The Party's Over

The party may have been over for the beatniks who form the centerpiece of this strange but compelling film, but for the rest of London it was just beginning. Unusually for a British production of this vintage (1963) it doesn't fit easily in any genre. An American girl who has been hanging around with the 'beats' goes missing amid lurid rumours of rape and even necrophilia. The atmosphere is one of existential angst laced and a fin de siecle fatalism, all conveyed by way of some studiously framed b&w photography. Aside from some clunky dialogue and plumy accents this could easily be French, perhaps because the story is by Marc Behm an American expat based in France who wrote Eye of the Beholder, later transposed by Claude Miller into the excellent thriller Mortelle Radonnee starring Isabelle Adjani.

Oliver Reed plays the leader of the 'beats' in such manner that you feel the void each time he's off-screen, he really is terrific and makes the rest of the cast look like the b-movie stalwarts they were. Particularly dreadful is Mike Pratt who plays Geronimo, an artist/drummer. The party scenes with all the beats lounging around or trying to twist to modern jazz are great,as is the jazz itself with John Barry and Annie Ross contributing.

Executive Producer Peter O'Toole and Jack Hawkins along with director Guy Hamilton took their names off this controversial British Beatnik flick where an American girl, missing from her New York tycoon father and businessman fiance, is supposedly raped/screwed after death: so for them it wasn't controversial enough...

Yet no actual necrophilia occurs (unless you count a quick posthumous kiss), even in the restored cut when -- a day before THE PARTY'S OVER -- Oliver Reed and his wayward cohorts play cat-and-mouse with Clifford David as the rich chick's arranged fiance, Carson...

Who's flown to England to not only get his girl back, but to know her, period, while she (Louise Sorel) is content with the breezy freedom among the eclectic crew of brooding Brits, either drinking and smoking while digging hot jazz when not coming down in the usual melancholy, philosophizing manner...

But it's not all emotional highs and lows since in its foundation, this is a Noirish, non-linear crime/mystery sporadically told through flashbacks provoked by the American's initially basic quest...

And he eventually becomes involved in a flirtatious, hang-around romance with the prettiest, wisest, seemingly most helpful English girls in Katherine Woodville's Nina, who, donning a slick black bowling hat and matching black cane, is lovestruck despite the secret she and the others are holding back...

As the most shocking and refreshing aspect -- much different than other counter-culture themed films -- is that the suit-and-tie fiance (a dapper-handsome hybrid of Robert Mitchum, Alan Badel, Cornel Wilde and Liam Neeson) is not the usual cliché idiotic conservative-square to make the progressive cool kids seem that much cooler...

So Clifford Davis's buried lead feels more like an even-keeled, experienced gumshoe, questioning (in vain) a goading, moody Oliver Reed, the passive-aggressive leader of the eclectic gang...

Each member foreshadowing the future punk rock movement of total individuality despite a sort of zombie-like/like-minded camaraderie (including Reed's big bald German sidekick; his cheated-on blues-crooning moll; a suicidal college student; and a gay messenger boy)...

But it's a shame these spontaneous, otherwise freewheeling nomadic scoundrels are so bogged-down by the previous night's crime (actually more of an unreported tragic accident)...

A burden that hinders their each and every step as, compared to the potentially awesome opening credits where the group coolly wanders across a bridge at a murky dawn, they could have been far more character-driven than guilt-ridden in what ultimately winds up a pre-Goth/Gothic romance about existential life (and love) after death.

Due to sensitive nature of the subject matter this film was never widely seen.It concerns a young American girl who comes to London and gets involved with a bunch of no-good hooligans known as the "Pack".What happens after a very wild party that goes horribly wrong is what led to troubles with the censor as it includes necrophilia as well as other assorted horrors.Not for every taste (to put it mildly!)but interesting to see for those who can stomach it for the young rising stars involved,including a very young Louise Sorel.

The opening bars of the jazz-style theme alerts us to the likely seedy nature of this gritty tale of a young woman who arrives from a wealthy upbringing in the USA in 1960s London. She falls in with a rather Bohemian band of reprobates known as the "Pack", a group of young people who live a pretty disparate existence - sex, drugs, rock and roll - you know the story - and Oliver Reed is quite effective as their leader "Moise". Tragedy ensues, though, and the group must face up to some of their excesses with varying degrees of honesty and success. It's trying to be visceral, this film - it swipes at the tribal, almost feral nature of relationships amongst the group who have a moral compass all of their own. Although Guy Hamilton spares us the worst of the physical manifestations of their behaviour, our imagination is quite capable of plugging the gaps. The censors had a whale of a time with this - and even now, it isn't hard to see why - some of the taboos it addresses would still be treated gingerly even today - 55 years later. The photography does much to enhance the earthiness of the production, close ups proving particularly effective alongside the score. Reed really steals the film, too - with the young Louise Sorel "Melina" - the aforementioned daughter; and Katherine Woodville "Nina" - maybe the only one of them with any semblance of what we might call decency - adding (gunpowder) to the mix too. It's nowhere near as potent as it was, but as an example of groundbreaking cinema it has to be worth a watch.

This dark and disturbing drama of the '60's is notable for two reasons.The first is the very taboo nature of the storyline.Hardly surprising that it had problems with the British Board of Censors.The second is Oliver Reed's performance has the leader of a group of disillusioned young people,none of whom seemingly have any particular aim in life.These people do not seem to show any emotion or compassionate,even toward each other,something which is very evident in their attitudes towards the deaths of two of their number. I have read somewhere of this film being described as "Oliver Reed meets Necrophia".Watch this film,if you are a fan of Oliver Reed and if you can obtain it,but be prepared to feel depressed afterward.