Someone Behind the Door
Director: Nicolas Gessner
1971
Thriller
Dr. Laurence Jefferies takes on a new patient,
a man with total amnesia. He doesn’t know who he is or even his name. Dr.
Laurence helps him to remember by planting all sorts of things in his presence.
But Dr. Laurence isn’t the good guy thinks at first; he has a personal agenda.
He doesn’t really want to help the man remember; his goal is to plant memories
into the man’s head so that he can carry out Dr. Laurence revenge against his
cheating wife…
I
realize that the above plot description might have a couple of spoiler in it
since it’s not known what Dr. Laurence is doing at first. It’s fairly obvious
that he doesn’t play it totally straight though and that he has some foul play
in his mind. Anthony Perkins has the perfect facial expression for such a role.
We all know him from Hitchcock’s Psycho
where he basically does the same thing. We don’t know what it is, but we’re
sure there is something wrong.
The
other part – The Man, is portrayed by Charles
Bronson who also makes a good job. In some scenes he proves beyond a doubt
that he’s an actor capable of playing something else than a vigilante. He seems
to do this with relative ease and we’re totally convinced that he’s an amnesia
case. He’s frustrated over not remembering and when Perkins plants something for him to remember he jumps at it. He SO
willing to swallow everything Perkins
gives him it´s almost ridiculous. He swallows the hook, line and sinker to be
sure!
Bronson can’t be blamed for this though. He didn’t
write the part he merely acted it as it was written. The problem is with the
story and the direction. It never gets suspenseful and it never gets exciting. I
think this is partly because there are not so many characters in the film. Basically
there are three: Dr. Laurence (Perkins),
his wife (Jill Ireland) and the man
with amnesia (Bronson). There are a
couple of smaller parts as well but nothing major. This means that it takes
something really special to create the need tension for it to be exciting.
There are a couple of movies throughout history that has managed it, but not too
many.
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So what
we have here is a plot that is basically interesting but doesn’t work since it
doesn’t create enough tension between the characters. Yet it´s nicely played in
all the ways that can be asked for. We feel sorry for the man with amnesia but
not enough to bond with him. The character is the most important of all but is
in essence a supporting part. Come to think of it, all of the main characters are
nothing less than supporting parts. There are no leads at all in this movie.
Strange isn’t it?
When it’s
over we don’t feel sorry for anyone. Not the man with amnesia, definitely not
Dr. Laurence and not his wife. Not even her lover which is the reason for the
revenging scheme in the first place. It’s a movie that should interest movie
buffs, Charles Bronson and/or Anthony Perkins fans (and Jill Ireland of course). Nothing more,
nothing less…
5/10
