Musty TV's Maniacal Movie Countdown - Day 29: Ruby (1977)

What do you mean Piper Laurie, fresh off her comeback roll as the mother of a telekinetic teenager in Carrie, a year later starred as the mother of a telekinetic teenager in a movie called Ruby??

Well, technically the teenager in Ruby isn't telekinetic so much as possessed by the spirit of her dead father, who was a gangster that had been gunned down in front of her pregnant mother, gangster's moll and lounge singer Ruby (Laurie). So it's less a rip-off of Carrie than it is of The Exorcist but still kind of crazy that Piper Laurie chose this as her Carrie follow-up.

That murder opens the movie, which starts in 1935, then jumps ahead sixteen years to 1951, where Ruby now runs a drive-in theater (which we see showing Attack of the 50-foot Woman, even though that movie didn't come out until 1958). Her employees are all ex-cons (including one played by Uncle Louie himself, Len  Lesser). She shares her home with her mute daughter, Leslie Claire (Janit Baldwin, who looks like Bud Cort's long long twin sister), her lover, Vince (Stuart Whitman), and blind former mobster in a wheelchair, because why not.

Piper Laurie's performance in this is on par with the batshit vigor she imbued into Margaret White. Ruby can't let the past behind, forever lamenting the loss of her singing career, ready to burst into a song and dance routine at a moment's notice, especially since she had a stage built into in her house. She's giving Pearl energy, mixed with a bit of Oh, Mary! throughout.

Ruby is available to rent online. I watched via a free trial from a service called ScreamBox.