Olivia

An English woman in a loveless marriage (Suzanna Love) meets a man from America involved in the dismantling and sale of the London Bridge (Robert Walker Jr.). Events eventually switch to Lake Havasu City where the bridge has been reconstructed.

Shot in early 1981, "Olivia" is a Hitchcockian psychological drama/thriller helmed by Ulli Lommel for $500,000 (which would be equal to $1.7 million today). While there are bits borrowed from "Nightmare" (1981) and "Psycho," this isn't a slasher.

The pace is unhurried and there's a cinematic beauty to the proceedings with its soothing piano-oriented score, DESPITE the seedy side issue of prostitution and the troubling death scenes. Along with the artistry, there are some interesting themes, such as bad childhood experiences haunting one's adulthood, raw sex vs making love and a woman finding her "prince."

Suzanna is a highlight and was the director's wife from 1979-1987. In my opinion she looks best as a brunette in glasses. She's (unnecessarily) shown nude, but in a tasteful way; stay away if you find that disagreeable. On the other side of the gender spectrum, Robert Walker Jr is perhaps best known for playing the titular character in the 1966 Star Trek episode "Charlie X."

There are several alternative titles, including "Double Jeopardy," "A Taste of Sin" and "Beyond the Bridge."

It runs 1 hour, 25 minutes, and was shot in London and Lake Havasu City in west-central Arizona.

GRADE: B-

Variously known as, Olivia, A Taste of Sin, Prozzie and Double Jeopardy, this has as many twists and turns as it does titles. Eccentric ex art house director Ulli Lommel, writes, directs and even looks after camerawork here in a very strange film. Seemingly considered by the makers as 'Hitchcockian' there is only one decent scene of suspense and lots more that appear to have crept in from many and varied a genre. As so often with low budget fare the bonus is that you never quite know where things might go, but who expects the evil child, slasher, sexploitation movie to tell the story of the moving of London Bridge to Arizona?! Likeable, varied, ludicrous but involving with Suzanna Love helping enormously in a most convincing central role. Crazy, but cool.

As a child, Olivia witnesses the brutal murder of her prostitute mother by a client; fifteen years later, she is in an abusive marriage, and, suffering from schizophrenia, hears her dead mother's voice instructing her to become a hooker. Olivia (Suzanna Love) kills her first customer, but falls for American engineer Mike Grant (Robert Walker Jr.), who treats her with kindness and compassion.

When Olivia's husband Richard (Jeff Winchester) catches his wife in a passionate clinch with Mike, he attacks the engineer, but accidentally falls from London Bridge into the Thames during the altercation, after which Olivia disappears into the night.

Four years later, Mike is working at Lake Havasu City, Arizona, where London Bridge has been reconstructed. There, he bumps into a condo saleswoman called Jenny, who he recognises as Olivia. They rekindle their love affair, unaware that Richard is still alive, and has tracked Olivia to her new home in the desert.

Theories abound about the exact meaning of the nursery rhyme 'London Bridge is Falling Down', an enduring playground favourite amongst young children. Ulli Lommel's Olivia (AKA Prozzie AKA Double Jeopardy), which centres around the famous bridge, is also something of a puzzler. I suspect that the director was trying to use the bridge, so out-of-place in Arizona, as a metaphor for Olivia herself - but it's a clumsy conceit that Lommel is unable to make work.

The awkwardness of Lommel's uneven script is compounded by ham-fisted direction, terrible acting, and badly executed scenes of violence, Lommel even resorting to borrowing from his own (utterly diabolical) Bogeyman II, with a ridiculous death-by-electric-toothbrush scene (it didn't work there, and it's just as unbelievably dumb here as well).

An obvious low budget certainly doesn't help matters, the film looking cheap and nasty throughout, but even if Lommel had been able to 'build it up with silver and gold' I doubt if he could have made Olivia anything but another rather forgettable clunker.

"Olivia," also known under a variety of other salacious titles, such as "Prozzie" and "A Taste of Sin," follows Michael Grant, an American engineer in London who is helping dismantle the London Bridge. He meets and falls in love with Olivia, a woman haunted by her prostitute mother's murder, and who herself is in an abusive relationship. When Michael attempts to fight off Olivia's husband one night, it ends in tragedy. Four years later, in Lake Havasu, Arizona, where the London Bridge has been relocated, Michael encounters Olivia's apparent doppelgänger, a local tourism ambassador named Jenny, who claims she has never met him.

This offbeat entry in Ulli Lommel's early filmography is certainly an anomaly--it is not so much a horror film as it is a psychological thriller, though it is, as is the case with most of Lommel's work, preoccupied with themes of childhood trauma, particularly children's exposure to their parents' sex lives. The titular character, Olivia, is haunted by her mother's death, and begins slipping between identities, at times living out a secret life as a prostitute--just like her mom. The film toys with Olivia's psychological state, suggesting early on that she may be a Norman Bates-like character prone to dispatching men, but she remains no less sympathetically portrayed by Suzanna Love.

The second half of the film marks a major tonal shift, moving the setting from dreary London to the sunny Arizona desert, where Olivia--or at least someone who resembles her--resurfaces to haunt Michael. In a way, the extreme contrast between the two locales makes the film feel like two different movies, though this is perhaps part of the point. In any case, both sections of the film have their own stark atmospheres, and there are a number of haunting visuals throughout.

While the plot is at times rather ridiculous, there is still something oddly charming and entertaining about "Olivia." The film teeters between character study and full-blown psychological thriller, only occasionally dipping its toe into the horror pool. It is really more a meditation on childhood trauma than anything else, and it ultimately unravels into a perverse but engrossing love story-turned-tragedy. It is worthwhile for its visuals and at times otherworldly atmosphere, as well as its astute representation of a broken woman. 7/10.

I like Ulli Lommel's film The Bogey Man so much that I have 3 different copies of it; I even have 2 of it's poor sequel. I also collect many of the 88 Films releases, so when this came out I just had to buy it. The British blu ray comes with an enticing cover (film is entitled Prozzie) and is part of 88's Slasher Classics Collection. This, however, is NOT a slasher movie, much more a psychological thriller with a bit of sex and horror thrown in. I prefer the first half of the film, which is set in London. It's pretty dark and has a few Lommel touches reminiscent of The Bogey Man. But when the action moves to Arizona the plot becomes pretty silly & unbelievable. This film grew on me after a second viewing, so I'm glad I hung on to my Blu Ray copy as I had contemplated selling it.