Four in the Morning

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!

This is a film that I felt really belonged on the stage. It centres around a married couple with a baby and a courting couple. The former - Norman Rodway and Judi Dench are unhappy. She is fed up with being stuck at home all the time with their teething child while he continues to live as if he were a bachelor. The latter - Ann Lynn and Brian Phelan are enjoying the mutual discovery process whilst uncertain as to what the future might bring, if anything at all, to their relationship. Meantime, we know that the police have pulled the body of a young woman from the river Thames. Who might she be? Might she be connected with one of our quartet? Now on the plus side, Judi Dench does deliver convincingly as the frustrated woman struggling with early motherhood whilst her man is off galavanting, and there is also a calming John Barry score to help things along. Aside from that and a few scenes of intensity, though, the rest of this rather meanders along showing us people who are neither interesting nor likeable and there is a surfeit of fairly pointless dialogue that presumes, riskily, that the audience might actually care whether they get/stay together or not. That's where the theatre might have helped it. The closed confines of a more rigid stage might have intensified the potency of the messages - for messages there are, but here these are very much of the sexual stereotype fashion that fall into rather than break any moulds in British film-making. It's an almost documentary style observation of their lives that at times breathes vigorously but for the most part it just drags. Sorry.

One relationship, young and passionate but uncertain; another, well established but distinctly troubled; and somewhere between them, a dead body. The dynamics between characters in each thread are rich and absorbing, with those between the wife and husband (and his friend) being especially fierce, and the themes to emerge are stark and outright painful. It takes a while for that tension and value to start to shine through, and longer still to start to gain a sense as a viewer of what filmmaker Anthony Simmons has woven together. The patient viewer will be greatly rewarded, however, and in the meantime Simmons' shot composition and Larry Pizer's black and white cinematography are increasingly bewitching - and what can one ever say of John Barry except that his music is consistently exceptional? 'Four in the morning' is a long walk of a movie, and more than not a quietly ruminative one despite the heightened emotions or raised voices, but for those prepared to engage with such titles, it's superb and well worth seeking out.

So splendid is the work of Pizer, and Simmons as director, that I'm somewhat aghast their names aren't more readily known to me. Simmons' screenplay is just as sharp, a barbed examination of two very vibrant, vexed pairings. The characters are terribly complicated, the dialogue is ferocious, and the scene writing is altogether explosive whatever the precise tone being struck - with the end result of an overarching story that's softly haunting. And of course this is lent still more power by the cast, each and every one of whom gives a performance of staggering potency. Of course it's worth observing that Dame Judi Dench, that titan of British cinema, appears here in what is only her second film role, and she was just as brilliant an actor at 31 as she has been in her 70s and 80s. She is joined in that excellence by Ann Lynn, Norman Rodway, Brian Phelan, and Joe Melia - names I can't say I'm familiar with, but simply after watching this, I wish I were.

I'm not sure that Simmons' vision is tied together with perfect fidelity or cohesion; the third element is kind of up in the air, waiting for each viewer to grab and use it as they will. Even at that, however, this is otherwise so well made, written, and acted that I can forgive the more loftily abstruse edge. One way or another, however you look at it 'Four in the morning' is a compelling, satisfying drama, one that handily joins the company of many of its contemporaries and forebears. Usually I'm prone to speaking at far greater length about the movies I watch, but I just don't think there's any need in this case. If you have the chance to watch, it's well worth 90 minutes of your time.

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.

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.