What Became of Jack and Jill? (1972) User Reviews (12)

Out with the old, and in with the new!

[The_Void · 7/10 · 14 July 2008]

What Became of Jack and Jill is an extremely rare British psycho chiller, and a rather good film to boot. The film takes on the idea of 'murder for profit' and mixes it with a family theme and the idea of lazy youngsters not wanting to get a job. I do have to admit that the copy I saw was sourced from a very old VHS and thus the quality was rather shabby; but in spite of that, it's still clear to see that Bill Bain's film is very well made and effective, despite not having the luxury of a big budget and star names on the cast list. The film actually has nothing to do with the classic nursery rhyme - and I'm not sure where the title comes from considering the male lead's name is 'Johnny'. Anyway, we focus on a young man living with his grandmother, who just happens to be sitting on a fortune. Naturally, the grandson wants to get his selfish mits on this fortune and so does his girlfriend; so the two hatch a plot to send the grandmother insane; leading to her death and leaving the pair free to spend all her money. However, things do not exactly go to plan.

The film is actually quite slow and the plot very relaxed in terms of it's plotting; but while the film is not particularly exciting, the slow plot does benefit it in that we get time to know the characters and the situation to ensure that the film is always intriguing. The acting is fairly decent too with the three central performers doing well in their roles. Paul Nicholas ('Blind Terror') convinces in his role as the grandchild that wants his grandmother out of the way so he can enjoy life, while Vanessa Howard (the biggest standout in Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny and Girly) is ice cold as his scheming girlfriend. Mona Washbourne ('Fragment of Fear') rounds off the central cast and gives the only likable character of the whole piece. The film is much better while there are three leads in it; after the death of the grandmother, there's some amusement in the aftermath but the rest of the film doesn't live up to the promise of what went before it. Still, What Became of Jack and Jill, while not a classic, is certainly an interesting little film and it's worth a look if you can find a copy.

Spoilers follow ...

[parry_na · 6/10 · 21 July 2016]

Amicus, who had a strong run of anthology horror films by this time (and would continue to have more throughout the ensuing decade) released this film two years after its completion. Its minimalist approach was difficult to market and it sank without much fanfare, and is now extremely rare. It concerns the machinations of Johnnie and Jill, indulging in some bizarre 'young versus old' theatrics (with imagery of teens dressed as Nazi soldiers, gunning down a truckload of pensioners, who are herded like cattle) to frighten Johnnie's rich Gran to death.

Vanessa Howard plays Jill with all the hallmarks of a 1970's wrong 'un. Chewing gum, slightly cockney, indulges in casual sex – definitely bad news. Howard plays her convincingly. A dark dreamer, she wants a better life than the one which currently traps her. And it does trap her. Her boss casually gropes her as a matter of course, and the locations where she lives are dank and littered with grim perpetual winter's drizzle.

Jack is played by Paul Nicholas, who went on to become a successful pop singer – one of his biggest hits was called 'Grandma's Party'. He doesn't want to work ('9-5? Who needs a bloody job?' he asks himself) and provides a comparative voice of reason between them both.

Gran, Alice Talent, is played by Mona Washbourne who refuses to portray her as the sweet, docile old girl this film seems to cry out for. Instead, she is more real, grounded, and not afraid to tell Jack a few home truths now and again. But when she breaks down and declares, "You'd think it was a crime to be old. We can't help it," whilst facing the brunt of Jack's continued lapses into passive aggression, your heart breaks for her.

Like 'Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny and Girly (1971)', the star of this particular show is Vanessa Howard, who is ice cold throughout but still has some wonderful lines (her departing words to her former employer: "Book yourself a nice cruise, right up your own back passage!"). All performances are terrific, especially when the two youngsters are written as such wholly unlikeable characters.

The story is slow and mostly uneventful, enlivened by the characters and their mounting arguments when their carefully laid plans come to nothing in their drizzly lives of 70's drudgery. The film certainly doesn't deserve it's mostly forgotten status. Whilst hardly a straightforward horror, the concepts are certainly brutal and the slight humour that embraces them is dark indeed.

