Let's Kill Uncle

Let's Kill Uncle (1966)

LOVABLE OR LETHAL? Are they bad seeds...or frightened innocents caught in a diabolical duel with death!

A 12-year-old orphan who has just inherited a fortune is trapped on an island with his uncle, a former British intelligence commander who intends to kill him. A young girl is the boy's only ally against the sarcastic uncle, who uses hypnotism, a pool of sharks, fire, and poisonous mushrooms as weapons.

Date of release
1966-11-18
TMDB
5.5 / 10 (18)
Runtime
1h 32m
Genres
Comedy, Thriller, Horror
Director
William Castle

Casting

Interesting facts

Let's Kill Uncle—also known as Let's Kill Uncle Before Uncle Kills Us—is a 1966 American black comedy psychothriller film produced and directed by William Castle, about a young boy trapped on an island by his uncle, who is planning to kill him. The boy's only friend is a young girl, who tries to help him.

Production

The film was William Castle's third and final film for Universal Pictures, with Castle purchasing the film rights for the novel soon after its 1963 publication. Universal's casting director, John Badham, cast his younger sister Mary, who had gained acclaim in the role of Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962).

During filming, Castle had wanted Barnaby to inherit $20 million, although the total had been $10 million in the novel. Universal insisted on $5 million and when Castle objected, MCA Universal head Lew Wasserman came to see Castle himself, telling him, "For $20 million, I'd kill the kid myself".

Cardi recalled that Nigel Green acted as a real life friendly uncle to him on the set, giving him tips on performing. Cardi admitted that the tarantulas frightened him, so during rehearsals plastic spiders were used, even though both the spider wrangler and Castle told him the real spider had been defanged and was harmless.

Cardi stated that several endings were shot for the film and "Universal picked the worst one", adding that there "were a lot of politics going on with the film".

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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