SINGLE WHITE FEMALE 1992

The great granddaddy (grandmother?) of “roommate from hell” movies is director Barbet Schroeder’s (Reversal of Fortune) masterfully creepy Single White Female. Sheer perfection in its straightforward simplicity, Single White Female is a splendidly taut and entertaining thriller of escalating dread and suspense built upon two basic, highly-relatable human anxieties: sharing a living space with a total stranger, and wondering whether it’s possible to really know another person…even those to whom we are closest.
Fashioned as an intertangled character drama masking a mordant feminist critique—it can be argued that the entirety of the lead character's troubles arise out of the way society conditions women from an early age to harbor a fear of and resistance to being "single"; Barbet Schroeder’s Single White Female pairs the Roman Polanski urban paranoia thriller (Rosemary's Baby, The Tenant) with the Robert Altman personality-theft psychological melodrama (3 Women, Images) to chilling effect.

Bridget Fonda as Allison Jones

Jennifer Jason Leigh as Hedra Carlson

Steven Weber as Sam Rawson

Peter Friedman as Graham Knox

When an 11^th-hour betrayal results in software designer Allison Jones kicking live-in fiancé Sam Rawson out of her rent-controlled apartment, our despondent, titular SWF hastily places a classified ad (against the better judgment warnings of friend and neighbor Graham Knox) for a roommate.

Enter Rizzoli Bookstore clerk Hedra Carlson; timid, sweet-natured, and studiously amorphous; she’s like a substance incapable of reflecting light, only absorbing it. Girlish and diffident in the face of Allison’s easygoing poise, resourceful where Allison is self-doubting and insecure, indistinct and shapeless to Allison’s urban sleek, the women are less an odd couple than strangely analogous opposites. Indeed, Hedra sees in Allison an image of a life she’d very much like to have. Literally.

Allison and Hedra
From the Greek, Hedra is a word used in geometry to signify many faces

In short order, roommates blossom into girlfriends (Hedy! Allie!), girlfriends bond as sisters, and sisterhood evolves into a kind of free-form female family unit into which the only male allowed is Buddy the dog. Sure, Hedra’s a little clingy, a tad furtive, maybe even a little too watchful (“(It's) like she's studyin’ ya. Like you was a play, or a book, or a set of blueprints!” – All About Eve); but for a time, each woman finds in the other what they are individually lacking. Allie gets a companion to help stave off her fear of being alone, Hedy finds someone who fills a deep, unarticulated emotional void.

The disruptive reappearance of Allison’s ousted fiancé evokes D.H. Lawrence’s The Fox (an impression reinforced by the lupine features of Steve Weber) in that the intrusion of the male has an abruptly poisonous effect on the friendship the two women have thus far forged. Feeling subtly edged out (even the dog prefers Allie's company), Hedy makes a desperate, fumblingly inappropriate attempt to insinuate herself into the relationship of the reconciled twosome, a move which only serves to further drive a wedge. As she watches her prominence in Allie's life diminish, Hedy's already troublingly possessive behavior and obsessive interest in Allie begins to manifest itself in increasingly psychotic ways.

Family Portrait
Playing on the TV set behind them is the 1957 Rita Hayworth film
Fire Down Below, about a friendship torn apart by romantic jealousy

Although Single White Female features an abundance of intriguing subthemes: urban fear, feminine identity, lesbianism, sexual harassment, duality, women's tendency to invalidate female friendships in deference to men—Schroeder's uncluttered approach to the material and the film's familiar, easy-to-identify-with premise serves it extraordinarily well. The intelligent screenplay (adapted by Don Roos from John Lutz's 1990 novel SWF Seeks Same) simply lets the worst-case-rental nightmare scenario play out in accordance to the well-worn tropes of the classic stalker/suspense thriller, leaving plenty of room for the actors to fully and dimensionally inhabit their characters. The result is that instead of having the characters moved along by the demands of the plot, the characters themselves, as realized by the fine performances of Bridget Fonda and Jennifer Jason Leigh, dominate Single White Female.

As the film is structured, we know from the outset that the roommate situation will be problematic, just as we also know, this being a Hollywood thriller, that the central conflict must resolve itself with a sufficiently over-the-top, crowd-pleasing payoff: usually either cathartic (payback) or ironic (surprise twist). Thus, it's all the more appreciated that Barbet Schroeder manages to successfully subvert the plot's predictability by giving emphasis to the relationship between Allison and Hedra, making it feel authentic, while at the same time oddly discordant. The chemistry between these two women, vacillating between friendly, sororal, co-dependent, and adversarial...is the propulsive, compelling source of the film's suspense and considerably well-played chills.

The Happy Couple

When an arthouse darling like Barbet Schroeder (More-1969, The Valley Obscured by Clouds- 1972) makes a genre film, watching it is a little like seeing your sensitive, intellectual nephew running with the “wrong crowd”: there's concern as to which will exert the greater influence over the other.

Happily, I think Barbet Schroder’s arthouse sensibilities fairly dominate the first two-thirds of Single White Female, effectively drawing the viewer into the psychological drama before the melodrama and genre predictability of the final third takes over. He successfully turns both the city and apartment building into participating characters in the story, stressing the film's duality themes and appearances-can-be-deceiving angle by making both New York City and Allison's apartment building look simultaneously inviting and sinister.

"At least there's never a problem with privacy!"
Single White Female plays with the idea of strength and weakness, independence and helplessness. By all appearances, Allison is the character who has her life together, but the film allows her to be the one to harbor some of the more deep-rooted flaws. She is the first roommate to invade the other's privacy, yet she's made uncomfortable by Hedra's at-ease-with-herself informality (specifically, when she undresses in front of her). In the end, the women bond over the affectionate gesture of exchanged housewarming gifts. 

