The Maddening Quiet (1962)

<< The Kilauea Recording (2006) 

Original Essay by "Tristan Marshall", forbidden media investigator.

 
Gimmick films are a part of cinema that have always fascinated me, and I’m sad that they’ve died out. We’ll always have 3D films, but we’ll never again have anything like William Castle’s The Tingler, whose “Percepto!” used vibrating seats to simulate the crawling of the titular parasite on the backs of the theater-goers as Vincent Price urged the audience to scream. We’ll never have another instance of Psycho’s policy of ‘No Late Admissions’ so that the twist of the film couldn’t be spoiled. I doubt that the new version of Clue that’s been in the works for years will give audiences the ability to choose their own ending. I’d kill for one movie to use Scratch-n-Sniff Cards.

One of the lesser-known gimmick films, something that’s truly considered forbidden cinema, is 1962’s The Maddening Quiet. Like The Tingler, it advertised itself with a gimmick, which called itself “The Silent Scream”; unlike that film, it was sold to theaters as not needing any special equipment to execute its gimmick. Its director, Laurence Forrester, actually took potshots at several of William Castle’s gimmicks in a marketing pitch for the film, saying:

Theaters that screen The Maddening Quiet do not need to distribute napkins with insurance policies written on them, or rig a skeleton to fly over the audience, or create a fire hazard with special seats. Rather, the score of the film, the dialog, shall do that all on itself… a blind man could sit in the theater and still scream in fear at the void upon the screen!

In another pitch, meant for smaller theaters, he says this:

The Maddening Quiet does not rely on cheap rubber suits with high-contrast zippers or makeup that suffocates the actors to deliver on its promise of fear. All of the horror is in the soundscape of the film-- with the help of the great Dr. Ludo Neptune, people will flee from the theater in droves!

On this point, he was a bit optimistic, but ultimately correct-- but something like this wouldn’t happen until twenty years after it was originally released. I watched it, and the following is going to be both a documentation of the plot, and the film’s effects on me.

The worst crime any movie can commit is to be boring, and The Maddening Quiet isn't boring. Like a lot of films at the time, it features themes of transgressive science, hypnotism, and past lives. In it, Dr. Harold Neyman is attempting to bestow hearing upon a woman named Pearl Franklin, who has been deaf since birth, using “past-life regression hypnotherapy’; he reasons that since Pearl is deaf not due to damage to her ears but due to a defect in her brain, the hearing can be restored if she experiences a past life that is capable of hearing.

The session is where we first start to get trippy. The hair on the back of my arms stands up on end as Dr. Neyman walks her through the process, having her read his lips and hold her hand on a clock that ticks very loudly, so she can feel the vibration of it. I have a copy of the script, so I'll just transcribe it when needed:

Dr. Neyman: Pearl, you are going into a deep sleep. When you go to sleep, you will awaken in the body of one of your past lives, one that is capable of hearing. When you awaken, you will bring back the sense of hearing with you, and you will be able to enjoy the world as the rest of us do. When you awaken, you shall once again be Pearl Franklin, with the ability to know what my voice sounds like. You will be Pearl Franklin when you awaken...

After that, the sound cuts out. We go into Pearl's mindscape, and see a woman that looks like her in Victorian-era clothing, who seems to be a singer in a music hall. Even in the black-and-white film, you can see she's very pale. She's singing on stage, but again, it's inaudible... except for a droning sound in the background, like hearing a jet fly overhead when you're half a mile underwater. It's not music, it can't be; the effects of it actually start to make me feel nauseous after about a minute.

Then, the singer collapses, and sound returns. The audience is heard murmuring in confusion, and she looks straight at the camera, saying:

Singer: I shall not go into the quiet. Not like this.

Pearl awakens, startled, with her hands over her ears; the ticking clock's volume is greatly amplified for a few seconds, producing a jumpscare that's enough to get my heart going. She can not only hear, but she can speak, sing, and even has better hearing than the characters who were born with it. How she knows how to speak English when she's never spoken a word in her life is glossed over through the power of reincarnation.

But there’s a problem-- Pearl’s got something following her, which manifests in a scene at a grocer in her small Midwestern town. For years, people have been talking about Pearl behind her back, and she has literally been unable to hear it. One of these is a man named Floyd, who for years has been shooting… ‘compliments’ at her. This is taken verbatim from a copy of the script I have:

Floyd: Pearl’s a name that don’t suit her. I feel like she could be named Kitten. Let her out at night, bring her back in for some nice warm milk in the mornin’...

