La Vanessa dalle ali bruciate

The first unusual aspect of this film is that it's from Denmark! With an all-British cast as familiar setting I took it as being from the UK until a scene halfway through had Roy Dotrice on television talking about Denmark's economy. The climactic scenes move to Japan which is another scenic twist. Mount Fuji is prominent here. The story has withdrawn executive Dotrice finding himself at a groovy hippie party where he is naturally out of place. Upon leaving he gets into a nasty accident which he flees. Judy Geeson sees what he does, and turns up the next day at his office, in effect blackmailing him for a job at his firm. Dotrice, in his polite English manner, becomes increasingly perturbed as she insinuates herself into his life. After a brief liaison on the train in Japan, he comes up with a permanent solution to her attentions. At times it reminds me of other 70s character studies like "Hoffman", "Loving" and "The Touch". There is a hippie party, pot-smoking and wife-swapping; all signs of the times. Dotrice is very withdrawn and Geeson looks like a swinging chick. Both actors moved to the USA soon after this. Overall this is a nice discovery from a time long gone from cinema.

This is a very bizarre Danish-English co-production. A wealthy, married British auto executive (Roy Dotrice) goes partying with some hippies. He borrows a car from one of the women (Judy Geeson) and ends up accidentally killing a man. He winds up being blackmailed by the owner of the car, who doesn't want money, or even sex, but rather a position as his private secretary! (I had no idea private secretary positions were so highly sought after in Britian). She begins to slowly destroy his life, and he plots to do something about it.

This kind of reminded me of another Judy Geeson movie "Three Into Two Won't Go", but without the rather implausible sexual angle that had young dolly-bird Geeson having a torrid affair with Rod Steiger (although Geeson does have a memorable, and complete gratuitous, nude scene in a sauna here). It also reminded me of a darker British black comedy "Something to Hide" where another accidental murderer has his life destroyed by a grasping female hitchhiker. Geeson is easily as lovely as the female star of that one, Linda Hayden, but she doesn't do evil nearly as well. Still, she's part of the exalted company of beautiful British actresses of that era (including Hayden, Jane Birkin, Susan George, Vanessa Howard, Jenny Agutter, Olivia Hussy, and a few others I'm not no doubt forgetting) whose work I ALWAYS have time for. Dotrice, meanwhile, is a long-time British character actor.

This movie is very bizarre, and generally somewhat of a misfire, but it's kind of interesting to watch British films of this era when they did not just slavishly follow formulaic Hollywood models. It may not be worth searching too hard for this obscure film, but it might be worth watching if you come a cross it--especially if you're a Judy Geeson fan.