Triple Écho

THE TRIPLE ECHO is a sedate, slow paced psychological drama with a few characters interacting in a barren and isolated landscape. It's a one-of-a-kind type film that offers up some interesting characterisation and an unusual storyline. The film was directed by Hollywood director Michael Apted (GORILLAS IN THE MIST) as one of the first things he made outside of television.

The unknown-to-me actor Brian Deacon plays a frustrated young soldier who happens by a lonely farmhouse occupied by grieving widow Glenda Jackson. The two embark on an affair, although it transpires that Jackson is a little disturbed by her history. For his part, Deacon's had enough of the army, so he decides to go A.W.O.L., masquerading as Jackson's sister. Their happiness is short-lived when other local soldiers call by and one of them takes a shine to Deacon, mistaking him for a woman.

The cross-dressing aspect of the tale is what makes this unusual. It's hard to believe that the rugged Oliver Reed would genuinely mistake Deacon for a woman, but there you go. The climax has an air of inevitable tragedy to it, so a sense of foreboding seeps over the latter stages of the film. The central performances are subtle and effective, although Reed is something of a scene-stealer as the flamboyant and utterly horrid army sergeant.

An unusual little feature which teams Glenda Jackson and Oliver Reed with, making his debut, Brian Deacon.

Deacon plays an AWOL soldier who goes to Jackson for help and ends up posing as her visiting sister, a role he grows to identify with. Reed plays a sneery officer who becomes interested in the the 'sister'. Cue a rather convoluted plot which inevitably ends in tragedy.

Jackson is the best thing in this - a tired, lonely farmer looking for companionship and making tough decisions. But the film is - although fascinating - ultimately unsatisfying and seems to step back from the scenario it took such care to create just as it gets interesting.

"The Triple Echo" is one of those films with different names on opposite sides of the Atlantic. Its original British title is a mysterious one, the significance of which is never made clear in the film itself. In America, however, it was released as "Soldier in Skirts", apparently as part of a misleading advertising campaign to persuade audiences that it is a comedy. (It is nothing of the sort). Although I am reasonably familiar with the works of H.E. Bates, I must admit that I have never read the novella upon which this film is based. It came out in 1972; another film based on a Bates novella, "Dulcima", had appeared the previous year.

The story is set during World War II somewhere on the chalk downlands of Southern England. Alice Charlesworth is a farmer's wife left to run the farm on her own during her husband's absence on military service; we learn that he is being held prisoner by the Japanese. She meets a young soldier named Barton, himself a farmer's son knowledgeable about both agriculture and mechanics, who is able to help her around the farm.. (We later learn that his initials are J.L. but never discover what those initials stand for). The two become first friends, then lovers, and finally Barton, who has never had any liking for military life, decides to desert from the army.

Alice agrees to shelter him, but realising that the sudden appearance of a young man in civilian clothes on the farm will give rise to suspicion, persuades him to disguise himself as a woman. She is able to explain away the sudden appearance of a young woman by saying that this is her sister Jill. (Barton, not liking the name Jill, subsequently renames himself Cathy). A complication arises when a sergeant from a nearby military base takes a fancy to the supposed "Cathy". Alice, terrified that Barton will give himself away, insists that he stays inside as much as possible, but he soon tires of this lifestyle and risks going out in his female disguise. The climax of the film comes, when, against Alice's wishes, he insists on attending a Christmas party being held at the local barracks.

Pauline Kael pointed out the sexual role reversal that lies at the heart of this film. Both Barton and Alice begin to take on characteristics more traditionally associated with the opposite sex. With Alice, this is more obvious from the beginning, as she has been forced into the "masculine" role of farm manager by her husband's absence. Barton initially does not seem at all "feminine", but once forced into the role of "Cathy" begins to act more like a woman, while Alice, who wears the trousers both literally and figuratively in their relationship, becomes more domineering. This is a situation which requires some subtle acting, and it is provided not only by Glenda Jackson, a leading star of the British acting profession before she gave it up to go into politics, but also by the lesser-known Brian Deacon, an actor I had not come across before.

