Seance on a Wet Afternoon

source: Seance on a Wet Afternoon

SEANCE ON A WET AFTERNOON is a well thought-of British crime film which adopts a psychological angle to tell an offbeat and well-crafted story. The tale is about a down-and-out couple who are struggling to make ends meet. The lily-livered husband is an asthmatic whose condition sees him constantly out of work. The overbearing wife works as a fraudulent medium to gain money from her clients. Together the pair come up with a sinister scheme to kidnap the daughter of a rich businessman and use the wife's first-hand knowledge of the kidnapping to bring her fame and fortune as a medium. It's a decent story for sure and director Bryan Forbes goes for an intensely realistic approach through. The film is extremely well done when it depicts the psychology of the opposing leads. Kim Stanley is a Lady Macbeth-style control freak undergoing a mental breakdown and her acting is quietly harrowing. Richard Attenborough is the focus of the camera's attention and does very well as the henpecked husband at the mercy of his dominating wife. Sadly, the rest of the film just isn't very exciting. It seems the more a critic likes a film the more I'm likely to hate it. SEANCE ON A WET AFTERNOON is dreary when it should be exciting and the overlong running time means that there are lots of long stretches when not much really happens. It's a pity as both the opening and closing scenes are sufficiently dramatic, it's just in the middle part that the pace really flags. Compare this to something much more up my street like the similarly-plotted Robert Shaw thriller TOMORROW AT TEN and SEANCE ON A WET AFTERNOON comes off by far the worse; even the quality acting can't save it.

Frustrating. There are so many exceptional pieces of this film, but there are probably even more pieces that are rather infuriating. The story concerns a neurotic woman who swears she is a medium (Kim Stanley - giving one of the most mannered performances in cinema history). To prove this she devises a plot to kidnap the young daughter of a rich man and then lead the police to her. Her testes-less husband (Richard Attenborough) goes along with her plan. After the first couple of minutes of their interaction, we know how sorry he feels for his wife. He doesn't believe any of what she says, but he'll obviously do anything she asks. The kidnapping plot is truly terrible, though. Neither the original author of the novel, Mark McShane, nor the director/screenwriter, Forbes, knew anything about either committing crimes or police procedures. Either that or everyone in Britain is retarded. Attenborough accomplishes this kidnapping by approaching the child's driver and telling him that the school's headmistress has a note for him. When the driver walks away (with the kid and the keys still in the car), Attenborough jumps in and drives away. Okay, don't you think that when the driver finds that there is no note with the headmistress he's going to run back to the car and find it gone, which would then lead to a massive hunt for the vehicle and the man who lied about the note, whom the driver saw very, very clearly? This crime should have been solved by the next evening. Oh, and don't forget Kim Stanley's trip to the rich man's house, when she tells him that she dreamed about their daughter, who told her the name of her best friend and her favorite stuffed animal. The rich man says, "Oh, you could have heard that anywhere!" Hmm, really? I would think that that would raise a certain amount of suspicion, more than it does anyway (the police visit her house but simply leave when they find them not home, and do not leave anyone to stake out the place). The there's this stupid backstory about the kidnappers' dead son (they try to hide that fact but it's obvious from the first two seconds of the film). The way hints are dropped it comes as no surprise to any thinking audience that there's something even more special about this kid. When that point is finally revealed, it's just silly. Two years later the film Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Would be much more successful with a similar subplot. It's all so disappointing, because the film is very well directed. Very beautifully so. And Attenborough, despite desperately needing to grow a pair of cojones, is exceptional. Also great is the music, by John Barry. But, damn, so much of the film blows. So little of this story is believable, and it's just so frustrating. That frustration turned into total annoyance by the end of the film. 5/10.

This was on TV about twelve thousand times when I was growing up. I can only assume that its copyright fell into the public domain for a couple of decades. It's common-ness meant I always managed to avoid it. But I've been on a British film kick and rented it. It's "drama" as drama is not done anymore, from a period that rejected the previous eras stagey, formulaic, dramatic conceits (a la Tennesee Williams) in favor of more finely observed filmic derangement. Kim Stanley is off her rocker here, but she's still presented as being in a delicate, pitiable state. Though you can see utter failure coming about one minute into things, the character study is intended to be of greater interest. I just didn't agree. In real life no one seeks out two hours with a passive-aggressive harpie like Stanley, so unless you're an extraordinary film-maker you've got a very difficult trick to pull off. The story in which it's clear from the get-go that the criminals are fatally flawed was familiar and modern by 1960 (The Killing, Bob le Flambeur) but is retro and outdated now. The failed crime movie is absolutely one of my least favorite genres, usually taking the form of a failed heist (Bottle Rocket, Rififi, Gun Crazy, Lavender Hill Mob) forcing audiences to sit through every last detail of a crime for no discernible reason, or worse; to learn a lesson in morality (ugh!). Which is probably why I was overjoyed at the multiple successful getaways in the Thomas Crowne remake. Some of the cinematography is very nice, but the movie is as dreary and exhausting as a two-hour visit to a nursing home.

