1. "Lizzie's spells -- did she need an Exorcist???"
Posted by Kimberly on Aug-17th-03 at 9:41 PM

While reading a review of The Exorcist at http://www.filmsite.org/
I found this about the girl's "temporal lobe" disorder, maybe
Lizzie, the good, church going, New England spinster, was possessed
by demons? Maybe Lizzie had a brain tumor that caused her "spells"
and it could have gone away with time or menopause? If only we
could dig her up & poke around in that head of hers......

"Dr. Klein (Barton Heyman) delivers a diagnosis to Chris - he
explains Regan's strange afflictions and seizures are due to
a physical problem - a brain disorder:


It's a symptom of a type of disturbance in the
chemical-electrical activity of the brain. In the
case of your daughter, in the temporal lobe - it's up
here - in the lateral part of the brain. It's rare, but
it does cause bizarre hallucinations and usually just
before a convulsion...the shaking of the bed. It's
doubtless due to muscular spasms. Chris doubts that her
daughter's uncontrollable spasms and body movements caused
the bed to buck so violently. The doctor insists her
shaking is due to a lesion in her brain:


Chris: Oh no. No, no. That was not a spasm. Look. I got on the
bed. The whole bed was thumping and rising off the floor and
shaking - the whole thing, with me on it!
Dr. Klein: Mrs. MacNeil, the problem with your daughter is not
her bed, it's her brain.
Chris: So, uhm, what causes this...?
Dr. Klein: A lesion. A lesion in the temporal lobe. It's a kind
of seizure disorder.
Chris: Now look Doc, I really don't understand how her whole personality could change.
Dr. Klein: The temporal lobe is very common...It could last
for days or even weeks. It isn't rare to find destructive,
even criminal behavior."

i know that dialog well.  the next line is from chris:  "tell me something good, will ya?"  (i have a photo of the steps the priest jumped down i took myself the one time i was in georgetown.  at the bottom of them is a gas station.  the steps are steep but they dont' seem as long a way down as they do in the film.)

i think lizzie's all-too-clear motives make demon possession unlikely.  on the other hand, if you try to understand what it was within lizzie that enabled or "inspired" her to do it, it is a thing you can call by many names.  if there was something lacking in her moral nature, i would guess it was lacking from day one.

I just don't want to presume she was guilty & did it out
of plain old greed -- I like to think that she was innocent
or just lost her mind all of a sudden. So, demonic possession
seems to cover her tail.

I believe Victoria Lincoln's theory in A Private Disgrace is that Lizzie killed Abby in a spell.  These spells were brought on by epilepsy of the ... you guessed it... the "temporal lobe".

Well, outside of that, just what I've been going through out here in California is enough to make anyone want to strike out.  The temperature hasn't been all that hot, but, the humidity is making everyoneout here crazy!!!  I find myself at the breaking point some days and it really takes all your will to keep yourself in check and not lash out at other people.  Lizzie already had it in for Abby, and it was August, with possibly high humidity levels, I can see it all happening without any temporal lobe disturbances!!!

Kimberly, have you ever seen any of the deleted scenes of that movie?  Like Regan spider-walking down the stairs, really freaky stuff!!! 

The heat does make people crankier -- and then if she really
had been having her "fleas" that week, even if it was too late
in her month to be having PMS, fleas week can be as bad as PMS.
And, of course, add all that to her bad-ass attitude & I think
it all could lead up to a killing rage. Don't murder rates go
up when it gets hot?

I haven't seen The Exorcist is years, Rosemary's Baby was on
TV late Saturday night & I watched it for the first time as an
adult & was amazed that it had even been considered scary -- it
was fairly tame to me. Seems like living now, Satanists & witches
aren't anything to be frightened at the thoughts of -- it is the
regular people who seem like the ones you have to be afraid of....

I can't remember where I read this now, but, I think the optimum temperature for murder was like 92 degrees farenheit.  In other words, thats the temperature when most murders occur.

