Mind craft… The Third Secret (1964)

Let’s get this out the way from the start: the First Secret you keep from others, the Second Secret you keep from yourself, and the Third Secret is the truth. This applies to the everyday as much as the narrative in this smart psychodrama directed by the venerable Charles Crichton and starring Hollywood’s favourite Ulsterman, Stephen Boyd and the precocious Pamela Franklin – just 14 at the time of filming but carrying so much old emotion; a remarkable performance.

The film has elevated production values, with some glorious shots of the Thames side near Kew at Strand-on-the-Green where a lot of the action happens although when I say “action” I mean deep pondering set against the wide-grey waters and a poignant monochrome sky… Boyd is adept a brooding and carries an energy that suggests he is not only capable of dynamic action but also destruction and this much we see in one sequence where he trashes an apartment, accidentally making a small cut on the face of his young friend, Catherine.

Pamela Franklin and Stephen Boyd

The girl herself is fascinating as an actress and a character; not many teenagers could pull of the emotional conflictions she does and create the impression of violent damage as well as something deeply hidden… the “third secret” is one you can hold from yourself.

Catherine’s father, prominent London psychoanalyst Dr. Leo Whitset, is discovered fatally injured from a gunshot wound and as he dies, he whispers, "Blame no one but me." It looks like suicide and the coroner agrees but his closest patients tend to disagree. Boyd plays Alex Stedman, an investigative TV reporter haunted by demons and drink but still driven by a need to seek the truth. Catherine and he share a bond and she turns up at the studios to plead for his help in investigating what she is convinced is murder.

Stephen Boyd and Nigel Davenport

For a dynamic reporter, Alex certainly has a lot of self-doubt but I guess that’s why he was seeing Dr Whitset, but his need to restore his friend’s reputation is almost as important as the need to find his killer. Chief suspects look to be anyone of the Professors’ regular customers which just so happen to include Alex…

Aside from the angry, unpredictable journalist, there’s Alfred Price-Gorham (Richard Attenborough) who runs an elite art gallery, Sir Frederick Belline (the great Jack Hawkins) a high-level judge and Anne Tanner (Diane Cilento) a nervous secretary completely lacking in self confidence or resilience…The suspects are all impressive enough and what’s interesting is Alex flawed approach in investigating them. He’s no Sherlock Holmes even though he’s smart, solving the riddles that Catherine keeps on chalking on the walls of bankside near her home.

Richard Attenborough

At Price-Gorham’s gallery, Alex strikes up an encouraging conversation with his PA, Miss Humphries (Judi Dench in her first big screen role, before co-starring in the following year’s Four in the Morning). Her boss is a frustrated artist and trying to sneak his own work amongst the more established artists on show. Alex decides he’s an unlikely suspect based on his fear of elderly and opinionated customers… but you never know, he was working on a portrait of the professor.

Next Alex takes his “professional” interest in the case far too far in a one-night stand with the very vulnerable Anne Tanner (Diane Cilento) … it doesn’t end well and, as with his first interview leads us no closer to the chief suspect. It serves to show how “vulnerable” Alex is and how, if anything, he’s just another one of the four main characters who has lost their therapist.

Diane Cilento and Mr Boyd

The same is true of his eventual meeting with Sir Frederick who, whilst he undoubtedly has many things to hide, is not about to break down and deliver.

All of which leads us back to the Thames and the word games and pensive silences between Alex and Catherine… she in search of a father figure and he, possibly even unsure whether he’s a suspect. It’s a film that undermines the traditional string male lead and, whilst it meanders, leads us all down a false trail on purpose.

Dusty verdict: The Third Secret is well directed by Charles Crichton with some subtly stunning cinematography from Douglas Slocombe; if it feels less than the sum of its parts that’s possibly because there’s not enough meat in the character’s motivations outside of their internal crises. It’s perhaps too introverted for its own good.

The denouement is dramatic and might catch the unwary… it leaves a feeling of unease, something that could have been more prevalent earlier for despite itself, the film doesn’t have enough suspense or action.

Young Judi

That said, the acting is superb and none more so than from Pamela Franklin. There’s also a good supporting cast including Rachel Kempson, Peter Sallis and the ever-superb Nigel Davenport as Alex’s boss! Well worth seeking out now that it’s on Blu-ray.

Timecapsule... The Squeeze (1977)

When I bunked off school to go watch The Squeeze in the Liverpool Odeon, it seemed like there were very few decent films being made in the UK.

