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What's with English cult actresses posing with boy scouts back in the day? |
Managed to finally check out Jim O'Connolly's circus-themed, proto-slasher, Berserk (1967) over the weekend. Overall conclusion was that Joan Crawford wearing a leotard was far more horrifiic than any of the gruesome deaths that occurred. However, it was worth enduring just to tick it off the list of ‘Judy Geeson films I have not seen’.
With a career stemming back to her childhood, Geeson really came to prominence when she starred alongside Sidney Poitier's teacher as the besotten student Pamela Dare, in the hit drama To Sir, With Love (1967). Her subsequent roles had her appearing in numerous genres which were popular at the time; ranging from spy adventures, sex comedies and horror thrillers. The latter category was where she really got to shine as an actress, as she got to flex some acting chops rather than appear as eye candy.
Thus, here are Dada Debaser's favourite Judy Geeson films:
10 Rillington Place (Richard Fleischer, 1971)
Richard Attenborough's weird shaped bald cap isn't enough to distract from this deeply disturbing and dark thriller based on real life, serial killer John Christie. Judy Geeson is the sympathetic young mother Beryl Evans, while a young John Hurt delivers one of his underappreciated performances as her simple-minded, hypochondriac husband. One of the G.O.A.T Britisih films, in my humble opinion.
On the lighter side, 10 Rillington Place might inadvertedly serve as a prequel to the politically incorrect British sitcom Love Thy Neighbour (1972 - 1976) as Rudolph Walker is the nameless new occupant moving into the house of horrors during the film's ending.
Fear in the Night (Jimmy Sangster, 1972)
Taking obvious inspiration from Henri-Georges Clouzot's Les Diaboliques (1955), along with Sangster the script gangster's earlier stories - Taste of Fear (1961) and Nightmare (1964), this is a pleasant throwback to the psychological thrillers Hammer had produced before they went all in on horror. Six months after an assault, Geeson is left traumatised and seeing a psychiatrist. She's attacked again aftter marrying her teacher hubby, Ralph Bates. The attacks continue even after moving in a house on school grounds in the remote countryside. Are the attacks mere figments of her imagination? The unreliable narrator is hardly a fresh concept, but Geeson's performance is a major highlight in keeping you guessing. Various twists and turns, along with the dread filled paranoia class Fear in the Night as a Hammer giallo. To round out the cast, the legendary Peter Cushing plays the creepy headmaster and Joan Collins in pre-Alexis mode as his shotgun wielding wife.
Both Judy Geeson and Joan Collins previously were in the spy thriller The Executioner (1970), which is a snoozefest despite George Peppard pretending to be a Brit in it.
A Candle for the Devil (Eugenio Martin, 1973)
Helmed by Spanish director Eugenio Martin, the film maker responsible for the classic Peter Cushing & Christipher Lee chiller Horror Express (1972), A Candle for the Devil is another high quality effort in Spain's horror canon. The clashing of liberal and conservative attitudes lead to numerous deaths and full bodied rioja inside a village hotel run by two puritanical and murderous sisters; Fawlty Towers it's not! Geeson is the heroine investigating the disappearance of her sister who might have lived to go on another summer holiday if she bothered keeping her kit on while sun-bathing.
Judy's actual sister, Sally Geeson, was in Carry On Abroad (1972), which makes for an interesting double bill with A Candle for the Devil on account of both film's reflecting the popularity of package holidays for Brits at the time. Both films, however, are radically different.
Other Notable Judy Geeson Films:
2 comments:
I've seen Plague Dogs and can confirm it's a real "I've got some dust in my eyes" movie.
That's what I was expecting.
Won't even flinch when some bloke gets his nuts crushed in a movie, but dogs in any kind of distress is a dealbreaker.
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