Barbet Schroeder displays such a sure touch with his handling of both the characters and the more rote aspects of the suspense thriller that the film’s third act, wherein Schroeder or the producers bow to the pressure to provide the ticket-buying public with the mayhem they crave, strikes the film's sole false note. While I have to concede that the violent conclusion is well executed and effectively delivers exactly what is expected of it (suspense, jeopardy, jump cuts); there's no denying that it's an improvement over the sprawling, drawn-out ending of the source novel; I nevertheless can't shake the feeling that it is an ending more genre-mandated than organic to the subtle, insinuating menace characterizing the rest of the film. I enjoy the ending for what it is, but it wouldn't surprise me were it revealed one day to be the work of another director entirely.

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILM

Single White Female combines two of my favorite film genres: the psychological suspense thriller and the identity-crisis/mind-meld melodrama. Perhaps because I looked to movies in my own quest for some kind of identity parallelism during my youth (I grew up a bookish, introverted, black gay male, living in a predominantly white neighborhood and attending a private Catholic boys school, the only boy in a family of four girls, with a hardworking but emotionally reserved father), I harbor a particular fondness for movies about people grappling with their sense of self. Even the first student film I ever made (a deservedly lost Super 8mm masterpiece that served as my admission application to the San Francisco Art Institute) was a movie about a man haunted by his doppelganger.

Single White Female is a thriller first and foremost, a genre nail-biter calculated to deliver consistent chills. But in the way it seriously cranks up the fear factor by delving into the dark side of duality and the elemental search for self, it reminds me a great deal of so many of my most beloved identity-merge films: Persona (1966), Dead Ringers (1988), Les Biches (1968), Performance (1970), Mulholland Drive (2001), Vertigo (1958), and Black Swan (2010).

When Imitation Ceases To Be The Sincerest Form Of Flattery

To varying degrees, twinning is a natural by-product of intimacy, a normal part of all close relationships. You see it in long-term couples who begin to look alike and adopt similar mannerisms. You witness it in best friends who copy and adopt identical modes of dress. It's evident in noxious "bromances" in which entire groups of male friends attend the same gym, tanning salons, and share the same can of Axe body spray.
But no matter how extreme the mirroring, each of us relies on the existence of subconscious boundaries of individual identity to prevent us from ever completely losing ourselves to, or getting completely lost in, others. No such boundaries exist in Single White Female.

Femme Fatale

THE STUFF OF FANTASY

An innovative director with a strong visual style and a comprehension of cinema language is a boon to any film, but such gifts are especially welcome in a genre flick. While there are many directors who’ve distinguished themselves through their association with a particular type of film: Ernst Lubitsch (comedies), John Ford (westerns), Alfred Hitchcock (suspense thriller), and John Carpenter (horror); most would contend that plot-driven, trope-reliant films, whose structures require conformity to brand, don't always leave a lot of elbow room for artistic expression.

Skeletons in the Closet
Allison discovers something scarier than wire hangers
 in Hedra's closet: a wardrobe duplicate to hers

Premise and setup are the stars of the suspense thriller, the director earning accolades only to the extent to which their talents contribute to the successful realization of the narrative’s requisite “payoffs”: surprise, scares, intensity, suspense, etc. Mind you, this isn’t easy, and any director capable of pulling off an effective thriller deserves credit, but the thrillers that tend to stick with me are the ones that manage to follow the genre dots while still bearing the imprint of a director’s unique world view and artistic perspective. 

Barbet Schroeder approaches Single White Female as though it were a character study in which one of the characters just happens to be a psychopath. The time and care spent on defining the relationship between Allie and Hedy, shading it with a comfortable intimacy and credible eccentricity (Allie accidentally catches Hedy masturbating, but instead of turning away, she lingers, watching) lends this film the stamp of quirky distinction.

Mirrors feature prominently in Single White Female, a film
exploring the dark side of identity, duality, and self-image

A similar attribute is Barbet Schroeder’s use of mise-en-scène to amplify Single White Female’s themes. For example, the internal life of Allison, a character whose anxieties are fueled by insecurity (fear of being alone) and betrayals (her former business partner, her fiancé, and her client), is reflected in her external environment.

Allison’s apartment—spacious but just cramped enough to convey urban confinement—is in a building whose derelict condition signals neglect and inattention. The rooms of the apartment all face a circular foyer, which, once the roommates’ lives and likenesses begin to merge, creates an element of disorientation and distortion. Meanwhile, privacy (or rather, its lack) is vividly dramatized by the many angles, doorways, and alcoves people use to conceal themselves or suddenly pop into view from behind; air vents that serve as sound amplifiers to neighboring apartments; and telephone answering machines that either divulge too much or are too easily erased.

Troubled Waters
Beginning with the malfunctioning faucet that precipitates Allie getting to know her better, Hedra is associated with water throughout the film. Frequently shown bathing, showering, or in some way cleansing herself (shades of Lady Macbeth), water also figures significantly in Hedra's shadowy past.

PERFORMANCES

High-concept premise aside, the performances of Bridget Fonda and Jennifer Jason Leigh are the prime reason Single White Female endures for me, and why it continues to be such an enjoyable thrill ride after numerous rewatchings, long after its surprises have grown familiar.
When I think of actors who have good onscreen chemistry, my mind goes immediately to the similarities those actors share and the traits they have in common. But when I watch Single White Female I'm reminded that the most explosive onscreen chemistry comes from personalities with contrasting strengths that blend with symbiotic ease.

Who Is She?

The pairing of Fonda and Leigh—two actors who don't look alike; whose rhythms and acting styles contrast intriguingly; who exude self-restraint vs. barely held-in-check-- seems to draw out the inverse best in both. Fonda has never registered stronger, Leigh (in another lived-in departure for the versatile actress) is terrifying in her vulnerability.