When Pearl overhears this, and other gems from him, rather than pretend to ignore it and play deaf, she turns on him and gives him both barrels-- or at least, I assume she does.

At this point, all audio cuts out from the film. It cuts between takes of Pearl yelling at Floyd and Floyd looking increasingly distressed. Then, it cuts between Floyd and an image of a gaping black void, while the sound of howling wind plays. Floyd falls dead of a heart attack when Pearl is finished yelling at him.

This was meant to be the first big scare of the film. Up until now, the film had basic B-Movie trappings; here, it does a 180. The whole scene is tough to sit through, even before the scare starts. Not to the degree of something like a Ruggero Deodata film, obviously, but we hear Floyd cat-calling her for over three minutes as the actress grows more and more uncomfortable. Some of the things he says aren’t even in the script; there’s one line he has about ‘buying a hot-dog cart’ that made my skin crawl. And then the void, the titular ‘Maddening Quiet’, hits.

There’s something about the lack of score, the eerie silence. At first you think the audio on your device has failed; in my case, I had to double-check the headphone jack on my computer. Then, as the tension builds in the scene, as Floyd grows more terrified and Pearl grows angrier, you feel like you’re glued to the seat. You feel like you’re standing in between a pair of passing trains, but there’s no wind, no sound; just the feeling of some vast, dangerous presence all around you.

When the Maddening Quiet actually appears, you had better be sitting down. Something about the sudden darkness, and the feeling of vastness, knocks you flat. I made the mistake of standing to check the settings on my monitor, and nearly got a sprained ankle for my trouble.

The Institute was established to study ‘forbidden’ media, but occasionally, we come across something truly supernatural, or ‘cursed’; the Kilauea Recording from last week is a good example of this. I wasn’t sure if the movie was supernatural in nature, or not, at this point.

The film continues with Floyd’s body being carried out on a stretcher. After a short scene with a useless member of the town’s police, Pearl’s boyfriend Nelson comes to pick her up from the grocery store. He’s astounded to learn that Dr. Neyman’s treatment worked, and Pearl runs into his arms, overjoyed that she can hear his voice for the first time. He makes a joke about her no longer needing to read his lips, and she gives as good as she gets, replying with:

Pearl: I could hardly read them before, with how close they were to my eyes!

The film continues with a series of vignettes after this, where Pearl adjusts to a life of hearing. She’s startled to hear a car blaring its horn in the street, has to stop to marvel at birdsong, and is fascinated by a kitten mewling at her. She makes an odd comment when Nelson drops her off outside of her house:

Pearl: Honestly, it was a lot quieter than I thought it would be.

Nelson: What do you mean?

Pearl: The sun’s so big and bright… I expected it to be louder,

This whole time, though… I get a feeling of dread. The car horn sounds like a fuse box shorting out. The birdsong feels like fingernails on a chalkboard, at the volume of a foghorn. My adrenaline spikes when Pearl pets the kitten, and my head whips over my shoulder. And I don’t know why.

I can tell the second big scare is coming when Pearl starts getting agitated at a barking dog owned by her rather nasty neighbor, Mr. Wolfe. I pause the video and take a moment to calm down, doing a bit of research on the film in the meantime.

Contrary to my expectations? It flopped on release. Critics complained of the audio cutting out at big scenes, which... It was meant to do? They said that the film is occupied entirely by a black, silent screen for five minutes around the climax (we’ll get to that in a bit) and they’re left wondering if the projectionist unspooled the film. It was only screened in a few theaters across the country, and in West Virginia, one critic said this:

The Maddening Quiet is a series of money-saving tactics barely supported by a charismatic series of actors-- I would not be surprised if the director ran out of money prior to shooting the climax, and simply cut to a black screen. Perhaps he intended to exposit the surely horrific events that happened to the townsfolk behind the screen, but was too besotted to do so.

Forrester was heartbroken by the reception. This was his first foray into cinema, after he had grown up watching Hammer Horror films. He genuinely thought he could make it, but he never filmed anything again. As for the “Dr. Ludo Neptune” who helped with the sound design... nobody of that name exists, obviously, but he felt so convinced that a horror film could be carried on sound alone, and it flopped. Why?


