Trailer
Plot summary
Lucy Harbin comes home to find her husband with another woman and kills them both with an axe. Her three-year-old daughter Carol sees the attack. Lucy is judged criminally insane and spends twenty years in a mental institution. After her release she moves in with her brother and his wife on their farm, where she is reunited with Carol, now an artist and sculptor who dates Michael, the richest young man in town. Dreams and flashbacks of the killing trouble Lucy, who pictures the severed heads of both victims while she lies in bed.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Strait-Jacket (1964)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Joan Crawford took over the role of Lucy Harbin from Joan Blondell, who was injured at home before shooting and could not fulfil her commitment. Crawford's deal included script and cast approval, a $50,000 salary and 15 percent of the profits.
- Moviegoers entering theaters during Strait-Jacket's original release were handed little cardboard axes, and at the end of the closing credits the Columbia logo's torch-bearing woman is shown decapitated, her head resting at her feet.
- Anne Helm was originally cast as Carol but was replaced by Diane Baker, reportedly at Joan Crawford's insistence. Baker and Crawford had previously appeared together in the film The Best of Everything (1959).
- Strait-Jacket gave Lee Majors his first big-screen appearance, as Frank Harbin, Lucy Harbin's husband, who is seen in the film's opening minutes; he went uncredited.