The film uses both so well that, as with an ensemble piece, it's difficult to assess the work of one independent of the other. Suffice it to say that both actors inhabit their characters in marvelously realized performances that are so natural, that they manage to buff out the rough edges of the melodrama, making the formulaic feel fresh.

Occupational Hazard
Stephen Tobolowsky as Mitchell Myerson

As the film progresses, we learn that both Allison and Hedra have the same problem of repeating mistakes. It's revealed that Hedy is in the habit of attaching herself to people in an attempt to recapture and/or recreate a seminal relationship from her childhood. Meanwhile, Allie shows signs of being a serial bad-decision-maker. She bounces from one disloyal relationship (a failed business partner) to another (a faithless fiancé) to another (hastily opening her apartment to a woman she knows nothing about) to another (a business client whose intentions she misreads). 

THE STUFF OF DREAMS

I love scary movies, especially those rooted in the kind of mundane, everyday anxieties we all share. Alienation, urban paranoia, trust issues...the more the horror emanates from the basic insecurities that make up the human personality, the more intensely I relate to what is going on on the screen.

The Ansonia Apartments
Barbet Schroeder's homage to Rosemary's Baby

Like most kids, I loved to be frightened by monster movies. The worlds of Frankenstein, Dracula, and The Wolfman were so alien to my own existence that no matter how spooky things got, the essential "otherness" of what I was watching reinforced my subliminal safety-net reminding me that what I was watching was fantasy. Movies like these were capable of giving me a shudder, a shock, or a jolt of surprise, but they were too remote in context to ever really get under my skin. All that changed in 1967 when Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho had its broadcast television premiere. Suddenly the monster was human, the weapon a familiar household object, the victim undeserving of her fate, the violence not "safe" and bloodless, and the site (most horrifically) a personal safe haven of privacy.
My 9-year-old mind was blown. The kindertrauma spectacle of Janet Leigh’s shower murder opened a veritable Pandora's Box of everyday horror in my young life.

Ken’s Domestic Terror Timeline:

1967- Rosemary’s Baby published, In Cold Blood and Wait Until Dark released in theaters, and commercials for 1965s Return From The Ashes (in which a woman is murdered in her bathtub) appear on TV. 

Ken’s Social Terror Timeline:

1968- Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy assassinated. San Francisco (where we lived) terrorized by The Zodiac Killer. I see Rosemary’s Baby at the movies and have the holy hell scared out of me.

1969 to 1971- The hippie movement gave way to scare-a-thon news coverage of the Manson killings, and The Doors' "Riders on the Storm" terrorized me from radio playlists.

All this happened over the course of a few years, but to my psyche, it felt as though it had happened overnight. Suddenly the illusion of safety that family and home provided was shattered by the realization that not even bathrooms are safe havens, human beings are the real monsters, and violence can sometimes be cruelly random. 

Single White Female taps into all these still-fresh-to-me horrors: Apartment buildings are genuinely creepy places that thrust you into close contact with total strangers; anyone alone is justified to feel vulnerable in a big city; and what is more mysterious and labyrinthine than the human personality? 

Copyright © Ken Anderson  2009 - 2018

CAMELOT 1967

One of my favorite Maya Angelou quotes (one which paraphrases an earlier quote by Carl Buehner) is: "People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will never forget how you made them feel." I like this quote because not only have I found it to be true in my life, but it also summarizes what I've always maintained to be my own experience of film: I'll forget what a movie made at the boxoffice. I'll forget whether critics deemed it a hit or a flop. I'll forget if it won any Oscars. But I never forget how a movie made me feel.

A great many things go into making a motion picture: acting, direction, screenwriting, cinematography, mise-en-scène, etc....simply a host of creative and aesthetic contributions by artisans and craftspeople in collaboration. But I always contend that unless you're discussing measurable, fact-based elements such as whether or not a scene is in focus, or if a boom mike popped into frame; the act of ascribing value to a film (to classify it as either a "good" or bad" movie) is not an act of objective appraisal, but an act of subjective evaluation. In other words, to express an opinion based on individual interpretation, firsthand point-of-view, and personal taste.

I love movies. I've loved movies for as long as I can remember. I get a kick out of reading about them, discussing them, analyzing them, and especially writing about them. But one of the risks of being a devoted cinephile and immersing myself so (too?) deeply in film theory and fandom minutiae is that I can occasionally forget what made me fall in love with movies in the first place: they're a great deal of fun. To be able to watch a large number of films throughout one's lifetime and yet remain connected to the pure, sensual, escapist thrill of movies has always been a goal of mine. Something easier to tap into with some films more than others.

Academic essays about films I chiefly respond to emotionally can be enlightening, often enriching my enjoyment by encouraging me to look beyond a movie's more accessible virtues. In such instances, I'm gratified to find both my heart and head affected by a film. But every now and then, I fall in love with a movie so voluptuously visual, so lyrical, so ardently impassioned in its sensibilities that I simply surrender myself entirely to its sensual charms and (for better or worse) wind up leaving my analytical brain at the door.
For me, Camelot is such a film.

Richard Harris as King Arthur

Vanessa Redgrave as Guenevere

Franco Nero as Lancelot Du Lac

David Hemmings as Mordred

The mystical legend of King Arthur, Guenevere, Lancelot, and the knights of the round table is tunefully romanticized in Camelot, Alan Jay Lerner's (lyricist & librettist) and Frederick Loewe's (composer) follow-up to their wildly successful My Fair Lady. I was but 3 years old when Camelot opened on Broadway in 1960 with a cast featuring Richard Burton, Julie Andrews, Robert Goulet, and Roddy McDowall. I was ten when Warner Bros. released its heavily publicized, three-hour, 70mm, $13-17 million (depending on the source) big-screen film version in 1967. In other words, as a child, I had no real memory of a world without Camelot in it.

