Four in the Morning

"Four in the Morning" was one of the key British kitchen-sink movies of the sixties and yet today it is virtually unknown and very little seen. It was basically a 'small' picture, (I first saw it on the bottom half of a double-bill with Peter Watkins' "The War Game", telling two stories, both involving young women, and set in London, (whereas most kitchen-sink films were set in the 'grim' North), unfolding over the course of one night. There is a third story of sorts, a kind of documentary in which the body of a young woman is taken from the Thames. Could this be one of the woman we've met in the other stories? The writer/director was Anthony Simmons who, despite living to the age of 93, had a very short career in cinema, (he moved onto television), and the women in question were Ann Lynn and a young Judi Dench who won a BAFTA as Most Promising Newcomer. It's a sad little film with no respite from the gloom and you wonder what audience Simmons had in mind, (when I first saw it there were only two of us in the cinema), and at times it's more in keeping with something made for television though personally I think it's more redolent of something Antonioni might have done, (there are moments when Ann Lynn is a dead ringer for Monica Vitti). Either way, it certainly didn't deserve its fate and it cries out to be seen.

I was born in london.1960. Escaped this toilet of a capital city in 1978.Lived in Scotland,Wales,Durham,Cardiff,Salonica and for the last 15 years Petersburg Russia.If I'd have stayed in London I would have died of boredom as this place is the pits as the film so accurately shows.

Very fine UK film, probably now most famous for being John Barry's first film score. At times rather languid, the dialogue is excellent and the performances effective. The London riverside shots are a real bonus as so much of the shoreline has changed so much and the docks all gone. Atmospheric and utterly English complete with a crying baby being given aspirin and drunk husband bringing mate home in the early hours and asking his wife if she fancies joining them for a drink. Although already a stage actress, I believe this was Judi Dench's first film and she does very well in a difficult role. The young would be lovers who take a speedboat for a spin are not so easy to believe in now what with her reluctance to have sex before he says that he loves her, but this was pre pill and exactly right for the time.

Strong performances and haunting visuals (such as the final shot of the Thames) paint an involving human drama. It's bleak, it's not fun, but it is a taut example of kitchen sink. A haunting early score by John Barry (Bond, Dances With Wolves) and a superb thespian performance by a young Judi Dench stand out.

Three well-acted vignettes of women not being treated particularly well. In the first, there is a woman discovered dead along the Thames and her body is subsequently moved about without a hint of compassion about what happened to her by any of the men that attend to her. In the second, a young mother struggles with her baby while her drunken husband is out making an ass of himself with his silly friend. In the third, a man pursues a woman with the singular objective of having an affair with her. The mood is bleak. The black and white filming, much of it along the Thames, is quite stark and beautiful and appropriate for the movie. The musical score is haunting. But the stories are a downer and certainly do not cast men in a very favorable light.