THE OTHER SIDE OF MADNESS (1971) (The Film Detective Blu-ray Review)

THE OTHER SIDE OF MADNESS (1971) 

Label: The Film Detective

Rating: Unrated

Region Code: Region-FREE
Duration: 81 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA Mono 2.0 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Full Frame (1.37:1)
Director: Frank Howard
Cast: Brian Klinknett, Erica Bigelow, Paula Shannon

The Other Side of Madness (1971) has the distinction of being the first film out of the gate to exploit the infamous Tate-LaBianca Murders that happened in Los Angeles in August of 1969. The film was made and released when the Manson Murder trial was still happening and making headlines on the daily. The film was photographed, directed and edited by filmmaker Frank Howard and produced by Wade Williams, the avant-garde movie is a sort of docudrama with documentary-style footage mixed with dramatic reenactments of the infamous events, the facts as depicted in the film were pulled straight from news articles at the time. The black and white flick has a loose narrative style that is mostly dialogue-free, told through a bold visual style that incorporates flashbacks to tell the gruesome murders. The names of the characters are not mentioned or credited but it would be hard to miss that this is based on Charlie and the rest of the Manson Family, with a doomed blonde starlet clearly based on Sharon Tate.

The visual style incorporates skewed camera angles that give the film a certain unease, the murders themselves are brutal but not overdone, with a fly-on-the-wall perspective that pulls you in. We get scenes of a hippie gathering with a psyche-rock band playing to drug-addled often nude hippies in a desert canyon mixed with scenes from the courtroom drama as well as that of the killers locked-up in prison cells after their arrests, triggering flashbacks to the Manson cult gathered at The Spahn Ranch and later in we have the murders. The flick is not super exploitative in a grisly sort of way but it certainly has some disturbing moments of violence, especially for the era and particularly because the heinous true-crimes were still quite fresh in the public consciousness, the trial was still happening and the outcome and facts were still not completely known, so I could see this feeding into that thirst for the macabre facts of the crime. 

The docu-drama styled flick utilizes scenes shot in Los Angeles and even shots from Manson's base of operations, The Spahn Ranch, shortly before it burned down, with members of the actual Manson Family clan who were not involved with the crime appearing as extras in the film. Most of the film's interior murder house shots were actually shot in Kansas City. Those skewed angles give it an unsettling vibe bt feels reality based, but one fantastical scene that stages what Manson's Hellter Skelter race riots might look like, of militant black men violently attacking white people, the style changes, with a deeply shadowed imagery that recalls the expressionism of noir. 

The filmmakers used non-actors that they recruited in and around at a hippie park in Kansas City, that there is so little dialogue is surely a benefit to their armature performances, though I found them all quite good and they found some characters who really recalled their real-life counterparts, especially the guts playing Charlie Manson, his right-hand man Tex, and the doomed victims Sharon Tate. 

The avant-garde flick is an artful telling of the story with a novel story structure that when combined with the well-photographed and moody visuals gives a surreal quality to the dark proceedings, making for  a trippy re-telling of the horrific true crime tale, and that it was made while the murder trial was still happening makes it that much eerier.  I am not really someone who digs into the seedy details of true-crime so I do not know how closely this follows the actual events according to historical fact, but it worked for me, I found it a highly engrossing watch.

Audio/Video: The Other Side of Madness (1971) arrives on region-free Blu-ray from The Film Dtective framed in the original 1.37:1 full frame aspect ratio sourced from a new 4K scan of the original 35mm camera negative, preserved and restored in collaboration with The Wade Williams Collection. The black and white film looks quite good, there were a few scenes that I could see compression artifacts creeping in but generally the black and white film, with a brief color sequence, showcases decent contrast and pleasing amounts of fine detail in the close-ups of facial hair, clothing textures and interiors. The source shows some age-related wear and tear by way of small scratches, vertical lines and white speckling, but the print damage is fairly minor and not distracting at all. 

