Such a frustrating disappointment

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

The Walking Stick features broody, moody David Hemmings as Leigh, an artist living the bohemian lifestyle in London's (then un-redeveloped) Docklands. He makes friends with crippled sweet young thing Deborah (Samantha Eggar, who specialized throughout the sixties in vulnerable female roles), a polio victim with weak legs and unloving parents (Phyllis Calvert and Ferdy Mayne). But Leigh has an ulterior motive: he's going to use Deborah to help him rob the auction house at which she works. If moral ambiguity is your bag, or if you're a fan of either Hemmings or Eggar, you won't want to miss this very special, very rare treat. Also of note: Stanley Myers' terrific score, sometimes lush, sometimes swinging, and Arthur Ibbetson's frequently stunning, beautifully composed cinematography.

Spoilers herein.Someone thought to produce a glossy art film, a lowbrow face on a highbrow idea. Early in the game, we are told as much in a discussion of `Wild Strawberries' early in the story. Unhappily, this suffers from Hollywooditis, a malady that hobbles every intelligent thing it attempts. One can see it mirrored in the story itself -- at least that is some pleasure. The enterprise of `stealing' the art is done by incompetents. Same in real life. The affair is botched, and the hobbled actress writes it up and sends it to us. The art is lost.

Curtailing evil, criminal intentions, a dashing young man, Leigh, seduces and persuades the dreary, moderate polio victim Deborah Dainton into falling in love with him. Deborah leads a neatly organized life, and is obligated to see it being reduced to shreds when she discovers her boyfriend is part of a gang who intends to rob the auction house in which she works in. That's when Deborah has to come to grips with the fact that Leigh may have maintained a relationship with her solely for the benefit of the heist. This is an utterly unforgettable study on bitterness, hope and disappointment. We get to witness the magnificence of Eggar's performance as her character slowly discovers what Leigh - David Hemmings - truly had in mind when they began living together. And how Eggar manages to show that her bad leg does not stop her from being as tricky - if not trickier - than the good for nothing Leigh.'The Walking Stick' is an emotionally-charged melodrama that does not appeal to tacky tearjerker clichés. Everything is beautifully executed in a low-key, calm and yet gut-wrenchingly real manner, with an emotionally disarming ending that will leave you sobbing.

A very beatiful low key film about a woman and a man meeting and getting to know one another little by little. Underneath, things are not what they appear to be...In "Walking Stick" Samantha Eggar and David Hemmings give very fine and clear performances as unseeming Londoners. The actors were very hot and coveted starlets at the end of the sixties, starring in loads of ambitious films and then later never to be heard from again... Shame really, they´re brilliant.