User Reviews

****SPOILERS***The love sick chain smoking and mentally unhinged Charlie Mullen, Jeremy Brett, has been stalking Tracey Lawrence, Anne Heywood, for months and finally got his chance to get her alone when her husband Geoffrey, Richard Todd,was out to work. That only for him ending up to get splashed in his face with a chemical mixture that Tracey mixed up for a neighbor, little Silina- played by 7 year old Verina Greenlaw- who fell and scraped herself, when he tried to attack and grab on to her. That not only resulted in Tracey going into shock but also losing her baby due to a miscarriage. With her husband Geoffrey and the police trying to apprehend the fleeing Mullen Tracey now loses all interest in men as well as her husband Geoffrey in him trying to comfort her in him reminding her of Mullens' attempted assault on her.

What also happened is that incredibly Tracey developed a feeling for her attacker that kept her from helping the police from capturing hi. That even when he was caught and she was told to identify him in a police line up which she refused to do. This not only freed Mullen but emboldened him to continue his stalking of her that lead to the films shocking final. That's when Mullen caught Tracey alone on a roof and almost childishly tried to make up for all the trouble her had caused her!

****SPOILERS**** Ahead of its time movie about a sexual predator that in fact shows his side, as crazy as it is, of the story. Mullen as we find out really didn't want to hurt or rape Tracey but just get to know and be friendly with her. The fact that she was married and he was unstable didn't come into the equation with him that lead to his tragic end. Not by the police or even Tracey, who's attempt to kill herself stopped Mullen dead in his tracks, but when knowing its all over Mullen took a flying leap that finally ended his obsession about her!

With all respect to another contributor's otherwise decent review, I would like to point out that this is certainly not a 'noir' picture. It is a straightforward modern (in 1963) drama/thriller. There are few dark shadows and there are not meant to be.

The setting is a newly built middle-class estate of which there are thousands like it in Britain. These kinds of estates usually have quite wide streets and the houses are often fairly widely spaced. The interior of the house is bright and airy. This does not give a gloomy noir type location and that is the whole point. The setting SHOULD be innocuous.

Neither are the main characters in the least bit noirish. The principle lady is not a femme fatale, she is an attractive housewife who is expecting a child and who is shown to be a kind auntie figure to the little neighbour girl.

The husband is not a figure of doom and destiny, he is a rather staid architect who only begins to look at his secretary after a long period of denial by his wife. The secretary, who by the way, COULD have been cast as a femme fatale, is an efficient but lonely divorcée played by an actress who is rather plain and certainly less attractive than the wife.

It is not the locations and characters that are meant to represent the darkness in this film; it is the male intruder who attacks the wife. As other reviewers have pointed out, this intruder is played with a convincing mixture of menace and vulnerability by a young Jeremy Brett.

As no other reviewer has touched upon it, I would like to mention a point that struck me, namely the odd performance by Jack Hedley in the role of the inspector who is brought in from the Yard to supervise the case. In the scene where he first appears, where he visits the couple, the camera rather lingers on his face and he seems to be having strange thoughts.

Perhaps the actor was merely trying to convey worry or hesitation about warning the couple that the attacker is a stalker whose only agenda is the wife but I can't help getting the feeling that the director wants us to see something more to it than that. This feeling is reinforced in the rooftop finale at the end of the movie.

After the husband has lifted his wife to safety, instead of ending with a conventional shot of the couple kissing or hugging, the director allows them to leave the shot and the last thing we see is the inspector picking up the wife's high-heeled shoes and holding them at his chest as he looks away into the distance and the frame contracts to black.

All in all, not a bad film, but one would have preferred another actor to Richard Todd, who seems to have been rather typecast in this sort of role, and the secretary could have been more alluring.

On a comical note, look out for a shot of the couple running along a beach in swimsuits in which the bodily proportions of Todd - big head, little body - are on rather unflattering show!