Age of Innocence

I'm a big fan of Brit director Alan Bridges, from his top-notch TV work (including an adaptaton of Bergman's THE LIE) to relatively unsung feature films. This is "one that got away", a 1977 movie never booked anywhere near me.

I did get to see theatrically several near-classics, my favorite being THE HIRELING, for which Bridges coaxed best-in-career performances from both Sarah Miles and Robert Shaw. Similarly, Susan George in his OUT OF SEASON was très magnifique.

His ability to present sexual repression on screen is also evident in RAGTIME SUMMER aka AGE OF INNOCENCE. Shot at an actual school in Lakefield, Ontario, the British-Canadian co-production (perhaps a tax shelter project, most of which got perfunctory releases) limns the story of repressed small-town folk in the academic community.

David Warner, acting at a level worthy of his various Peckinpah turns, rides into the film on a motorbike, not unlike his career-making starring debut as MORGAN! He's new teacher Prof. Buchanan at the boys' school, but his status as conscientious objector in The Great War (film is set in the '30s) turns him into a pariah once the word is out via a letter stolen from his rooms by one of the boys.

Film will no doubt live in cinema history (if it ever gets discovered in the first place) for its early-on lengthy topless scene by Honor Blackman, playing socialite and MILF Mrs. Boswell. Long a fan of Honor's I was needless to say thrilled to see her go softcore (after so much THE AVENGERS and GOLDFINGER teasing), and was quite surprised in retrospect to see her resemblance déshabillé to soft porn icon Marsha Jordan.

Warner becomes romantically involved with Blackman, but the film takes a real turn with the appearance in town of young ingénue Trudy Young, daughter of a local magnate. I had a crush on Trudy 40 years ago when she made a splash in the first Canadian films to play regularly in my hometown of Cleveland: starring in THE REINCARNATE and WINTER COMES EARLY. For AGE OF INNOCENCE she resembles Susannah York -another favorite of mine! The period look and archaic morays are well-depicted, leading to drunken violence and a very melodramatic climax that I won't spoil.

Problem for me was not the careful build-up or the shocking apex scene to the drama, but rather a hurried denouement. Bridges and his 1-shot scripter Ratch Wallace (Canadian actor of many a Paul Almond movie) tie matters up too swiftly and neatly, spoiling the subtlety and impact of what's gone before. Donning the hat of a prospective distributor or exhibitor, I can extrapolate how this final 5 minutes could kill one's interest in handling the movie -hence its shelving.

Nevertheless, with this wonderful cast (sole mistake being the wasting of Miss Moneypenny Lois Maxwell in a nothing "Canadian content" role) and some interesting twists and turns AGE OF INNOCENCE is worth checking out.

David Warner gets a role of substance for once as a conscientious objector lying low in a small Canadian town in this item that manages to be even more obscure than it's director's quickies for Merton Park.

It paints a very romantic picture of it's era, there's far too much talk, a very twee score by Lucia Agostini, and when you think it's finally ending a melodramatic development from left field contrives to make the film even longer.

The most surprising thing about the film is that it reunites three of the cast of 'Goldfinger'. Lois Maxwell, alas, is simply a background player but Honor Blackman as a tippling Bohemian divorcee "with a reputation", clad in jodhpurs and a variety of extremely silly hats, thrilling to a ride in Warner's sidecar provides a welcome reminder of her affinity with motorcycles.

First of all I do not understand why this film, is well worth watching, no the higher rate? The film I first watched nearly 30 years ago, and then at me, just like recently, when I watched it again, left a strong, a good impression. Screenplay, photography, directed (by Alan Bridges) as well as the protagonist of the film acting as a totality worthy of higher ratings the spectators.

The theme itself, a moral attitude peacemaker Henry Buchanan (who plays excellent David Warner) and its environment, and that before World War II, is such that it is always on it can be discussed.

The film correctly develop the story of the relationship of the new environment, a small town in Canada, and the man who is for conscientious objection suffered a many inconveniences in life. He had to even move from his native England in distant Canada, in the hope that there will come across a better understanding of of his attitude about the war.

This film contains sufficient, the exact number needed dialogues of his protagonists. In the best manner of I. Bergman where practically no: the emotions visible on the faces of the characters, grimaces, gesticulations etc. with what is otherwise unnecessarily overcrowded most of the movies!