|
"These things just don't happen." "We're not in England now!" (The Lady Vanishes) A bicycling jaunt for two British lasses, one brunette and demure (Pamela Franklin) and the other blonde and hot to trot (Michele Dotrice). "Keep off the main road, see the real France," a row separates them in bucolic territory plagued by murder memories. The blonde disappears and the brunette investigates, a sexy-sinister drifter (Sandor Elès) darts in and out. One long afternoon, allies who might be culprits, "très trouble." A dense forest next to flat landscapes receives plenty of suggestive symbolism, damp undies and undeveloped celluloid strips dangling from tree branches. So Long at the Fair and Lewis Carroll figure in the noble English lineage, the whole thing could be the dream of the humid teenager who's fallen asleep sunbathing by the side of the track. "Aw c'mon, it's not that kind of a holiday." It falls to the heroine to turn the inquisitive gaze on the stalker's purring moped, the Mrs. Danversisms of the traveling literature teacher (Clare Kelly), the wheezing old salt (John Franklyn) who keeps tattered medals and a wobbly bayonet among his souvenirs de guerre. Brontëan frissons left and right, a little joke understood the next year by Truffaut (Deux Anglaises et le continent). As uncannily trim here as it is sardonically baroque in the Dr. Phibes films, Robert Fuest's technique is formidably attuned to the feminine anxiety that can emerge in vast, sunlit expanses as well as in a cramped, darkened closet. Much of the "loathsome business" goes into Fulci's Don't Torture a Duckling. With John Nettleton, Hana Maria Pravda, and Claude Bertrand.
--- Fernando F. Croce |