With having become keen in seeing more films by Pete Walker,thanks to his light hearted,sadly forgotten Sex Comedy Tiffany Jones,and also being very interested in catching a glimpse of Susan George for the very first time,I decided to go for a "2 for the price of 1" deal,by taking a look at a collaboration of their's,and finding out how Marianne is made to die screaming.
The plot:
Running away from her family villa in Portugal,due to gangster's being after her,who are desperate to get hold of bank account details that only she has been told about from her late mum,Marianne McDonald bumps into passing driver Sebastian Smith,who tells Marianne the he will make sure that she is safe,by taking McDonald to live with him in London.
A few days/weeks later:
Having spent a period of time attempting to build a connection between himself and Marianne,Sebastian gives McDonald the rather surprising news,that due to feeling a need of wanting to know that she will always be "safe",Smith has decided to arrange for both of them to get married to each other today!.
Feeling anxious about Sebastian's "kind" offer,Marianne smartly uses the appearance of Smith's friend Eli Frome at the wedding as a way to ruin Sebastian's marriage plans,as McDonald begins to fear that the people who were set to do anything to get the bank account details out of her in Portugal are now getting closer to her than ever before.
View on the film:
For the first half an hour of the movie,screenwriter Murray Smith struggles to strike a cohesive balance with the (initially) underlying mystery-Thriller elements and the teen Drama-style sections of the movie,with the "wedding games" between Sebastian and Marianne feeling completely disconnected to the events that take place in the second half of the film.
Happily,as Murray quickly makes a pretty thin excuse for the character's all to go to Portugal,the teen Drama elements are trimmed away, and replaced by the terrific mystery-Thriller section of the plot being wonderfully pushed right to the front,with Murray showing Marianne's terror to gradually increase,as McDonald begins to feel that she is getting pulled back into the web of death and double- crossing that Marianne desperately wants to escape from.
Shooting the film in the stark Portugal sun light,director Pete Walker impressively uses the strongest parts in Murray Smith's likable screenplay to create the foundations for his future Horror work,with Walker showing a female character to be far deadlier and smarter than the male,and also uses the nickname of McDonal's dad ("The Judge") to show how members of the ruling elite want to use all of their powers to crush everyone underneath.Working closely with the fantastic editing of Tristam Cones,and a great,quick-thinking performance from the very pretty Susan George,Walker cleverly uses spilt-screens and whip pans to show the desperation of the character's to force out the bank account details from Marianne,and also does well in hiding the films low budget,by setting the ending around the ancient buildings of Portugal,that give the movie a tremendous,chilling atmosphere,as the dying screams of Marianne start to echo round the film.
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