It's Grandma's Party Tonight

[Theo Robertson · 6/10 · 26 July 2013]

Jack lives with his elderly grandmother who he looks after . He hates this and resents caring for her . Along with Jill his gold digging girlfriend they hatch a plan to get rid of her

If the premise above reads as a bit too simplistic then you'd probably have a point . It's the old Shakespearian tragedy of a young weak greedy man listening too much to a slutty greedy woman and coming to regret it . However this isn't enough to to condemn the film as being bad in anyway and while it's not terribly good neither is it terribly bad , just a little bit predictable

The cast are somewhat one note with Paul Nicholas as a hip early 1970s young cat brooding that the best years of his life will revolve around looking after his elderly grandmother who he has murderous fantasies towards . Vanessa Howard plays Jill who is a bit too slutty to be entirely credible but if you're a hip young cat then the tail wags the dog if you know what I mean and Mona Washbourne plays Gran who despite being a coffin dodger isn't written or portrayed as being insufferably selfish , just old

The directing by Bill Bain is rather static and workman like which is not too surprising since most of his prior and subsequent work was in the field of television . One interesting aspect Bain does bring to the film is a cinematography featuring muted sepia tones which is the only real remarkable thing in an unremarkable film

A minor footnote in the history of British psycho thrillers

[lazarillo · 21 August 2007]

This is an obscure English thriller, whose interrogative, nursery rhymesque title suggests an attempt to connect it to the series of bigger-budgeted "crazy old lady" thrillers directed by Robert Aldrich and Curtis Harrington ("Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?", "Who Slew Auntie Roo?", etc.). The old lady here though (played by Mona Washburn) is genuinely sweet, and the villains are her lazy, amoral grandson and his sexy Lady Macbeth-in-training girlfriend (Vanessa Howard). The two young people plot to get their hands on grannie's money, but rather than simply pushing her down the stairs they hatch an elaborate plot to convince her that radical youth have taken over England are planning to do away with "oldies" like her. This is thus kind of like a nasty horror version of the recent film "Goodbye, Lenin", but not played for (intentional) laughs.

This is an entertaining movie while Washburn is in it, but the other two characters are so disagreeable that it's hard to care much about them after she exits, and the young couple are also too one-dimensional to really relish them getting their eventual just desserts either. This isn't really the fault of the actors though. Vanessa "Girly" Howard is especially good(even if her failure to take off her clothes is pretty regrettable).

This movie was also probably a little too tame for 1972, even for the famously violence-adverse British, and this too might have led to it's failure and current obscurity. Still it isn't a bad movie, and deserves at least a minor footnote in the history of the British psycho thriller.

There's a reason why this one hasn't made it to DVD

[josephbrando · 3/10 · 29 January 2010]

If you are checking out this title here on IMDb, chances are you are a fan of Amicus productions and are searching for the very few titles that haven't made their way to DVD yet. I managed to get my hands on a copy of this one and watched it last night.

A 20-something loser who lives with his grandmother schemes to get rid of her so he can inherit the house and the big pile of money she's sitting on. With the help of his cold-as-ice girlfriend, he convinces poor Granny that a rising group of British youth are violently getting rid of all old people, making her last days as torturous as possible. That is basically the plot. There is no supernatural twist as I was expecting from an Amicus production. While the film does manage to generate sympathy for Granny, it doesn't do much else.

We've all seen this type of story play out many, many times before - Amicus themselves did a much better version in one of the stories in "Tales From The Crypt" with Peter Cushing, but with the plot-enhancing supernatural twist. Don't go out of your way to find this one guys, there is a reason why this is one hasn't been re-released yet.

Why did Amicus bother

[malcolmgsw · 3/10 · 21 July 2015]

I do not think that this film was released in the UK.It certainly has not made it out on DVD.It is a rather strange film.It takes an awful long time to get to its climax and when it does all you can think its"so what".In fact when the couple go into see the solicitor about the reading of the will you think ,rightly,from that moment on that everything is about to go downhill.It is difficult to know why the makers thought this film was worth making.It is not a horror film,it is not sexploitation it is not a mystery thriller,it is just a mess.One can only feel pity for dear old Mona Washbourne that she felt that she had to appear in this.Although only 69 when the film was made she looks absolutely dreadful.

One of those mean-spirited, repulsive movies that makes you ask yourself why you watched it

[jameselliot-1 · 3/10 · 3 September 2020]

I can understand why the late Vanessa Howard quit the business after this junk. But she married a millionaire.

Cool Flick

[grantch · 8/10 · 22 December 1999]

This is one of those films almost no one living seems to have seen, yet remember. I only caught it once in '72 or '73 but found it great fun. An opportunistic young couple are after an elderly lady's money ... their plot & how they set it up is absorbing. This is a half-remembered movie, probably in line with the youth-oriented '70's American flicks like Three in the Attic and Wild in the Streets, which I would welcome enjoying again. It's not great, but it's very enjoyable "black humour".

