This is How Movies Should Be Made

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

I also saw this when it first aired and thought it was called "Female of the Species"...when I first started using IMDb I searched for that title and came up with the true title (only because I remembered that Anna Calder Marshall, who played the female lead, was in the 1970 version of Wuthering Heights; anyway, I was only 10, yes 10! when I saw this on TV. I can't remember much of it (pretty much all I can remember was her winking at the end) but I still remember that I thoroughly enjoyed it...it is great to see all the comments here that vindicate my memory of this presentation; I only wish I could get more info about the story..each comment I have read does help; if it EVER is released on DVD I would like to have a copy...

Sir Paul Scofield and Michael Caine (and do I remember correctly Sean Connery doing narration?), in a TV release - what a treat! I remember this as one of the finest things on TV from my adolesence (otherwise spent watchingThe Monkees, I Love Lucy re-runs, and F-Troop), a pity that it has disappeared. I've been looking for it since VHS came around, but I guess it was too intelligent to be a blockbuster. I wish I remembered more of it, I was 12 at the time and I imagine a lot of it went straight over my head, but now even the script is nowhere to be found. The actress, Anna Calder-Marshall, went on to star the following year as Cathy in "Wuthering Heights" to Timothy Dalton's Heathcliff (not your Laurence Olivier version, sexy and closer to the book in some ways). In reading the other comments here, my memory is still not jogged enough to remember much more about this, although I thought in the last act of this trilogy she met with her comeuppance - can anyone remember a more linear description of the plot of this 1969 gem? I remember that the title seemed misleading, the male figures gravitating around the central character - the girl - were of less consequence than her reaction to them, it seemed to say more about the FEmale of the species than the male, and her betrayals, her disloyalties and shortcomings seemed more shocking than those of the men in her life.

I am determined to track down this gem that won the Outstanding Dramatic Series: NET Playhouse (NET)at the 21st Emmy Awards 1968–1969, given in June of '69. Both Paul Scofield (Outstanding Actor - Single Performance) and Anna Calder-Marshall (Outstanding Supporting Actress - Single Performance) won Emmys (which actress was A. C-M. supporting?) A UK website states that Alun Owen wrote a trilogy of half-hour plays introduced by Sir Laurence Olivier: 'MacNeil' (tx. 1/2/1969), starring Sean Connery as a womanising master carpenter, 'Cornelius' (tx. 8/2/1969), with Michael Caine as a concupiscent cockney draughtsman, and 'Emlyn'(tx.15/2/1969), featuring Paul Scofield as an amorous barrister.We in the States know it as "Prudential's On Stage: Male of the Species" a title which I searched online for years as "Female of the Species" until I read the comments posted here, previously. Now I realize why: the narrator used that phrase and I presumed it to be the title of the PBS program.At 15 years old, I was stunned that the lead actress could be so cruel to the older gent. I vividly remember how kind he was to her, almost like a mentor, in her first job (a file clerk in a large law office?)but she spurned him. I knew he was a different person without his wig on, but she blew her chance, from my teenage viewpoint.I can't recall the first episode, but the scene I can't forget is when she overheard the young guy bragging about getting any girl he wanted, and that hardened her against him. I thought both were wrong to play games like that, and the last act is what riveted me because the Scofield character (Emlyn?) had the charity to forgive her when she came back to him looking for a position -- though I am hazy why: fired? resigned? Despite an obviously poor recollection of this, compared to other posters, I have carried those images with me, searching for "Female of the Species" so that I could finally figure out, now that I am grown, what she saw in Caine and not in Scofield. At the time, I knew none of the performers, but the Scofield scenes are indelible, and I still keep his face in my memory.

This must be one of the most wanted 'lost films' on the planet, if not the very most wanted. It's amazing that so little is known about it!!! It stars 3 mayor stars of the time (and still - two of them!) and yet nobody seems to care to get a hold on it and release it on DVD. Not only that: Who was the director? (Shall try to find out). I was about 16 years old when I saw it on television with my (then) living father, who at the time was about 62 years old. We both liked it tremendously and, on behalf of Michael Caine, I don't think he has ever had a more romantic role than this. I remember that it was about a (at first at least) young woman, who has 3 relationships with men, one of them to her father (daughter-father relationsship and nothing dirty as such) as I recall (played by Sean Connery) who has a habit of telling lies (this was the first time I encountered the word 'mendacity', I can still remember it), the other relationships (Caine and Schofield) were romantic (at least the one to Caine)- if she went to bed with any of them I'm however not sure of - this was an intelligent film which did not need that sort of cheap trick and insulting propaganda. It was not a coming-of-age film the way they are done today (totally without brains) but a serious film with real people in it. This is no doubt a 10 out of 10 and that it is not released casts a big shadow over the whole business - how many good films are out there, that we equally know nothing about and are not allowed to see? Well, of course, not many done today but in the times as this film was made the quality of films was at a much higher level and maybe there is more out there. However, the last film by Nick Willing 'doctor sleep' is also not available, which is of course an insult as well. since this director, after 'photographing fairies', should be promoted and not put to silence. Well, 'ken park' by Larry Clark is also not available etc.. But still: 3 mayor stars and still so little information. Amazing. A 10 out of 10 of course.