The third member of this sexual triangle is Oliver Reed's sergeant, and this is a role which seems to call for some very unsubtle acting. (And nobody could do unsubtle like Reed). The sergeant is a vulgar lout of a man-, bullying, swaggering and lustful, and arrogant enough to believe that no woman could possibly resist his doubtful charms. He might, at least on one interpretation of the film, be seen as representing heterosexual masculinity at its crudest. Deacon, however, for all his feminised behaviour, never makes a very convincing woman in visual terms, which made me wonder if the sergeant, at some subconscious level, realised that "Cathy" is really a man and was attracted to him/her because of some latent homosexuality. On this interpretation the sergeant's rage when he discovers the truth would be not just anger at having been tricked but also self-loathing on account of his hidden homosexual tendencies. Reed's performance, therefore, may be less unsubtle than it initially seems.

I think that there is a reason why the sergeant has to be so unpleasant. We have to aware just how reprehensible the behaviour of Barton and Alice would have seemed in wartime. By deserting, Barton has betrayed his country, his comrades and the cause of freedom for which they are fighting. By sheltering him Alice has not only made herself complicit in his treachery but has also betrayed her husband who is suffering great hardship for his country's sake. (British prisoners held by the Japanese were treated much more harshly than those held by the Germans). It is, however, necessary for dramatic purposes that the audience should have some sympathy with the erring couple, so their antagonist has to be as unsympathetic as possible.

Director Michael Apted makes good use of the English countryside, here seen in one of its bleaker moods. (The film was shot in Wiltshire, a country dominated by bare, open chalk downlands). The 1970s were not the greatest period in the history of the British cinema, but we were occasionally capable of producing decent films, often with a historical setting, and this is one of them. (Another is Joseph Losey's "The Go-Between" from two years earlier). This film is not particularly well-known today, but in my opinion it deserves to be. 8/10

A goof. During a scene set in springtime, we hear a radio broadcast giving news of the Battle of El Alamein. This battle, however, was fought during the autumn, in October and November of 1942.

Glenda Jackson once again proves to be the British equivalent of Bette Davis--in fact, "The Triple Echo" might have been an ideal vehicle for Davis had it been produced two decades earlier. In 1942 Wiltshire, a farm woman mourning the capture of her husband by the Japanese befriends a young soldier passing across her land; after several visits, they become intimate and he decides to go "over the hill," but their affair is complicated by his being cooped up, hiding in the house all day. What's more, she has dressed him in her clothes and begins telling the people in town that her sister is now staying with her. Maddening story begins as jaunty fare, takes a turn into melodrama and ends on a tragic note, with the young soldier now in full drag and fending off the advances of a randy tank sergeant. Jackson retains her stubbornly sensible dignity, even when the plot goes off the rails. She's a decent, forthright, romantic-minded woman, a salt-of-the-earth type who can be mother, big sister and lover at different intervals. As the pushy sergeant who won't take no for an answer, Oliver Reed has a one-note bullying role, and director Michael Apted never steps in to scale him back. ** from ****

In any movie where a man has to dress up like a woman, for whatever reason, there's the one genuine manly male who wants to give that so-called female a test ride wherein the truth will be discovered...

So when it's stocky firebrand Oliver Reed as a World War II era tank sergeant, lusting after a deserted soldier hiding out in widowed Glenda Jackson's rural chicken farm while (romancing her and) posing as his sister, this otherwise searing romantic drama turns into a heated thriller...

That's because Reed (reunited with his WOMEN IN LOVE co-star Jackson yet sharing more scenes opposite fitfully feminine/literal pretty boy Brian Deacon) is like a bomb ready to explode: in more ways than one...

And he's never been so frightening and formidable, also providing Michael Apted's THE TRIPLE ECHO a sense of horror/exploitation in a bizarre curio that, while predictable, you'll have to squirm through till the end.