Back to the film. Mr. Wolfe’s dog keeps barking at her, and Wolfe himself keeps yelling. The Maddening Quiet appears once again, with the sound cutting out. Wolfe clutches his head in pain, and his dog gets down, putting its hands over his ears. Once again, there’s no sound, but the presence of a vastness is there, right by my ears.

Then, a scream breaks the silence. I wrench my headphones from the computer as I stand, startled, and the black void appears. The scene cuts back to Wolfe on the porch, a gibbering mess. Pearl runs back inside and pretends nothing is wrong.

Dr. Neyman comes to check up on her that night, and mentions that Mr. Wolfe had an episode of some form, and was rushed to the hospital. His dog is heard howling in the background, as Neyman gives Pearl an examination. The characters in the scene-- Pearl, her mother, Dr. Neyman and Nelson-- all suddenly react as if a very loud noise has been played. Nothing comes through on my end, thankfully, but Dr. Neyman has to clap his hand to his ear; when it’s pulled away, he finds blood on his palm.

Pearl complains that she feels faint and goes to lie in bed. Dr. Neyman and Pearl’s mother converse as Nelson takes her up to bed.

Dr. Neyman: That noise-- did you hear it, or did you feel it?

Mother: I’m afraid I really can’t say, doctor. I felt like… like I was standing next to a tree that was falling over.

Dr. Neyman: I need to do some more tests on her. Bring her to my office tomorrow, after Church.

Then we come to the Church scene. Pearl at first is afraid to cross into it, stunned by the volume of the organ music within. She explains that she’s used to feeling the music rather than hearing it, and it makes her feel unsteady. Nelson appears and offers to sit next to her and her mother on a pew; it’s implied that Nelson isn’t of the same denomination as them, and that his appearance here is unusual.

The dread I’ve been feeling for the last several scenes has died down, only to start back up when they start singing a hymn. Pearl stands to sing, and all eyes are on her by the time the hymn is finished; the pastor, Father Webb, stares at Pearl like she’s something straight out of hell.

Father Webb: God in heaven, what manner of beast are you?

Pearl: Not a beast, father. The treatment worked! I can hear perfectly.

Father Webb: There is no surgery that can restore your hearing and make you understand me, child. What manner of devilry was committed on you?

Pearl: Why, Dr. Neyman hypnotized me! It’s an amazing thing, maybe you should--

Father Webb: How do I know you are the same Pearl Franklin that was in here the previous Sunday, and not some foul being using her form to speak?

Mother: Now see hear[sic], Father Webb! My Pearl has been through a lot these last few days, and I shall not have you antagonizing her with your--

And then the audio cuts out again. Everyone around the church looks around, confused. There’s a shot of the organ player resting on the keys, trying to get them to work, and the pipes not producing any music. And like Pearl… I don’t hear the sound, but I feel it.

It’s like an explosion in my head; a deafening blast of nothingness that gives me a headache. For a moment, I’m convinced I’m deaf, blind, maybe even dead; I can’t even hear myself breathing. I can’t feel my arms. Then, it passes, and I’m in my seat, sweating bullets.

Before the Maddening Quiet can appear, Nelson puts his hand on Pearl’s shoulder. Her head snaps to him, and she leans into her boyfriend, crying. All around the church, people glare at her. They make themselves scarce quickly.

A lot of the film repeats this formula until the climax, so I’m going to gloss over them; at this point, I was just unplugging my headphones every time a scare came. About a day after the church Pearl makes an entire street experience the Quiet, causing someone to crash into a storefront. At another point, she’s arrested by that same useless police officer from earlier for breaking curfew with Nelson, and the Quiet causes him to sit stunned in his car, blaring his siren for what is later stated to be three hours, in the hopes that he can hear something again.

The climax takes place in Dr. Neyman’s office; Neyman has become convinced that one of Pearl’s past lives has overtaken her body, and that the Maddening Quiet is Pearl trying to communicate with people to tell them that she’s still alive. This is evidenced by the fact that Pearl, at several points, seems to forget Nelson’s name, despite them being together for several years. So, he aims to try to hypnotize her and drive out the past life possessing her.

But… the Quiet, or Pearl, doesn’t want to go back into the body. There’s a feeling I got when I watched it, that whatever the Quiet was was… happy. It wanted to be out of a body that it considered broken and useless. It had been experiencing sound outside of Pearl’s body, and knew if it was ever driven back in, it would never be able to hear music or birdsong or anything like that ever again. I knew this, but the characters… didn’t. And I have no idea how I knew it.