Lionel Jeffries as King Pellinore

When I was very young, I linked Camelot to dull, suitable-for-parents-only entertainment, associating it exclusively with Robert Goulet crooning the ballad "If Ever I Would Leave You" on TV variety shows (as I had Barbra Streisand and the song "People"). Following that, the show's title tune became married to sad memories of President Kennedy's assassination after my teacher (per the 1963 Jackie Kennedy Life magazine interview wherein it was referenced as the late president's favorite song) played that paeanistic anthem to our class, resulting in a roomful of first-graders bursting into tears without any of us really knowing why. Not long after this, Camelot became familiar to me as an Original Broadway Cast album that every parent seemed to have in their home, yet never played.

By 1967 my family had settled in San Francisco, and it's then that I recall first catching sight of Bob Peak's colorfully alluring artwork for the movie poster. Still one of my favorite movie posters, I responded strongly to it because it resembled the then-popular psychedelic/Art Nouveau-style of San Francisco rock and roll concert posters that I saw posted all over the Haight/Ashbury district where we lived.

With Camelot's artwork staring out at me from the poster display case in front of the Coronet Theater (where Camelot had its exclusive, reserved-seat, $3 a ticket, roadshow engagement) and from the cover of the Columbia Record Club mail-order soundtrack LP that arrived at our door one day because my mom forgot to send back the "not interested" card the month previous; suddenly this stodgy, must-to-avoid, middle-aged entertainment became the movie I couldn't wait to see.

Laurence Naismith as Merlin

Of course, in the days when double and even triple features were the norm, the idea of paying $3 (75¢ to $1.50 was average) to see just one movie didn't sound all that appealing to my young mind. As it turns out, the idea sounded even less so to the more mature minds of my parents. Both of whom were of the opinion that taking me with them to see Camelot was- "Out of the question. I'm not going to shell out that kind of money for the privilege of watching you fall asleep!" That's what drive-ins were for.

So, until Camelot became available at "popular prices" and made its way to our neighborhood theater, I had to content myself with listening to the soundtrack album.

And listen to it I did. Constantly. Persistently. Rapturously.

I fell in love with the sound of Camelot before I ever saw a single frame. 

I finally saw Camelot sometime in late 1968; by then, the film's flop* status was common knowledge, and some 30 minutes of footage from the roadshow version had been excised in an effort to speed things along, so to speak.

*A huge bone of contention among retro film fans is the word "flop" ascribed to a beloved favorite. Hollywood has long held to the unwritten rule that a movie needs to make at least two to three times its production costs to begin to show a profit. Thus, while Camelot saw out the year as #11 on the roster of top-grossing films of 1967 (meaning it was reasonably popular with the public), with its $15 million production budget, a domestic boxoffice return of $31 million translates as genuine flop material. The same holds true for many other "popular successes" that simply cost too much to promote and distribute. One of the most notable is Hello, Dolly! which came in as the #4 top-grosser of 1969. But budgeted at a whopping $25 million and marketed to the skies at a cost of at least half that amount, the $33 million it took in at the boxoffice proved that it may have been popular with the public, but, from a financial standpoint, was nothing short of ruinous for 20^th Century-Fox.

Perhaps the most curious application of the word flop is attributed to 1967's Valley of the Dolls. Budgeted at a modest $4 million, VOD ranked #6 at the boxoffice and raked in an astounding $44 million, making it a significantly profitable hit for the studio. However, the film proved such a critical disaster and so devastating to the careers of those involved, the label of "flop" has clung to it, largely in reference to its quality (or lack, thereof), not its profitability.

In any event, once the theater lights started to dim that Saturday afternoon in 1968 (I can't remember whether it was at the Amazon or the Castro theater), none of that made any difference, because no one else's experience of Camelot mattered but my own. I grew up with very little interest in most of the age-appropriate movies of the time (I was an adult before I saw The Sound of Music, Mary Poppins, or Doctor Dolittle), so at age eleven, I hadn't much exposure to fantasy or magic in movies. Camelot, which looked to me like a fairy tale come to life, captivated my imagination from start to finish.

There in the dark, before this enormous screen, came a vision of opulent, extravagant fantasy that seemed to shimmer with an almost otherworldly luster. The scope, the color, the lush orchestrations, the pageantry…this creation of a world both magically artificial and hyperreal so overwhelmed my senses that I've no memory of what I actually thought of the story itself; only the sense memory of feeling totally and absolutely transported by a movie.

It was aesthetic overload. I was absolutely floored by how gorgeous everything and everyone looked. Even those enormous, incessant, Panavision closeups that drove so many critics to distraction were positively swoon-inducing for me. All I knew is that. at the time, Camelot was the most "movie" movie I'd ever seen. 

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS MOVIE

Clearly, most of what's recounted above is a young film fan's response to the candy-store charms of old-fashioned Hollywood movie-making. Too young to sense the dissonance so many found (and continue to find) in having a mystical, musicalized wisp of romantic lore mounted as a massive, grandiose epic; I simply fell under the spell of cinema's unique ability to give corporeal life to sublime fantasy.

Looking at Camelot today (I watched it over the Christmas holidays) I'd like to report that my adult self finds the film's pacing to be sluggish when it should be lilting; the thin singing voices of the leads ill-serving of the score's lovely melodies; the overall tone wavering unevenly between farce, romance, and drama; the film's length interminable; the self-serious performances deadly to the story's wit and humor; the sets artificial and stagey.

I'd like to, but I can't.

