morrison-dylan-fan With having become keen in seeing more films by Pete Walker,thanks to his light hearted,sadly forgotten Sex Comedy Tiffany Jones,and also being very interested in catching a glimpse of Susan George for the very first time,I decided to go for a "2 for the price of 1" deal,by taking a look at a collaboration of their's,and finding out how Marianne is made to die screaming.The plot:Running away from her family villa in Portugal,due to gangster's being after her,who are desperate to get hold of bank account details that only she has been told about from her late mum,Marianne McDonald bumps into passing driver Sebastian Smith,who tells Marianne the he will make sure that she is safe,by taking McDonald to live with him in London.A few days/weeks later:Having spent a period of time attempting to build a connection between himself and Marianne,Sebastian gives McDonald the rather surprising news,that due to feeling a need of wanting to know that she will always be "safe",Smith has decided to arrange for both of them to get married to each other today!.Feeling anxious about Sebastian's "kind" offer,Marianne smartly uses the appearance of Smith's friend Eli Frome at the wedding as a way to ruin Sebastian's marriage plans,as McDonald begins to fear that the people who were set to do anything to get the bank account details out of her in Portugal are now getting closer to her than ever before.View on the film:For the first half an hour of the movie,screenwriter Murray Smith struggles to strike a cohesive balance with the (initially) underlying mystery-Thriller elements and the teen Drama-style sections of the movie,with the "wedding games" between Sebastian and Marianne feeling completely disconnected to the events that take place in the second half of the film.Happily,as Murray quickly makes a pretty thin excuse for the character's all to go to Portugal,the teen Drama elements are trimmed away, and replaced by the terrific mystery-Thriller section of the plot being wonderfully pushed right to the front,with Murray showing Marianne's terror to gradually increase,as McDonald begins to feel that she is getting pulled back into the web of death and double- crossing that Marianne desperately wants to escape from.Shooting the film in the stark Portugal sun light,director Pete Walker impressively uses the strongest parts in Murray Smith's likable screenplay to create the foundations for his future Horror work,with Walker showing a female character to be far deadlier and smarter than the male,and also uses the nickname of McDonal's dad ("The Judge") to show how members of the ruling elite want to use all of their powers to crush everyone underneath.Working closely with the fantastic editing of Tristam Cones,and a great,quick-thinking performance from the very pretty Susan George,Walker cleverly uses spilt-screens and whip pans to show the desperation of the character's to force out the bank account details from Marianne,and also does well in hiding the films low budget,by setting the ending around the ancient buildings of Portugal,that give the movie a tremendous,chilling atmosphere,as the dying screams of Marianne start to echo round the film.

alistairc_2000 This is part of the Pete Walker coffin box set. Also for some reason Media Blasters in the states have also released a stand alone copy recently. Perhaps they think that the customers in the US deeper pockets. The PlotA woman (Susan George) is hiding from a sinister character called the Judge. She is a go go girl as the sixties would have it or the the 21st century would say she is a tramp. Sleeping with the first bloke who comes along. This is a seedy look at early seventies London. Sue goes from the Portugal to London with the ugliest geezer ever. Apparantley she sleep with him for a bit then moves on to his pal and falls in love. The jilted rat boy goes back to Portuagal. He goes to see the judge and the judge wants Sue back as she has the number of a safety deposit box containing cash.If you have got this far you will realise that the this movie is not going to go down as my movie of the year. This movie has a limp plot which is really confusing. The characters are at no point do you believe in the characters. The only person I liked was the judge.This is not really a horror movie and as a thriller it is pretty limp. Easily the worst Walker film I have watched.

Scarecrow-88 Strange behavior is on the menu for this frustratingly slow-moving "thriller" about a Swiss bank account everyone needs the numbers to so that what's inside can be retrieved. Marianne(Susan George, dressed evocatively in skimpy outfits the entire film)is only one of two people who know it..the other, her mother, is dead. Marianne's father, The Judge(Leo Genn)needs notes that are scathing enough to possibly send him to jail. The film offers a distinct possibility of The Judge being the very one who murdered Marianne's mother. Hildegarde(Judy Huxtable)is slowly going mad and wants the cash within that bank account. It's her inner hatred for Marianne(she's papa's little girl)that drives her to find some way of getting those numbers to open it. Sebastian(Christopher Sandford)gets in the mix as he started a relationship(that didn't last because he bored Marianne)with Marianne..but we come to find out he had already been involved with Hildegarde once before. He will make a deal with the devil, Hildegarde, to bring Marianne, who had ran away from home out of fear for her life, back to The Judge so that brute force might extract those numbers from her mouth. The unfortunate victim in all this isn't Marianne as much as her lover, Eli(Barry Evans)who comes with her only to face possible danger not just from Hildegarde, but even from his own friend Sebastian. The obsession for the money is at the heart of the film which takes way too long to get going. What made me restless was the way the characters just didn't get on with it. We spend so much time watching them skirting the issue of THE important confrontation to get those numbers from Marianne's brain. I think Pete Walker wants to try and evade as much suspense as possible which hurts this film because I, for one, just didn't care for any of them enough. I think it comes down to George in the lead. She spends most of this film simply blank without a hint of expression. I wanted to beat out her thoughts into words myself so she can just say what she damn well feels. Hildegarde wants the money so bad enough it takes her damn well a long time to do anything. She tries manipulation using Sebastian as a means to snuff out the numbers, but shouldn't she know after such a length of Marianne's absence that wouldn't work? The film limply moves along at a turtle's pace and by the time any real action occurs I was so uninvolved to care.

Year2889 Somehow this film manages to be boring as hell even with the lovely Susan George all over it, and in her prime too.This disjointed relic from British Cinema's Bronze Age features George as a bonne viveuse who is keeping her distance from a dis-functional family which threaten to unravel her hopes of a normal romantic life, and all because she possesses within her mind the secret swiss bank account number which contains her inheritance, which will be entirely her's when she reaches the age of 21. Various losers try to get her to come across with the goods and they certainly take their time with it. And for some odd reason Maryanne tags along with their schemes right up till the last minute even though she knows who she's dealing with. It's kind of confusing.There is a cheesy song about Maryanne at the end, and the opening credits are rather dated, with Ms. George doing her best go-go dancer routine.