CRESCENDO (1970)
Article #1129 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-17-2004
Posting Date: 9-14-2004
Directed by Alan Gibson
Featuring Stefanie Powers, James Olson, Margaretta Scott

A musical student goes to France to stay at the home of the family of classical composer for her thesis. She discovers that there are some unpleasant skeletons in the closet.

For those who don’t have the musical background (and to show that I learned something in my years playing trombone in the high school band), crescendo is a musical term that means “to get louder”. It’s obviously used here because the story involves music and to imply that the thrills build to a fever pitch. I’m afraid that I’m not particularly impressed with this one,as it all seems a little too familiar and a little too obvious; it’s your basic “skeleton in the closet” horror film with some mild sex and some drug addiction thrown into the mix. This is not one of Hammer’s finer moments.