Very well executed

Powerful

Absolutely Fantastic

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Carol Harbin (Diane Baker) is still haunted after witnessing her mother Lucy (Joan Crawford) murder her father and mistress 20 years earlier. Lucy had caught them sleeping in bed and killed them with an ax. She is released from the asylum to Carol who is living on the Cutler farm. Carol is infatuated with Michael Fields although his rich parents do not know about Lucy's past.After the success of "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?", Crawford is given another hag movie. It's looking longingly at various knives and hearing an echoy child's voice. It's a hag killer horror. There are sometimes big old fashion acting and fun ax chopping. This is almost campy but nothing intense. Diane Baker is playing an innocent farm girl. She could have been the new Norman in Psycho but the filmmaking is nowhere near that level. This has some cheese value and the twist is not that original.

After playing the head nurse in an insane asylum in The Caretakers, Joan Crawford must have decided to see how the other side lived so her next film was Strait-Jacket where she was a mental patient. What got her committed was her Lizzie Borden like attitude toward her second husband Lee Majors whom she dispatched along with his girlfriend with an ax. Her daughter who grows up to be Diane Baker saw the horror show as a child.But Joan's much better now and she's gone to live with Baker and her brother Leif Ericksen and sister-in-law Rochelle Hudson. Baker's about to get married to John Anthony Hayes a real blue blood whose parents are understandably curious about the girl he's marrying and her family. The parents are Howard St. John and Edith Atwater. When some bodies start occurring again as the result of 40 whacks they get downright concerned.After what she did in Whatever Happened To Baby Jane both Crawford and her arch rival Bette Davis got inundated with slasher flick offers. After doing The Caretakers this probably was the best thing Crawford was offered. But said to say it started her career tobogganing down the hill of mediocrity.Her last films were truly not worthy of mainstay star whose career began in silent films. If you're dedicated to Joan Crawford or slasher flicks see Strait-Jacket, otherwise I wouldn't bother.

When Lucy Harbin (Joan Crawford) arrives earlier from a trip, she sees her husband with his mistress sleeping in her bed and she kills them with an ax. Her little daughter Carol witnesses the murder.After twenty years in an asylum, Lucy is released by her Dr. Anderson (Mitchell Cox) and her brother Bill Cutler (Leif Erickson) brings her back to her farm where he lives with his wife and Carol (Diane Baker). Lucy meets her estranged daughter and she learns that she is going steady with the wealthy Michael Fields (John Anthony Hayes). Sooner Lucy has nightmares and hears children singing a pejorative song about her.When Dr. Anderson unexpectedly visits her at home, she shows that she is unbalanced and the doctor decides to take her back to the asylum. However he is axed in the barn. Is Lucy killing again?"Strait Jacket" is a predictable thriller by William Castle with Joan Crawford, who has a great performance as usual. It is not difficult to guess who the killer is, and the conclusion gives a satisfactory motive. My vote is seven,Title (Brazil): "Almas Mortas" ("Dead Souls")

It may help to be a Joan Crawford fan in order to enjoy this inexpensive slasher/thriller. I guess I'm not a big enough fan because I found "Straight-Jacket" almost ludicrous. I don't HATE Joan Crawford. It's just that, as an actress, she's pretty pedestrian. I'm afraid I feel the same way about that other actress in the Pantheon, Greta Garbo. Bette Davis had some flair and flash, and she made a couple of good movies although she was never a stunner. But Joan Crawford? The best thing I've seen her do is suffer under Bette Davis's sadism in "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" The worst of her acting appears when she's required to signal an emotion -- "disbelief," "anger," "sadness," "lying," "seductiveness", "lunacy" -- whatever. It's as if a switch in her internal milieu is toggled and she occupies the psychological state. And she holds onto it like a yoga position. On top of that, she was a terrible mother if you believe even half of her daughter's memoirs.However, she fits rather well into this schlock axe-murderer movie. She's recently released from a booby hatch after slaughtering two people who have offended her. Her daughter, the excessively sweet Diane Baker takes her in. But Baker owns a farm, and it's a chicken farm and there are a lot of chickens and axes around. Then there is the handyman, the greasy, disheveled, snaggletoothed George Kennedy -- but we don't get to worry about his being the murderer for long.And there ARE murders. Two people get it in the neck. I more or less figured out who was doing it about half-way through the movie without trying very hard. In between pages of Will Durant's "Story of Philosophy" as a matter of fact, which I can recommend heartily because it actually has almost as many laughs as this movie. Those eloquent 1926 locutions of Durant's! Reminded me of another classic, Paul de Kruif's "Microbe Hunters", written in the same year. Hilarious stuff. Haven't laughed so hard since my last visit to the proctologist.Where was I? The mind wanders compulsively when it tries to focus on Joan Crawford garbed in a flowered dress, adorned with jangling bangles, wearing a hideous black wig, and staring wild-eyed at the axe in George Kennedy's sweaty hand.This isn't bad enough to be funny. Few films are. It's just an inexpensive melodrama enlivened by a couple of shadows showing a swinging axe. Oh -- and the Pepsi-Cola on prominent display.