How long can a man live in a void without going nuts?
The last of writer/producer Jimmy Sangster's "mini-Hitchcocks" for Hammer Films to be directed by Freddie Francis was 1965's Hysteria, which is about the adventures of an American amnesiac in London (Robert Webber) as he tries to unravel the mystery of the anonymous benefactor who has paid for his hospital care and, upon his release, set him up in a jolly well-furnished penthouse flat. Naturally, he'd also like to find out who he is, but the only clue he has is a torn photograph of a beautiful woman, which doesn't give private investigator Maurice Denham much to go on. Meanwhile, his doctor (Anthony Newlands) warns against letting his mind play tricks on him and the nurse he's sweet on (Jennifer Jayne) promises to look in on him after he's settled in, which seems unlikely when he spies the woman in the photo (Lelia Goldoni) driving around in a sports car after he's been told she died six months earlier.
As one might expect, there's more going on here than meets the eye, with Sangster doing his level best to keep Webber and the viewer guessing, and Francis ratcheting up the suspense like a master (or, at the very least, a "mini-Master"). They even throw in a few shower scenes, which I imagine were somewhat compulsory, but they manage to put their own spin on them. Since it's pretty obvious that Webber's being set up (because that's what you do with amnesiacs in these kinds of films), it only remains to be seen who's setting him up and why. With a cast this small, the who might be easy to guess, but the why is another matter entirely. What matters is whether the 80 or so minutes leading up to the reveal are entertaining. In the case of Hysteria, they are.