By TESS HENSON

I don't want to start this article off by offending anyone in the medical profession in any way, but I have to tell you that I don't like doctors.

Well, it's not that I don't, or wouldn't like them personally, it's just that I hate having to visit a doctor's office, and often put off going until I absolutely have to. I'm always afraid that a doctor will find something horribly wrong with me that will result in a life- threatening situation. I figure if I'm gonna get the Big C or die of heart failure or something of that nature, I'd rather not know. I believe that if you know you're living with a disease like that, that the psychological repercussions of dealing with that knowledge will have only negative effects physically, and make the situation even worse.

So, doctors in general just scare me. Anesthesiologists in particular scare me even more. I've had to go under the knife on a couple of different occasions, and I'm always scared I'll get a little too much of the stuff that puts me out and I won't wake up. Of course, in the hands of someone like Dr. Hichcock, that would be the desired end result.

The Terror Of Dr. Hichcock--1962 (AKA The Frightening Secret Of Dr. Hichcock--1962 international literal English title; The Horrible Dr. Hichcock--1964 USA edited version; The Horrible Secret Of Dr. Hichcock--1962; Raptus--1962; The Secret Of Dr. Hichcock - 1962; The Terrible Secret Of Dr. Hichcock--1962; The Terror Of Dr. Hichcock--1962 UK; l'Orrible segreto del dottor Hichcock--1962 Italy) was probably a highly controversial film at the time of its release.

Dealing with themes of submissive sexuality and necrophilia, I'm sure it raised more than a few eyebrows. Dr. Bernard Hichcock (Robert Flemyng) stars in this film, directed by Riccardo Freda as Robert Hampton, as a well-respected and brilliant surgeon and anesthesiologist.

However, he has a quirk, and boy is it a nasty one. He only seems to able to get his jollies with the freshly dug-up corpses of beautiful young ladies, or with his heavily sedated, willing and submissive wife Margherita (Maria Teresa Vianello as Teresa Fitzgerald), whom he shoots up with his experimental anesthesia in order to put her into a death-like state so he can fondle her breasts and just generally have his way with her.

After making the mistake of giving her a little too much of the sedative during one of their sexual encounters, Margherita expires, and the good doctor (not!), leaves his home in the care of his creepy housekeeper Martha (Harriet Medin) for twelve years to recover from the guilt of causing his wife's untimely demise. Upon returning to his home after the time away, we discover he has remarried, and has brought a new wife--Cynthia (Barbara Steele) to the imposing mansion.

The local papers sport headlines regarding the doctor's return, and soon he is back practicing his medicine, and continues experimenting with his new anesthesia, even though he is hesitant to use it anymore given the fact that it killed his first wife.

Cynthia is introduced to a colleague of Hichcock’s, Dr. Kurt Lowe (Silvano Tranquilli as Montgomery Glenn), and a potential love triangle is set up as we know for a fact that things are going to go hideously wrong for poor Cynthia and she'll end up rushing into the arms of, or being saved by, the young, doting doctor.

Upon arriving at the mansion, several things unsettle young Cynthia. After first meeting Martha, a scream is heard echoing through the halls. Martha explains that it is her sister, who has been living with her since the doctor left twelve years prior, and who is also quite mad. But is this person really her sister? Martha insists that orderlies from a local asylum will be coming the next day to pick the demented woman up, and that Cynthia needn't worry.

Another thing that bothers Cynthia is the huge, life-size painting of the first Mrs. Hichcock hanging in the main foyer. Already, she begins to feel threatened by the supposedly dead first wife, and all the trappings of a Victorian gothic horror story are in place, replete with a creepy little black cat named Jess-Belle who was owned by the previous Mrs. Hichcock and who shows quite an animosity for both the doctor and his new bride.

As the doctor gets sucked back into his obsession with necrophilia and his experimental sedative, he begins to lose control in the operating room, botching operations, and causing deaths when other actions could have saved lives. His colleagues begin doubting his ability, and the doctor begins his downward spiral. At the mansion, Cynthia is plagued by sightings of a woman in white running through the garden (Martha's sister? Or not?) and of the same white-clad woman stalking her through the halls of the mansion.

In one particularly clever shot, Cynthia peers out through the keyhole of her bedroom door, only to see the tattered hem and white boots of the haunting woman who has been chasing her. Later on she confronts Martha, asking if her sister had been taken away yet. Martha confirms that indeed she has. At this point, Cynthia begins to believe that it is the ghost of the first Mrs. Hichcock haunting her.

Upon returning home one stormy night from the hospital, Dr. Hichcock himself spies the woman in white slinking through the garden. As he pursues her, he realizes that it is indeed Margherita, come back from the dead. Or was she ever really dead? Perhaps the drug had only a short-term effect, and she was buried alive in the crypt. Perhaps Martha heard her screams and saved her before she really, truly expired, and in these twelve long years she has been waiting to exact her revenge on the man who left her behind.

Both Cynthia and the doctor have another encounter with Margherita. Cynthia hears a voice whispering to her one night that she will soon be dead. The doctor realizes that the shrouded Margherita is indeed still alive, and falls under her spell, so to speak, as she informs him that she now needs the blood of young women to regain her former beauty.

Who will be the victim? Cynthia of course, only not so willing as the first Mrs. Hichcock was. The doctor drugs Cynthia in preparation to sacrifice her to bring his Margherita back, and in classic gothic style, young Dr. Lowe comes to her rescue at the last minute as the mansion burns down around Dr. Hichcock and Margherita.

This film is actually a pretty good little Italian gothic horror piece. I found myself liking it much better than I expected I would. It closely resembles the Roger Corman/Edgar Allan Poe films such as Tomb Of Ligeia, Morella and The Fall Of The House Of Usher, replete with the burning mansion at the end. We all know how Corman loved to burn his sets at the end of movies!

Another nod to Poe would be the inclusion of the black cat as a character. Even though the animal was not sealed up with its dead owner as in the story "The Black Cat," we can imagine that it could've been given its hostility towards the doctor and his new bride.

Obvious nods to Alfred Hitchcock can be found in the doctor's surname, and in his first name as well--Bernard. Could Freda have been paying homage to Bernard Herrman, composer of the famous score for Hitchcock's Psycho? While not as prolific a director as his contemporary, Mario Bava, I believe that Freda may have had the time to instill a little more quality, story, and character development into his films. The production values on this particular film look to be high, as the atmospheric sets and gothic decor look authentic and not cheaply slapped together.

While Freda doesn't have the visual flair that Bava does, his direction and eye for smart and intriguing looking shots (the shot through the keyhole mentioned before, shots of the ghostly woman in white drifting through the garden on rainy nights, and shots in the derelict Hichcock family crypt) are adequate and even at times quite engaging.

Barbara Steele is at her scream-queen best in the role as the victimized Cynthia. Never have I seen her look more beautiful, with her wide, dark eyes evoking sympathy and concern for her character in every scene. Robert Flemyng is appropriately creepy and imposing as Dr. Hichcock, Teresa Fitzgerald is ravishing as the young Margherita and is almost as nice to watch as Barbara Steele, and Harriet Medin gives us an exceedingly eerie performance as Martha.

My source for this article is the video release titled The Terror Of Dr. Hichcock. This is the complete 88-minute version, and is of exceptional quality. The film has yet to be released on DVD, and beware the USA version titled The Horrible Dr. Hichcock, as 12 minutes have been shaved off leaving the film at a bare 76 minute running time. While I'm not sure what scenes were cut, any editing of the original is probably a disaster and I can only think of the continuity errors a truncated version must have. So, avoid the USA version at all costs.