If you rent the Exorcist, get the director's cut, it has the deleted scenes.  I saw part of Rosemary's Baby on Saturday night, was at a going away party for a friend, the TV was on with no sound and music was playing, weird to watch it that way.  I loved Ruth Gordon in that part! 

Susan, were you alive when Rosemary's Baby first, um, came out?

That would depend on what year it came out, I don't know? 

i believe it is '67 (if i'm off it's by only a year either way)

My old memory says it was 1968. See the TV listings as it is often on cable movie channels.
Remember how shocking it was in its day?

It's 1968. 



This is 1 of my all time fav horror films.  There's nothing creepier than that theme music as the camera pans over the rooftops of the Dakota.

Coincidentally, last night on a radio talk show (about the Beatles) a caller said that the spot outside the Dakota where the body of the girl is found in Rosemary's Baby is also the spot where John Lennon was shot.  No idea if there's any truth in this...just funny I heard it last night.

Rosemary's Baby (1968) Susan's Mom's Baby (196?)


Come on almost-Birthday Girl, fess up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah, Vicky thinks Lizzie was planning to kill Abby with poison, but awoke in a menstrual/temporal lobe haze, got the note intended to get Abby into the hired rig to take her to the bank and flew into a rage.  Then she acted out directly; with a hatchet or like instrument, and later killed Andrew to keep him from finding out what she'd done.

Re: THE EXORCIST.  I was obsessed with this film first time around, and I have to say, the director's cut is terrible, what with the added superimposed demon faces and the dippy spider-walk (completed with brand-new footage of another acrobat).  See if you can get ahold of the last DVD release before this one - it has a great documentary called THE FEAR OF GOD, starring the British author, Mark Kermode, who also wrote the BFI book on the film.  The original footage of the spider walk and the extended ending are included as extras; IMHO, THIS is the version to possess!

Apparently from Mia's autobiography this film and her working on it, broke up her marriage to Frank Sinatra.

And even stranger -- that Church of Satan feller Anton
LeVey <<<spelling?> was sposed to have been an advisor
to Roman Polanski on the film, Sharon Tate is said to
have been in the "under 60 party" scene (it does look like
her) and then in 1969 Sharon was murdered by the Manson
Family which included former LeVey "friends" Susan Atkins
and Bobby Beausoleil. And, of course, they say that Kenneth
Anger put a satanic curse on Bobby Beausoleil. Sounds like
Peyton Place.

That is strange.  interesting info.

The breakup of that short marriage wasn't due to the film itself, but happened because as newly married, Sinatra wanted Mia around when he wanted her, and she got famous really quickly and was offered the part and the time she spent working, against Franks wishes, broke them up.
It just seems like 2 people who weren't sure of what they wanted.
(Actually, I think Frank knew what he wanted and because he didn't get it from Mia he broke her heart.) (Maybe his was too, but I didn't read his side of things.  This recollection seemed truthful & fair enough)

Didn't they say he even hated her short haircut? Which is
odd, because Ava Gardner also had really short cropped hair....

In response to an earlier post, Victoria Lincoln does speculate that Lizzie may have killed Abby--not because she suffered from epileptic spells but during an epileptic spell.  The pent up rage was expended on Abby while Lizzie was suffering a "peculiar spell."  I am impressed that Harry (I believe he is the one who cited Lincoln on this issue) shared Ms. Lincoln's observations on this.

Yes, believe it or not, I was already born when this movie came out, Kimberly.  And that would be my mom's babies, remember, there are 2 of us.  Me and the one who doesn't want our age bandied about as he is the elder of us 2 by a few minutes. 

***Re: THE EXORCIST.  I was obsessed with this film first time around, and I have to say, the director's cut is terrible, what with the added superimposed demon faces and the dippy spider-walk (completed with brand-new footage of another acrobat).  See if you can get ahold of the last DVD release before this one - it has a great documentary called THE FEAR OF GOD, starring the British author, Mark Kermode, who also wrote the BFI book on the film.  The original footage of the spider walk and the extended ending are included as extras; IMHO, THIS is the version to possess!***

i do have the version you refer to, and i have resisted seeing the longer version for reasons for cite.  mostly i find it hard to accept a different chit-chat sort of ending (as i hear).  i disagree with the author saying he thought the audience needed some "reassurance" at the end that "everything would be all right."  i wonder where he got that; the ending was perfectly clear as to who won -- it was won with a price though, of course, what else?  i don't know that i'll  ever watch the added-footage version.

