One of the best things about Carnival of Souls is the contrivance the sound and music make the film’s atmosphere. The first organ chords that originate the film with shots of the river’s gloomy surface foreshadow a later diegetic appearance of the same music. The magnified sound of the boards of the fateful wooden bridge ratchet up the eeriness of the mood, and echo the distorted sound of Mary Henry’s footsteps when, toward the demolish, in her last shrinking flight through the town, the clacking of her heels on the street takes on a unfamiliar and unreal rhythm.
After the accident, we leer Mary Henry from above, from the point of understanding of the crowd on the bridge. She crawls out of the muddy water where the police have been dragging for the car, which had earlier plunged from the bridge. This is the first of many times that she is viewed from an overhead angle. The second time we gaze her from such a height is at the organ manufacturing warehouse, from the balcony where several of the workers, lured away from their various jobs as if hypnotized by her music, have gathered to recognize her practicing. In this scene we learn that she is leaving for Salt Lake City to steal a job as a church organist. The installation supervisor wishes her luck, and tells her: Effect your soul into it a small OK? (Region the low-budget dialog, OK…? )
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An keen sound diagram occurs next in the car, en route to Salt Lake City. We glimpse that the music we hear is not coming from the radio as we had idea, because as she turns the dials, nothing happens. The source of the music appears puzzling to her as well. Hilligoss is fair here - crazy-eyed, her face in ECU lit by otherworldly light.
The film was made in 1962, and so we never survey a pack of Marlboros or a can of Pepsi. But when Mary Henry arrives at the rooming house in Salt Lake City and we meet the landlady, Mrs. Thomas, she happens to be carrying a can of Ajax - quite funny!
Most of the scenes are tense as Mary is often in claustrophobic spaces: inside her car, or with the cloying Mr. Linden, the neighbor, who continually forces into her state with his hands, face, and body. Later, the minister too crowds her in the blocked region leisurely the organ. The first quiet scene is the one where she first visits the abandoned fairground, which inexplicably draws her. Again we witness her from high above when she enters the pavilion.
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Probably the most valuable scene in the film occurs when Mary visits the empty church to practice. She starts out with all the honest organ music, pauses to scrutinize at her hands as if they don’t belong to her, and resumes. But now the music changes. It becomes the worried carnivalesque collect building on what we’d heard briefly in the opening scene. Gene Moore is credited with the music, and it’s fine! Has anything been written anywhere about this? (Did it influence the opening of Led Zeppelin’s “Your Time is Gonna Near”? ) She’s become one with the organ, and we search for her bare feet floating over the pedals, rows of choir robes shiver disembodied on their hangers, we peek images of clouds over the moon then reflected in the water, saints frozen in the stained glass, and dancers in the pavilion in compressed time. I reflect this is really an fantastic cinematic moment! It ends when the minister bursts on this scene, apprehensive. He’s heard all this, and shrieks: Profane! Sacrilege! He blurts out that he pities her for her “lack of soul” and instantly banishes her from the church, firing her from her job as church organist forever.
There is a particularly sublime shot in the film to peer for. It occurs in the scene of Mary Henry’s final visit to the pavilion. There is a long shot of the ballroom dancers in the unlit pavilion, embracing and motionless, entangled with the long dangling streamers. This is count one. Counts two, three, and four occur like this: the strings of lights illuminate, the music starts, and the dancers originate. The lights, the music, and the motion occur with a cadence so deliberate and careful as though counted out by metronome, and as if to suggest that everything will happen in order, as it should. No need to rush, no need to hasten. This time we observe Mary from a improper angle, the sky leisurely her instead of the ground.
Carnival of Souls aka “Corridors of Inappropriate”, is a crowning jewel in American Cinema. Despite the coarse budget and awful film quality, this 1962 masterpiece stands as a cult more than 40 years after it’s release. Candice Hilligoss’ exquisite performance will overwhelm you as she portrays a character caught in a purgatory between life and death. Her beauty alone will strike the viewer in a diagram few actresses can. Her physical acting, facial gestures, and line delivery will leave you wondering why this woman did not become a household name like Marilyn Monroe or Raquel Welch.
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The legend is as simple as it is complex. A woman is an innocent passenger in a car that gets into a swagger bustle with some teenage thugs. The result is her car going over a bridge into a lickety-split running, sandy river. As she crawls out of the wreckage covered in mud, the viewer thinks she has survived, but has she?
Ms. Hilligoss’ character is a musician, an organist to be valid who takes a job as a church organist in Salt Lake City, Utah. As she begins her slump she is insecure of images of a phantom of sorts who seems to be seeking her out. Anyone who has driven for an average of twelve hours straight can articulate you that driving can prefer its toll, and the mind can play tricks on a sleepy driver. However, after she checks into her room, she finds the same phantom lurking in the window, then in the hallway. Who is this creature, what does he want, where is he from?
The main point of the film is not panic, but human nature. Are we all alone in this world? Is everyone an island unto themselves. The lesson is thrown upon our character by a minister, a psychologist, and a would be male suitor. They all try to relieve her in their contain plot (except the suitor who is only involved in her for a chance to have sex) . But our character waves a hand at them all, convinced that she can do it her enjoy procedure. She is an independent woman who needs no man or companionship; a understanding that may have gone against society’s thinking in 1962.
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The male suitor (or ‘just your normal guy’ as he likes to call himself) is an imperfect oaf to say the least. His headstrong pursuit of her is only his bear selfish desire to have her. He’s not an alcoholic he claims, yet he drinks at dawn. He halt college because he doesn’t like to learn. This is not an ideal resume for a long term relationship for her or any other woman. When she is truly disquieted by the visiting spectre, and she reaches out to him as a last resort for attend, he runs. Not wanting to rep keen, he was only fervent in her for her body and his contain sexual desire. Yet another lesson in this film for all the young ladies who care to pay attention.
As the anecdote goes on Candace’s soul seems to deteriorate. She slips in and out of reality and a uncommon sort of parallel world. This dimension looks the same as true life, but she cannot be seen or heard. The department store dressing room for example, shows how the lost spirit must learn that she is no longer of this world, but now belongs in the spirit world, where yet another companion awaits her.
Who is this man that haunts her in visions? We peek at the raze of the film that they are to be together forever. In the final seen where we search for Candace’s peer at her after-life. She screams in alarm as the ghosts dance eternally as the haunt the carnival. She is finally captured by the ghosts and is titillating away. The police and minister are confused and baffled as her footprints and final body print leads nowhere. The minister gives a intelligent discover as if he has known all along, but says nothing.
The minister must have known there was something inferior with his novel organist when he first met and eventually fired her. She had not the soul of a musician, she only had a knowledge for music. She was told this too by the organ builder in the beginning of the film. When she is possessed in the church and her moral musician ship comes out as she plays without control, that is her suitable spirit, but the misinster fires her for ‘blasphony’.
This film cannot be watched once and dismissed. It deserves to be watched over and over again. It is a timeless movie where something seems fresh every time you peruse it. I applaud you ‘Carnival of Souls’. One of the greatest movies ever made.
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