Hostesses to fortune... The World Ten Times Over (1963)

 

It’s a mystery to me why this film isn’t better known. It not only fits in with the early-sixties “kitchen sink” classics like The L-Shaped Room, Victim and A Taste of Honey, it also has Soho Film credentials with some atmospheric locations captured along with the nightclub culture of the time. The narrative is so well constructed and there are definitely traces of French new wave but also the work of Antonioni certainly in the ways it captures the communication dynamics between men and women especially in one sequence in which we alternate between June Ritchie’s character not connecting with boyfriend whilst Sylvia Syms’ similarly fails to touch her father’s empathy centre.

The performances are so committed too especially from Syms as Billa (Sybilla) whose rage at her father, also well observed by William Hartnell, is sometimes hard to watch. There’s no meeting of minds as Billa tries to reach out but Dad is too intellectual and analytical to let her in. His idea of a day out is a lecture in the evening – juvenile delinquency, he’s a teacher – with an afternoon of Coriolanus at the Old Vic, anything to avoid actually spending time with his daughter, alone with themselves. Even if this is verging on cliché, Bill and Sylvia make it work really well, his still waters running so deep it takes her almost the entire film to get a rise out of him. Both as stubborn as each other and set in their rut only that’s not going to work as Billa has reached a crisis…

June Ritchie is not impressed.

June Ritchie I also find very compelling as Billa’s flat and workmate Ginnie, a young woman of restless energy who still hasn’t established her full sense of self. She’s impulsive, stubborn and unwilling to conform. Her boyfriend, Bob Shelbourne is played by Edward Judd who might be the only one slightly miscast as a spoilt and uncertain “mid-30s” nepo-baby, working in a senior position for his overpowering father, (Francis de Wolff) who controls his private life as much as his work having “arranged” his marriage to the prim Elizabeth (Sarah Lawson). Judd is indeed a little mature and rugged to play this naïve role and sometimes we don’t quite believe his motivations in risking everything for a 22-year-old “hostess”.

Ah, now there’s a word and it is, like other elements in the film, “coded”. Both women work in a nightclub as hostesses who are paid to drink and entertain the gentlemen who go there. There’s music and a compère played by Davy Kaye and lost of mostly middle-aged men eating and drinking with bored younger women… it’s not quite a “clip-joint” but the inference is certainly there that companionship can be bought and extended to a hotel or other external venue…

Written and directed by Wolf Rilla, perhaps best known for Village of the Damned (1960) an adaptation of John Wyndham’s classic sci-fi novel The Midwich Cuckoos (1957), the film is probably the earliest example of a lesbian relationship in British film although the coding is fairly deep on this one. Talking years later, Syms said she went as farm as she could to emphasise the love Billa has for Ginnie for as far as she was concerned that was what this was. There had been films with homosexual overtones before, Syms was in one of them, Victim with Dirk Bogarde, but as with the Victorian law banning only male same-sex relationships, women’s sexual attraction to women was largely ignored in this country.

Dignity Mr Judd, dignity...

Both women are let down by their men, and professionally, Bila, seems contemptuous of her clients. Ginnie is more easy going and she seems to be prepared to play along with her rich man although perhaps she is conflicted by her ultimate lack of feeling for him. She’s coasting along on the surface of sincerity and kicking back especially when Bob takes her to his father’s office for a “discussion” about finding her work so their relationship is more acceptable. Father is not impressed and suggests a role as a kind of business version of a hostess whilst the secretaries muse on her transactional relationship with their bosses’ son.

Dusty Verdict: Rilla directs at a pace as the events essentially take place over a day as confrontations are made unavoidable by one of the hazards of Bila’s trade and Bob’s determination to free himself from trophy wife and father’s money. It’s an unsettling ride with some lovely moments always undercut by the unspoken details of the women’s’ life and the harsh realities they face: what has driven them to this point we can only imagine and how can they go forward if only with each other?

Great job Bill!

Filmed on location in Maida Vale – their flat is over a shop on a smart Victorian Street, not cheap even then, and the surrounds over to Wyndham Place, elsewhere in Marylebone as well as Soho after dark – The World Ten Times Over does have a grittiness you won’t often find and its unrelenting narrative leaves you in no doubt that the women have harder choices to make.

There’s a surprise cameo from a very young Donald Sutherland as a club patron and also from a dour John Junkin playing a morose drinker in a Soho pub as Dad considers his daughter’s chosen profession. Junkin’s character bemoans the state of the nation in ways that feel very modern… next round’s on me John!

Sylvia chooses the score from All Night Long! Good choice!