CHILD'S PLAY (1972)

Not to be confused with those Doll from Hell horror pics, this CHILD’S PLAY is a stage-to-screen transfer from B’way titan David Merrick (aka ‘The Abominable Showman’), the first film in his brief, unhappy attempt to become a big time movie producer.  Running a season in New York, the ludicrous story by never heard from again playwright Robert Marasco, is set in an elite, but creepy Catholic High School, where strict-disciplinarian Latin prof James Mason goes head-to-head with popular English prof Robert Preston and new Phys Ed hire Beau Bridges plays peacemaker.  Meanwhile, something’s up with the student population who seem to be playing a game of Lord of the Flies whenever the staff ain’t looking.  Boys cut & branded in their own blood; broken bones in the locker room; reenacted crucifixion in the chapel.  Yikes!  (Heck, this is making it sound more fun than it is!)  None of this makes much sense or adds up to the sadistic rites-of-passage implied.  But it’s a treat to watch old pros Preston & especially Mason, make their marks thru diametrically opposed styles of acting.  Bridges, on the other hand, plays his clueless character cluelessly.  Director Sidney Lumet tries hard for spooky effects (using the film as an audition reel for next year’s THE EXORCIST?).  So too Michael Small on the score, with an inappropriate cue for every threatening moment & point of punctuation.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Alec Guinness, John Mills and director Ronald Neame pull off this sort of sick power struggle with a military background in TUNES OF GLORY/’60.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2014/01/tunes-of-glory-1960.html

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY Considering the atmosphere: all boys’ Catholic school, priests, chaste lay teachers and no females even mentioned (has Bridges ever been on a date?), a gay angle seems missing.  Even as sub-text.  Was it in the play and bowdlerized out?  Or would it not have come up in 1972?  (The plot does involve ‘dirty’ pictures being sent to Mason, but we never see them.  Priestly indiscretions?)