earned the Oscar twice. However, for a fan, it's not especially enjoyable watching her in "The Screaming Woman". I think most of it is that she overacts and the director should have done a better job in getting a slightly more restrained performance. It also didn't help that the story was very simple and had to be padded in order to get the film to full length.

When the film begins, Laura (de Havilland) has just returned home from an extended stay in a mental institution. You can tell she is rich because it's describes as a 'sanitarium'...a nice way of referring to such a place!

Soon after her arrival home, Laura is walking about her property and hears a woman's muffled scream coming from beneath the ground! However, because of her reputation, everyone just assumes it's her imagination. And, try as she might, she cannot get anyone to listen.

Apart from the overacting (only in a couple scenes), the film suffers from logical problems. After all, when Laura gets a kid to help her dig and he ALSO hears the screaming, this should have solved the problem....but still no one (including the boy's father) believes her. Folks are TOO quick to laugh her off and ignore her when five minutes of digging would have ended the problem. As a 30 minute production this might have worked...as it is, it's difficult to recommend.

By the way, I noticed one reviewer lamented that it was NOT available on DVD or video...but it IS available on YouTube....which is how I saw the film.

Ray Radbury story is chilling tale of woman buried alive...

[Doylenf · 1 April 2002]

The theme of a woman buried alive on the grounds of a wealthy woman's estate is nicely handled here for a maximum of shock and suspense. A bit overwrought at times, with Olivia de Havilland having to convince police, family and neighbors that they need to rescue a woman whose faint cries for help have startled her. The trouble is, she's a woman with a known mental illness and nobody believes her.

This was a highly popular ABC made-for-television movie and successful at the time. Nice to see the supporting cast includes Joseph Cotten, Walter Pidgeon, Charles Drake and Ed Nelson. Nelson has a pivotal role as the man who knows the truth about the woman's screams.

Suspenseful and worth viewing despite the now grainy print of this TV film being shown on cable. And by the way, it was photographed in technicolor, not black and white as a previous comment suggests. That viewer must have been having trouble with TV reception!!

Great movie.

[lanny79-1 · 10/10 · 24 June 2009]

I will always remember this movie,it was so full of tension,the ending was a stunner,I remember seeing it numerous times in the 70s.It was so well done.I am glad that there are others that remember the impact this TV movie had on them.I would love to see it again,I wish they made more movies like this,more "Movies Of The Week" like they had in the 70s like this or BAD Ronald.It especially is wonderful to see very talented performers like Olivia De Haviland giving their all in this type of role.Well done thrillers/suspense movies are missed maybe one day they will get back to this type and level of craftsmanship,especially on network television,because it can stand the test of time if it is done well like this piece of work.

Good TV-movie thriller with a great Olivia

[dave_hillman · 5/10 · 2 February 2023]

The Screaming Woman is a very efficient, handsomely photographed TV-movie based on a Ray Bradbury short story.

The star is the great Olivia Havilland (The Heiress). This is very much her one-woman show.

The script is good, but often undermined by mediocre Universal contract players.

As compensation, you have great support from Hollywood legends Joseph Cotten and Walter Pidgeon.

Ed Nelson is good as a sinister neighbor.

Worth a look, but I don't recommend this for those with fears of being buried alive. It is the basis of the plot, and it is made clear from the first few minutes that Olivia is not imagining that.

I saw this as a kid, and have always remembered it. It was great to catch up with it again. ABC made some terrific little thrillers back in the day.

The scariest film I've ever seen

[carbonfreezealan · 10/10 · 23 September 2007]

This film was on British television in 1985. I was twelve years old a the time and it scared the hell out of me. The images of the buried woman's face covered in mud was too much for me. I could only manage the first ten minutes or so. I would love to know how the film ended. It has not been shown on t.v. since. Several of my friends ended up not staying to the end too. To this day we still talk about how horrible and scary it was.Nobody makes films like this anymore. I hope that this classic will one day be released on DVD. I've heard that this story was remade in the 1980's as a t.v. episode starring a young Drew Barrymore. I haven't seen this but I doubt if it is as frightening as the Olivia DeHaviland version.

voices from the ground

[masonx · 27 June 2000]

Laura, a woman in her late 50's just recovering from a sojourn in a mental hospital returns home to her estate in the temporary care of her son and his wife. A rather dubious couple to say the least. While walking in the grounds one morning she hears or thinks she hears groaning sounds emanating from the ground and tries to raise the alarm. Unsurprisingly when help arrives the voice is no longer evident and so the seeds of doubt are raised about her sanity. Caught this one on the box very early one morning and scared me enough to have a really lousy sleep. De Havilland is in her element here as the recovering patient and gives her character enough credibility to even make the viewer wonder as to her mental state. The black & white photography enhances the suspense of the whole story. Unfortunately not available on dvd or video.

Great Production From A Great Era of Television

[bayardhiler · 10/10 · 27 January 2013]

Imagine for a moment that you're out walking about in your yard or a field when you could swear that you just heard someone call for help -a woman perhaps- but no one seems to be there. You hear the sound again and strangely enough it seems to be coming from the ground but that would mean... someone's been buried alive! You rush back to get help for this poor person but alas, because of you recently having a mental breakdown, no one believes you. That is the premise of "The Screaming Woman" and it plays out in a way that's more compelling than most movies today. Olivia de Havilland plays Laura Wynant, a wealthy but recently released mental patient who tries in vain to get anyone to believe her,be it her son, her lawyer, and the cops, knowing that every second that ticks away is another second in which the buried person is dying a slow and horrific death beneath the dark, damp earth. Miss de Havilland shines here, from those first five minutes of realizing the awful truth ( a scene that will send shivers down your spine) to the stunning conclusion, de Havilland keeps your eyes glued to the screen in a solid performance of a desperate woman. So desperate in fact, you can see the anguish in her eyes each time she realizes people thinks she's nuts. It also helps that the film is well written and directed on what must have been a modest budget. However, as this film proves, you don't need an enormous budget to make a good movie; you just need a good story and good actors to tell it. At the same time, one may feel a little bit of sadness while watching this because you only have to look at modern television to realize how far we have fallen in terms of what our culture now considers entertainment. Still, if you long for some quality entertainment, I highly recommend this on you tube.