Juno Films Picks Apr. 23 For The DVD Debut Of Director John Guillermin’s Torment

Way back in November of 1950, Eagle-Lion released the British crime thriller Paper Gallows theatrically in the United States.  It was a programmer, a filler on the bottom side of a double bill.   It came, it went, it disappeared.

Juno Films, with sales and distribution expertise provided by MVD Entertainment Group, announced this past week that writer/director John Guillermin’s Torment (the U.K. theatrical title for Paper Gallows) will be making its domestic DVD debut on Apr. 23 … just 69 short years after its theatrical release.

John Guillermin, now that name should ring some bells.   He bounced around films during the 1950s, doing four films for Adelphi Pictures, of which Torment was one of them.   He caught a break in 1959 when he directed Tarzan's Greatest Adventure, which starred Gordon Scott and counted among its cast was a chap by the name of Sean Connery.   He then did The Day They Robbed the Bank of England (with Aldo Rey and Peter O’Toole), a pair of Peter Sellers films, Never Let Go and Waltz of the Toreadors and then another Tarzan film, Tarzan Goes to India.   

All successful, which caught the eye of Darryl F. Zanuck over at 20^th Century-Fox, who recruited him to direct The Blue Max in 1966.   The Bridge at Remagen followed, the surprise theatrical hit of Skyjacked hit theatres in 1972 and then the Best Picture nominee The Towering Inferno arrived in 1974.   From small British programmers to Hollywood blockbusters … filmmaker John Guillermin did it all.

Which brings us full-circle back to Torment.   We are introduced to brothers Cliff Brandon (Dermot Walsh — The Flesh and the Fiends, It Takes a Thief, Murder on the Campus, etc.) and Jim Brandon (John Bentley — Double Exposure, The Way Out), who live in a large house, write mystery novels and share a secretary by the name of Joan (Rona Anderson — The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, A Christmas Carol, Devils of Darkness).   

If that seems a little odd, it is.   The word “eccentric” to describe the brothers might be too kind.   Oh yes, and they are both smitten with the lovely Joan.  While working on their latest project, Cliff decides to commit a murder just for the thrill of it (his demented mind thinks it is “research” for the “perfect crime”) and when he discovers that Joan prefers his brother Jim over him, being a creative sort, he conjures up a perfect frame job and pins the murder on her.

It then becomes a race against time as Jim tries to unravel the mystery created by his insane brother and save the woman he loves!   Torment, an effective little thriller that arrives on Apr. 23 virtually unseen by contemporary audiences.