Deep in the recesses of time, lodged on the cracks between recognised classics, lurk movies that you’ve never heard of that are legitimately phenomenal. How such great films manage to slip between the raindrops of public consciousness when they should be hailed as genuine masterpieces is always somewhat alarming; but I have to say, stumbling upon one by accident is akin to stepping on a landmine comprised of pure joy. Thus, on a bright, sunny evening, I settled down to watch bleak, British thriller, Séance On A Wet Afternoon to find an absolute firecracker of a movie.
Starring a perpetually anxious looking Richard Attenborough and a powerhouse performance by theatre actress Kim Stanley (who scored herself an Oscar nomination), Bryan Forbes delivers a tragic tale that feels like a very special episode of Keeping Up Appearances that has been brought to us by the most cruel, spiteful, Hitchcockian urges imaginable.
During the weather and time of day so neatly described in the title, we’re introduced to Myra and Billy Savage, a married couple who have been going through the emotional wringer of late. A medium by trade, Myra’s slowly been drifting more and more into a fantasy land, insisting that her gift is real and it needs to be shared to the world despite the fact that her beliefs are being warped by a spot of unresolved, personal trauma. Clinging on by his fingertips is her devoted husband Billy who is unable to work due to his asthma, but is fully under the thumb of his domineering spouse as he meekly bends to her will no matter how strange she seems to get.
However, his love will be sorely tested when Myra comes up with an alarming plan to bolster their flagging fortunes and announce her psychic powers to the world at large. The plan is that they kidnap the wealthy daughter of a wealthy couple and hold her to ransom for the sum of £25,000 (it is 1964, remember) and once they’ve gotten hold of the cash, Myra would approach the beleaguered family and use her “talents” to locate both the missing child and the hidden money. With her newfound fame bringing in more business, both Myra and Billy would be set, and while the former refers to the act of abduction as “borrowing” the child, poor old, loyal Billy goes along with her plan despite looking about as comfortable with it all as a kitten getting yelled at.
But as they go through with their plan and try to gaslight their young victim into thinking that her disguised prison is merely a hospital room, the screws begin to tighten. The more successful the plan goes, the more divorced from reality Myra becomes, and before you know it, she’s trying to alter the details with potentially horrifying ramifications. As the pressure on Billy increases to that of a small moon pushing down on his slight shoulders, he realises the woman he loves no longer has the ability to think rationally and he’s trapped in a nightmare scenario with no way out.
If nothing else, Séance On A Wet Afternoon affirms just how hardcore films from a bygone era could get, without resorting to crass tricks to pull it off. While we still get those clipped tones and the illusion of good manners and reserved personalities, the very fact that a lot of the film’s bleaker themes are fiercely internalised means that they seem far more horrible. Besides, there isn’t a dialogue scene in the world that can portray the heart-rending bind that Attenborough’s Billy finds himself in the middle of better than the constantly pained look etched upon his long suffering face. While director Bryan Forbes (who went on to helm the 1975 version of The Stepford Wives) dutifully keeps things visually arresting with tense framing and smoky ambience, he’s also wise to get the hell out of the way and let his actors weave one of the most tragic couplings in movie history.
To really get the true power of how damaged these two individuals are, we’re going to have to go into spoiler territory, primarily because the script drip feeds us information gradually to really heighten the shocks and twists as they go. When the film starts, we know that the couple are still plenty raw after the passing of someone named Arthur who presumably was their son. But while Myra claims that she had a close relationship with him (far closer than Billy, she likes to point out), by the end of the film it’s revealed that Arthur was actually stillborn and Myra’s insistance that she’s a medium is only a lie she’s told herself to disassociate from the pain. As the controlling Myra henpecks her dutiful husband into passive/aggressive submission, Kim Stanley proves to be something of a titan as she delivers a portrayal of an utterly shattered woman who has managed to keep going due to the replacement of her missing pieces with complete and all-consuming flights of fancy. While it would have been easy for her to play Myra as a deranged, nagging harridan, Stanley instead goes subtle, taking little chips at her on-screen husband to maneuver him where she wants and acting utterly rational when suggesting truly ungodly ideas.
Too late, Billy realises just how far gone his wife is, but he’s still so utterly devoted to her, he follows her even further down the path of ruin even when he knows disaster is inevitable. Watching a supremely nervous Attenborough have an utter conniption every time a bump occurs in their plot proves to be every bit as exciting as a car chase or a fight sequence, and the level of control the actor has over his pained face is nothing short of hypnotic. In fact, the claustrophobic air of pathetic desperation hangs over the entire plan. Billy putters to and from the kidnapping in the faintly ludicrous sight of a motorcycle and sidecar and Myra’s visit to the frantic Claydons to offer her services reeks to high heaven of cloying neediness.
However, while the film remains unrelentingly bleak, I do kind of wish it had kept that harsh resolve right to the bitter end and the tiny bit of light at the end of the tunnel sits somewhat awkwardly with how heavy the tone has gotten. But that doesn’t stop the final denouement from being a deeply tragic and sad affair – is it a straight confession, or is it merely facts blurted out at the wrong time thanks to yet another lapse of reason? That’s for you to figure out – but watching a insignificant, everyday couple go into such a stomach churning free fall makes you wonder why the hell this grim little movie isn’t more well known.
Bolstered by two, genuinely remarkable performances, Séance On A Wet Afternoon manages to do the impossible by keeping you on the edge of your seat by mostly being incredibly subtle. Yes, the histrionics do come, but they’re only the fireworks after the tension of the touchpaper being lit slowly and inexorably directs us to disaster. If the film had stayed on its course and not given us the tiny ray of hope by the end, it would be utterly flawless; but make no mistake, this film is a magnificent experience that probably would actually requires the services of a medium to seek it out.
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