Simply Perfect

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

I don't think any normal person would claim this film's opening scenes are pregnant with possibility. There are all the symptoms of a cheap horror flick -- the lurid colors, the tinny electronic score, the conceit of the killer's point of view, the murders -- three of them -- before the opening credits roll and one murder immediately after. The first killing has a pretty British nurse killed in a hospital after being injected with some kind of potion, gasping, legs kicking, underpants showing. Night time. Few lights, mostly red or a bleached, ghoulish green, and blinding white. Ominous. All portending a ride through the Haunted House at Disneyland.We never get to see the psychotic killer during his or her escape from the booby hatch. So who could it be? There are myriad red herrings. Simon Ward, "Young Winston," looks awfully suspicious when we first see him at a roadside stop, playing a slot machine and staring at himself in the mirror. Would any sane person look at himself in a mirror? I know I wouldn't. Then there's Hayley Mills -- oh, so innocent; maybe TOO innocent, with her plump lower lip and those shapely knees. The director, by the way, seems to have a thing for knees. Well, in Hayley Mills' case, he can't be blamed. And, after all, Luis Bunuel was into shoes and Walt Disney spent a lot of time around animals.Then there is Sterling Hayden who brings a bit of color to a familiar story of hitch hikers and maniacs. He's dressed like Captain Ahab and has a bushy gray beard of a retired Civil War general. He puts more energy into his brief role as an old blowhard than he has in any other performance, outside of "Dr. Strangelove," where the effort was masked by his real acting skills.Among the felicities, Mills' knees aside, there are those cute British phone booths. I don't know why America can't make its phone booths out of wood and paint them a bright crimson. They look sturdy, and comfortable enough to spend hours in. Among the weaknesses, well, an example. At a gas station, Ward happens upon a window through which he sees a young woman undressing and getting into what appears to be a uniform shirt. While the camera gapes at her figure, there are interpolated cuts, three or four of them, to the gigantic close up of Ward's single blue eye. The effect is almost surreal but that isn't what the director and editor intended. They just did it because one of them, seized by a brain storm, said something like, "Shouldn't we have a big close up of the actor's eye, so that we know he's still peeping?" Imagine Hitchcock cutting back and forth from Janet Leigh's undressing to a bulging close up of Anthony Perkins' eyeball.There are flashbacks heralded by slow camera movement into a close up, followed by a dissolve, harp music, the flashback with its edges blurred. Both actors suffer from them. Mill's are about her happy youth, riding a horse along the beach, until we reach the part where she was sexually abused as a child. (Zzzz.) Ward's are about impotence. The logic of the tale is flawed; Ward and Mills quarrel when they first meet, but before you know it, and without adumbration, Mills is actively protecting him -- because he might have accidentally killed an aggressive motorcyclist.The ending emerges from the shadows and the identity of the murdering lunatic is revealed. If it's a surprise, it's only because some earlier incidents have made this ending impossible.

"Deadly Strangers" opens with opens with a mysterious killer escaping from an asylum-type scene after murdering nurse.Haley Mills misses her train.She accepts a ride from a truck driver,who tries to rape her.She escapes and is then picked up by a mysterious who was watching her in the bar.He behaves suspiciously and may be an escaped lunatic...Very suspenseful and fast-paced thriller with a surprising twist ending often spoiled in various reviews.The film is currently only available on a rare VHS tape.It features Hayley Mills in several nude scenes and is told in flashbacks.The finale is gripping and suspenseful.I haven't seen Sidney Hayers "Assault" and "Revenge",but after enjoying "Deadly Strangers" I'd really like to.8 out of 10.

Good movie plots remain with me. This is a movie I'd seen as a child and am lucky to find it here. It's a plot I've never forgotten and has quite a twist at the end. The only actor I remembered was Simon Ward. The acting was fine and, like so many of the British movies I've seen, nothing is overdone. No unnecessary violence and things blowing up for the sake of a boom. They don't write enough movies like this one. Other moves like this one is Vanishing Act with Elliot Gould, Silent Partner with Elliot Gould, and Sudden Fury (a very little known Canadian movie which should not be confused with the idiotic action film of the same name).If you're the kind of movie fan who hates predictable movies then this movie is for you.

Young British man offers stranded, pretty girl a lift--but is he the psychopathic killer all the police are searching for? Damp, chilly film from the UK does boast a stylish direction (the rolling compact, the chase in the parking structure) and fine performances from the principals, particularly Hayley Mills in what must have been just a quick movie-stop on her busy theatrical schedule of the 1970s. Mills isn't flatteringly photographed here, but she's a natural, never winking at the camera for affect and never adding more to a scene than is needed. Nerve-jangling yarn will probably surprise you with its twists. It has a compact screenplay and is well paced. **1/2 from ****