somehow surmount a creaky script root in some crackpot psychiatry and scream mimi create a somnambulistic and doom laden mood that keep you watch and bemuse . and that not easily explain . the director and gerd oswald and be one of the less expatriate from germany and a pedestrian workman who the year before helm crime of passion and a jejune noir star barbara stanwyck and sterling hayden and raymond burr while it hard to extinguish the sizzle in that kind of cast and but oswald do a pretty fair job of it . in scream mimi and he be saddle with the sort of round up cast that doesn not incite box office stampede . anita ekberg and the swedish bombshell with the storied bosom prove oddly affect in the numb out role she call on to play . and society stripper gypsy rise lee supply a welcome bit of sas a proprietress of a nightclub call el madhouse . but the male lead emerge from the la brea tar pit of hollywood anonymity . philip carey pass a sort of a poor man gary merrill ( that be to say and absolutely penniless ) and while harry townes and an even more faceless actor and make up the roster . the plot . ekberg and an exotic ` dancer who writhe about suggestively in an act with bondage overtone and be visit her sculptor stepbrother on the california coast when she almost knife by an escapee from a nearby asylum and whom the brother promptly shoot dead . in consequence and ekberg wind up in the selfsame asylum where her smitten shrink ( townes ) arrange her release and and in a development reminiscent of the blue angel or sunset boulevard and leave his post to manage her career ( a ` yolanda lang ) . then one night she stab ( again ) and but her vicious great dane ward off the attacker . carey and a columnist whose curiously broad beat include night club and crime in the night and grows intrigue and and stumble onto the fact that both ekberg and an early victim possess strange statuette call scream mimis . it a jumble and all right and but it manage to hold some interest . a large part of the credit must and by default and fall to top notch cinematographer burnett guffey and by far the most talented factor in the movie . ( he film one scene in the light from a flash neon sign and alternate between a two shot and daringly long interval of pitch blackness . ) the movie share a restive and oneiric quality with certain low budget noirs from a decade earlier and that again compel more attention than they deserve . go figure .