Tales That Witness Madness

Jack Hawkins - Dr. Nicholas
Donald Pleasence - Dr. R.C. Tremayne
Georgia Brown - Fay Patterson
Donald Houston - Sam Patterson
Russell Lewis - Paul Patterson
Suzy Kendall - Ann Patrick / Beatrice
Peter McEnery - Timothy Patrick / Albert
Beth Morris - Polly
Frank Forsyth - Uncle Albert
Joan Collins - Bella Thompson
Michael Jayston - Brian
Kim Novak - Auriol Pageant

Freddie Francis, the follow-up to The Creeping Flesh was Tales That Witness Madness (1973), an unsatisfactory Amicus portmanteau rip-off. Francis’ friend Jennifer Jayne, who had played Donald Sutherland's vampire bride in Dr Terror's House of Horrors, collaborated with her husband Art Fairbank on a four-story portmanteau script. The stellar cast includes Donald Pleasence, Jack Hawkins, Suzy Kendall, Joan Collins and, deputising for Rita Hayworth, Kim Novak. It would have been Hayworth's last film had she not just wandered off during production, never to return.

At the government clinic run by Dr. Tremayne (Donald Pleasence), arrives fellow colleague, Dr. Nicholas (Jack Hawkins), to investigate a breakthrough psychiatric theory.

The first patient Dr Nicholas is introduced to Paul Patterson (Russell Lewis), a young boy with a tiger as an imaginary friend. His bickering parents, Fay (Georgia Brown) and Sam (Donald Houston), eventually decide they must confront their son about his peculiar behaviour – with tragic results. The second patient, Timothy Patrick (Peter McEnery), inherits a penny farthing bicycle that once belonged to his sinister-looking Uncle Albert. The bicycle has an almost magnetic ability to draw Timothy into the seat and begin peddling; and as he peddles it enables him to travel backward in time. He assumes the identity of one of his Victorian-era relatives and is doomed to the man's fate as well. Timothy and Anne (Suzy Kendall) attempt to destroy the cycle but a blazing inferno engulfs his antique shop.

In the third, Brian (Michael Jayston), brings home a tree stump to place as a centrepiece in his living room. The stump appears more human than plant, and his wife, Bella (Joan Collins), makes little effort to disguise her hatred of the wooden art form. In the final story, Auriol Pageant (Kim Novak), a literary agent for Hawaiian novelist Kimo (Michael Petrovitch), who must find a virgin to sacrifice to help his mother's spirit rest in peace. The virgin is Auriol's alluring daughter, Ginny (Mary Tamm).