Ava Gardener is better than mia farrow though.

What is with the age thing anyway? Why did your brother
decide that it should be a mystery? Or is it really your
idea & you just say it was him?

Personally, I don't see how he made the switch from the
"Ava Gardner: Love Goddess" type to the "Mia Farrow: Waif"
type. It just seems like polar opposites. I mean, look at
Andy J. -- looking at the pics of both of his wives you
can't tell which is which sometimes, that man knew what
he liked & when the first one bit the dust he went & got
him a new one just like her. Except the 2nd one wasn't
as mean. Or whatever Sarah was said to have been.

Yes, but what did Abby look like 20+ years earlier. Wasn't the "Lilian Russell" shape admired in those simple times?

Memories from a letter by Russell Lake who "was a neighbor of Lizzie's in Fall River", dated Dec. 26, 1979 to the author:

"...My mother told me that to get away from this environment, she [Lizzie] shopped a great deal in Providence.  She also went to New York and Washington, where my mother said she had friends.  One of these friends mother said was the buxom actress Lillian Russell.  Miss Borden gave my mother a typical large theatrical picture of Lillian Russell.  It was around the house for many years.  Whatever became of it, I don't know.  You may not remember, but the famous gay '90's dessert, consisting of a half a musk melon with a scoop of vanilla ice cream was called a Lillian Russell.  I also seem to remember mother and Miss Borden talking about Nance O'Neil."

--Williams, Joyce G., J. Eric Smithburn, and Jeanne M. Peterson. Lizzie Borden: A Case Book of Family and Crime in the 1890s. Bloomington, IN: T.I.S. Publications Division, 1980.

Yes you're right, I think, Kimberly.



(Message last edited Aug-21st-03  5:40 PM.)

i didn't realize that.  that is interesting.  the makings of an edgar allan poe story within the borden household about the return of a dead wife? 

i just had a horrible thought.  i wonder if lizzie would have spared her own mother under the same circumstances?  (i guess not since she killed him, obviously.) 

that is a creepy note, though.

(and a damn good observation, kimberly.)

It is spooky seeing both of them like that -- it is almost like
Sarah didn't die to Andrew, he found another Sarah & lived to be
an old man with her. Maybe that is what bugged Emma & perhaps
Lizzie, she looked like their mother? She dared to look like
their mother? It could have made it worse on Emma since she
was old enough to remember her well & that she had to look at
this new mother who looked liked the one she had lost.

Can y'all imagine having a parent die & then having your
step-parent be almost a double? Wouldn't it seem like you
would be reminded every day who they were replacing? Maybe
it wasn't just bratty step-children, maybe it was Emma & Lizzie
thinking he thought he had replaced her & it solved everything.
That he had gotten back who they were missing and they were a
complete family. And, of course, there is Abby not ever knowing
what she had done, and all that she did was to look like Sarah.

Haulover-Haulover! My sentiments exactly! Why did they tamper with a perfect film? (the original cut) I hated the new version with the super-imposed images! So corny and beneath the artistry that went into the first, unassailable cut. I was so disappointed.
I have the 25th anniversary edition (original cut) that comes with the documentary you mention-it was excellant. Everything about that movie was just perfect, the casting, the screenplay, the music, sound-effects. All worthy of the book-which I loved as well. Of COURSE the good guys won!  But as Friedkin said, "You get out of the movie what you bring to it" Wise words, who needs a re-edit to 'hold our hand' ? And if some people felt that the bad guys, the forces of evil won, so what?? Shit happens...
(By the way-Linda Blair was in Boston promoting the new version when it came out-I was right up front with her. She looks Mahvelous)

(Message last edited Aug-23rd-03  11:22 AM.)