Cheap I Saw What You Did (DVD) (William Castle) Price

Related Products

Customer Reviews of I Saw What You Did

Director William Castle finally makes an actual thriller!
Once upon a time two teenage girls, Kit (Sarah Lane) and Libby (Andi Garrett), spent the evening making prank phone calls to random numbers. Then they called up Steve Marak (John Ireland) and told him "I saw what you did and I know who you are," but the two girls did not know that the man had just murdered his wife. Of course, the man wanted to find the two "witnesses" and kill them, but just to make things interesting, his neighbor Amy Nelson (played in predictable over-the-top fashion by Joan Crawford), really does know about the murder. However, she has other plans for her neighbor besides sending him to prison.

Actually, "I Saw What You Did" might be the best film ever directed by William Castle, king of the exploitation film ("House on Haunted Hill," "The Tingler"), even though it is atypical of his work. Of course Castle did set up "Shock Sections" for panicky audience members for this film, but the actual movie is a tense and entertaining thriller. Unfortunately the extras on this DVD are pretty sparse, although it does include Castle's promotional clip along with the theatrical trailer and a miniature reproduction of the poster.

---

The QUEEN of Camp!
Another clinker from the 1960's vault of Joan Crawford films. & of course, Joan being a true star really gives it her all in this truly bad low-budget film about 2 silly teenagers who make a prank call to the wrong guy (John Ireland).

Her brief appearance steals the show & as usual is a riot. The subplot involes Joan playing the desperate, manipulating, man-hungry middle aged next door neighbor who is obsessed w/ snagging John Ireland even after she finds out he's a killer! The scenes w/ her & John Ireland together where she can barely surpress her jealous rage over his dead ex-girlfriend had me chuckling to myself. Dressed in what looks like a cocktail dress & a mini-chandellier around her neck, she looks & sounds as if perhaps there really was alcohol in those drinks she was making.

The climax comes when she confronts one of the teen-aged girls grabbing her by the hair, calling her a "tramp" & ripping her to shreds screaming "GET OUTTA HERE!..." over & over again. I laughed my head off. The rest of the film has some suspenseful moments thanks to the menacing John Ireland, but the corny soundtrack music takes what little scariness this film had going for it away. At times it sounded like background music on an episode of "The Flintstones". I'm sure this may have been scary stuff for pre-teens in the 60's but today its just another hilariously campy Joan Crawford movie.

& i'm giving this film ***** simply because it completely fulfilled my need for camp--Joan Crawford style.

---

A Deliciously Over-The-Top Joan Crawford! A Good DVD, Too!
William Castle (the movie "gimmick-meister") brought to the screen in July of 1965 a film entitled "I Saw What You Did", starring an aging Joan Crawford (who was 61). This was one of Joan's last pictures, and she proves here she still had what it takes (albeit, in this film, in a somewhat humorous and over-the-top fashion).

The premise of this movie is a clever one -- two teenaged girls begin playing a telephone "game", where they call people at random out of the phone book and inform them "I saw what you did ... and I know who you are!"

This "game" takes a realistic twist when (as fate would have it) one of the "victims" of the girls' prank turns out to have committed a murder just minutes before the call. A dangerous game indeed.

The two young girls are played by Andi Garrett and Sarah Lane. They aren't exactly in Miss Crawford's class, acting-wise, but I liked both of them in this movie very much. They just seemed to have a "real" quality to them that came through on screen. Interestingly, this was Andi Garrett's *only* film appearance ever. And Sarah Lane appeared in just one other film besides this one (which was a made-for-TV movie).

Anchor Bay and Universal give us this black-and-white film on DVD in a good-looking Widescreen presentation (1.78:1), with a robust-enough Mono soundtrack. The transfer here is not "Anamorphic", but it looks like one nonetheless, displaying a very clear picture with little in the way of any video distractions.

Not many, but a few, Bonus Features occupy space on this one-disc DVD edition. There's the Original Trailer for the film, plus a "Teaser Trailer", which features Director William Castle's "World Premiere Announcement" for this little chiller/thriller.

Also on the disc are some text-only "Talent Bios" (for Crawford and Castle). The Bio section for Miss Crawford is very nice, too -- featuring a multitude of text screens covering her vast career. Many vintage photos of the actress are also included on the bio text screens.

A one-page (two-sided) insert comes in this Keepcased package. This is one of the nicer single-page DVD enclosures, being made from a thicker cardboard than most flimsier paper inserts. A listing of the movie's 20 "Chapters" is on one side; while a reproduction of an original lobby card (or poster) for the film is shown on the other side of the insert.

"I Saw What You Did" certainly isn't the best or scariest flick you'll ever see. But it has a certain atmospheric "charm" to it that definitely places it within the "worth a look" category.