RAPTURE, 1965. This long forgotten ‘60s drama – we never got
much of a chance to see it at the time - has re-surfaced to some great reviews, on its Eureka
dual-format dvd+blu-ray release, along with
20 page booklet, but I wouldn’t quite rate it a missing masterpiece. It seems it had a brief run here in London in 1967, which must have passed me by, though I remember "Films & Filming" magazine had a location report and photographs on it, back in 1965.
One of those marvellous 20th Century Fox
Cinemascope productions this one has stunning black and white photography, and
is directed by John Guillermin, scripted by Stanley Mann with an atmospheric
score by Georges Delerue. It feels almost like a French film in English, set as
it is on that wild Brittany
coast. Cue lots of waves crashing on rocks and desolate landscapes as we get to
know Agnes (Patricia Gozzi) who lives in that rambling farmhouse with her
remote, strict father Melvyn Douglas, a retired judge, and their housekeeper
Karen – Swedish actress Gunnel Lindblom. Is Agnes just a lonely child, with a
fantasy world of her own, or perhaps retarded? She does not seem to go to
school or have friends. We first see them at the wedding of her older sister.
It’s a coming of age story, as we share the Gothic world of this troubled
teenage girl. She is finally allowed to
create a scarecrow for the garden, with one of her father’s old suits, and this
becomes another fantasy figure for her.
Enter man on the run Dean Stockwell as Joseph who escapes
from police custody, who takes the scarecrow’s clothes and he becomes her new
fantasy figure, she feels she created him …. He and Karen though get intimate to Agnes’ fury, causing Karen
to leave after Agnes almost kills her, and finally he and Agnes also leave and end up in a noisy and busy Paris, which she cannot cope with ….
The earlier moment where the impatient father throws her
doll over the cliff and it lies broken on the rocks is repeated at the end as
the police close in on Joseph. The
moments of rapture are mainly at the start, particularly those overhead shots
looking down on Agnes on the beach, from the perspective of those seagulls.
Guillermin had done nothing like this before, he of course went on to THE
TOWERING INFERNO and DEATH ON THE NILE among others, I like his 1959 sweaty,
sadistic TARZAN’S GREATEST ADVENTURE. Its fascinating seeing the attractive
Lindblom in an English-speaking role, she is surely the most earthy and sensual
of the Ingmar Bergman actresses (THE SILENCE, THE SEVENTH SEAL) though Ullmann
and Thulin got all the kudos …
1930s leading man Melvyn Douglas returned to movies in his
old age with roles in BLLY BUDD, HUD, and more, he is equally used here, while child
actor Dean Stockwell after roles in COMPULSION, SONS AND LOVERS, LONG DAYS
JOURNEY INTO NIGHT essays another complex young man, he often seems an odd mix
of James Dean and Monty Clift. We later got used to the older Stockwell in TWIN
PEAKS and the like as the busy
actor keeps working. The astonishing performance here is from Patricia Gozzi, (the
equal of the young Jean-Pierre Leaud in THE 400 BLOWS).
I have not seen her
first acclaimed role, for Serge Bourguinon in 1962’s SUNDAYS AND CYBELLE (one I
missed from that great year), she is certainly compelling here and would surely
have been one of the main actresses of her time, had she not retired from
acting. So in all, it is a fascinating discovery now, even if the plot
melodramatics get rather tedious before the end. There are echoes of WHISTLE
DOWN THE WIND another lyrical film of children aiding a man on the run, and
even HUD where Douglas was also that strict father with
an attractive housekeeper who also ups and leaves. With Sylvia Kay, Peter Sallis, Christopher Sandford, Leslie Sands.
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