L'obsédé

After winning a large amount in the pool in Reading, the outcast bank clerk and entomologist Freddie Clegg (Terence Stamp) buys an isolated house in the countryside. He stalks the art student Miranda Grey (Samantha Eggar) in London and uses chloroform to kidnap and bring her in his van to his house. The sociopath Freddie locks Miranda in the cellar and she discovers that he has had an unrequited crush on her since they were teenagers. Freddie promises to respect Miranda with his platonic love and to release her in a month on June, 11th. He shows also his collection of butterflies carefully kept in a room. However, Miranda feels that she is another collectible species only for the deranged man that feels power and control with the situation and he has no intention to let her go.

"The Collector" is another masterpiece of William Wyler that has been copycatted along the years by filmmakers that presently add violence, torture and gore to the plot. The performances of Terence Stamp and Samantha Eggar are top-notch in this theatrical film and they succeed to carry alone the whole story. I can not precisely tell how many times I have watched this film, but the last time I had seen it was on 07 October 2000. Surprisingly "The Collector" has only been released in Brazil in a rare VHS, a pride and joy of my collection. My vote is ten.

Title (Brazil): "O Colecionador" ("The Collector")

Note: On 03 May 2013, I saw this movie again, now on an imported Blu- Ray.

A man (Terence Stamp) kidnaps a woman (Samantha Eggar) and holds her hostage just for the pleasure of having her there.

In his autobiography, Stamp confessed surprise as being chosen for the role, expecting Anthony Perkins or John Hurt to play Clegg. Having been chosen, he assumed (as had most others) that Julie Christie — regarded at that time as the best young actress of the era — would be given the role of Miranda, but Wyler chose Eggar because he thought it would introduce the correct air of sexual tension and awkwardness between the two protagonists. Wyler also knew Eggar had turned Stamp down when they both were studying together at Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art.

I think this casting is both devious and brilliant. I don't think of Wyler as one of "those" directors, but maybe I should. Casting a woman to make Stamp uncomfortable, and then torturing Eggar on the set... he may be much more of the mean-spirited and exacting type than he comes across from his earlier films.

Allegedly, the original cut ran over an hour longer. Most of the time I don't really want movies to be longer than 90 minutes to two hours. But this is a film I could use more of. It was perfect, and at the risk of ruining that perfection, I would like to see what more was filmed.

I should have commented on this excellent film long ago. I first saw it in the late 1970s on television and was immediately entranced by both Stamp and Eggar whose performances are are simply riveting. It is an almost "Hitchcockian" film, in that tension and suggestion are used to maximum effect keeping the viewer on the edge of their chair. This is a film that I'd love to see re-made or re-discovered, but again like Hitchcock's best, it owes a great deal of its impact to the time in which it was made and would likely suffer at the hands of a lesser director than Wyler. Fowles work is captured (like Miranda) and viewed with microscopic clarity through Freddy's watchful eye. It has also inspired a song called "Chastity" from The Raves CD, "Past Perfect Tense" which relates the whole of the story. SEE THIS FILM.

A brilliant movie that was a first in its time and so many movies built up their success on it. People know about hundreds of movies that are so similar to this one and don't know about it!

It really saddens me that good movies like this one with a skillful actor like Terence Stamp and the attractive Samantha Egger are not played enough on channels like other silly movies that they keep repeating so many times over the same day and week.

The movie has so few actors that can be counted on one hand and all the time you can watch without being bored for a second only the two main actors while filled with suspense and waiting anxiously to know what will happen next. The ending is pretty much what nobody would expect.

This intensely creepy film showcases director William Wyler in his intimate, character-study mode, and features a superb performance from Terrence Stamp in the title role, as the "collector" of beauty. Stamp creates a portrait of sexual obsession that is every bit as unsettling in its way as the long legacy of serial killer movies in existence. Samantha Eggar, as one of Stamp's "specimens," is used more as a catalyst for driving the plot and less as a character for whom we have any great deal of interest. Is that a flaw of the material or the intention of Wyler and novelist John Fowles, on whose book this is based? If their intention was to make us sympathize with, and even relate to, the character with the obsession, they succeed brilliantly.

The ending genuinely surprised me, which happens all too infrequently in movies like this. The film feels like a product of independent cinema before independent cinema really existed.

Grade: A