How Awful About Allan is a 1970 television thriller film directed by Curtis Harrington (Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell; The Cat Creature; Night Tide; et al), making his second collaboration with writer Henry Farrell. The movie stars Anthony Perkins (Daughter of Darkness; Edge of Sanity; Crimes of Passion; Psycho and its three sequels) Julie Harris, Joan Hackett and Kent Smith (Cat People, 1942).
The film premiered on the ABC Movie of the Week on September 22nd, 1970, and was produced by prolific television producer Aaron Spelling.
Plot:
Allan (Anthony Perkins) is suffering from hysterical blindness following a fire that killed his university professor father and scarred his sister Katherine (Julie Harris). Returning home after months in a hospital, Allan begins to hear his name being whispered and partially sees a dark figure coming to get him. Is he crazy or is someone really out to get him?
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Reviews:
“Things, unfortunately, fall apart a bit at the end, but the cat-and-mouse-through-a-frosted-windshield act is really delicious for a while. I wish that Allan had been a little nicer of a guy to start out with, but when you’ve got hot scenes of a blind man driving off in his ex-girlfriend’s car in a panic and causing mass chaos in the streets, you kind of overlook his bad attitude. The ending is definitely of the WTF? variety…” Camp Blood
“How Awful About Allan is technically quite well-made— especially for a TV movie— and both Anthony Perkins and Julie Harris give highly effective performances, but none of that can prevent the film from feeling like it’s misplaced its point somewhere.” 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting
“The script, meanwhile, is really a perfect mash-up of everything else Henry Farrell wrote; it’s got crazy siblings, dark old houses, unnerving flashbacks, and LOTS of name whispering (by the end of the movie, the name “Allan” will sound a lot like nails raking down a chalkboard).” Tower Farm Reviews
” … spend a tingling 70-odd minutes with Perkins and a grand cast including the always watchable Julie Harris and the ever-present (in 1970s TV) Joan Hackett.” Michael Karol, The ABC Movie of the Week Companion
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