The Sleeping Tiger

source: The Sleeping Tiger

Moviecut—The Sleeping Tiger

Alexis Smith was one of many American stars who came to the United Kingdom to find work which was becoming less and less in Hollywood as less feature films were being made.. She was lucky to get this role opposite rising British cinema favorite Dirk Bogarde. Smith plays the wife of criminal psychologist Alexander Knox who believes that with some analysis some criminals can be cured. So far not different than those two Hollywood classics Blind Alley and The Dark Past. But in those cases criminals broke into the homes of psychologists Ralph Bellamy and Lee J. Cobb and under stress the two mental health professionals did some probing. But Bogarde is a selected case study. He's paroled to Knox and gets to live in his home where Smith finds the sexy Bogarde impossible to resist. Bogarde is Stanley Kowalski with a criminal record if this film had been made on this side of the pond Marlon Brando would have been an obvious choice for the part. Let's say that Knox should have kept his business and professional life separate. Smith is great as a forty something woman in some serious heat. One person I always enjoy seeing in British films is Hugh Griffith who always brings something to even a relatively colorless part like a police inspector here. Blacklisted director Joseph Losey directed The Sleeping Tiger and it's a fine piece of work

after so many years, SLEEPING TIGER is a historical gold mine of the search for innovative film. Acting & music appears intentionally melodramatic. One of the most underappreciated gems available!

Alexis Smith, wife of busy psychiatrist-psychoanalyst-psychotherapist Alexander Knox is sexually frustrated because she is a hot, steamy 33 year old and he's older, and not hot. One day, hubby brings home a young thug, Dirk Bogarde, to rehabilitate who is also hot & steamy and immediately you know the two are going to make steamy together, which of course they do after riding horses and getting all steamed up. Much scenery chewing and steaming later, hubby makes a breakthrough with Dirk regarding mommy, daddy & step-mommy issues and Dirk feels so guilty about steaming it up with his wife that he tells her it's through..over..finished..kaput and leaves the house to start out a new improved life of his own. Well, Alexis ain't taking this sitting down so she jumps in her car, gets him to climb in. Hubby gives chase in his car and several sharp curves and speedometers later, Alexis crashes thru a fence and over an embankment, the car turns over, it's wheels dramatically spinning and Alexis, the wife, is dead Dirk however is alive and the camera pans to the hole in the fence where they crashed thru. Above the hole is a huge poster of a leaping tiger. Ah hah. The movie title of course is Sleeping Tiger and it ends with a leaping tiger. Get it? The tiger! Wow. The End. I liked this movie because it was 50's black and white British and simple, predictable & plausible. Interesting Dirk is suppose to be younger than Alexis and he does look kid like and she is sort of matronly older looking but according to IMDb he was actually 3 months younger than she. I'm gonna give it six points cause it didn't bore me.

Before I knew that this was a Joseph Losey film, I did notice a similarity with his film "The Servant ". Dirk Bogarde playing a sinister infiltrator in a private house. American noir set in 1950s England with 2 US actors in starring roles. Psychiatry was a cool profession then and of course Bogarde's character is miraculously cured in the last reel. Strangely the real anachronism (ANC for me the draw of watching a65 year old movie on TV) is the depiction of the low Soho "dive" with an all black bebop jazz combo providing dance music for frantic jiving couples, with blokes sporting Tony Curtis haircuts. Bit too long but very interesting.

There is always something unpleasant and morbid about Joseph Losey's films as if they were innately self-destructive, you always sit waiting for the worst, and it always comes, but you never know how, and that's the worst of it. This film is slightly different from his ordinary ones, with above all an impressing camera work slanting towards almost Bergmanesque expressionism, but the dominant trait is the impressing acting by the three main characters, Alexis Smith, always beautiful and stylish, Dirk Bogarde, always slyly intelligent and unpredictable, and Alexander Knox, always on the safe and right side of reason and humanity. He is here a psychologist venturing on the interesting but risky experiment of housing a criminal (Bogarde) instead of turning him over to the police, in an effort to straighten him out. He gets straightened out but at the cost of Alexis Smith, Dr. Knox' wife, who finds her own tiger inside herself. There is more than one tiger getting roused from sleep and every day routine in this psychological thriller of mainly reasoning and experimenting - there is a gun but no bloodshed. The raw music of saxophones constantly insisting on vulgarity adds to the decadent atmosphere of human decay and perdition, like in so many of Losey's films if not all of them, but this is certainly one of his best. The Soho scenes contrast sharply against the orderly clinic and home of Dr. Knox and add some extra suggestive noir perfume to the dark drama of passion that never should have been called forth. Alexis Smith is always excellent, but I have never seen her better than here. It's a film of many raised eyebrows and some worries, but it is brilliantly realized with impressing, convincing psychology and great intelligence all the way.

