All the Right Noises

Far from the saucy romp suggested by the title, it's actually a very subdued triangle drama against a well drawn theatrical backdrop. Seen over fifty years later it's even more poignant than it doubtless seemed at the time since Tom Bell and Judy Carne are both now long dead and Olivia Hussey seventy-one years old.

This is a late 60's/early 70's example of British "kitchen-sink realism" that began in the late 50's with films like "Saturday Night, Sunday Morning" and really continues up into the present day with the films of Mike Leigh and Ken Loach. Strangely, the late 60's/early 70's Swinging London era was an especially fertile period for these films, even though many of them--"Up the Junction", "Deep End", "I Start Counting"--were so provincial and working-class British, you'd never guess that anything extraordinary was happening in London at the time.

For whatever reason (perhaps there was a law?) every appealing young Brit actress of that era seemed to have to make at least one movie where she has a romance with a man old enough to be her father. Judy Geeson got stuck with Rod Steiger in "Three Into Two won't Go" and her younger sister Sally Geeson REALLY got stuck with Norman Wisdom (the UK's answer to Jerry Lewis) in "What's Good for the Goose". Susan George got romantically paired with the somewhat older Michael York in "The Strange Affair" and the much older Charles Bronson in "Twinky". Haley Mills avoided this IN MOVIES, but in real-life married her much older director Roy Boulting. And art actually imitated life for Jane Birkin as she went to France to have an on-screen AND off-screen romance with middle-aged French singer Serg Gainsbourg in "Slogan". This movie was apparently the May-December quota film for Olivia Hussey, the teenage star of Zeffereli's "Romeo and Juliet". It's more believable than most because she's paired with the 30-ish Tom Bell, who's conceivably still youthful and handsome enough to attract the interest of a teenager. And Hussey's character is a very precocious fifteen-going-on-sixteen and from an upper social class. She's an aspiring actress and he's a married theatrical electrician with two kids and an elderly gambling-addict father.

This is one of the most realistic of the British realist films perhaps because nothing really melodramatic ever happens. Unfortunately, that's also makes it rather boring, aside from the excellent performances by leads Hussey and Bell, and to a lesser Judy Carnes as the Bell character's unsuspecting(?)wife. I suppose that might also make it MORE of a male fantasy in that it doesn't necessarily end in divorce, scandal, and a lengthy jail sentence, but there actually isn't much of a sexual element to this either as most of the physical romance occurs off screen. It's not a bad film by any means, but it's one of those films that just kind of is what it is.

After seeing Romeo and Juliet I wanted to see more of Olivia Hussey's work, in this film she is really perfect in this role of Lolita with the youthful beauty, maybe too youg because she plays a 15 years old who has an affair with a man twice her age! So of course the film is from the late 60s / 70s when it was not a big deal. But I admit that apart from this plot of scandalous and forbidden love story, is the wife going to catch them and all, the movie was a little boring.

This film, very much of its time shows London in the early 1970's. Of course now a different world. Note the old fashion Underground ticket machines, and the Black and White Telly in the flat. The location looks very much like Churchill Gardens, Pimlico, with Battersea Power Station in the background. And, plenty of smoking going on, in pubs, and on the tube. The film is strangely sexy in its own way, with the young girl playing along with the much older man, its really a sexual fantasy come true. It is another one of those British low budget film where the low budget adds to rather that take away value. Watch for fun, which is what it is. Good for the BFI for bring to a larger audience on DVD

"Is 15 1/2 too young for a girl?" That didn't really relect this honest story about a married man having an affair with a teenage girl. It wasn't just about sex and they certainly make a good looking couple. They dont look out of place in their acting world and social circle despite the age gap. Its great to see a young olivia hussey in something contempory and totally different to romeo and juliet. Which is all that i had seen her in before i watched this. What a talent she was to be leading films like this and R&J at such a young age.