I acknowledge these things and recognize them to be sound and justified criticisms leveled at the film by friends and loved ones (my partner, a man of unyielding good taste and intelligence, cannot abide a single frame of this movie); but they're flaws visible to me only when I look at Camelot through the eyes of others. When I look at Camelot through my own two eyes, it's a little like the scene where Arthur, extolling the virtues of Camelot to Guenevere, gives a brief lesson on how perspective can change perception: "When I was young, everything looked a little pink to me."

Because I can't separate the film from my experience of first seeing it, Camelot still shines with a kind of pinkish glow to me. I don't kid myself that Camelot is a better movie than it is, but my adult perspective—the belief that one can derive perfect pleasure from an imperfect film—guides my youthful perception of it as a magical, majestic, utterly charming musical...in spite of its flaws.

Due to having fallen in love with the music first, Lerner & Loewes' magnificent score will always be my favorite thing about Camelot. Preferring the movie soundtrack to the Broadway version (sorry, Julie Andrews), I adore the film's human-sized interpretation of Arthur and Guenevere (Jenny, as he calls her) and never found fault with the smaller, more emotive voices of Redgrave and Harris, which achieve such a lovely, amatory quality in the duet "What Do the Simple Folk Do?" (my absolute favorite song in the entire show). Perversely perhaps, the one trained voice in the film—that of singer Gene Marlino, dubbing Nero's vocals—I find to be hollow and generic in the dubbing style of Marni Nixon and those disembodied, Doodletown Piper-style vocals they used in Hello, Dolly! and Lost Horizon.

As big-budget musical epics go, Camelot, with its glorious Oscar-winning costumes and production design is nothing short of a dream; the film's vast scale is emblematic of Arthur's full-to-bursting idealism. I suspect it was director Joshua Logan's intention to use so many close-ups as a stylized means of creating emotional intimacy, but while this device is sensually effective in the romantic and dramatic scenes, when the principals are required to break into song, it offers too many opportunities to ponder the wonders of medieval dentistry.

PERFORMANCES

If you've ever seen an Arnold Schwarzenegger Conan the Barbarian movie or any of those straight-to-DVD action films featuring the likes of Dolf Lundgren, one can easily understand why mainstream superhero films have often found it more advantageous to hire an actor and pad his suit (Michael Keaton, George Clooney), rather than try to coax a performance out of an athlete or bodybuilder. I've always assumed a similar mindset was behind the Hollywood custom of purchasing Broadway musical properties, and, instead of hiring individuals who can actually sing and dance, they engage the services of actors with minimal proficiency in either. Perhaps it's easier to teach an actor to sing (dubbing!) than find song and dance entertainers who register effectively on the big screen.

I could devote an entire essay on both the soundness (Ethel Merman, Carol Channing) and folly (Lee Marvin, Clint Eastwood) of this practice; but confining myself exclusively to Camelot, I have to put forth that I find Vanessa Redgrave, Richard Harris and Franco Nero are all exceptionally well-suited to their roles. 

They are certainly the most visually stunning Arthur, Guenevere, and Lancelot I've yet to come across (Nicholas Clay's virile Lancelot in 1981's Excalibur being the exception). Harris, a commanding and compassionate Arthur, Redgrave (Camelot's most valuable player) looking like a fairy princess and bringing a touching wistfulness to her character; and Nero, abysmal lip-syncing aside, gives an engagingly robust, sensitive performance.

THE STUFF OF FANTASY

An unanticipated pleasure in having seen Camelot when it was first released, and then having the opportunity to revisit it some 50 years later, is to revel in the degree to which it embodies the attitudes and trends of the past, while simultaneously commenting upon (with depressing acuity) our country's current "situation."

Camelot takes place in a fictional kingdom in the Middle Ages, but (as was common of period films in the days of the studio system) it has late-1960s written all over it. The casting, opting for up-and-coming talent over established stars, reflects who was hot at the time: Redgrave and Hemmings, fresh from cavorting nude in Antonioni's Blow-Up; Harris recently having bashed in Franco Nero's head in John Huston's 1966 film The Bible. The sound of Camelot may be traditional Broadway, but its look is that of the world's most well-funded Renaissance Pleasure Faire. This Camelot carries a decidedly flower-child, hippie-commune, love-in vibe.

Guenevere (with her mod bangs, cascading falls, and teased hair bump…all color-coordinated with the castle and furnishings) is the world's first flower-child; while Arthur—whose quixotic anti-war soliloquies sound like a Berkeley campus lunch-hour messiah—sports a groovy pageboy haircut and adorns himself with furs, capes, boots, and abundant eye shadow worthy of a Fillmore rocker. Not to be outdone, the villainous Mordred struts about in a leather outfit that looks to have been borrowed from Jim Morrison.

Alas, with Camelot's dark second half, quaint '60s nostalgia gives way to harsh contemporary relevance. As Arthur's humane ideals crumble under his own hypocrisy (he decrees unpleasant facts he dislikes—talk of Guenevere's infidelity and Lancelot's betrayal—to be "fake news" and banishes from the kingdom those who dare speak of what he actually knows to be true), Mordred, Arthur's vainglorious illegitimate son, tweets…I mean, boasts, "I've been taught to place needs ahead of conscience. Comfort ahead of principle. I find charity offensive and kindness a trap," while making ready his plot to Make England Uncivilized Again.

When Arthur laments, "Those old uncivilized days come back again. Those days…those dreadful days we tried to put asleep forever," he could be speaking of a dark day in Charlottesville, Ga. in August of 2017, or, more accurately, the United States every day since November 8, 2016.

