"Poor Albert and Little Annie," alternatively titled "Crazed" and, better yet, "I Dismember Mama," is a collage of misappropriations from probably better and certainly more respected sources. The title recalls the play-turned-film "I Remember Mama" (1946), the protagonist Albert mentions a Vincent Van Gogh painting ("Le Café de Nuit") in one scene also set amid billiards at a bar, and the climax set in a warehouse of mannequins is ripped off from Stanley Kubrick's "Killer's Kiss" (1955). More fundamentally, the entire production follows in the long tradition of Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" (1960), with the insane murderer who kills out of a conflation of his obsession with his mother and misogyny for the promiscuous women he desires. The other landmark horror film of 1960, Michael Powell's "Peeping Tom" is co-opted, too, early on, for the metaphor of movie-as-monster, with the madman attacking nurses at the asylum who get in the way of his viewing presumably pornographic or snuff pictures. The "Peeping Tom" similarities are dropped as soon as Albert escapes his captivity, but, besides an extended variation on the scene from "Frankenstein" (1931) between the creature and Maria, is substituted by what may be interpreted as allusions to Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland," which is the reason I came to this.
The only one I know of to point out this connection is fellow IMDb reviewer Tedg (Ted Goranson), who also amusingly takes note that the girl playing Annie here (Geri Reischl) subsequently played Jan in "The Brady Bunch" TV show, which also featured a maid named "Alice." Nominally, the Alice in this movie is Annie's mother, as well as the maid for Albert's mother's home, but characteristic of the picture's practice of misplacement, or dismemberment, it's Annie herself who displays the appearance and some of the characteristics of Carroll's Alice. Her and Albert even enjoy a boat ride and a detour on a children's train that, as Goranson also mentions, are reminiscent of episodes from the Alice books.
The rest of "I Dismember Mama" is a slipshod production that possibly may only be appreciated as a so-bad-it's-good film. Besides Zooey Hall, as Albert, who's affected manner of speech is effectively creepy, the acting is poor. The bumbling bobbies are clichés, including the cop repeatedly munching on junk food and sipping coffee in phone booths. The pacing tends to be bad, although the montage of Albert and Annie in the boat cut with flashbacks of his slaying Alice is an exception.
Irrespective of the deficiencies in the rest of the picture, however, reading references to "Alice in Wonderland" into "I Dismember Mama" is a disturbing exercise. I don't put much stock in the claims of pedophilia against Charles Dodgson, but that notion is in some ways more effectively exploited here for pure horror than by Dennis Potter's peculiar sense of literary honor in "Dreamchild" (1985) and, earlier, the TV movie "Alice" (1965). In the late 20th century, Dodgson's Victorian-era photography has been argued to sexualize their children subjects, and in this film, we see the same sort of nude pictures in the background at the mannequin warehouse, as Albert chases after Annie. His perverse interest in her pre-pubescence and virginity is further underscored in a scene where he waxes poetic re the purity of women in the Victorian era. The inference, then, is if Annie is the movie's Alice, Albert is its Dodgson.
The only one I know of to point out this connection is fellow IMDb reviewer Tedg (Ted Goranson), who also amusingly takes note that the girl playing Annie here (Geri Reischl) subsequently played Jan in "The Brady Bunch" TV show, which also featured a maid named "Alice." Nominally, the Alice in this movie is Annie's mother, as well as the maid for Albert's mother's home, but characteristic of the picture's practice of misplacement, or dismemberment, it's Annie herself who displays the appearance and some of the characteristics of Carroll's Alice. Her and Albert even enjoy a boat ride and a detour on a children's train that, as Goranson also mentions, are reminiscent of episodes from the Alice books.
The rest of "I Dismember Mama" is a slipshod production that possibly may only be appreciated as a so-bad-it's-good film. Besides Zooey Hall, as Albert, who's affected manner of speech is effectively creepy, the acting is poor. The bumbling bobbies are clichés, including the cop repeatedly munching on junk food and sipping coffee in phone booths. The pacing tends to be bad, although the montage of Albert and Annie in the boat cut with flashbacks of his slaying Alice is an exception.
Irrespective of the deficiencies in the rest of the picture, however, reading references to "Alice in Wonderland" into "I Dismember Mama" is a disturbing exercise. I don't put much stock in the claims of pedophilia against Charles Dodgson, but that notion is in some ways more effectively exploited here for pure horror than by Dennis Potter's peculiar sense of literary honor in "Dreamchild" (1985) and, earlier, the TV movie "Alice" (1965). In the late 20th century, Dodgson's Victorian-era photography has been argued to sexualize their children subjects, and in this film, we see the same sort of nude pictures in the background at the mannequin warehouse, as Albert chases after Annie. His perverse interest in her pre-pubescence and virginity is further underscored in a scene where he waxes poetic re the purity of women in the Victorian era. The inference, then, is if Annie is the movie's Alice, Albert is its Dodgson.