Dr. Neyman starts his hypnosis. By this point, I’ve taken off my headphones and unplugged them, electing to have subtitles on. But... I’m so unsettled that the five-minute black screen of nothing actually gets to me. I put the headphones back on about halfway through, because I have to know what’s happening.

There… there’s something talking in the darkness. I don’t know what it’s saying, but it’s mad. It doesn’t want to go back into Pearl. The Quiet likes being outside of Pearl. And it would rather tear apart everyone in the room before it becomes Pearl again.

When the darkness fades, all we see is Pearl, in repose. A sheet is draped over her as an inconsolable Nelson sits in the corner. A pair of feet are seen hanging through the doorway from the next room; the coat and pants match Dr. Neyman’s. Nelson gives the closing lines of the film:

Nelson: Maybe it’s better this way. Maybe, now that she’s gone… she’ll be content with the quiet.

An ominous tone plays over the speakers. I remove my headphones; my face is wet, my breath is ragged. I put my fingers to my left ear; there’s a stream of blood trickling from it. I feel like I’m having a panic attack and a migraine at the same time. After a moment I just… kind of passed out in my seat.

Supplemental:

In 1982, as part of a B-Movie Film Festival, a movie theater in western Pennsylvania screened The Maddening Quiet. I won’t name the exact theater beyond that, but it was shown, alongside classics like Them!, and The House on Haunted Hill, and dumpster fires such as The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies. It was screened in a theater of seventy people, most of whom reported being ‘uncomfortable’ during the viewing. One forty-two-year-old woman said that ‘I hadn’t been that scared at a picture since that poor woman got cut down in a shower’.

When the climax, with its five minutes of solid black nothingness, came onto the screen, people began pouring out of the theater. Barely two minutes in, the theater was empty; fearing that a fire had broken out, the manager had the whole building evacuated, spreading further panic among the crowd. In the end, there were twelve people injured in the crush, with one man needing to have a foot amputated from the sheer damage done to it.

After twenty years, Laurence Forrester’s movie had the intended effect. People were fleeing, likely due to the “Silent Scream!” gimmick. But what changed in those twenty years?

Someone in the research community-- our audio specialist ‘Squirrel’-- did some digging into the audio channels of the movie after hearing about my symptoms. Squirrel found that the audio track for the movie contained sounds that were of an inaudible frequency between 16 and 19 hertz-- something called ‘infrasound’. A few studies done into it show that it can cause fear responses in humans, trauma to the ears… it’s been attributed to be the cause of some ghost phenomena (which is... wildly untrue, but that’s a story for another time). The sound couldn’t have been properly broadcast on speakers available in 1962, but by the 1980s, the technology had caught up to the medium.

I wondered how the hell they didn’t account for this, so I did some digging; as it turns out, director Laurence Forrester is still alive, eighty-three years young. I got into contact with his granddaughter, who arranged for communication between us via email exchange. He was flattered that I enjoyed the film despite its somewhat extreme effects, and had this to say when I asked him about who on earth “Ludo Neptune” was.

“Neptune was an audio engineer out of New Jersey. Claimed to work on some parks on the boardwalks. The man could make the most beautiful music with this weird little box of his-- he called it a ‘Magnaphone’. But, like you said, we couldn’t get them to play back on anything other than his own equipment, which he provided for the preview screening he gave us. Even then, the effects on us were nowhere near as bad as they were for you, or any other audience.”

When I asked him where from New Jersey, he responded:

“He said he was from around Cape May. I tried tracking him down back in 1966, but didn't find anything; he’s most likely dead by now, and ‘Ludo Neptune’ isn’t a real name, of course it isn’t. Never found any trace of him.”

A colleague of mine has been investigating a series of anomalies in the Cape May-Wildwoods area of the Jersey Shore; I’ll have him add it to the list as soon as he’s done with his ‘arcade raid’ project.

 Beyond that, I don't have much to report. It's a relatively harmless curiosity, but the film has been out of print since 1992, and there doesn't seem to be much interest in getting a new edition of it out. That said, the film is in the public domain (there was no copyright notice on the film when it was first screened so it fell into PD automatically) and I've heard that there's a copy floating around Youtube somewhere. Seek it out, if you wish.

A Brief History of Killer Apps >>