Lloyd Bridges, Cloris Leachman & Anne Francis in Haunts of the Very Rich (1972)

Back in March I posted a film called Between Two Worlds (1944). In a comment, one of my readers, Propagatrix, brought this film to my attention. It's loosely based on the same idea - what happens to a group of people after they die. The film opens on a luxurious airliner flying to an unknown destination. On it are various archetypes of society - the young couple in love, the workaholic business man, the wallflower, the housewife, the clergyman... Unlike the film its based on, the plane arrives at its destination early - a beautiful tropical resort where every need is met. The guests are pampered in every way until things begin to go wrong, starting with a huge storm that knocks the power out. As life begins to get more and more difficult for the guests it dawns on them that perhaps it's not life at all and they're actually dead and in hell.

Though this film deals with the same circumstances as the 1944 version, it has a much bleaker, 1970's outlook and draws conclusions from a particularly pessimistic point of view. The cast is quite the who's who, also featuring Donna Mills, Ed Asner, Moses Gunn, Robert Reed and Michael Lembeck. Clothes horse, Cloris Leachman wears many of the same clothes she wears as Phyllis Lyndstrom in Mary Tyler Moore (1970). Though it's never been released on DVD, it can be found on YouTube in its entirety thanks to TVTERRORLAND. The whole film is above.

Obscurity factor: 9 (hard to find, largely forgotten, not on DVD, available on YouTube)

Anne Francis in Honey West (1965)

Times were changing for women in 1965. The pill had been introduced five years earlier, surreptitiously kicking off the liberation movement and women in life and in popular culture had started taking charge of their sexuality, as well as their destinies. Enter Honey West, whose debut in literature predated the pill by three years, but whose appearance on screen (first in a 1965 Burke's Law episode, then in her own eponymous television show later that year) was emblematic of the new, take charge, 60's woman. Honey is a PI, who does everything with style. She has Sam Bolt (John Ericson) - a hunk of a partner - a pet ocelot named Bruce, a jazzy sports car and an array of gadgets that would make a bond girl jealous. Each week she sets about solving a mystery for her tony clients and gets into clinches - both romantic and threatening - with the suave men she encounters.

This series has something of a cult following. It can be found on DVD and in part, on YouTube. The episode above was uploaded by thorlynn and is the first of the series.

Obscurity factor: 2 (somewhat well known to a small segment of the population, on DVD & YouTube)

Anne Francis & Dana Andrews in Brainstorm (1965)

This film is not to be confused with the 1983 film of the same name. This black and white thriller warns against pretending to be something you're not. Jim Grayam (Jeffrey Hunter) is a research scientist working for an aeronautics firm in California owned by Cort Benson. One night he rescues a lovely woman (Francis) from what turns out to be a dramatic suicide attempt, only to discover she's his boss's wife, Lorrie. This should have been his first clue to steer clear, but he eventually falls into the trap of an affair with her. They believe they've been discreet enough for the affair to go unnoticed, but when strange events begin to befall Jim, Lorrie realizes that Cort has found out. Cort's strategy is to ruin the men who become rivals for his wife's affections by exploiting the chinks in their armor - Jim's chink is a history of mental illness. Cort picked the wrong man to poke with a stick, however. Jim decides to play into Cort's hand and feign mental illness to use as a defense for murder - his murder!

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This dark film noir has many of the elements of The Postman Always Rings Twice and other films of that style, but with an edgy, chaos infused, 60's point of view. Look for Viveca Lindfors as a sympathetic psychiatrist and Richard Kiel (Jaws from the Bond films) in a small role as an inmate.

This film is available on DVD and can occasionally be seen on TCM. It's largely forgotten, however. Above is a scene from the film, uploaded to YouTube by GR160289.

Obscurity factor: 8 (on DVD, occasionally screened on television, not well remembered)