Daddy's Gone A-Hunting

DADDY'S GONE A-HUNTING (1969) is a relatively obscure psycho-thriller that I knew nothing about before watching and ended up loving. It stars British starlet Carol White (POOR COW, CATHY COME HOME) as an aspiriing artist who arrives in San Francisco and begins to romance a young man she meets on the street. Before long she's pregnant, but the relationship sours and she aborts the baby. Unfortunately her former lover isn't about to take that lying down...

This is one of those stories that plays out with an economy of narrative which really works in its favour. There are some great jump cuts to drive the narrative forward while the entire focus is on the psychological cat and mouse games. The cast are all excellent and the characters strike the right balance between likeability and believability. The extended chase climax is a real nerve-shredder!

The premise of the movie is simple enough..Cathy, a young, beautiful girl arrives in America to find work, meets Kenneth, a handsome young photographer, they fall in love, but it turns out the young man isn't all he seems to be, and when she learns she's pregnant, she decides she doesn't want him-or the baby and has an abortion, and he decides to seek revenge.

The setting is San Francisco, and the visuals are well played out in the city, along with a taut, tense script by Lorenzo Semple and Larry Cohen, with sure footed direction by Mark Robson, fresh off of his smash hit 'Valley of the Dolls' two years earlier. The cast includes Mala Powers as a sympathetic coworker of Cathy's who talks her into the abortion, Paul Burke (fresh off of his work as Lyon Burke in 'Valley') as Cathy's new husband, a senator wanna be, and of course, Scott Hylands, who as Kenneth, brings a creepiness to his role, but at the same time, you do feel for him as the spurned lover who wants revenge for the abortion that Cathy decides to get.

The only weak link in this movie is Carol White as Cathy. Beautiful as the young Brit who arrives to seek work and becomes involved in a nightmare, is harsh, childish, and for most of the movie, a total bitch. You never feel how Paul Burke's character fell for her, suddenly they are wedded, and there is very little passion between them in their scenes. She comes across shrill, completely obnoxious, and downright hateful. You wonder if she really wanted to have a baby in the first place with the way she acts. For the most part, this movie is a fine addition to the 'damsel in distress' genre, but having a heroine that is more sympathetic might have worked much better.

A surprisingly potent and strangely disregarded psycho-stalker picture marked by taut direction and capable performances, it also benefits from its appealing San Francisco location filming. It's a distressingly plausible scenario...girl aborts the child of her former lover, latterly marries another man, and becomes pregnant again. The first lover, now quite clearly a dangerously unbalanced nutcase, shows up to settle the score.

A briskly paced little nail-biter which occasionally goes a tad bit over-the-top, DADDY'S GONE A-HUNTING is ripe for a much-deserved reinvestigation.

6.5/10

DADDY'S GONE A-HUNTING might be of interest to film academics looking to analyze attitudes about abortion and motherhood in the wake of the 60s sexual revolution. For those wanting a good thriller, they'll have to look elsewhere. Leadenly paced and poorly acted (with one exception), this movie feels like it was made for television. It boggles the mind to think the director was responsible for some of the best Val Lewton chillers back in the 1940s.

The single bright spot is Scott Hylands as the stalker villain. His stare is chilling and his vengeful plot is truly disturbing. Such a shame the woman he's menacing isn't up to snuff-- Carol White's performance is wooden and her character is often unlikable, treating the people around her like garbage when it isn't warranted. This makes it very hard to root for her, a deadly problem for a suspense thriller.

Also, that title song is truly putrid, dated in the worst possible way and almost comical in how it blatantly describes on-screen action. Hard to believe the legendary John Williams was responsible for that travesty-- though to be fair to him, most of the score is alright, if nothing exceptional.

Newly-arrived in San Francisco from the UK, pretty young artist has a meet-cute with a strange, handsome photographer at the bus terminal (he throws a snowball at her head). He fixes her up with a job interview and they move in together, but he has responsibility issues and won't earn his share, throwing her out of her own apartment after she asks him to see a psychiatrist. Melodrama from screenwriters Larry Cohen and Lorenzo Semple Jr., from Cohen's original treatment, skips ahead fitfully; before we know it, the girl has had an abortion, the ex-boyfriend finds out and is furious, and she's gotten married to another man. Purports to be "adult entertainment", but director Mark Robson is still playing the same coy games (when the girl gets undressed to make love, the camera drops to her clothes hitting the floor). Unsettling scenes are entwined with phony soap opera hysterics, while the performers look somewhat unsure of themselves. ** from ****