Four in the Morning

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.

Made in 1965 by Anthony Simmons at the tail-end of the British 'Kitchen Sink' period, this existential mystery contains some beautifully noir camera-work and features Judi Dench looking cute despite the rather sordid scenario, before she abandoned the cinema for theatre. Her part, of wronged wife and central mystery figure, did not necessarily call for a great deal of heavily emotional acting, but she put that over clearly in just two or three lines, in one scene. Joe Melia also does a fine bit of sub-Shakespearean clowning. This is by no means the only film Simmons directed, and it's about time it was brought up from the vaults along with whatever else can be found in one piece; in fact, it's about time for a Kitchen Sink Revival.

"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.

This movie belongs to the social dramas that emerge in the UK film industry during the early sixties, some kind of Ken Loach before his time. Directors such Lindsay Anderson, Karel Reisz, Tony Richardson, Bryan Forbes, John Schlesinger were the main providers of such movies showing the British way of life for the common people, certainly not the Lords' one. This movie is excellent, the script awesome, acting flawless, and Judi Dench long before her role in 007 films till SKYFALL. So this British drama is brilliant, so smartly edited, built around this corpse found in the river.... It is riveting, never boring despite the many talks.

This was a film that I was interested to see having had the John Barry theme music in my record collection for over 50 years. My guess is that this was a totally improvised script and very stagey. Also three of the characters use their real names! I can't imagine it was seen by very many people on its initial release. The sort of film likely to appeal to the Art House crowd. And, contrary to a couple of the other reviewers, this was not John Barry's first film theme or Judi Dench's first film performance!