Shock Treatment (1964) was Carol Lynley’s first theatrical foray into the realm of suspense. She played a manic depressive afraid of a man’s touch who falls for Stuart Whitman an actor paid to feign madness to find where crazy gardner Roddy McDowall hid the loot after he killed his rich employer. Steely Lauren Bacall runs the nuthouse and loves to use shock treatment on the inmates. It was not a hit. Perhaps if Anthony Perkins who campaigned for the lead was cast, it may have done better. This was the first of many times Carol and Roddy would work together. More in my BearManor Media book Carol Lynley: Her Film & TV Career in Thrillers, Fantasy & Suspense

Carol Lynley ended 1963 with a high profile role in Otto Preminger’s Golden Globe winning and Oscar nominated religious epic The Cardinal, which went from the turn of the century to the late thirties and from New England and Georgia to Vienna and Rome. Carol played Mona the youngest sister of priest Tom Tryon whose strict Irish Catholic family squashes her engagement to Jewish John Saxon. She runs off to become a tango dancing prostitute, gets knocked up, and her priest brother has to decide to save the baby or the mother. Guess who he chooses? It was the 6th highest grossing film of 1964 and for me a Christmas Eve favorite as channel 5 aired it yearly starting around midnight. More in my upcoming BearManor Media book Carol Lynley: Her Film & TV Career in Thrillers, Fantasy & Suspense

Visit BearManor Media at BearManorMedia.com to purchase many great books on film & TV including my Talking Sixties Drive-In Movies and my upcoming book Carol Lynley: Her Film & TV Career in Thrillers, Fantasy & Suspense. Below are some of my more recent social media posts touting Ms. Lynley:

It was back to the realm of suspense for Carol Lynley in 1962 when she guest starred on The Alfred Hitchcock Hour in “Final Vow” playing a novitiate nun masquerading as a single career gal to get close to thief Clu Gulager who stole a valuable artifact that belongs to her convent. She quickly realizes she is in over her head and her life in jeopardy.

Carol Lynley top lined her next 1961 box office hit Return to Peyton Place the sequel to 1957’s smash Peyton Place. Not received as favorably (Judith Crist quipped, “It has enough soap suds to pollute the Mississippi along with the mind”) the movie still made $$$ and was the 15th highest grossing movie of the year. Carol Lynley is Allison MacKenzie, Eleanor Parker is her mother Connie, Tuesday Weld is Selena Cross, Brett Halsey is Ted Carter, and scene-stealer Mary Astor is acid-tongued bigot Roberta Carter.

Visit BearManor Media at BearManorMedia.com to purchase many great books on film & TV including my Talking Sixties Drive-In Movies and my upcoming book Carol Lynley: Her Film & TV Career in Thrillers, Fantasy & Suspense. Below are some of my social media posts touting Ms. Lynley:

In 1961, Carol Lynley appeared in 2 box office hits. First she was part of a stellar cast (Rock Hudson, Kirk Douglas, Dorothy Malone, and Joseph Cotten) making a cattle drive from Mexico to Texas in the Robert Aldrich-directed psychological western The Last Sunset from a script by Dalton Trumbo.

Carol Lynley’s 3rd film Blue Denim catapulted her to the top of the teen idol totem pole in 1959. Reprising her Broadway role, she played a knocked up high schooler who contemplates an abortion. Her wimpy but cute boyfriend (Brandon deWilde) is of no help but comes through to “save” her from the doctor per Hollywood standards. In the play she has the abortion. She decides to keep the baby but is banished to live with an aunt in another town accompanied by her indecisive boyfriend. Carol received critical raves for her poignant tender performance (she garnered her 2nd Golden Globe nomination) and the low-budget film was a big box office hit.

Carol Lynley’s first foray into fantasy was as Rapunzel on TV’s Shirley Temple’s Storybook in 1958. The lovely lass let down her hair but alas her prince was the not so charming Don dubbins. At least the wonderful pre-Bewitched Agnes Moorehead was around as the wicked witch hellbent on keeping the pair apart. 

Carol Lynley made her film debut in the Walt Disney feature The Light in the Forest in 1958. Set in colonial times, she has her first lady in peril role and received a Golden Globe nomination as an indentured service girl who is harassed by the patriarch of the family she works for and falls for James MacArthur as a white boy raised by Indians and recently returned to his rightful parents to his consternation.