![]() ![]() ![]() Forbes has directed so that action and atmosphere blend in a flow of sensuous experience that has the eeriness and tension of a spell. Attenborough makes the husband a shamefully willing pawn to crime, yet a strangely courageous human being whose heart is torn by compassion and dread.What's more, Mr. Miss Stanley, the American actress, makes the woman a humble, cloying shrew-an insidiously diabolic creature, and yet a pitiful victim withal. ![]() To reveal it would ruin the film for you.The point to impress upon you is that the stars perform their roles with engrossing definition and sensitivity for the tormented characters at hand. But it is sufficiently established to compel our anguished sympathy for the two incredible kidnappers. As a matter of fact, the motiviation is not so clearly defined that it bears analysis or criticism on psychological grounds. And when that mystery is unraveled, it becomes the crux of the terminal poignancy.Of course, I'm not going to tell you what the key to the mystery is-why the woman, a brute to her husband, insists on kidnapping the child and why he, an apparent Mr. It is the mystery of these two people, she a medium and he her spouse, living in a gruesomely cluttered and shabby old suburban home, which becomes the predominant fascination and psychological study of the film. Forbes also wrote from what has been described as a superior parapsychological novel by Mark Shane. But that's the condition you may expect to be in after watching "Séance on a Wet Afternoon," a dandy British thriller with a heart-tug, which came to the Plaza yesterday.Although it embraces a topic that is exceedingly touchy for the screen (and, indeed, is discouraged in Hollywood pictures)-that is, the abduction of a child-it is so interlaced with a strain of pathos and is so exquisitely done, with the brilliant young Brian Forbes directing, that it is free of any exploitation taint.Furthermore, it is played so finely by Kim Stanley and Richard Attenborough as the middle-aged London suburban couple who audaciously kidnap the child that one's attention and, indeed, one's anxiety is centered more upon them than upon the kidnapped youngster, who is generally treated well.That is the intention of the screenplay, which Mr. IT isn't often you see a melodrama that sends you forth with a lump in your throat, as well as a set of muscles weary from being tensed for nigh two hours. ![]()
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