Der schlafende Tiger

At the time ,like so many others such as Dalton Trumbo,Joseph Losey used to work under pseudos because of his commie friends.

"The sleeping tiger" predates permanent features in the director's work:

-the intruder ,be it a servant "(eponymous movie) ,a licentious gypsy ("the gypsy and the gentleman" ),some kind of doppelganger ("Monsieur Klein" ,perhaps his masterpiece), a mysterious girl ("secret ceremony"),who makes the place his very own ,physically ("The servant" ) or mentally ('Monsieur Klein" ).Dirk Bogarde is fascinating in his part of a young offender :his acting is so subtle we do not know when the movie ends whether he is a victim or a perverse person,probably both.

-the depiction of the decay of a milieu the intruder will destroy : the old aristocracy in "the gypsy and the gentleman" ,the bourgeoisie in "the servant" the world of the war profiteers in " Monsieur Klein" . When Alexis Smith tells her husband's guinea pig that she got a raw deal too when she was a child but she made her way of life just the same ,the guy knows better :"because you think you are happy now?"

A shrink wants to study a case of delinquency and wakens the sleeping tiger...which is perhaps not the one you are thinking of.

Superlative performances by the three leads.

Alexis Smith was one of many American stars who came to the United Kingdom to find work which was becoming less and less in Hollywood as less feature films were being made.. She was lucky to get this role opposite rising British cinema favorite Dirk Bogarde.

Smith plays the wife of criminal psychologist Alexander Knox who believes that with some analysis some criminals can be cured. So far not different than those two Hollywood classics Blind Alley and The Dark Past. But in those cases criminals broke into the homes of psychologists Ralph Bellamy and Lee J. Cobb and under stress the two mental health professionals did some probing.

But Bogarde is a selected case study. He's paroled to Knox and gets to live in his home where Smith finds the sexy Bogarde impossible to resist.

Bogarde is Stanley Kowalski with a criminal record if this film had been made on this side of the pond Marlon Brando would have been an obvious choice for the part. Let's say that Knox should have kept his business and professional life separate. Smith is great as a forty something woman in some serious heat.

One person I always enjoy seeing in British films is Hugh Griffith who always brings something to even a relatively colorless part like a police inspector here.

Blacklisted director Joseph Losey directed The Sleeping Tiger and it's a fine piece of work

Even his staunchest devotees would have to acknowledge that the films of Joseph Losey are notoriously uneven. This one is of interest to Losey completists as it marks his first film in England although sadly, for reasons which have been well documented, both he and adaptors Foreman and Buchman were 'fronted' in the credits.

Losey has done his very best with the melodramatic material at his disposal and has given the film an edginess unusual for the time. There is a palpable sexual tension(surprisingly enough) between the psychotherapist's wife of Alexis Smith and the case for treatment of Dirk Bogarde. It must be said that Bogarde was never really convincing as a heart-throb and here relishes the chance to be menacing. Alexis Smith, cast for the American market, has an extremely challenging role which obliges her to run the gamut and being a thorough professional she surmounts whatever the script throws at her. Her character, like the film itself, goes off the rails at the end but I'm sure that Esso Oil was grateful for the free advertising. Mention must be made of Alexander Knox who navigates the psychobabble and delivers his customarily solid performance.

Whether Losey had a choice of composer for this is debatable but unlike most of his films in which the music is extremely irritating, Malcolm Arnold's powerful score here is spot on and aids the film immeasurably whilst Harry Waxman is a good choice as cinematographer, having previously shot 'Brighton Rock'.

This opus might not have represented the most auspicious start to the Losey/Bogarde collaboration but they could only get better and with the notable exception of 'Modesty Blaise', they most certainly did.

Joseph Losey, working under a pseudonym after his blacklisting, didn't want to make this overbaked British melodrama. And who can blame him, given the heavy-breathing histrionics of the screenplay, a ridiculous concoction about a psychiatrist and his sexually frustrated wife harboring a hoodlum. The plot turns are unconvincing, the music hilariously overblown, and Alexander Knox, as the shrink, terminally uninteresting.

What makes this mess watchable is its game imitation of American noir tropes (dark alleys, femmes fatales, car chases), and some good very early rock-and-roll/jazz in the pub sequences. Also, the film can be viewed as a warmup for the later Losey-Bogarde collaborations, which explored similar themes (guilt, moral ambiguity, the nature of evil) much more expertly.

It's just a bit too much. The good doctor is attacked at gunpoint. He disarms the bad guy, then brings him home to dinner, where his high strung wife spars with the guy. Of course, the two eventually begin a movie long tryst. Dirk Bogarde is a bad boy who is a bundle of anger. He usually gets what he wants but carries more baggage than a porter at an airport. Alexis Smith is the femme fatale. She is older and bored with her psychologist husband, who is determined to resurrect the lad. He is willing to allow this man to do whatever he wants: bringing women to the house, bossing around the help, robbing jewelry stores and businesses. He is pursued by a cop who is on to him but has respect for the doctor and backs off on an arrest. It's hard to believe that this man should give a rip about Bogarde, but somehow he's willing to withdraw. The weakest part of the movie is when it all falls into place. It's so pat. A contemporary film would have built the house a card at a time; this happens in milliseconds. Then we have the denouement which I will not spoil. Let me just say it was a disappointment. The movie is visually sharp and the acting is pretty good. I never really like Alexis Smith much and she is a little grating here. Still, it's a decent performance and the subject is a little ahead of its time.