Long before Faye Dunaway turned her into a campy, psychotic monster, Joan Crawford was creating nightmares herself. In Strait Jacket, Joan stooped to appear in a William Castle cheapie that had been setup at Columbia Pictures when he became attached to the studio. William Castle had been known for making gimmicky films with crazy gimmicks like taking out insurance policies in case someone was scared to death, or hiring people to pretend they were being electrocuted in their seats.
Strait Jacket would be one of the first films in which Joan would push Pepsi in the most blatant product placement ever. The biggest surprise of the film, however, is that despite all of the posters and related pictures depicting Ms. Crawford wielding an axe from the film, she is not actually the killer in the end.
