Anatomy of a Psycho (1961)** (out of 4) Chet (Darrell Howe) is outraged after his brother is put to death for killing a man and swears to seek vengeance against anyone who helped put him away. His sister Pat (Pamela Lincoln) is dating Mickey (Ronnie Burns) whose own father testified against the brother but Chet doesn't know this... at first.ANATOMY OF A PSYCHO has a lot of interesting ideas but this is simply "C" movie material and what good ideas are here are never fully explored and the end result is a decent juvenile delinquent picture. If you're expecting something like REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE then you're certainly in the wrong picture. This was rumored to have been ghost written by the one and only Edward D. Wood, Jr. so one should know what to expect.As many reviews have pointed out, there's certainly nothing ground-breaking here and for the most part the film it quite dull. Where the film does work is the fact that it's pretty much just cheap entertainment and as long as you don;'t take it too serious you can get some mildly entertainment from it. The entire story is something we've seen countless times before. The revenge aspect really isn't anything new but the twist here is that the guy put to death really was guilty. The impact this has on the surviving brother's mental state is where the film brings up some interesting ideas but they just aren't fully explored.The performances are pretty much what you'd expect from a film like this. They're pretty much all over the place but the over-the-top performance by Howe does at least add a little spark to the material. The dead-pan performance from Michael Granger adds some entertainment as well. The rather bland and straight-forward direction by Boris Petroff doesn't add much but then again he at least made a film that didn't have countless errors (like Wood would have).

Chet Marco (Darrell Howe) is despondent after the execution of his big brother Duke, whom he idolized. Chet is the only one who doesn't believe that Duke, a career hoodlum, committed the murder for which he was sent to Death Row. Following a back-alley brawl in which his face is cut up with a broken bottle, Chet becomes increasingly angry and paranoid. He swears vengeance on those he deems responsible for his brother's death. Chet beats the crap out of the attorney general's son, sets the judge's house on fire, pulls a knife on the son of the prosecution's star witness, stabs an innocent bystander to death, and pins the murder on his best friend (Ronnie Burns, the adopted son of George Burns and Gracie Allen).All that happens in the first 45 minutes, leaving us with a plodding courtroom drama in the movie's final half-hour. Director Boris Petroff either paced his film at the speed of molasses, or was too inept to realize he was doing so. Adding to the dullness is an uninspired script and a cast of unknowns with the charisma of Steven Wright (but none of the humor).Despite its classification as a horror film, this is really a juvenile-delinquent movie with a loonier-than-usual protagonist. The title was an obvious attempt to cash in on two far better movies of the time. If you're in the mood for a 1950s J.D. film, you're better off with "High School Confidential."

Hypersensitive Chet (endearingly overplayed with considerable scenery-gnashing panache by Darrell Howe) is left despondent over the conviction and execution of his hoodlum older brother. Despite the fact that his brother was guilty, Chet nonetheless decides to exact revenge by setting up the son of a witness for murder. The tepid direction by Boris Petroff and the blah script by Jane Mann and Don Devlin alas allow the meandering narrative to never pick up the steam it needs in order to really cook and be effective; as a direct result of this, the movie fails to build much in the way of both tension and momentum (for example, a major trial set piece doesn't pack any real dramatic punch to speak of). Moreover, the sudden moments of violence tend to be clumsily staged and hence unconvincing. That said, the decent acting from the game cast prevents the picture from being a total wash-out, with especially commendable work by Ronnie Burns as the likable Mickey, Pamela Lincoln as Chet's sweet sister Pat, Michael Granger as the diligent Lt. Mac, co-writer Devlin as the short-tempered Moe, and Frank Killmond as the wimpy Bobbie. Howe's occasional hilariously histrionic outbursts provide a few unintentional belly laughs. Joel Colman's snazzy black and white cinematography makes nifty use of fades, dissolves, and super-impositions. Michael Terr's overwrought score hits the rousing melodramatic spot. A merely acceptable time-waster.

"A young man is despondent over the conviction and subsequent execution of his older brother. Having idolized his brother to the point of it being an obsession, the young man cannot believe he was guilty, even though he was, and swears to avenge him. The crazed young man decides to carry out his revenge by tracking down and killing all the officials and jurors responsible for his brother's trial and execution," according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis.Boris Petroff's "Anatomy of a Psycho" is a pale period piece, which seemingly sought to (given the title) bask in the glow of two significantly more timeless films. It might have been interesting had it tweaked the covertly homosexual relationship between Darrell Howe (as Chet Marco) and Frank Kiliman (as Bobby Brown), for starters.By the way, it's easy to mistake Mr. Howe for Ronnie Burns (as Mickey Craig), due to the latter's star billing. Mr. Burns, who plays a slightly more secondary role to Mr. Howe's "bad boy" lead, was the more well-known actor, due to his appearing from 1955-'59 on his parents' TV series. Relax, Ronnie does not stray too far from his familiar role as the nice young son of George Burns & Gracie Allen.*** Anatomy of a Psycho (1961) Boris Petroff ~ Darrell Howe, Ronnie Burns, Pamela Lincoln