This film could be considered one of the missing links between American film noir and the suspense and horror films that would become so popular in continental Europe over the next two decades (i.e. the German "krimis", the Italian "gialli", the horror films of Bava and Argento). It's technically a late period film noir, but rather than having the traditional pessimistic tone and hard-boiled, voice-over narrative, it is completely off-the-wall and chock-full of the suggested depravity and lurid psycho-babble that would characterize the later European films. Interestingly, it was apparently based on the same Fredric Brown novel as Dario Argento's "Bird with Crystal Plummage" (although at least one of these movie was obviously only loosely based on the source novel because they don't really resemble each other too much). It also features European sex symbol Anita Ekberg as a voluptuous stripper (who looks like she could eat Edwige Fenech or one of the other later European sex kittens). Rare for the time, it even has a psycho-killer, called "The Ripper", who leaves the epononymous "screaming mimi" dolls next to his/her butchered female victims. Not a great movie perhaps, but I really dug it.
Review of Screaming Mimi
