Blackmailed

g, she, “Carol” (Mai Zetterling) and “Dr. Freeman” (Robert Flemying) have quite an headache. That only gets worse when “Munday” (Dirk Bogarde) walks in on this lurid scene then promptly scarpers. With a police investigation imminent, the folks try to go about their day-to-day business only to find a series of seemingly unrelated incidents gradually and somewhat nervously brings them all together and facing a tough decision. It’s quite a good idea, this, but the execution is all rather bitty. At times it comes across as an amalgam of other Bogarde films only here serendipity plays maybe just too much of a role as we build to a vaguely comedic, convenient, denouement. There’s a bit more of a substantial role here for Michael Gough as the bed-ridden husband “Maurice” which he delivers quite well, but there’s little chemistry between Zetterling and Flemying and Compton seemed content to settle for offering us a gentle, softly lit, impersonation of Dame May Whitty. It was lost for a long time, apparently, which is quite curious given it’s cast but not so much given it’s substance.