Three Into Two Won't Go

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source: Three Into Two Won't Go

This was a film I saw when it first came out. I have to be honest that after so many.... many years a great deal of the film is lost from my memory. I am sure though, that this was the film in which the use of a camera circling about two subjects was the best I have ever seen. My friend and I looked at each other at the end and nodded that we had to see the scene again so we stayed and watched. The dialogue must have been so clever to match how the camera moved slowly around the two actors, drawing the viewer from one characters thoughts to the other. Generally now, this technique is just a technique without any real purpose. It was moving imaginative, questioning...I became a psychiatric nurse! It should be seen by everyone interested in great writing, directing, acting and camera work. Brilliant.

I saw this film twice in the few months following its release in 1969, when I was 16. I haven't seen it since, therefore this review is based on my long term memory which I'm glad to say is pretty good where it exists. The storyline of married man Steve Howard getting caught up in an affair with a younger girl was convincing and is more so now given my greater life experience. The results on Howard's marriage are pretty profound. The dilemma faced by Howard and his wife goes to the root of a relationship and is one that many adults will easily identify with and for me that is why this film should be re-released. It is an 'everyman' movie with themes and messages that are as relevant today, more than 40 years after release, as they were then. Rod Steiger's performance was brilliant, playing the part of a man in a tired childless relationship caught out by a young woman who fuels his ego and self esteem. This leads to a brief but ultimately devastating affair. The clincher is Steiger's ability to play a complex character with such understated conviction. Claire Bloom's character was overshadowed a bit by Judy Geeson's flighty but powerful and manipulative role. But the mix was great, well cast and successful, evidenced by the fact I have never forgotten the film and the emotions it raised in me then and many times since. If anyone knows where I can get a copy on videotape or better still on DVD, I'd love to hear from them.

As a single mother in the 60's, this film has me hurtling back into that era...it is beautifully portrayed and Judy G. plays the cool wanton girl wonderfully. It exudes an ambiance and is one of the few films I want to watch several times. Every time I feel nostalgic I dip into the video shelf and slip into those powerful wonderful 60's days! Claire Bloom plays the suffering wife and childless woman so well, we feel the hollow in her own life. She is also trying to juggle her mother's demands with her own disillusionment regarding her marriage. The new 60's style home seems to emphasize the emptiness of her relationship with her husband. The freedom of Judy's character and the carelessness of her regard for "the baby" is in direct contrast to the hopes of Claire, in this regard.

There's obviously no easy answer, but this obscure British drama starring Rod Steiger, Claire Bloom and Judy Geeson does ask a lot of important questions and give some answers, even though not every affair ends up in the divorce court or with a fatal attraction. Steiger and Bloom have marital issues due to her reluctance to adopt a child and his putting all the responsibility on her. He picks up 19 year old hitchhiker Geeson, and she has no qualms about letting him make love to her, although I was never quite sure if it was because of her obvious belief in free love or a desire to control him. She can be quite immature one moment, then quite understanding when they meet up again. I wanted him to dump her without regret when she threatened a public scene, then changed my opinion when she showed another side when they hung out another time, after Steiger and Bloom had a nasty argument. But when Geeson shows up and manipulates an invitation to stay from Bloom, it's clear that his world is going to explode. And of course, the inevitable happens, or so she makes him think. If it wasn't for the three dimensional characterization of the three leads (with Geeson not a complete monster), I'd rate this lower. You can't hate Steiger either for cheating, and it's obvious that he regrets the fling quite quickly. I found it odd that he blamed himself for a "rape" when it was very clear what she was up to from the start, being an older "Lolita". Veteran actress Peggy Ashcroft has a small role as Bloom's aging mother, a touch of class I wish had more scenes of. Perhaps as a warning to mature men to be wary of lusty legal aged young girls it's fine, but it's also a warning to young women to avoid becoming a cloying nymph that Geeson turns into, feigning vulnerability yet hiding the sting of the scorpion who can't help but take others down with her. The permissiveness of the altered code from a few years before this allowed for films like this to get approved, and while this isn't a bad film, it certainly was a dark comment on the dangerous desires of a not yet completely matured mind that is capable of great destruction without the intention to be.

I saw this film when it was on general release and even 50 odd years later I begrudge the time I spent. A naff storyline about a group of two dimensional characters behaving in a wholly unbelievable manner. Steiger, being unable to attempt an English accent, settled for an execrable stage Irish accent, stopping just short of " begarrorah & bejaysus". Bloom portrayed the "wronged" wife with all the charm and charisma of a bookshelf. Whilst Geeson delivered her lines as though she were reading them from a railway timetable.

Many accuse Rod Steiger of overacting, and anyone who has seen the Amityville Horror and the 'fly' section would struggle to say otherwise. That said, he's brilliant in this. It's never on TV, you can't buy it on DVD (legitimately). In 1988, when Channel 4 still had a prescription for innovation, they showed this amongst a small amalgam of 60s films, Privilege etc - and I remember an essentially theatrical experience, transposed well to film. The great thing about theatre is it's enclosed - how do you make it available and interesting on screen? PH just about pulls it off. Because this sort of film is never even on cable or Sky TV anywhere it's hard to get a debate going, but for anyone out there who has seen it or can remember, my memories are of a forthright, almost strident performance by Sally Geeson 'thats all taken care of' (which eschews the almost diffident general performances of her and her sibling in many early 70s offerings) she says ref conception. There are several of these - key lines you remember years, decades on. That's the power of a film like this. PS I just saw it again and its just as good. One day, TV too will be enlightened.

It's so seventies. I can even smell it like before the rain. A silent cold war that brought back all my life before my eyes again. And in the end everything goes up in flames like a volcano. It's real, because I watched it before and it was no movie. Brilliant, exceptional performance. And Claire Bloom. There I must stop. I am too small for such a great show. She does not need to talk even. Her eyes are saying a thousand words. Absolutely wonderful. This is the fifteenth film where I had the privilege of watching her performance. This is the fifteenth time where she is a completely different person. Even her voice is changed. Terry, Lady Anne, Barsine, Theodora ... and down on earth again with such pain, kindness and anger. Claire Bloom ...

I saw this film back in the early 70's and I was mesmerised by Judy Geeson. For me it captured the clandestine nature of Rod Steigers irrepressible obsession with the young and extremely sexy hitch hiker, played by Geeson. You couldn't help feel a little sorry for the wife, played brilliantly by Claire Bloom. I was really disappointed to see that the original cut may have been lost and there is little chance of it being released on DVD. I defy anyone who saw the film, and it's strong message not to be equally absorbed by the three main character performances, and I would have loved to have seen it again, if nothing else for a purely nostalgic reason. Going back in time, some 35 years. A real classic.