THE STUFF OF DREAMS
Time has been kind to Camelot, which is ironic, since complaints about its abuse of time (even devoted fans tend to find it overlong) have dogged the film since its release. No longer denounced for being out of step with the changing tastes of the '60s, Camelot now belongs to the forgiving rear-view gaze of Classic Hollywood. The up-and-coming stars in its cast are now revered film industry veterans. The traditional style of filmmaking employed, one lambasted for being creakily old-fashioned during the youthquake '60s, now is revered for its scope and grandeur...all devoid of CGI enhancement. And its melodic score now hearkens back to an era when a timeless traditionalism defined what we came to know as musical theater.
Yet, Camelot remains unique in that it is one of those films whose dividing line of opinion never seems to shift. I've never known of anyone who hated the film to ever come around to a more favorable opinion over time, similarly, those who started out loving it (as I do) can't be talked down from our cloud no matter what detractors say.

I can't speak for everyone, but I guess back when I was 11-years-old, maybe I just took it to heart when Arthur said at the end of the film, "What we did will be remembered."

BONUS MATERIAL

King Arthur's Camelot took on the role of a Himalayan lamasery in the 1973 musical Lost Horizon

Camelot was revived on Broadway in 1980 with Richard Burton recreating his Tony Award-winning role as Arthur. When Burton succumbed to ill health in 1981, Hollywood's King Arthur—Richard Harris, then 51-years-old—stepped into the role. Harris would go on to purchase the rights to the stage production and toured with Camelot for six more years. This production, co-starring Meg Bussert as Guenevere and Richard Muenz as Lancelot, was broadcast on HBO in 1982 and is available on YouTube. 

Richard Harris passed away in 2005, nearly as famous then as he was at the time of Camelot thanks to his role as Dumbledore, the Headmaster at Hogwarts in the first two Harry Potter films. But a real-life fairy tale romance played out for Vanessa Redgrave and Franco Nero who fell in love during the making of Camelot, had a child out of wedlock, made a couple of films together, separated in 1971, reconnected some thirty years later, and ultimately wed in 2006. In 2017, when she was 80 and he 75, they waltzed together on the Italian TV dance competition program Strictly Come Dancing.

Richard Harris had quite the recording career, releasing several albums throughout the '60s and '70s. His biggest success came with 1968's Grammy-nominated album A Tramp Shining, which featured the #2 Billboard hit, the talk-sing version of MacArthur Park. I never owned that now-rare curio, but a particular favorite I never tire of listening to is Harris' guest stint as "The Doctor" (talk-singing his way through Go To The Mirror with Steve Winwood and Roger Daltrey) on the 1972 studio recording of Tommy, The Who's double-LP collaboration with the London Symphony Orchestra and a host of guest artists.

"Camelot" - 1967

Don't let it be forgot 

That once there was a spot

For one brief shining moment 

That was known as Camelot. 

Copyright © Ken Anderson  2009 - 2018

ONE OF THOSE THINGS 1971

Given the number of films in existence about colorless middle-aged men whose lives and (reasonably) happy marriages are upended by the initially-encouraged/ultimately-unwelcome attentions of a comely lass with nothing better to do than wreak ‘round-the-clock havoc on said upstanding citizen's designated symbols of stability: wife, child, home, job, reputation, household pet; you’d think I’d be able to recall at least one or two of these shopworn narratives told from the perspective of said “homewrecker.” Certainly if for no other reason than to provide some insight into what these often vibrant, attractive women see in these dull, unprepossessing, ethically challenged men to begin with.

In summary, the premise of the little-seen 1971 suspense drama One of Those Things (a Danish film with an exclusively British and Japanese cast) reads like just another—albeit very early—entry in the “domestic stalker” cycle of thrillers that hit their popularity stride following the success of 1987’s Fatal Attraction. But lurking behind this post-sexual revolution cautionary tale for the Viagra set is in fact a psychologically astute, unexpectedly dark examination of the principle of conspicuous ethics vs. unobserved morality. All trussed up in the melodramatic trappings of the erotic thriller and crime mystery.

Judy Geeson as Susanne Strauss

Roy Dotrice as Henrik Vinter

Zena Walker as Berit Vinter

Frederick Jaeger as Melchoir

Geoffrey Chater as Mr. Falck

Forty-something Henrik Vinter (Roy Dotrice) is the respectable, upright, newly-appointed director of a Danish automobile assembly plant. Harried and ambitious, Henrik is nevertheless blessed with a comfortable apartment he shares with his loving wife, adorable child, and cuddly dog. Best of all, hardworking Henrik’s role in his company’s merger with a Japanese car firm has afforded this devoted family man the long-hoped-for opportunity to leave apartment-dwelling behind and build a home in Copenhagen’s tony Bellevue district. Yes, Henrik is a fine figure of a decent, upstanding citizen whose life reflects the core values of the success ethic.

That is, if appearances count for anything.

In reality, Henrik’s wife Berit (Zena Walker) is a dipsomaniac suffering from neglect born of Henrik's wholesale absorption in his work; at his job his success is resentfully tolerated by friend and co-worker Melchoir (Frederick Jaeger), who was narrowly passed over for the very promotion Henrik bagged; and Henrik himself, though he doesn’t yet know it, balances on the brink of a crisis of character.

Henrik Vinter sees himself as a good, moral man, a self-image both supported and reinforced by those around him. That he unquestioningly sustains this higher sense of self in the face of moral and ethical contradictions (he dissociates himself from the “business as usual” legal duplicity he engages in on a daily basis, and is casually racist when speaking of his Asian business partners), proves to be the tragic flaw that sets in motion a chain of events that ultimately leave Henrik wondering if he ever knew himself at all.

"Can you see me?"

"Are you there at all?"

