Baffled

One of my sci-fi/horror/fantasy reviews written 50 years ago: Directed and Produced by Philip Leacock at Pinewood Studios for Arena Productions and ITC. A British-U. S. Telefilm co-production broadcast by NBC. Screenplay by Theodore Apstein; Photography by Ken Hodges; Edited by Bill Blunden; Music by Richard Hill. Starring: Leonard Nimoy, Susan Hampshire, Rachel Roberts, Vera Miles, Jewel Blanche, Angharad Rees, Val Taylor, Mike Murray and Al Mancini.

Slick TV pilot pegged on prescience with dozens of red herrings and preposterous antics as Rachel dabbles in supernatural regaining her youth at the expense of aging young Miss Blanche. Fine cast and Hodges' lensing redeem this turkey.

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.

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.

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.

Leonard Nimoy stars as a race car driver with psychic visions in "Baffled!" also starring Susan Hampshire, Vera Miles, Rachel Roberts, and Jewel Blanch. After the Nimoy character reports on television that he had a vision that caused him to lose control of his race car during a competition, he is visited by Susan Hampshire. She is a student of psychic phenomenon and believes he should follow up on what he saw - a manor house in England, the phrase "It's Wyndham in Devon, dear," and a familiar-looking woman who is need of help.

He agrees to join her after he has another vision which is much stronger -- and scarier - than the previous one. The two of them end up at a manor house which has been turned into a sort of resort hotel. There, they meet the woman of the vision - an American film star who is waiting for her ex-husband, her young daughter, and some rather strange characters.

Judging by what happens at the end of this entertaining movie, "Baffled" seems to have been a pilot for a TV series. The stars - Hampshire and Nimoy - are delightful, and the story is an interesting one that manages to tie in not only psychic phenomenon but a satanic element as well. Vera Miles does an effective job as a woman anticipating a reunion with her ex, Rachel Roberts is terrific as the owner of Wyndham, and Jewel Blanch is very good as Miles' daughter.

This intriguing story will hold the viewer's interest, and it is immensely helped by the likability of the main characters.