Baffled

The oddball "Baffled!" got intended as a pilot for a TV show but never got picked up. I don't know whether or not the story would've worked as a series, but as a standalone movie it's fun. Leonard Nimoy (in a role very unlike his most famous one) plays a racecar driver who has strange visions of an estate and decides to find out what it is. Sure enough, some other people have a connection to this place.

It's not a masterpiece but still a clever movie. A red herring here and there help keep the end a surprise. It looks like the sort of movie that they had fun filming. Moreover, it was neat to see Nimoy in a role so unlike the one with which he's most associated. And I also liked Vera Miles's role.

In between his iconic small screen and big screen STAR TREK career, Leonard Nimoy headlined this television movie that was really an intended pilot for a British series co-starring sophisticated blonde beauty Susan Hamphire: an ESP expert aiding Nimoy's famous race car driver to channel visions of a veteran actress murdered in a castle where he, reluctantly at first, takes on the case...

BAFFLED! has all the elements of a good mystery but without enough doomed tension. And yet it works from the affable chemistry between Nimoy and Hampshire, brightening up the surrounding ensemble of Agatha Christie-like suspects including a tempestuous Rachel Roberts; Vera Miles as the possibly doomed starlet; and scene-stealing Jewel Blanch as a childlike pre-teen whose personality morphs into a creepy, possessed teenager...

Making the best scenes a "Spock verses THE EXORCIST" kind of thing, and a year earlier. But it's really Susan Hampshire's ride. She energetically tackles the part as if it were truly the beginning of an assured series. In fact this "movie" ends with their next case shaping up. Sadly, it was her show to lose.

A race car driver suddenly develops a strange psychic ability to detect impending danger. He has a vision involving a woman in peril; a parapsychologist implores him to find her and try to avert whatever danger she is in. He winds up at an English manor house – the one he saw in his vision – where he encounters the woman and a host of other untrustworthy characters.

Leonard Nimoy seems to have been enjoying himself in the title role of this entertaining TV movie. Like others have said, it does have the whiff of a pilot for a TV series about it. It would be quite easy to imagine a male/female psychic/parapsychologist team going around and saving innocent people from bad guys every week. But alas no, there was no series of this. However, that doesn't change the fact that Baffled! is a fair amount of fun. It has a pretty compelling mystery plot to it that combines ESP with the occult. The acting from everyone is good while the production values have that solid made for TV cosiness about them. If I had to make a complaint, it would be a minor one, but it would be that despite the great build it has a slightly overly silly denouncement that would not have looked out of place in a Scooby Doo cartoon. But, no matter, this one is still a lot of fun.

The plot was pretty straightforward, but I thought that the writing, direction, and the acting were actually quite good.

I particularly liked the dialog between the two leads. There was a good chemistry and considering the time and that it was a Telefilm for a pilot, it COULD have simply been tossed off without much thought put into it. But, I liked the humour and interplay between them.

You could tell that they were sort of shooting for a feel similar to the series The Avengers. Between the two of them, her being British and him being a pretty cool fellow, I felt it worked rather well.

There was a decent Mystery too, and I liked the way the story unfolded where they continued to build a sense of tension as the audience tries to figure out what is going on.

Again, considering the time and type of film, the characters were all portrayed fairly well. Usually during that time and with such a low budget production, you would see a lot of overacting and hammy performances, but not here.

It was really nice to see Leonard Nimoy in such a role and see him smiling freely and using humour, which as we all are well aware for a few years there we almost never got to see... : )

All 'n' all I truly felt it was a fun, entertaining movie. If you have the right mindset for the time and what kind of production it is, and you are not expecting too much, then you may very well find some enjoyment here.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ MY PARTICULAR WAY OF RATING:

5 - Flawed, but with some entertainment value.

6. A decently passable story maybe worth a watch.

7. A solid film, well made, effective, and entertaining.

And, obviously, you can probably figure out what above and below these would mean... : )

This non_classic, remembered fondly by some, forgotten by most, is likely to be enjoyed the most by fans of 1970s made-for-tv genre movies, Leonard Nimoy or Vera Miles completists, or avid fans of all things psychic. It is in the same vein as The Sixth Sense tv series, AKA Circle of Fear, with Gary Collins, except that where the latter was quite earnest, Baffled is relatively light-hearted and decidedly unintense. It consists largely of Leonard Nimoy driving around a rear-projection landscape, mannequins being tossed off of cliffs, and cheeky flirtation among certain of the adult leads. Baffled is a mellow easy chair in which you might sit as you fold your laundry.