La tigre nell'ombra

Joseph Losey, working under a pseudonym after his blacklisting, didn't want to make this overbaked British melodrama. And who can blame him, given the heavy-breathing histrionics of the screenplay, a ridiculous concoction about a psychiatrist and his sexually frustrated wife harboring a hoodlum. The plot turns are unconvincing, the music hilariously overblown, and Alexander Knox, as the shrink, terminally uninteresting.

What makes this mess watchable is its game imitation of American noir tropes (dark alleys, femmes fatales, car chases), and some good very early rock-and-roll/jazz in the pub sequences. Also, the film can be viewed as a warmup for the later Losey-Bogarde collaborations, which explored similar themes (guilt, moral ambiguity, the nature of evil) much more expertly.

Even his staunchest devotees would have to acknowledge that the films of Joseph Losey are notoriously uneven. This one is of interest to Losey completists as it marks his first film in England although sadly, for reasons which have been well documented, both he and adaptors Foreman and Buchman were 'fronted' in the credits.

Losey has done his very best with the melodramatic material at his disposal and has given the film an edginess unusual for the time. There is a palpable sexual tension(surprisingly enough) between the psychotherapist's wife of Alexis Smith and the case for treatment of Dirk Bogarde. It must be said that Bogarde was never really convincing as a heart-throb and here relishes the chance to be menacing. Alexis Smith, cast for the American market, has an extremely challenging role which obliges her to run the gamut and being a thorough professional she surmounts whatever the script throws at her. Her character, like the film itself, goes off the rails at the end but I'm sure that Esso Oil was grateful for the free advertising. Mention must be made of Alexander Knox who navigates the psychobabble and delivers his customarily solid performance.

Whether Losey had a choice of composer for this is debatable but unlike most of his films in which the music is extremely irritating, Malcolm Arnold's powerful score here is spot on and aids the film immeasurably whilst Harry Waxman is a good choice as cinematographer, having previously shot 'Brighton Rock'.

This opus might not have represented the most auspicious start to the Losey/Bogarde collaboration but they could only get better and with the notable exception of 'Modesty Blaise', they most certainly did.

Dirk Bogarde attempts to mug Alexander Knox at gunpoint in a dark London street. Knox overcomes him by twisting his arm. Next, Alexis Smith, Knox's wife, comes home from a trip to Paris, sees Bogarde in her house, assumes he is one of her psychiatrist husband's patients, but is told that he is a criminal who is living under her roof for six months as an experiment in criminal rehabilitation which her husband is carrying out as a humane alternative to sending the young man to jail. She accepts the arrangement with barely a shrug. Bogarde immediately proceeds to verbally and physically abuse the house maid and act rudely toward Smith. Yet for some reason she is attracted to him and soon they are having a hot affair under the husband's nose. And on and on it goes. One startling development after another. There are elements of the overly simplistic psychiatric rehab genre reminiscent of Hollywood classics like Now, Voyager and Spellbound but with a more realistic look and feel. The music is intense and draws attention to itself, from the cacophonous noise that Smith listens to on her home record player to the sizzling live jazz at the Soho dive where she goes to loosen up with her secret lover. Bogarde is supposed to be a low-life criminal but his polished accent and genteel mannerisms seem thoroughly middle-class and this is never explained. Alexander Knox seems made of wood yet is somehow believable as the kind of intellectually preoccupied and unflappable person who just might come up with the idea of inviting a mugger into his home as an eccentric form of research. And Smith, icily self-contained at the beginning, gradually gets a chance to do some dynamic emoting. She's very good in this. The title of the film symbolizes the wild impulses that sleep within us, waiting to be awakened. From the 2007 vantage point there are no important or original social or intellectual insights here but the way the film is edited, photographed and scored are deliberately jarring without distracting from the film's intent. Losey wants to shake us up and he succeeds.

At the time ,like so many others such as Dalton Trumbo,Joseph Losey used to work under pseudos because of his commie friends.

"The sleeping tiger" predates permanent features in the director's work:

-the intruder ,be it a servant "(eponymous movie) ,a licentious gypsy ("the gypsy and the gentleman" ),some kind of doppelganger ("Monsieur Klein" ,perhaps his masterpiece), a mysterious girl ("secret ceremony"),who makes the place his very own ,physically ("The servant" ) or mentally ('Monsieur Klein" ).Dirk Bogarde is fascinating in his part of a young offender :his acting is so subtle we do not know when the movie ends whether he is a victim or a perverse person,probably both.

-the depiction of the decay of a milieu the intruder will destroy : the old aristocracy in "the gypsy and the gentleman" ,the bourgeoisie in "the servant" the world of the war profiteers in " Monsieur Klein" . When Alexis Smith tells her husband's guinea pig that she got a raw deal too when she was a child but she made her way of life just the same ,the guy knows better :"because you think you are happy now?"

A shrink wants to study a case of delinquency and wakens the sleeping tiger...which is perhaps not the one you are thinking of.

Superlative performances by the three leads.

It's just a bit too much. The good doctor is attacked at gunpoint. He disarms the bad guy, then brings him home to dinner, where his high strung wife spars with the guy. Of course, the two eventually begin a movie long tryst. Dirk Bogarde is a bad boy who is a bundle of anger. He usually gets what he wants but carries more baggage than a porter at an airport. Alexis Smith is the femme fatale. She is older and bored with her psychologist husband, who is determined to resurrect the lad. He is willing to allow this man to do whatever he wants: bringing women to the house, bossing around the help, robbing jewelry stores and businesses. He is pursued by a cop who is on to him but has respect for the doctor and backs off on an arrest. It's hard to believe that this man should give a rip about Bogarde, but somehow he's willing to withdraw. The weakest part of the movie is when it all falls into place. It's so pat. A contemporary film would have built the house a card at a time; this happens in milliseconds. Then we have the denouement which I will not spoil. Let me just say it was a disappointment. The movie is visually sharp and the acting is pretty good. I never really like Alexis Smith much and she is a little grating here. Still, it's a decent performance and the subject is a little ahead of its time.