Sebastian

"Sebastian" is a film from 1968 that is the ultimate swinging London '60s flick, starring Dirk Bogarde, Susannah York, Lili Palmer, and John Gielgud. Bogarde plays a tough, cold on the outside British mathematician who heads a code decryption department during the Cold War. He has many women in his employ, and one of them (Susannah York) falls for him and pursues him, and he reciprocates.

Fun music and atmosphere of the '60s permeates. York is lovely as a smart, pretty woman who knows what she wants, isn't afraid to try for it, and cracks the hardest code in the bunch - Dirk Bogarde. Bogarde is excellent as a man of deep feeling who likes to keep his work life separate from his private life and doesn't quite succeed.

Not much of a plot, but the acting is good - you can't really go wrong with Lili Palmer and John Gielgud in the supporting roles. Palmer plays a codebreaker of long-standing who is nevertheless under suspicion for some of her views, and Gielgud is one of the big bosses over Bogarde.

Enjoyable.

Oh, where did the 1960s ever go? What happened? (Sob.) Before it became distressingly violent the 1960s were informed by a light-hearted revolutionary spirit. The Beatles were breaking records, which was nice, and the skirts were tiny, which was also nice. Recreational highs were a pastime and the scent of flowers, hemp, or at least incense, was in the air, a pastel age. There was a Cold War going on too. That's not so nice. However even such a serious business was subject to frolicsome presentations, and this is a good example. The credits are irritating though. I wish "The Pink Panther" with its adorable credit sequences hadn't appeared four years earlier because everybody had to have a crack at it after that.

This movie is cute without being hilarious. Everyone is good natured, even the authorities who are not good natured. Among its virtues are the lanky, leggy Susannah York, all soft, pink, blond, and utterly beautiful. She looks dusted in talcum powder. Then there is the officious Dirk Bogarde, in his dark suit and umbrella, who hires her as a code breaker for some intelligence apparat in England. York is a whiz at it too, although her talent doesn't impress Bogarde that much. York sees Bogarde as a challenge and sets out to liberate him. It couldn't have been too hard. He had nowhere to go but up, and this is the London of "Blow Up," tastefully psychedelic.

The bossy Bogarde keeps a loose woman, Janet Munro, on the side but York soon seduces him and finds he is reluctantly but undeniably distracted from his blue notebook. It's a bad idea for Bogarde to be mixed up with Susannah York. I should have been mixed up with Susannah York instead of him. Somewhere in the background of all this is Sir John Gielgud, good as ever, simultaneously charming and disdainful, wearing a carefully pressed suit and what appears to be a Crescent tie. He's a delight but I believe his school tie should be Westminster, not Crescent.

Anyway it turns more serious as the Russians enter the picture, and the Americans too. Bogarde is assigned a big decoding job involving a Russian satellite. An incredibly young Donald Sutherland cheerfully plays a recording of the first Russian satellite ever. He claims it's sending Morse code but it's not. I was a radioman in the Coast Guard at the time and had to copy the signals. The thing just went beep beep beep.

Spies manage to lace Bogarde's champagne at one point with acid but it all ends happily. Bogarde also appeared in "Modesty Blaise" somewhere around this time. It made no more sense than "Sebastian" but was probably more fun. It had Bogarde stretched out on the sand, dying of thirst, and moaning, "Champagne . . . champagne." "Sebastian" isn't that absurd.

A rather inconsequential film with some rather now dated cinematic ideas is saved by the top line of British acting talent. You can't argue with the cast which includes Dirk Bogarde, Susannah York, Nigel Davenport and John Gieldgud in main roles. 'Sebastian' is also blessed with such an array of acting quality there's no wonder a lot of people really rate the film. The character players include a young Donald Sutherland, the always magnetic and taken from us too soon Janet Munroe (See The Day The Earth Caught Fire), the underrated Ann Beach, and the totally spiffing Ronald Fraser (if you know nothing else by this latter two then try to them together in the excellent Armchair Theatre TV presentation 'A Bit Of A Lift').

For these and other brilliant screen stars to be attracted to this film must mean that there was something in the script that I missed or was missed by the director, or I suppose arguably I just came upon in after it's view by date.

I found the film dated (although I do like British films from the 1960s) and lacking in any real story. I think Bogarde was wrong to say he was not right for the part, he performs well enough but I think a writer such as Le Carre would have fleshed out and nuanced the character and the film as a whole better. My view is that it falls between too many stools not knowing whether it wants to be a hip and happening psychedelic 60s movie, a tale of espionage, a romantic story involving the breaking down of walls, or a comedy farce much beloved of the time.

Despite all these factors I would still recommend a night in with the film if for nothing else than to see brilliant actors tackling greater or lesser roles.

Covers an area of espionage seldom seen in spy movies: cryptography and cryptoanalysis. The whole production is given a faint brush of the surreal and it works, especially with Dirk Bogarde's performance as the title character driven by obsessions (and often overwhelmed by them). That the film also manages to work on an occasional comedic level is an additional tribute to all concerned. Keep your eyes open for a pre-M*A*S*H appearance by Donald Sutherland.

Dirk Bogarde is at his most suave and the swinging London sixties is most convincingly presented in this extremely stylish, sophisticated romp that was slyly coy at the time, and simply fab when viewed today. Jerry Goldsmith provides noticeable musical accompaniment. Hip.