Audio comes by way of an uncompressed English DTS-HD MA 2.0 mono with optional English subtitles. It's a solid presentation that is clean and free of distortion, the dialogue is delivered with directness that is never hard to follow, with the music getting the most benefit from the uncompressed audio. The Charles Manson songs "The Mechanical Man" sounds as good as it can, said to have been cut live direct to vinyl, and the fuzzed-out acid rock tunes from Thomas Sean Bonniwell of The Music Machine, they of "Talk Talk" fame, sound pretty great as well. I would have loved the CD that accompanies this set to feature those four songs, but it does not. 

We get a couple of new Ballyhoo Motion Pictures produced extras beginning with 'The Other Side of Manson', a sixteen-minute interview with producer Wade Williams who met director Frank Howard during a film trader meet-up, it was during a movie screening they were inspired by the infamous Manson murders which had just happened to make this film. Wade gets into how the film evolved into a mostly dialogue free art film using the flashback narrative, and how they cast mostly non-actors at a local hippie park in Kansas City, and how the events as depicted were pulled straight from the newspapers reporting on the crime at the time. They shot in black and white because of budgetary constraints, using lots of chocolate syrup for blood, and touching on the shooting locations including footage shot around Los Angeles, including The Spahn Ranch before it burned down.  He also gets creating the spider-web opening title credits, and how he funded the film, borrowing money from friends and family, setting up the first screening and selling the foreign rights, and how he never managed to sell it to TV, which he attributes to the protest from Roman Polansky, managing to only break even on the film. 

In the five-minute 'The Mechanical Man' producer Wade Williams returns to discuss how he met Charles Manson to purchase two songs from him, one that is featured in the film. Manson sold the tunes to fund his attorney fees with Wade paying him $1500 in person at the L.A. courthouse, Manson's lawyers getting him into the courthouse by saying he was a witness for Manson defense. Wade says during that meeting Manson told him about the coming race-war.  

On-disc extras are buttoned up with a pair of trailers for the film, we get both the original The Other Side of Madness (1971) trailer and the later re-release trailer under the title The Helter Skelter Murders (1976). Inside we get a 12-page booklet with writing on the film from film director Alexander Tuschinski who sings the praises for this avant-garde slice of exploitation. We also get a limited edition of 2000 CD in a cardboard sleeve that reproduces the original Auric Ltd. seven-inch vinyl soundtrack, featuring the songs "Mechanical Man" and "Garbage Dump", the latter of which is not featured in the film, both recorded by Manson in 1968.The limited edition 2-discs Blu-ray/CD arrives in a black keepcase with a single-sided of artwork, inside there's the 12-page booklet and the limited edition of 2000 2-song CD which comes in it's own cardboard slipcover replicating the original 7" vinyl release.  

Special Features:
- Narrated by film producer Wade Williams, an original documentary, The Other Side of Manson: An Interview With Producer Wade Williams, from Daniel Griffith at Ballyhoo Motion Pictures  (16 min) HD 
- Mechanical Man: Wade Williams Meets Manson, from Daniel Griffith at Ballyhoo Motion Pictures with narration from Wade Williams (5 min) HD 
- Bonus CD with selections from the original, seven-inch, vinyl soundtrack, including “Mechanical Man” and “Garbage Dump,” written and performed by Charles Manson (available while supplies last, only 2,000 copies available)
- 12-Page Collector's booklet with writing from award-winning film director Alexander Tuschinski
- Theatrical Trailers: The Other Side of Madness (1971) (2 min) HD, The Helter Skelter Murders (1976) (2 min) HD 

The Other Side of Madness (1971) was a curious and dark bit of low-budget true-crime exploitation, while I can see it not satisfying those looking for traditional true-crime dramatization and story arcs, I dug it for it's surreal and artier moments. This is the inaugural title in a series of releases from The Film Detective digging into The Wade Williams Collection archives, and it impressed me with both the solid A/V presentation and cool extras. I looking forward to whatever might be coming next, The Film Chest did great work on this Limited Edition 50th Anniversary Collectors Set, the Blu-ray is limited to only 1500 copies and the CD is limited to 2000, so get it while you still can. 

More Screenshots from the Blu-ray: