Directed by Val Guest
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, Sony)
A dreadful first hour features a recently married couple on vacation in France as the husband tries to recover from a head injury sustained in an automobile accident. They bicker endlessly, fight after fight, only to reconcile for a while then fight again. They are staying in a 5-star hotel, which they have mostly to themselves, until a friendly older neighbor shows up. It just so happens that he is a psychiatrist and he begins treating the husband, while making advances towards the wife. When they abruptly decide to return to London, the doctor follows, and the film takes a dramatic turn towards the better. Suddenly there is tension as the husband's homicidal urges intensify. There is the complex psychological angle as the husband tries desperately to remember the accident that is the source of his mental illness. You sense the doctor may not be quite sincere, but the film brilliantly hides the truth from both the husband and the audience. Even at the end, we are not sure what is real and what is illusion in the cat and mouse game between doctor and patient. A second viewing may be required to figure out why that first hour seemed so bad...
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