I’ve just completed a fairly odd and apparently purposeless project (my favorite kind!), inspired, as per usual, by books that caught my eye. I kind of collect novelizations of obscure movies for the store, and two of them intrigued me enough to go the extra mile and get the movies on e-bay (cheap) too. You have to love the titles – "What the Peeper Saw" and "Picture Mommy Dead." I think it was when I put the latter in the window for the Mother’s day display that I figured I might as well read it. It’s got a great cheese cover – a woman (I thought it was Zsa Zsa Gabor, but it’s one Martha Hyer) holding a candle and a pair of scissors, menacing a little girl. The funny thing is that it’s not a still, but a set photograph, and it’s clear that it’s one of those prop candles with a light bulb in the body – you can see the piece cut out of the plastic and even a cord and a battery in the actresses hand. "What the Peeper Saw" has a seventies photo cover of a screaming, naked woman’s whose vitals are artfully obscured by rippling water.

I don’t think I’ve ever read a novelization before. I’m not sure why they exist, really, except as some promotion for the movie. They don’t seem to do them that much anymore, which is probably good. Everybody knows that a novel is almost always better than the movie they make of it, and I guess that you should really see the movie first so it’s less disappointing. I’m not sure of the etiquette with novelizations, but I read the books first, and really I can’t say any of the four, books or movies, were that good, but, of course, the discerning mind finds interesting speculations from any material. In the absence of such a mind we’ll just have to go with what I came up with.

With "Picture Mommy Dead," the screenwriter was also the author of the novel, which, I suppose might have even been conceived initially as a novel. Robert Sherman adds a rather ornate, and often faintly ridiculous, Faulknerian prose style to his Southern gothic. A girl returns to her old Southern mansion from the insane asylum after her mother’s death – but is she still crazy or a victim? And exactly how was her mother burned alive? The written word is capable of unlimited production values and perfect casting, something the film makers were denied. The venerable Don Ameche certainly brings a presence to any film, but Zsa Zsa Gabor’s Hungarian accent couldn’t pass for Southern in any universe, despite the cameo nature of her role. The young girl didn’t seem attractive or talented enough to be pursuing acting, but I have since learned she was the Producer/Director’s daughter. The film wasn’t unwatchable, a mildly entertaining slice of creepy camp, but the book doesn’t add much but overwriting.

"What the Peeper Saw" is also known as "Night Child," or even more puzzlingly, "Night Hair Child." There’s an exploitation element to it, which is always good, as well as a sort of foreign film feel, as it was one of those dual Spanish/English deals. The boobs are bared from the opening shot, but really only tease from then on. There’s also an ambiguous child with a dead mother at the center of this tale, the young genius Marcus who is certainly odd but may or may not be evil, a distinction his new step-mother may be dying to find out. Although many seem to be turned on by the young star of "Oliver!" playing such a sinister role, Mark Lester doesn’t really convince as a preternaturally sophisticated moppet, an idea that’s really more tenable in abstract prose than on the screen. I thought Britt Ekland was largely convincing in her role, and certainly brings an erotic charge to the screen. The kid/adult erotic angle adds a frisson, but the movie remains kind of clunky. Again, not unwatchable, but not especially compelling either.

The book is novelized by one Jack Gratus (did he work for free?) from Trevor Preston’s screenplay, and it’s significantly different. For one thing, it’s in the first person, which brings an added ambiguity to the stepmother’s paranoia. Gratus creates the rather affecting voice of a swinging cool chick of the era that Ekland couldn’t pull off without a voice over. The most surprising part is the differences between the book and the movie, including the ending. I’m assuming there was a late change in the script, but I think the book’s ending is a little more subversive. All in all, I guess this tandem was a little more to my liking, although I would hesitate to strongly recommend.

Here’s my fave quotes:

He knew her body well. He knew all its secrets. He knew its grace and its infamy; its pride and its vanity; its nobility and its vulgarity. How like a queen the slut is, he thought.

from Picture Mommy Dead by Robert Sherman

"Sounds hip,: I said flippantly.

"Good fun all around," Paul said with a sneer.

In the center, stretched out on a table was a pretty young black girl. She was naked and she must have been really bombed out of her mind on drugs or something to allow them to do what they were doing.

I thought it looked quite clever – a sort of impromptu happening. But the atmosphere was wrong.

"Here, Slam," someone said, handing the big man a slim cigarette. "Give her this. She’ll feel better.

Slam put the joint between the girl’s lips. "Pull on that," he snapped.

She swayed. "Well, once upon a time there was this beautiful woman who had this beautiful husband and this beautiful son and everything was beautiful for them because they were all rich and beautiful. Then…"

I thought.

It’s uncool to show too much emotion.

"Drop the paperback psychology, Paul," I said. "It doesn’t impress me."

I thought to myself: I bet you do, Doctor.

from What the Peeper Saw by Jack Gratus