In New York, the sons of Adelle Bruckner (Debbie Reynolds) and Helen Hill (Shelley Winters) are convicted for a dreadful murder. Adelle decides to move to Hollywood to open a dance school and invites the religious Helen to go with her. They change their names to Adelle Stuart and Helen Martin and are successful in the school. When Adelle meets the millionaire Linc Palmer (Dennis Weaver),they fall in love with each other. But soon Helen is haunted by their ghosts from the past and affects her behavior and relationship with Adelle.

"What's the Matter with Helen?" is a great crime film with excellent performances. The plot is mysterious and Shelley Winters is fantastic in the role of a deranged woman. The dark conclusion is perfect for the story. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Obsessão Sinistra" ("Sinister Obsession")

Helen Hill (Shelley Winters) and Adelle Bruckner (Debbie Reynolds) are mothers of troubled young men sentenced to life in prison for a gruesome murder. They are harassed by the public and threatened by a stalker. They head out to Hollywood under new names to open a dance school. The constant threats send Helen into madness.

I don't much like Helen or her dire situation. In a way, it may be more intriguing to dive head-first into her madness. Instead, she's doing mad-melodramatic-acting. It's probably more a problem of Adelle. She's always shocked that Helen's doing crazy stuff. How can she be shocked? She's all clutching her pearls. The movie has a veneer of old style melodrama and it's not a good look. Despite the murders, it's not thrilling. It could have leaned harder on the mystery of the caller but Helen's madness overshadows it. It tries to be camp late with the ending image but it's too late. It's oddly uncompelling.

Some of the background details of this story are based, very, very loosely, on real events of the era in which this was placed. The story combines some of the details of the famous Leopold and Loeb case along with a bit of Aimee Semple McPherson.

The story begins with two mothers (Shelley Winters and Debbie Reynolds) being hounded as they leave a courtroom. The crowd seems most intent on doing them bodily harm as their sons were just convicted of a heinous thrill crime. One person in the crowd apparently slashes Winters' hand as they make their way to a waiting car.

Soon after they arrive home, they begin getting threatening phone calls, so Reynolds suggests they both move to the West Coast together and open a dance school. The dance school is s success and they cater to incredibly obnoxious parents who think their child is the next Shirley Temple. One of the parents of these spoiled kids is a multimillionaire who is quite smitten with Reynolds and they begin dating. Life appears very good. But, when the threatening phone calls begin again, Winters responds by flipping out--behaving like she's nearing a psychotic break and she retreats further and further into religion--listening on the radio to 'Sister Alma' almost constantly. Again and again, you see Winters on edge and it ultimately culminates in very bad things!! I won't say more, as it might spoil this suspenseful and interesting film.

In many ways, this film is a lot like the Bette Davis and Joan Crawford horror films of the 1960s like "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?", "Straight-Jacket" and "The Nanny". While none of these are exactly intellectual fare, on a kitsch level they are immensely entertaining and fun. The writing is very good and there are some nice twists near the end that make it all very exciting. Winters is great as a fragile and demented lady and Reynolds plays one of the sexiest 39 year-olds I've ever seen--plus she can really, really dance.

My only concern about all this is that some might find Winters' hyper-religiosity in the film a bit tacky--like a cheap attack on Christianity. At first I felt that way, but when you meet Sister Alma, she seems sincere and is not mocked, so I took Winters' religious zeal as just a sign of craziness--which, I assume, is all that was intended.

By the way, this film is packaged along with "Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?"--another Shelley Winters horror film from 1971. Both are great fun...and quite over-the-top!