A Druggy Out To Kill His Grandmother

[Rainey-Dawn · 2/10 · 5 December 2016]

A stupid druggy and his dumb drugged-up girlfriend wants to kill his grandmother for her house and money. They are irritating as they can be. It's really easy to feel bad for the grandmother who's seemingly stuck with her awful and evil grandson caring for her. It's one of those films concerning youthism, power to the youth and down with the "oldies" (as said in the film).

The movie had a couple of moments of being a little bit interesting but kept falling flat after the "moments" each time. It's slow, boring mainly and the two youths are irritating as all hell. Let's just say I was unimpressed with the film for the most part.

2/10

How to murder an annoying granny.

[mark.waltz · 4/10 · 7 October 2021]

This is a campy black comedy psychological horror film about a wastrel young man (Paul Nicholas) trying to provoke his grandmother Moana Washbourne into having a heart attack by scaring her to death, making her think that there is a plot to kill all old people as a part of society cleansing. He's been pushing to this by girlfriend Vanessa Howard, a travel agent who wants to find an easier way of getting through life. Washbourne isn't really all that annoying, just lonely and vulnerable and extremely gullible. Nicholas is cruel, grinning at her as she wheezes after having a nightmare, and he even dreams of her being mowed down with a bunch of older old people while he is wearing a Nazi uniform. Howard and Nicholas are having fun with their deliciously nasty characters, with Howard delighting in making fun of granny. Nicholas does show hints of loving her, but he's so desperate to not work and get ahold of the estate's she is leaving him that he is easy prey for the manipulative Howard.

For veteran character actress Washbourne, this low-budget thriller would be followed up by a last bout of success with her co-starring with Glenda Jackson in "Stevie". She had previously played a similar role in the remake of "Night Must Fall", and it's painful to watch her being manipulated by Nicholas who keeps telling her these false plots against senior citizen, with Howard at one points calling up pretending to be a census taker. Surprisingly, the acting by the young people is equivalent to the veteran Mona, but it's the cheap appearance of the film that makes this look trashy. Easy to enjoy, but certainly not something that I'd recommend to older members of the family.

a deliciously twisted tale of opportunistic Octogenarian offing!

[Weirdling_Wolf · 8/10 · 7 November 2023]

This unjustly neglected Amicus horror gem remains a deliciously twisted tale of opportunistic Octogenarian offing, and diabolical delinquency. Duplicitous, ardently inheritance-coveting, Johnnie Tallent (Paul Nicolas) and his avidly callous conspirator, Jill Standish (Vanessa Howard) plan and evilly execute the cruel death of Johnnie's loving Gran, Alice Tallent (Mona Washbourne). Bill Bain's dark, wickedly entertaining psychodrama is enlivened by compelling performances, with a mesmerisingly malevolent turn from the nubile, electrifyingly libidinous strumpet, Vanessa 'Girly' Howard.

The fine filmmaking by director, Bain making the most of notable writer, Roger 'The Avenger's Marshall's blackened, bracingly nihilistic text. The dour suburban milieu of loneliness and seething discontent is palpable. Paul Nicholas plays the ambivalent, coldly scheming, Johnnie with remarkable fluency, utilizing subtler shades suggesting, perhaps, at one time, he may actually have had some genuine affection for his poor Gran. While lurid, and undeniably exploitative in nature, there's an innate melancholy, a dark pathos, redolent of the glumly melodramatic, socially conscious kitchen sink doom-fests of the mid to late 60s. A skewed 70s Brit-Horror delight, 'What Became of Jack And Jill' ranks highly in the pantheon of terror-tweaked 70s shock, and the lack of a HD restoration is conspicuous!

Wasted youth

[tonyinblack · 9/10 · 16 February 2021]

Although nowhere near as disturbing as Amicus thought, What Became of Jack and Jill is still pretty grim by the British standard of the day. The film would be a lot less without Vanessa Howard and not just for the obvious reasons, few actresses can play unhinged quite as well. Paul Nicholas is clearly doomed from the start as Johnnie and Mona Washbourne's Alice manages to be sympathetic without laying it on too thick. The whole thing looks drab beyond belief as if all the colour is slowing draining from the world, the Summer of Love isn't just over, it never happened.