One Saturday afternoon (not a wet one!) my mother happened to flick over from the sports on one channel to uncover an absolute gem of BRITISH Cinema from the 1960's. A little later I happened to come from my 'office', from where I run my home-based business, into the living room and was utterly transfixed by some of the greatest acting of all time in a British picture, together with a masterpiece of investigating the cinematic possibilities of the British city- and landscape. It's such a shame that the film wasn't a commercial success and that the independent production company behind it folded not long after the film's release. Both Mum and myself were amazed that we'd never even heard of Kim Stanley, who apparently was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance in 'Seance...'. She should have been in more films than she was, but then again that was her choice to go more for theatrical work. I'd recommend this film to anybody and give it top rating.

I remember seeing Seance on a Wet Afternoon, before I was teenager. And then seeing it again five or six years later. It still had the same impact watching the movie as I was young child. If this playing on TV tomorrow, I would watch Seance before any TV show. It is an excellent study of characters in story. This is one the movies made me interested in older films. I did not care if the movie was in black and white or color as long as the film is made well. I enjoy for the mysterious atmosphere the movie is set and creativity that the actors bring to their roles. The plot had been copied many of times on film and TV but never can duplicated. Kim Stanley plays the strong controlling wife who does the seances and Richard Attenborough as her weak husband. If like the Others and Sixth Sense, you might like this film.

This movie is awesome! It's creepy, dark, gloomy, everything a great psychological thriller should be. Richard Attenbrough is a master and this movie proves it. The camera work is perfect and his acting and directing is unbelievable. This movie makes Silence of the Lambs look like a B movie.

This great, seldom-scene movie stars Kim Stanley as an unbalanced woman who holds seances in her home and concocts a plot to gain celebrity with her so-called "powers". With the help of her husband, she plans to kidnap the daughter of a wealthy couple, then use her "powers"to reveal the girl's whereabouts. As the story unfolds, the audience is shown the reasons behind the woman's emotional problems and the growing inevitability of disaster that her plan holds. Richard Attenborough gives a great performance as he teeters between the desire to fulfill his unhappy wife's scheme and the knowledge that the deed they are doing is wrong. Reccommended for those who want a shiver without the gore. Thought provoking.

I've seen Seance many times. First, as a side note, having viewed this film as a child, I can attest to how uncomfortable it was to see a child kidnapped, so not real good for little ones. Next, to avoid repetition of better reviews than mine, I'll just confirm that Seance represents a very high caliber of film-making, and actors Stanley and Attenborough, cinematographer Turpin and director Forbes are especially at the top of their craft here. If you haven't seen it, watch it first - it unfolds slowly like an exquisite flower - then read this, if you like, as it is a focus on the ending. Finally, for repeat viewers of Seance I'd like to address the last few scenes, maybe others have more clarity on this. The ending, described by some as "anti-climactic"(!) has Myra in a trance delivering her agonizing monologue which reveals their guilt - to Billy's horror. More than once I have tried to accept at this point that the jig is up and I find I often focus on Billy, the police - anyone to avoid watching poor Myra because Stanley's performance is so powerful, it's nearly too uncomfortable to watch. But as she continues, she reveals information that she couldn't possibly know - information that Billy has kept from her. Has everyone else noticed this? This would transform the entire story (or for me it would). Does she indeed have the "gift" that "Arthur" advised her of or helps her with? It would appear she does. It would seem that her grief, histrionics and loss of ethics (among other things) mask a brilliance. She has devised a hoax to increase her notoriety, so has she failed this gift by not respecting her own unique ability? Does Billy act as if he believes she has a gift or does he quietly acquiesce to this as well, creating a silent climate of non belief? Either circumstance, though different, could drive someone crazy. Has anyone, by chance, read the novel? I probably should . Perhaps it clears this up. Sorry for all the questions. Thoughtful, complex, psychological, atmospheric film.

While I think Leonard Maltin was a little generous in giving this movie 4 stars (his highest rating), it was a very good and difficult to predict movie about two amateur kidnappers. It seems their motives are unusual in that they want to kidnap a girl so that one of them (the mrs.) can con everyone into believing she has psychic powers when she reveals both where the child and the money are hidden--or at least that's the plan. However, due to two personality factors (the hubby doesn't have the guts or inclination for crime and the wife is kind of nuts), their plans start to go awry. Excellent acting and scripting make this well worth your time and it's nice to see a movie with minimal budget and not exactly big name stars come off so well. FYI--since my original review, I have seen a Japanese remake, of sorts, called SEANCE. It's as good as SEANCE ON A WET AFTERNOON but is also different enough that I recommend you also try watching it as well. While very similar, it diverges into the supernatural and ends much differently.