One of the wonderful things about movies is that every social movement and subtle shift in culture mores tends to bring about a subliminal, unconscious “response” in the content and focus of films. The confluence of the sexual revolution and the women’s movement in the late 1960s brought about a rash of mainstream films indicative of the middle-aged male’s unease with the shifting sexual paradigm. Where it was once common to depict men as sexual adventurers and women as passive targets of desire, the newfound sexual license afforded women after "the pill" was represented as something threatening and destructive to the status quo in films like 1969s Three Into Two Won’t Go (also starring Judy Geeson), Play Misty for Me (1971), and Something to Hide (1972). Even a period film like Clint Eastwood’s The Beguiled (1971) succumbed to the trap of only being able to picture women with sexual agency as threats to men.

One Of Those Things definitely qualifies as archetypal male angst melodrama, but like the characters themselves, there’s more going on here than what initially meets the eye.

Heihachiro Okawa (Bridge on the River Kwai) as Mr. Kawasaki

Always known as one willing to do what's necessary to ensure the proper outcome in a business deal, Henrik’s straight-as-an-arrow life path takes a fateful detour one night when, despondent over his wife bailing on an important business dinner, he accepts an invitation from a beautiful young woman named Susanne (Geeson) to attend a “hippie” hash (hashish) party on the outskirts of town. Ultimately unable to really let himself go, it isn't long before Henrik’s judgmental instincts (“I mean, this is what it all adds up to? The hair, the pot, be neutral, be uninvolved, do nothing, want nothing, believe in nothing?”) clash with the more easygoing vibes of his impromptu hosts (Susanne dubs him “Nowhere Man”), sending Henrik out into the stormy night in a borrowed car, eager to make his way to a train station and a return to a world more familiar.

Alas, the combination of low visibility, a malfunctioning automobile, and an unseen bicyclist result in a fatal hit and run accident. But rather than going back to the house and reporting the incident (an accident, ironically, for which no blame to either party could be ascribed), Henrik, relying on darkness and anonymity to conceal the truth, chooses to continue on his course home; hopeful that the mess will somehow take care of itself, grateful to have no witnesses to the unfortunate event. If Henrik is shaken at all--and he is--he nevertheless knows how important it is for it to remain indiscernibly so to others. Working in his favor is the fact that in the realm of moral displacement, feelings of remorse and the fear of detection both look very much the same.  

"Remember me?"
Henrik's past catches up with him

Just when it looks as though his actions will bear no consequence, out of nowhere—as if summoned by an innate need in Henrik to punish himself because no one else will—(re)appears Susanne. She knows of what he’s done (“I’d have done the same in your place”), has no interest in money (“That would be blackmail”), but is not above resorting to a bit of subtle coercion and upfront extortion to parlay the incriminating knowledge she possesses into a press secretary's job at his firm.

If Henrik initially thinks the granting of a close-proximity job to this total stranger is a small price to pay for her silence, he soon comes to learn that the cost to his peace of mind is one far dearer. Susanne immediately embarks upon an aggressive, ever-escalating campaign of seduction, stalking, and harassment which appears orchestrated to bring about nothing less than the total destruction of Henrik’s marriage, reputation, and professional standing. But does her denial of malicious intent (“I don’t want to ruin you. I just want to get to know you.”) hint that perhaps the motives behind her actions have more to do with the reclamation of his soul than revenge on his actions? 

In the Middle
Perpetually guilty-looking, the object of office gossip, and suspected of not being able
 to handle his work duties, Henrik's once-stable life begins to crumble beneath him

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILM 

Directed and produced by Danish filmmaker Erik Balling, One Of Those Things is based on 1968 novel Haeneligt Uheld by Anders Bodelsen (Haeneligt Uheld roughly translates as Accidentally Accidental or Incidental Accident - which is when an accident occurs for which no one is at fault). Anders Bodelsen, who co-wrote the film’s screenplay with director Erik Balling, is a popular author of contemporary crime thrillers whose themes often involve characters grappling with morality vs. materialism. Although not particularly well-known in this country, one of his novels was the source for the brilliant but underrated 1978 thriller The Silent Partner starring Elliot Gould, Susannah York, and Christopher Plummer. If you’ve never seen it, I highly recommend. 

"I'm not a toy to be played with. And you're not capable of playing that game anyway."

One Of Those Things was filmed in 1971, but according to IMDB, it didn’t make its way to these shores until 1974. If it did, it did so way under my radar, for I have no memory of its release at all, although I recall seeing a trade ad for it in Variety or The Hollywood Reporter. Considered something of a “lost film,” I came across it just a year ago, drawn by my fondness for actress Judy Geeson (To Sir With Love, Berserk) and suspense thrillers in which women propel the action of the plot rather than serve as victims or prey.

While more of a psychological character piece than an out-and-out thriller, One Of Those Things is a pretty gripping ride as Geeson’s character (compellingly played, but no more fleshed out than the usual Destroying Angel type in movies like this) is a genuine enigma and force to be reckoned with. And while I enjoyed the suspense and melodramatic elements of the film a great deal, I was more than pleasantly surprised to find them to be in service of darker, more thought-provoking themes relating to character and the imperceptible nature of moral erosion.

Sobering News

A theme particularly pertinent in today’s socio-political climate of moral relativism and the-end-justifies-the-means self-rationalizations, One Of Those Things examines the concept of “visible morality” vs. “authentic morality”: self-identification as a moral person based on the external, superficial appearance of goodness vs. what one is genuinely capable of when no one is looking.

It’s like that old schoolbook ethics debate about the driver who claims “entrapment” when ticketed for speeding through a stop sign when a police car is concealed behind a billboard (twisted logic: Had the police car had been visible, the driver wouldn’t have done the wrong thing).

