Actress Mary Badham only made two more movies after her memorable debut as Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird; William Castle's Let's Kill Uncle was her last one.
She got the role in the film because her brother, John Badham, was Universal's casting director at the time, and if his name sounds familiar, it's because he went on to direct such films as Saturday Night Fever, Dracula, and WarGames.
While the film is a William Castle picture, it's from the latter half of his career, when he'd let the whole "gimmick" thing go. Which is, of course, a bit of a shame, since without such a hook the movie is pretty lame. Pat Cardi co-stars as Barnaby, an orphaned boy who is in line to inherit millions after his father dies in a car crash. But, as he won't get the money until his 18th birthday, he is sent to live with his uncle (Nigel Green) until then.
Uncle Kevin, however, has a different idea about who should get that money.
Most of the movie is a game of cat and mouse as Uncle tries to kill Barnaby, and Barnaby tries to kill uncle, none of it terribly thrilling or funny, aside from the ridiculous scenes involving a shark in a swimming pool (see the fin of the shark in the pool; cut to stock footage of a shark obviously shot in the ocean).
This is the second Shower Curtain Film of this countdown, and your guess is as good as mine as to why the movie influenced the title of Morrissey's second solo album, Kill Uncle.
I watched Let's Kill Uncle on a Blu-ray from my library as the versions I found streaming online were not letterboxed.
2 comments:
Hmmm. I might just take your word for it. Sounds like it would have been fun when I was a kid and a bore to watch now. Timing is everything with some movies, I've found.
Oooooh, that's the film with the shark...I remembered it being in Who Slew Auntie Roo? Ha ha, well that age old mystery is solved!
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