Themes: Kidnapping, Cons and Scams, Psychic Abilities
Main Cast: Kim Stanley, Richard Attenborough, Margaret Lacey, Nanette Newman, Maria Kazan, Patrick Magee, Mark Eden, Lionel Gamlin
Release Year: 1964
Country: UK
Run Time: 114 minutes
Plot
Kim Stanley plays a crooked medium who has become slightly unhinged since the death of her son. Craving money and publicity, she concocts a scheme with her weak-willed husband (Richard Attenborough). The pair will kidnap a wealthy young girl, collect the ransom, then use her "powers" to help the parents locate the child. The scheme falls apart, but not in the way that anyone might expect. Adapted by director Bryan Forbes from a novel by Mark McShane, Seance on a Wet Afternoon is a compelling psychological melodrama made doubly powerful by Stanley's mesmerizing performance. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
Séance on a Wet Afternoon would be notable if for no other reason than it contains a rare screen performance by the gifted Kim Stanley. Stanley's work is mesmerizing and captivating; there's no sleight-of-hand fakery behind the very real emotions she puts onscreen, creating a disturbing, fascinating, and wrenching portrait of an unbalanced woman whose seemingly indestructible strength and power is built upon a flimsy, shaky foundation. She conveys both the fragility and the brutality of the character with the slightest modulation in voice, and the merest raising of an eyebrow possesses stores of meaning. In her big climactic scene, she pulls out the stops without resorting to the showy and obvious. Stanley is well complemented by Richard Attenborough's finely shaded, delicately subtle characterization; the actor has never given a more finely modulated performance, and his work is crucial to the film's ultimate impact. Director Bryan Forbes has also drawn fine performances from his supporting cast, including a nicely underplayed Judith Donner and a compelling Nanette Newman. He and cinematographer Gerry Turpin use the camera to create a chilling, vaguely menacing atmosphere that hopes to disguise an underlying tone of melancholy, to very fine effect. And Forbes' screenplay is compact and economical, using detail in a telling and cumulative manner. Stanley, Oscar-nominated for her work here, would make only three more big-screen appearances before her death in 2001. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
Marian Spencer - Mrs. Wintry; Judith Donner - Amanda Clayton; Gerald Sim - Sgt. Beedle; Arnold Bell - Mr. Weaver; Maggie McGrath - Woman at 2nd Seance; Frank Singuineau - Bus Conductor; Hajni Biro - Maid at Clayton's; Marie Burke - Woman at first Seance; Ronald Hines - Policeman at Clayton's; Godfrey James - Clayton's Chauffeur; Diana Lambert - Clayton's Secretary; Michael Lees - Plainclothes Policeman; Stanley Morgan - Man in Trilby; John Lees - Plain Clothes Policeman
Credit
Ray Simm - Art Director, Bryan Forbes - Director, Derek York - Editor, John Barry - Composer (Music Score), John Barry - Musical Direction/Supervision, Stuart Freeborn - Makeup, David Harcourt - Camera Operator, Gerry Turpin - Cinematographer, Richard Attenborough - Producer, Bryan Forbes - Producer, Jack Rix - Producer, Peter James - Set Designer, Bryan Forbes - Screenwriter, Mark McShane - Book Author
Myra Savage (Kim Stanley) is a self-styled medium who holds séances in her dreary home. Her husband Bill (Richard Attenborough), unable to work full-time, for being asthmatic, assists in his wife’s séances. At Myra’s instigation, Bill kidnaps the young daughter (Judith Donner) of a wealthy couple (Mark Eden and Nanette Newman), confining her in a room (in the Savage home) dressed as a hospital ward. Myra dresses as a nurse to deceive her to believing she is hospitalised; yet, Myra insists she is “borrowing” the girl to demonstrate her psychomancy to a police investigator (Patrick Magee) in helping him find the missing girl, however, her plan goes awry as her unsteady mental health begins to fray.[1][2]
Casting
According to Jon Krampner's biography "Female Brando: The Legend of Kim Stanley," Forbes and Attenborough had initially encountered difficulty in casting the role of Myra. Deborah Kerr and Simone Signoret were originally approached for the part, but both actresses turned down the role. Forbes and Attenborough then contacted Kim Stanley, an American theatre and television actress whose previous film work was limited to starring in the 1958 feature The Goddess and providing the uncredited opening and closing narration for the 1962 adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird. Attenborough would later be quoted as stating that Stanley was the best choice, noting that the “complexity of dramatic impression vital to the credibility of Myra was hard to find. Also an intellectual ability to follow and understand the character. I didn’t believe Simone (Signoret) could convey, as Kim did, the otherworldliness which this woman inhabited in her private fantasies.”[3]
After completing Séance on a Wet Afternoon, Stanley would not appear in another film until Frances in 1982.
Reception and awards
Critical reaction in the British and American media was overwhelmingly strong. The London Express called the film “superbly atmospheric” while The Sunday Telegraph dubbed it “compassionate, intelligent and absorbing.” The New York Herald-Tribune called Séance on a Wet Afternoon “the perfect psychological suspense thriller and a flawless film to boot” while The New York Times stated “it isn’t often you see a melodrama that sends you forth with a lump in your throat, as well as a set of muscles weary from being tenses for nigh two hours.”[4]
