Four in the Morning

Made in 1965 by Anthony Simmons at the tail-end of the British 'Kitchen Sink' period, this existential mystery contains some beautifully noir camera-work and features Judi Dench looking cute despite the rather sordid scenario, before she abandoned the cinema for theatre. Her part, of wronged wife and central mystery figure, did not necessarily call for a great deal of heavily emotional acting, but she put that over clearly in just two or three lines, in one scene. Joe Melia also does a fine bit of sub-Shakespearean clowning. This is by no means the only film Simmons directed, and it's about time it was brought up from the vaults along with whatever else can be found in one piece; in fact, it's about time for a Kitchen Sink Revival.

This was a film that I was interested to see having had the John Barry theme music in my record collection for over 50 years. My guess is that this was a totally improvised script and very stagey. Also three of the characters use their real names! I can't imagine it was seen by very many people on its initial release. The sort of film likely to appeal to the Art House crowd. And, contrary to a couple of the other reviewers, this was not John Barry's first film theme or Judi Dench's first film performance!

Three well-acted vignettes of women not being treated particularly well. In the first, there is a woman discovered dead along the Thames and her body is subsequently moved about without a hint of compassion about what happened to her by any of the men that attend to her. In the second, a young mother struggles with her baby while her drunken husband is out making an ass of himself with his silly friend. In the third, a man pursues a woman with the singular objective of having an affair with her. The mood is bleak. The black and white filming, much of it along the Thames, is quite stark and beautiful and appropriate for the movie. The musical score is haunting. But the stories are a downer and certainly do not cast men in a very favorable light.

I was born in london.1960. Escaped this toilet of a capital city in 1978.Lived in Scotland,Wales,Durham,Cardiff,Salonica and for the last 15 years Petersburg Russia.If I'd have stayed in London I would have died of boredom as this place is the pits as the film so accurately shows.

This movie belongs to the social dramas that emerge in the UK film industry during the early sixties, some kind of Ken Loach before his time. Directors such Lindsay Anderson, Karel Reisz, Tony Richardson, Bryan Forbes, John Schlesinger were the main providers of such movies showing the British way of life for the common people, certainly not the Lords' one. This movie is excellent, the script awesome, acting flawless, and Judi Dench long before her role in 007 films till SKYFALL. So this British drama is brilliant, so smartly edited, built around this corpse found in the river.... It is riveting, never boring despite the many talks.