Someone Behind the Door

A man is brought to a hospital with a severe case of amnesia and neurosurgeon Laurence Jeffries takes it upon himself to help out the patient. He dismisses it as intoxication, and pretends to take him to the station. However he brings him back to his home, but the motivation for this is unclear, and everything he's doing to supposedly treat him is done in secrecy. The identity of the stranger is becoming clearer, but so are the doctor's true intentions as he begins to manipulate the situation.

Confined, low-key low-budget French/Italian psychological drama with commendable performances by Charles Bronson and Anthony Perkins. The whole-set-up is like a stage show, were it lies heavily upon the expressively versatile performances and ambitiously novel material. The layer-bound premise is totally illogical, but strangely absorbing with its unforeseeable offbeat nature of offering up numerous surprises, and interestingly unlikely developments. However there are some questionable, teething problems involving the scheming, and its possible outcome. There's just too many cracks, to make it bullet proof that you just wonder if there was much thought put in behind it. Still there are elements that are smartly conceived, and this can be contributed to the manipulative tension (where the repressed anger, and violence is played out through a human tool) and mind-messing that director Nicolas Gessner (the man behind the superb 'The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane (1976)') ably works in. As well the believably committed turns of the two leads. Bronson and Perkins worked off each other magnificently. Perkins' cold, planned performance with Bronson's disorientated, assailable figure is sincerely pre-figured. There's no doubt this is one of Bronson's best acting turns. Jill Ireland is adequate in her small role. Gessner's sure-footed direction subtly paints a glum, intrusive puzzle with unique filming techniques that slowly strings you along to a powerfully bitter climax, which finally concludes on an inspired final shot of possible sickening regret. Sometimes it loses out by ponderously stretching it out too much with some raggedy editing, and another weak spot was the playful, but unremarkable misplaced music score by Georges Garvarentz. It just didn't add any sort of punch, or feel. Pierre Lhomme's slick cinematography is steadily framed.

Average thriller of a psychological nature about Anthony Perkins as a brain specialist finding amnesiac Charles Bronson and convincing him that his wife is his wife and is having an affair - all the while having a real affair. This is Perkin's way of dealing with the messy affair. There is quite a bit of plodding here as well as some leaps of logic in the script that are not easily believed. Perkins and Bronson are able to create convincing enough characters to make it work relatively well. Perkins plays the malevolent, to a large degree impotent(of taking command of the situation)doctor with his customary workmanlike manner. Bronson does get to act and though looks a little too lost at times fares well enough too. Lovely Jill Ireland plays the good doctor's sexy wife but does little for her role or the film other than looking quite appealing. The end is really not effective as it leaves no real resolution to any of the plot strands revealed. The director does have some obvious talent and the film moves briskly mercifully.

Bronson's fans would be very surprised ,had they the opportunity to see this Nicolas Gessner movie.He's not here the he-man they expect.He plays an amnesiac,caught like a fly in a cobweb by shrink Perkins.In this kind of thriller ,Perkins' "psycho prestige" works and it makes the audience feel he's watching a Hitchcock ersatz-which is not that much bad after all,a Hitchcock ersatz may be much better than a genuine X....... thriller.The main problem lies in the fact that most of the time,it seems like a filmed stage production.Hitchcock could easily get away with such works as "the rope " or "dial M for murder".Gessner has not his genius and his directing becomes sometimes ponderous. Hitchcok's lessons will be much better applied on "sleuth" ,Mankiewicz's triumph the following year,and to a lesser degree,on Penn's "dead of winter" (1987).

Late Jill Ireland plays the female part ,as it was often the case in those days,as far Bronson movies were concerned.Nicolas Gessner continued his work with American actors on his follow-up which would be a long time coming (late seventies) "la petite fille au bout du chemin" (the little girl who lives down the lane)and featured Jodie Foster and Martin Sheen.It was probably his best .Then he worked abroad without great success.His most notable work was for French TV "le château des oliviers " (early nineties,with Brigitte Fossey)which gained the audience's approval.

French shot/English speaking psychological thriller mirroring François Truffaut mirroring Alfred Hitchcock has a perfectly cast Anthony Perkins as a neurosurgeon taking an amnesiac patient to his plush home in order to (supposedly) help the nameless stranger, played by an only slightly miscast Charles Bronson, pacing taut and timid like a caged beast during his pre-fame European Phase...

But this is really Perkins' ride, providing another hiding-a-dark-secret creepy guy role...

And from the mellow cadence, what could have been cat-and-mouse is more like mouse-and-mouse, or mouse and toothless cat, even during Bronson's sporadic tantrums in a noirish plot involving Jill Ireland as the doc's cheating wife (employing a cute Agathe Natanson as their maid, who'd have fit the ingenue role much better)...

It's no irony that both Bronson and Perkins are ultimately best remembered playing killers the audience sympathizes with, and director Nicolas Gessner uses effective zoom shots and strategic camera angles/setups to the advantage of this "chessboard mystery" (mainly involving one set) where both antagonist and protagonist seem equally sinister and vulnerable...

And despite SOMEONE BEHIND THE WINDOW wielding an art-house short film plot-line stretched to 90-minutes, it doesn't drag either way.

Nicolas Gessner :" For close-ups of hands,I usually inserted my own ,because it's an intricate and tricky operation .But obviously ,I couldn't do it with Tony ,because he had such very characteristic hands "

Fluent in French for he had been learning this language since he was hardly four, Perkins would work twice with Claude Chabrol ("le scandale " " la décade prodigieuse") and that director would probably have made a better film than Gessner on a screenplay based on a play (it was performed on stage in France). The English refused to co-produce the film cause the unions refused American stars as the leads ;it was released in both versions , Perkins' voice is heard in both.

But the movie is not bad ,with a good atmosphere ,and ,it helps, several scenes filmed on location on the wild British coast in Folkestone.Perkins is well cast as a shrink , forbidding ,daunting and formidable under his wide smile .

The contrast between the two personalities ,at once in the movie and in real life,is striking : the flanky elegant aristocrat Perkins and the macho sturdy Bronson ,here cast against type ,and a little ill at ease in a part of an amnesiac who becomes a puppet in the doctor's hands .The fact that Mrs Perkins (Jill Ireland)in the film was Bronson's real life wife adds to the confusion of a somewhat far-fetched plot the ending of which is not really satisfying , but they perhaps wanted an open one.The plot ,although intriguing , is not as efficient as Anthony Shaffer's or Agatha Christie's plays .

"The slight tension between them enhanced their performance" Gessner said ;Bronson was distruthful and feared that his director and co-star could lead into doing things he would regret .Anyway it was not easy to cast against type an actor so sure of himself (and who made much more money at the box office).

It met mixed critical reception in 1971,but since it has aged pretty well , thanks to the two principals, whose relationship is fascinating.