Pressure Point

Bobby Darin has earned my utmost respect.

I've heard "Mack the Knife" and other snappy songs by him, but I only recently realized that he was an actor as well. I'll admit that this was not a rented movie or something I sought out, just one that I caught from the classic channel, but it was from beginning to end, no commercials or cuts and I cannot express how much admiration I have for Bobby Darin. He came from a weird life (a life only Jack Nicholson could relate to) and add to that a disease that shortened it, but Bobby Darin made his time around one to be remembered. This man's performance in 'Pressure Point' stunned me.

Darin plays a man who's childhood was not one to be envious of. This man's life became even less envious, because the story takes place inside a prison where he is a convict. Sidney Poitier plays the prisons psychiatrist and Darin is sent to him because he cannot sleep due to anxiety. Poitier's character has a hard time with Darin's due to the fact that he is extremely racist (a Nazi even) and is continually treating Poitier as though he understands how he feels is wrong but doesn't care (that is the attitude that I got from it). That he knows everything he feels is based on a lie but he simply does not care...it allows him to be violent and hateful and that is why he does what he does. It's pretty scary and even though sometime you think, "goodness, I hate that sometimes what Darin's character is saying makes a little sense, what in the world is Poitier going to say to that?", that's when the doctor sets him straight.

I am a pretty emotional person and this movie really knows how to pull at them, even for an older movie, it has its 'I can't believe he said that' moments, but it was very impressive for Bobby and Sidney to do a movie with such a point, when others at the time were doing such cheesy things.

Reflecting back on another case during the days of World War II, psychiatrist Sidney Poitier is telling colleague Peter Falk not to give up on a case he has with racial differences between him and the patient in Pressure Point. Science and the doctor's obligation to render assistance cancel all things out.

Twenty years back from the Civil Rights era, at its height when Pressure Point was made, back to World War II Poitier is a prison psychiatrist who gets one bad patient. It's Bobby Darin who had never been seen like this on film, as a racist punk who belongs to the German American Bund. Although Darin and his band of thugs have done some really violent crimes, some of which we see in flashback, it's for sedition that he's been arrested.

Still a recurring nightmare brings him to the couch in Poitier's office and the two of them develop a curious relationship. Darin pushes all of Poitier's buttons, in fact he's a pretty loathsome type. Curing his nightmares will not necessarily make him one that will socially adjust back in society.

Film Historians have called Poitier things like Saint Sidney for the heroic good roles he played back in the day as the first black leading man in mainstream films. He might just have qualified for it here, even more than in his film debut No Way Out dealing with another racist criminal Richard Widmark, that time as a medical doctor.

It was Darin who showed the acting chops here that were never displayed before. He was nominated for his performance as a Best Supporting Actor in Captain Newman, MD., personally I think this is his best screen work.

Pressure Point is a two person work, the rest of the cast merely serves as background figures. I'm wondering though why someone like Peter Falk consented to a role that's confined to two scenes at the beginning and the end with no real opportunity for him to display his talents. Still for fans of Poitier or Darin or both this is a chance to see them both at their best.

I don't know why this film is virtually unknown. For its time it must have been very controversial and even today it still packs a wallop of a punch. But I am as equally impressed by the style of this film as I am with the performances and the screenplay. Fans of THE TWILIGHT ZONE will feel right at home with the stark B&W stylization of the dream sequences and the childhood flashbacks. Yet like any great film, it doesn't let its style overwhelm the viewer. It simply acts as a springboard from which it can stun the viewer with the emotional impact of the story. It takes a lot to shock me, yet the flashbacks of the patient's childhood (especially one terrifying scene in a meat hanger that reminded me of the father-son relationship in PEEPING TOM) chilled me with its honest portrayal of childhood terror and helplessness. The other aspect of this film that intrigued me was the whole analytical forum of intellectual cat-and-mouse between patient and doctor. Realistically, an adult black man in the 1940s would have built up a shield to fend off the kinds of brutal statements made by his patient. But the patient's high intelligence throws Poitier off guard. He makes Poitier confront the injustices and indignities present in the country that he is so vigorously defending, thus he makes him confront his own anger and contempt. He makes Poitier an ally in anger, and that would throw anyone off balance. I also want to congratulate the film for its honest portrayals of terror and humiliation. An abusive game of tic-tac-toe in the hands of another director and actor would have come off as silly, but here it is startling and chilling. I don't know why Bobby Darin didn't continue his career with more dramatic performances like this but I'm grateful that this one is out there on video. It's one of the best performances that I've seen by an actor in anything!

I wish that Hubert Cornfield, this film's director, had directed more films. I have seen this one and three others ("Plunder Road", "Lure of the Swamp" and "Night of the Following Day") and they all bear the stamp of a unique and very idiosyncratic vision. The flashback scenes of Bobby Darin's character in this film are truly unique and often quite disturbing, recalling Bunuel and Cocteau in their oneiric intensity. Definitely worth checking out if you are into offbeat and skewed cinema.

... in this case a conversation between two men, extended over time.

This film is actually flashbacks in a flashback, but it works and is not confusing. It starts with a young psychiatrist (Peter Falk) charging into his boss' office (Sidney Poitier) and saying he cannot successfully treat the patient he has because the patient is black and hates him because he is white. Poitier responds by telling him that he really knows how he feels and tells the tale of how, in 1942, as a young psychiatrist, he treated an American Nazi (Bobby Darin) in a prison hospital who looked down on him because he was black.

Bobby Darin's character has been unable to sleep and has been passing out. The doctor probes into his past and finds the usual tropes of the abusive drunken dad and enabling mother who deals with the situation by becoming a hypochondriac. Darin's character grows up to be an abusive violent person himself, ultimately finding himself in the American Nazi party. Poitier's character correctly mentions that millions of people must have come from situations as bad as his patient, but have managed to conduct themselves without violent actions or delusions. I would mention the actual names of the characters, but the film simply calls the characters - Doctor, Patient, Jewish Girl, etc.

I won't say much more because I don't want to give away anything. This works because of the great dialogue and performances. Bobby Darin didn't make very many movies because of his short life, but this is a great chilling performance. Sidney Poitier gave many great performances in his long career, so I think this one is probably under appreciated because of that. Let me also mention the person who plays Darin's character as a child - Barry Gordon. He let's the viewer feel the loneliness and powerlessness of the character as a child, leading him to have a total lack of empathy as an adult.