"The House That Screamed" (1969) (1 Viewer)

I saw "The House That Screamed" with Lili Palmer back in 1969 at the movies and have not been able to find it available on DVD till now. The trouble is that all the sellers that have it can't tell me anything about this release. From the appearance of the artwork it looks like a low grade version or bootleg.

Has anyone information on this?

Has anyone seen this movie when it was in theatres?

MGM/Sony owns this. It shows up on cable stations now and then.

The DVD that I have is from a company called Shoarma Digital Ltd., it's a PAL disc from Australia.

The print used is the original Spanish print with the original title La Residentia and Spanish credits.
The film is in English, most of the actors are actually speaking English...some are dubbed. Some of the dialogue is periodically out-of-synch, but I believe this was a problem on the original film as well.

The print on the DVD is sharp and clear with nice colors.
The transfer has lots of EE and pulsating artifacts.
The DVD is in widescreen but has been slightly vertically squeezed. If you have a player with X-Y scaling, this can easily be corrected and apparently eliminates many of the video artifacts as well.

The spoken audio is fine but the music score has some strange reverberating effect...similar to talking into an electric fan.

The DVD is certainly watchable, but a better edition would be most welcome.

www.lfvw.com/house_that_screamed.htm

Is this the release you have seen?

Yes, that's the one I have.

= SPOILER ALERTS =

I've always been wondering about missing / censored footage of Luis' rescue from the heating vent and his friendship with Teresa.


Luis is trapped into the heating vent after creeping in for the purpose of peeping at the girls during their shower. Finally he whispers to Teresa through the ventilation to call Teresa's attention to him and get help.

CUT (ca. 49 minutes into the film)

Suddenly we see Teresa interrogated by Irene about several meetings she is accused to have had with Luis and which had been observed by Irene. Obviously this scene takes place a certain time later after Luis has been rescued from his trap and introduced himself to Teresa. I assume some important key scenes must have been edited out here. The relationship of Luis and Teresa might be the reason for Irene's jealousy and the fundamental reason for the later torturing and swearing about Teresa's mother being a prostitute. Also the fact that Teresa visits Luis the night before she's going to leave to say farewell proves that there must have been various incidents before, which are entirely missing in all prints available today. Luis comments Teresa's leaving plan sadly, names her the only friend he ever had and both say that they will miss each other. Luis robs his piggy bank to hand her money for the trip home. From this scenes we learn that the two had established a very confident relationship meanwhile although this is the first time after the scenes in the shower we actually see the two characters together (ca. 70 minutes into the movie).

Please be aware of the fact that all English language cinemascope homevideo versions with the credits in Spanish floating around the web are poorly overdubs which use the picture source of the Spanish DVD and have various cuts which are in the Spanish print but originally were intact in the original American one. In Addition to the Spanish version I've checked a French print. The French version has the scenes available in the American print but missing in the Spanish one. But both are cut identical in terms of the plot holes described above and are lacking any additional footage which would explain the proceedings more comprehensible.

Has anybody ever seen how Luis is freed from the heating vent with Teresas help and how the two befriend with each other in the following? Was such footage ever shot, is it still existing today or possibly lost? I would guess some important footage most probably must have been deleted by the Spanish censor already before any overseas sales. But if so, it remains a miracle why in the American and French versions footage was kept intact missing in the Spanish one (the film was released in the US not until two years later finally in 1971 and in France even later in 1972!)

Any ideas? Maybe also a look in the original screenplay could be interesting - is it available anywhere?

Good film!