Les yeux de Satan

Among Lumet' s monumental filmography ,"child's play" must be ,even more than the overlooked "the group" ,the movie nobody knows or loves to hate .

Personally, I have always thought that Lumet is particularly at ease when he directs films the action of which takes place in an enclosed space: a tribunal in "12 angry men" ,a bank in "dog day afternoon" a train in "murder on the orient express" a house in "deathtrap" or "long day's journey into night" the Strategic Air Command in "fail safe" ,a prisoners camp in "the hill".....

"Child's play " happens entirely in a boys high school but the students are not often on the screen ;unlike some naive works such as "dead poets society" ,the nice modern beloved teacher (Robert Preston) is not the one you think he is ;he is a distant relative of the "good" teacher Miss Brodie in "the prime of miss Jean Brodie ";whereas the old maid was urging her students to fight for "noble " causes such as Spanish fascism,her

colleague uses them to put his old "pal" James Mason down,to drive him crazy;his motives are very obscure (the fact that he wants to teach the twelfth graders is not really convincing and one could write that "some people who do not fit get the only fun they get by putting people down ",as John Prine sings ."So cold ,sometimes it looks so cold" .Women (apart from a nurse) are completely absent and no one among the secular staff has a girlfriend or a wife ,even the young naive gym teacher.Beau Bridges is a bit clumsy and as a sports teacher ,well...besides he lacks charisma and his dramatic range is ineffective in the scene when he blames his colleague (just compare with young Pamela Franklin playing opposite Maggie Smith in a similar scene at the end of "Miss Jean Brodie").

All in all,when you cannot mention it in the same breath as Lumet's works I mention above ,if you like this director,you should catch it :James Mason is excellent in his part of a fallen pitiful Latin teacher (you can also notice his subject had already begun to lose the prestige it used to have in ancient times) and Robert Preston is all the more scary since he remains cheerful or straight-faced.A flawed but nonetheless worthy work .

Like this ? try these.....

"Unman,Wittering and Zigo" (McKenzie,1971)

"The prime of miss Jean Brodie (Neame,1970)

Apparently at this exclusive Catholic prep school even the civilian teachers have to be officially celibate. In Child's Play the focus of the film is on an intense rivalry between a pair of civilian teachers who have no outside attachments, save for James Mason and his dying mother. So they indulge in this rivalry for the approval of the students. And Robert Preston who dusts off a bit of his Harold Hill persona from The Music Man is winning hands down.

Child's Play, a David Merrick Production on stage ran 342 performances during the 1970 season and starred Pat Hingle and Fritz Weaver in the roles that Preston and Mason essay here. Preston is a charmer as Professor Harold Hill was, but his charm is laced with malevolence. For reasons I'm not sure whether for money or prestige Preston turns the students against Mason, he wants Mason out to move up in some kind of seniority system.

Mason makes it real easy. A stiff demanding pedagogue he's Mr. Chips before Robert Donat's marriage to Greer Garson humanized him. He's way past the age of retirement, but other than a terminally ill mother this guy has no life. Going to teach gives him an excuse to get up in the morning.

Both these guys are a pair of real closet cases. Both are obsessed with the young male preppy kids they teach, Mason just does not know how to relate to them. Preston does and he uses his influence with them to produce some terrible consequences.

Caught in the middle of all this is new gym teacher Beau Bridges who once went to this school. He knows both men from his years there, but learns a whole lot more once he becomes a faculty member and learns disturbing stuff about both.

Child's Play is smartly directed and photographed by Sidney Lumet. Pay attention to some of the deep focus cinematography involving all three of the players I've named in joint scenes. All three register facial expressions that help move the story along immensely.

I think a lot was left out of the play coming over from Broadway, but still Child's Play is a fine film with great performances from the leads.

Sidney Lumet manages to engender great tension in this curious tale about a group of satan like kids and one of their masters. Reasonable acting with an intelligent script produces satisfactory results.

The only thing missing here is a lack of focus on the mechanics of how the boys behaviour is merely down to a local cult or if something more sinister is at work; however it may have been the writers intention to leave us in two minds regarding this aspect.

Definitely worth watching

If you're the type of movie watcher who prefers to be entertained without having to really invest in the film (and that's absolutely fine) then this movie is probably not for you.

I'm fortunate in that I enjoy all types of film from juvenile slapstick such as Top Secret to classic epics like The Godfather.

This particular film builds very slowly and although there's little "action" in the first third, it's well written and acted and the you can feel the tension build.

Without giving too much away, it's brilliant how convincing one of the main protagonists is due to the quality of the lines attributed to him in the screenplay.

Although I personally believe this movie deserves a wider audience, I fully understand that it will not appeal to a significant number of viewers.

Recommend if you appreciate slow paced, well acted drama.

This is an excellent film. Unfortunately the word subtle, which applies to this film, is used as a negative by the only (at this date) other comment on "Child's Play." Subtle it is, and those who like character studies and evocative camera work, a sustained mood and a finely wrought battle between good and evil will be delighted. If you like the garbage that passes for horror in most of today's bloodfests and loud, non-stop, effects-driven films, well - don't bother.

Robert Preston and James Mason, two A-list actors, knew good material and both give performances that rank highly with the best of their careers. This film was directed by the great Sidney Lumet, and reveals what is usually best about Lumet's work: great acting, sustained mood, the ability to confine the action to one setting and exploit it for all it is worth, attention to detail and precise pacing that builds exactly as it should. This unheralded gem deserves a DVD release soon!