Themes: Mental Breakdown, Inheritance at Stake, Mothers and Daughters
Main Cast: Lana Turner, George Chakiris, Richard Egan, Dan O'Herlihy, Pamela Rodgers
Release Year: 1969
Country: MX/US
Run Time: 91 minutes
Plot
“The Big Cube” of the title is slang for a sugar cube dipped in LSD, which is omnipresent throughout the movie. Adriana Roman (Lana Turner) is a famous actress who is retiring from the stage to marry wealthy Charles Winthrop (Dan O’Herlihy), a situation that displeases Winthrop’s daughter Lisa. While hanging out at a nightclub called “Le Trip,”Lisa is shown the bizarre effects that LSD-laced sugar cubes can have when added to a drink. She also meets Johnny Allen, a drug dealer who, once he learns that Lisa comes from money, is anxious to marry her. While Adriana and Winthrop are away, Lisa and Johnny hold a wild drug and sex party at her home. When her father walks in on it, he forbids Lisa’s marriage. Soon thereafter, Winthrop drowns at sea, but Adriana follows his orders that Lisa will be disinherited if she marries Johnny. The two plot their revenge by lacing Adriana’s sleeping pills with LSD, to the point that she goes mad and is committed to an asylum. Lisa and Johnny marry, but when Johnny takes Lisa’s best friend to bed, Lisa regrets her actions. She tells Frederick Lansdale, a playwright friend of her stepmother’s, what she has done. He has the notion of writing a play based on Adriana’s experiences, and convincing Adriana to play the lead role. Amazingly, going through this experience cures Adriana – just as Lansdale hoped it would. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
Carlos East - Lalo; Augusto Benedico - Dr. Lorenz; Victor Junco - Delacroix; Norma Herrera - Stella; Pedro Galvan - University Dean; Regina Torne - Queen Bee; The Finks - Themselves; Karin Mossberg - Lisa Winthrop
Credit
Manuel Fontanals - Art Director, Tito Davison - Director, Carlos Savage - Editor, Carlos Savage, Jr. - Editor, Val Johns - Composer (Music Score), Gabriel Figueroa - Cinematographer, Lindsley Parsons - Producer, Charlatan Prods. - Special Effects, James L. Fields - Sound/Sound Designer, William Douglas Lansford - Screenwriter, Edmundo Baez - Short Story Author
Lana Turner plays Adriana Roman, a successful stage actress who retires to marry Charles Winthrop (O'Herlihy), a wealthy tycoon. Winthrop's daughter, Lisa (Mossberg), is instantly distrustful of Adriana. When Charles is killed in a boating accident, Lisa's new boyfriend Johnny (Chakiris) capitalizes on that distrust to lead Lisa to believe that her father's death was murder – a charge exacerbated by Adriana's threat, as per her late husband's instructions, to disinherit Lisa if she marries Johnny.
Johnny and Lisa conspire secretly to dose Adriana's sleeping pills with enough LSD to drive her insane. Though they accomplish their goal – and Adriana is committed to a mental hospital – a playwright friend of Adriana's (Egan) suspects foul play. He writes a play detailing Adriana's traumatic experiences and casts her in the lead role, hoping that replaying her experience on stage will cure her.
DVD release
The Big Cube was released in 2007 as part of Volume 2 of Warner Brothers' Cult Camp Classic's "Women in Peril" series, a three-part series that included John Cromwell'sCaged and the film that gave Joan Crawford her last starring role, Freddie Francis' Trog.[1]