An overdone psychodrama whose twists and turns require some unfortunate stretches. Too bad the plot ironies finally drown in a tidal wave of over-emotion. Apparently, ace director Losey couldn't tone down Smith's carpet chewing finale that unfortunately overwhelms what's gone before. At the same time, we're hit over the head with the finale's sleeping tiger irony. I think the audience can put two and two together without that billboard contrivance. Seems Glenda (Smith) is the highly repressed wife of coldly intellectual Dr. Clive (Knox), who's been neglecting her emotional needs as he pursues his writing and research. In that same pursuit he takes proven felon Frank (Bogarde) into his household in order to test his theory of criminal reform. Clive's main reform tool is to excuse Frank's misbehavior whether criminal or moral in order to get at the causes of Frank's disordered psyche. Needless to say, such indulgences cause all kinds of problems, both inside the household and out. As Doc's indulgences mount, it seems that an optimistic ideal is being mocked. Namely, that there are no bad people, only mistreated kids who then grow into criminal behavior. For example, while in the Doc's "care", Frank robs a jewelry store, and maybe worse, spits on Clive's generosity by seducing wife Glenda. In return, the Doc simply ignores the mounting transgressions. To me, that willingness, which also puts people in Doc's community in danger, looks like a mockery of a liberal brand of Freudianism then in vogue. It may be a provocative idea for the film to play with. Nonetheless, the tiger upshot undercuts that optimism, at the same time it clouds the film's one very real tragedy. Anyway, Bogarde comes through with a nicely modulated turn, while Knox deadpans through thick and thin, even as Smith does the sleeping tiger to an ear-splitting roar. Apparently the movie was filmed more cheaply abroad at a time when TV was eating into movie profits. So, on a small budget, don't expect much in terms of scenery or action, though noir master Losey does work in some atmosphere. To me, the story's highlight and genuine tragedy is downplayed, but is present nevertheless if you think about it. As the 90-minutes stands, it's something of a disappointment given the talent involved. (In passing-depending on the camera angle there are times when it appears Frank and Glenda resemble Lucy and Desi from TV's iconic I Love Lucy. Then again, maybe I had one too many beers!)

There's little doubt here what will happen with the very Joan Crawford like Alexis Smith as the bored wife of psychiatrist Alexander Knox who sets her sights on the sexy criminal (Dirk Bogarde) he sets out to rehabilitate. Smith starts off like a kitten, but then her claws come out, and even if she's nasty to Bogarde, you know that the thin like between hate and lust will make her long for more than just snarking at him every time the doctor husband is out of the room. Knox is the type of character here that you know probably won't hold interest for his affection-starved wife, and much like Crawford's later "Queen Bee", Smith is a cool cat about ready to pounce on her prey and leave nothing left if they don't give her what she wants. A lot of the film is psychological talk about how a criminal can be changed if his environment changes, and you have to give the writers credit for allowing Bogarde to play this aspect of the character. But Bogarde is too high class in appearance, manner and speech to be believable as a thief, so this aspect of the story never rings true. It takes a lot of time for the heat to strike between Bogarde and Smith, and even after Knox witnesses a come-on scene between the two of them, he's still willing to allow Bogarde to remain. But as Smith gets more grasping, Bogarde gets bored with her, and it isn't long until the hidden psychosis in her character comes out, leading to an obvious conclusion where you swear you can still hear her evil laughter long after this has occurred. In spite of Knox's boring character and Bogarde's seeming miscasting, the film grabs your attention every time that the fabulous Ms. Smith is on screen. She had little opportunity on screen to show what she could really do, and it would take Broadway to bring that out when she stepped into sexy gowns to play the glamorous Phyllis in Stephen Sondheim's "Follies". Fans of "Dallas" will see a bit of the character she later played, Lady Jessica Montford, here, and when Smith really gets chewing on the scenery, you really pray she won't choke on some of the melodramatic lines she's given. But that is what makes this movie somewhat memorable in spite of obvious flaws, and you won't soon forget her after the movie is over.

"The Sleeping Tiger" is a film so flawed by its premise that no matter how good the picture is, it is automatically cursed to be second- rate. Think about it...a thug with a gun breaks into a psychiatrist's home and the doctor then invites the criminal to live in his home! The only way this MIGHT have worked had they made there a latent homosexual undertone to all this. But there wasn't and the film often makes no sense at all! Dirk Bogarde plays the crook, Frank, and he plays him very well. This is no surprise, as Bogarde played many sociopathic creeks and played them well during this era. He does his best with the material. As for Alexis Smith, her character as the Doc's wife is terrible--and clichéd. And, the husband, played by Alexander Knox, is the worst of all...a man who makes himself a virtual eunuch in his own home! The bottom line is that while the film has its moments, the plot is simply hopeless and a couple dumb characters make it all the worse. You could do a lot better and I'd recommend you try some of Bogarde's better written sociopath films such as "Cast a Dark Shadow".