There was plenty on television but the Brits seemed to have given up on cinema apart from a steady stream of sex comedies, farces and the odd James Bond. Indeed, 1977 saw the release of such classics as Come Play With Me, Confessions from a Holiday Camp and erm, Wombling Free.

Stephen Boyd and David Hemmings

But the year also saw a handful of more serious dramas of which The Squeeze was one of the more entertaining. I still don’t know quite where this film came from: sandwiched between Get Carter and The Long Good Friday it’s not at their level but it has style and substance that the slew of noughties flat-pack crime-capers mostly lack.

Directed by Michael Apted, who later in his distinguished career went on to mix Bond with Narnia, it features Stacy Keach as Jim Naboth, an alcoholic former policeman who, life in a mess, gets sucked into the kidnapping of his ex-wife Jill (Carol White).

Carol White

Keach’s performance is particularly committed and actually uncomfortable to watch in parts. You keep on anticipating the moment when the drunk sobers up and resolves to recover but – perhaps realistically – the character is not that cut and dried (out).

At the film’s start he is drunk and incapable, falling head first down a long wooden tube escalator. He ends up in hospital where they try to dry him out and to use aversion therapy to help keep him off the sauce: the NHS eh?

He returns home to find his two boys being looked after by the social services… better sober up surely?

Edward Fox and Stacy Keach

His ex’s new husband Forman (Edward Fox) crashes into his house and reveals that Jill has been taken along with their daughter. Forman runs a security firm and the kidnappers, are intent on blackmailing him to help them in stealing from his own firm. Nowhere left to turn – he can’t go to the Police – Jim’s the only person left who he can trust. The longest of long shots.

David Hemmings – just over a decade on from Blow Up – plays Keith, the gang’s amoral and mercurial leader: easy-going familiarity hiding a ruthless commitment.  His backer is the more overtly aggressive Vic played with menace by Stephen Boyd.

Stacy Keach and Hilary Gasson

As in so many similar tales of lawmen on the edge, Jim is irresistible to women and pursues a relationship with the lovely nurse who helped him recover (Hilary Gasson). They are constantly being interrupted by Jim’s mate Teddy (a decent turn from comedian Freddie Starr) who wants to look after him after the former cop helped keep him on the straight and narrow...the odd bit of shoplifting excluded.

Hilary Gasson

Whilst these are all so easily clichéd characters, Apted keeps The Squeeze rough, ready and unpredictable. The kidnappers kill the Forman’s dog and for anxious seconds he thinks that it’s their daughter. It’s clear that there will be blood… but we don’t know who or how much until the very end.

There are tense moments as Jim and Teddy search an abandoned factory for the daughter whilst Jill is forced into an humiliating strip for the gang. White is typically brave here and this sequence is hard to watch – she’s a great improvisational actor here forced into a desperate act of self-preservation.

Whilst Jill is in hell, the suspense is ramped up by Jim’s seeming inability to straighten himself out. He bounces around from inspiration to frustration and invariably ends up with a drink in his hand.

Stephen Boyd

Caught breaking into Vic’s house he spins a quick line about working with the tax office before being made to drink a bottle of scotch and being kicked out with no clothes or dignity.  Keach doesn’t hold back even if his diction is occasionally challenging.

Keith blackmails Forman into killing Jim but he can’t go through with it. Jim works out a plan and tells Forman to spin the lie that he followed through. This allows Jim to go undercover… he’s got a plan or is he just going to get drunk yet again?

The Squeeze is fast-paced and realistically restrained – it doesn’t step over the mark of believability with its characters acting in flawed and believable ways throughout.

The Ford Zodiac 

It also offers some lovely, grimy views of unkempt late 70s London especially as Teddy’s gently rusted, grey Ford Zodiac prowls the streets. There’s a short section in the Notting Hill Carnival and some precious glimpses of posters advertising gigs for the Ohio Players and Uriah Heep. Then there’s the pubs… when did our public houses stop looking so shabbily welcoming?!

Freddie Starr and Stacy Keach in a proper pub

The hard-edged synthesised soundtrack from Genesis’ producer, David Henschel, impressed us all as schoolboys and impresses now… a precursor to Francis Monkman’s superb score for The Long Good Friday. It’s also supplemented by some period colour from the likes of the Doobie Brothers and – bizarrely – Jon Anderson, who’s Olias of Sunhillow plays on in the background of a massage parlour… not quite what the singer had in mind for his space-faring solo album.

Dusty verdict: well worth watching on DVD and if you want to remember just a bit about what the 1970s actually looked and felt like.

Commer van meets Morris Minor: 70s car porn

Some of these bands are still touring...

70s skyline