Automobiles and their potential for accidental harm serve as a dynamic visual motif in One Of Those Things, a film shot in the flat, pedestrian tile of television movies yet enlivened by a nicely modulated tension and mounting sense of unease. The smart script, which never tells you how you should feel about these characters, engages the viewer in unexpected ways. For example, just when the film has really drawn us into the complex dynamics of the almost kinky antagonism between Henrik and Susanne, Susanne startles Henrik (and implicates us, the viewer) by asking: “Do you ever think of the man we killed?” (it was with her borrowed car). In that moment we’re caught off guard because, in allowing ourselves to be swept up in the excitement and suspense of the erotic thriller plot, have we, like Henrik, not given much thought to the fact that someone has died?

This kind of narrative sleight-of-hand is typical of One Of Those Things, as our sympathies for the two not-particularly-likable leads shifts from scene to scene. 

"Getting angry suits you. It's almost as if you were here."

THE STUFF OF DREAMS

The final image in the film turns out to be a succinct visual metaphor of all that came before: a character peers through the colored glass of a bottle and looks out at a distorted, hazy image of a world from which they are emotionally alienated. For a movie this visually undistinguished, One Of Those Things is fairly spot-on in cleverly enlisting the motifs of sight, vision, and perception to underscore its themes of moral relativity.

In one of the film's many instances of black comedy, several weeks after the accident, Henrik is forced to appear on television as a representative of his automobile company. His pathetic attempt to conceal his identity is so conspicuous it turns out to be precisely how Susanne is able to track him down.

"It's strange...there you were hiding in your dark glasses. All it did was make you
 look more like yourself than ever."

One of Those Things' central dramatic conflict confronts how the conspicuous ethics of those society views as persons of principle can be compromised (if not outright betrayed) when unobserved. These days it has become almost a social cliche to discover that the married, anti-gay legislator is a closet case with a male lover on the side, or the bible-thumping, "family values" politician to be a morally corrupt adulterer. But this doesn't mean we've grown any savvier in understanding human nature, nor does it explain why we so persistently cling to the false notion that anything which makes a human being valuable is something perceptible to the eye. 

Behind Closed Doors
When Susanne breaks out the party favors, Henrik's uptight neighbors 
(Ann Firbank & Frederick Jaeger) unleash their wanton side

PERFORMANCES

In speaking of One Of Those Things, director Erik Balling observed: “It did not really appeal to an American audience. It was too slow and too nice. It wore a grey suit and never went to the kind of extremes they’re used to over there. It came across a bit too serene.”  

Which, if indeed anybody in America actually got to see it, is a pretty accurate description of what might be viewed as the film’s limitations. I, for one, am grateful for the lack of boiling bunnies or butcher knife standoffs, for One Of Those Things is at its most persuasive when the camera simply captures the subtle interplay of emotions on the actors’ faces. 

Like so many others of my generation, I developed a crush on Judy Geeson when I saw her in To Sir, With Love. Since then I’ve enjoyed her work immensely over the years (10 Rillington Place), even when the material was far beneath her talent. Often categorized as the quintessential Swinging ‘60s British London dolly bird, she was nevertheless an actress who, as someone once astutely observed, “didn’t do ‘dumb’” and brought considerable intelligence and emotional heft to many an underwritten role.

Playing a role in One Of Those Things that is in many ways similar to the character she played in Three Into Two Won’t Go (in which we’re asked to endure the sci-fi absurdity of Geeson and the exquisite Claire Bloom squaring off over the pasty, dough-boy charms of Rod Steiger [Mr. Claire Bloom in real life]); Geeson gives a remarkably strong and nuanced performance, one of my all-time favorites of hers, in fact. She gets bonus points for making flesh-and-blood a character who, as written, needs to be enigmatic, but whose behavior too often crosses over into incomprehensible. 

Beyond his role in Milos Foreman's Amadeus, I'm less familiar than I should be with the work of the late Tony, BAFTA, and Grammy-winning Shakespearean actor Roy Dotrice, but if his performance here is any indication, I've been missing out on a lot. I'm astounded at the skill of an actor being able to mine the tortured humanity in such a complex and conflicted character, all the while conveying--very clearly-- the internal struggle of a Nowhere Man. The scenes he shares with Geeson are such forceful emotional jousting matches that I initially thought the film was adapted from a stage play. They make quite a tense, high-strung pair.  

Roy Dotrice is the father of actress Karen Dotrice, best known as Jane Banks in
Mary Poppins (1964)- here with Matthew Garber

THE STUFF OF FANTASY 

Someone once said that the human tendency to plan, organize and structure is but man’s way of dealing with the terrifying realization that a great many life-altering events occur by accident. These accidents are often neutral in nature, neither bad nor good, with nothing or no one at fault save for the fact that life has to be lived and life can’t be lived without error.

This theme flows like an undercurrent throughout One Of Those Things, and perhaps in the hands of a more inventive director it would have been applied in ways that enriched the storytelling and gave more depth to the characters.

One of the ways the film creates tension and establishes an atmosphere of uncertainty is through its visual style. Locations and camera angles establish a motif that subtly emphasizes risk and danger. People are forever sitting on narrow ledges, lingering near dangerous machinery, or, as pictured here, perched atop perilous heights. 

As it is, One Of Those Things is a structurally flawed film that nevertheless manages to effectively balance the story's curious mix of drama, black comedy, and suspense. An unusual example of forgotten ‘70s cinema, its a throwback melodrama whose period-specific details (hippies, drug use, The Beatles, and Geeson’s mini-skirted wardrobe) contemporary viewers should find engaging. 

While no unearthed classic, One Of Those Things is an atmospheric genre film that I hope one day gets a legitimate DVD release. 

BONUS MATERIAL

Roy Dotrice as the disapproving Leopold Mozart in Milos Forman's Amadeus (1984), 1985 Best Picture Academy Award winner.

Copyright © Ken Anderson   2009 - 2018