The trailer for "Arnold" was far more successful than the actual movie; delineating sort of a "Ten Little Indians" scenario, it quickly highlighted a passel of imaginative deaths, such as two kissing lovers crushed to death in a shower stall. Unfortunately, this tacky turkey with name-players hasn't the snap (or brevity) of its own coming attraction. The recipients of a deceased millionaire's will perish, one by one, in colorful ways, with Roddy McDowall's comeuppance--squeezed to death in a purple velvet suit--being the most ridiculous. Produced on a TV-movie budget, stars Stella Stevens, Farley Granger, Jamie Farr, Victor Buono and McDowall each look properly embarrassed. The only cast member who gets to shine a bit is Elsa Lanchester, hamming it up as dead Arnold's sister. * from ****

I really like this movie for a number of reasons.First it delivers the shocks and the laughs almost at the same time.It does not pretend to be high art.This movie is fun in a lot of ways. If you have not seen it, you know right at the start that the greedy bunch of relatives and hangers on are going to be dispatched one by one. Part of the fun is guessing who is going to be next on the list. Stella Stevens has seldom looked better than she does in this movie. She has a terrific body and that alone is worth the price of admission. But there's so much more. The cast is comprised of mostly character actors who have had some connection with the bizarre and macabre cinema before. Among the cast members are Victor Buono, Elsa Lanchester, Roddy McDowell, Jamie Farr, Farley Granger, John McGiver and Bernard Fox. Needless to say everybody in the cast gets what they so richly deserve. But the final supreme joke involving Bernard Fox and John McGiver is the topper!

The Abominable Dr Phibes was quite successful. One of the first films to feature "creative deaths", it was soon followed by a sequel and imitations (Theater of Blood, also with Vincent Price).Arnold follows the pattern of someone who may or may not be dead getting revenge on those who have wronged him. Here we have a corpse (is it really millionaire Arnold Dewellyn?) who lays in his coffin for the entire movie while tapes of his voice are played at various intervals. Arnold knows his greedy relatives are after his money, but he has a surprise for each of them. Who will survive???This movie is basically a comedy, with some semi-gruesome murders (tame by today's standards) thrown in. If you like black-comedies (Murder By Death for example) you should enjoy this PG rated Bing Crosby Production (BCP). The cast is great: Stella Stevens, Roddy McDowell, Elsa Lanchester, Victor Buono, Charles Fox. The movie did hardly any business in 1973. BCP sold the movie to be tacked on to double bills. In 1976 it was paired with Grizzly! In the mid 80's it finally came to television on the Late Show, and then a year later to video.It is out of print now, and very hard to see (cable TV has NOT embraced it). It is a cult movie waiting to be discovered. It is certainly weird enough!

Ah, the brilliance of BCP films.....what can one say? At least this one is fun (just imagine a "Love American Style" episode if made by Hammer Films). Once again a mixture of has-been and never-were big and small-screen actors get bumped off in ways that will seem silly to veteran viewers of Brit-horror films such as TALES THAT WITNESS MADNESS and VAULT OF HORROR. It even has the obligatory crappy Shani Wallis song (poor talented-but-totally-misused Shani).