Straight on Till Morning

I hadn't seen this movie for decades because it hasn't been shown on terrestrial TV for years, but I decided to buy the Region 1 DVD release (there's no official Region 2 UK release as yet) and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Well it's difficult to dislike Rita Tushingham in any film, but it's directed in such a great style by the late/great Peter Collinson (director of The Italian Job (1969)fame), with a bleak beginning that could only be Britian of the 1960's/1970's and with a real snap shot of how things were in London back then.

This is a very different type of film from Hammer, when compared to their usual offerings and must have been truly shocking back then with it's level of cruelty, but it's a classic movie you simply have to own and the fact it's unavailable in the UK (the very place it was made & with an all British cast) is scandalous.

Straight on Till Morning is certainly one of the most atypical films that Hammer Studios ever produced. It begins like a social realist kitchen-sink drama, replete with fragmented snapshot montage editing similar to Ken Loach's Up the Junction – incidentally, a film remade by Peter Collinson the director of this film. And for the first third of the film it seems like this is going to be another such gritty drama, however, it takes an unexpected detour when it suddenly turns into a psychological thriller. It's an extremely unusual combination that isn't entirely successful but definitely interesting. In actual fact it's one of Hammer's more intriguing efforts in my opinion because it's so weird.

The story is about a naive young girl called Brenda who moves to London to try and find a man. She winds up staying with a very strange foppish man called Peter who is in fact a serial killer of women.

The social realism and montage heavy editing is entirely at odds to anything else Hammer ever put out. This is a film that has way more in common with the British New Wave than it does with anything previously produced by the famous studio. None of the characters are particularly likable, with the men in particular very creepy and/or deeply unpleasant people with appalling haircuts. The central relationship between Brenda and Peter is, to put it mildly, bizarre. It's difficult to see what either of them sees in each other; while Peter's strange issues with beauty are a little hard to fathom. Nevertheless, I thought this one was not bad at all. It wasn't predictable in the way that most Hammer films tend to be. It was pretty bleak and overall a commendably uncommercial offering. Definitely worth a look if you like downbeat psychological dramas.

A conventionally offbeat early seventies psycho-thriller alive with zooms the way today's are with steadicam in which Rita Tushingham is a waif from the provinces who is abused by a smoothly misogynistic control freak upon her arrival in the big city the way she was seven years earlier in 'The Knack'.

It's quickly obvious were all this is going, but the vivid location work around Earl's Court and a good cast (most of them - like a feral Annie Ross in huge hair and a tiny dress - actually seen only fleetingly) keeps you watching; despite rather than because of it's gimmick in constantly referencing Peter Pan.

The swinging sixties are coming to an end in swinging London but there are still some hang overs from the 1950s and still plenty of odd ball characters. Pregnancy outside of marriage was still much looked down upon and under the guise of the 'flower children' it was perfectly possible for even homicidal maniacs to not seem out of place. Rita Tushingham is as great as ever and this much under rated actress puts in one of her more endearing performances. Shane Briant is eerily convincing as the psycho and the rest of the cast including James Bolam are all fine. Some decent location shooting is always appreciated around this time and here we get a couple of boutiques and some very moody stuff around the then recently completed South Bank complex. Plenty of surprises and well worth catching as one of the most unusual hammer movies.

When this was up on The Horror Channel, it was Rita Tushingham's name that caught my eye, her brilliant acting and intensity laying down an intriguing gauntlet.

With Radio Times not even giving a review, or even a rating, I was worried that it might be dreadful and true, many could see some parts as such, especially if they had taken them out of context and not watched it all the way through. However, from its opening, it was obvious that this was a well-made and directed (by Peter Collinson) little movie.

Not only is it a good and interesting snapshot of swinging London, it is also a warped fairytale about a reclusive serial killer. Who's the beauty and who is the beast? Should we and can we be loved for beauty alone?

Describing the story is unnecessary; it is a shortish film and it's the issues involved, often psychological and deeply sinister plus the often imaginative directing that are the pluses. The acting of the leads Tushingham and Shane Briant are very good with just the right amount of every emotion going. The popular James Bolam also co-stars.

There is often a sense of unease, even during the less intense parts. Oddness also often takes a lead but never enough for us to dismiss them. The most intense, X-Rated (still certificate 18) scenes are disturbing rather than graphic but they still shock.

Unlike many Hammer Horror's, it remains memorable, the ordinariness mixing with the oddness plus the central characters making for an unusual and compelling mix. I enjoyed it.