Main Cast: Richard Burton, Lino Ventura, Lee Remick, Harry Andrews, Marie-Christine Barrault
Release Year: 1978
Country: UK/FR
Run Time: 110 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG
Plot
In The Medusa Touch Brunel (Lino Ventura), a French detective on temporary assignment with Scotland Yard, investigates a mysterious series of disasters. The uncanny events begin happening shortly after writer John Morlar (Richard Burton) was hit over the head by an unknown intruder and rendered comatose. Slowly, Brunel begins to connect the strange things that are happening in the world with the deranged dreams of the comatose Morlar. He gets the final clue he needs from Morlar's reluctant psychiatrist, Dr. Zonfield (Lee Remick), who holds the key to Morlar's past. Once it is discovered that Morlar has the ability to think horrible thoughts and make them come true, Brunel and Zonfield must take off with dispatch to a London cathedral, where the Queen is scheduled to make an appearance -- but Morlar is thinking about the cathedral, and it is crumbling fast. Well-liked in Britain, this movie did not do well in the U.S. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
Review
From the second shot in Jack Gold's The Medusa Touch -- a close-up of a print of Edvard Munch's painting "The Scream," in a study where a man is watching a tragedy unfolding on a lunar mission -- this is one eerie and unsettling movie. From what seems to be a murder scene (but proves to be something much more complicated), we shift across twin landscapes, of multiple disasters spread across the past life of the victim, John Morlar (Richard Burton), and see hints of some recent tragedy and destruction in London. The film unfolds in such a way that the two separate layers of death and disaster, and the threat and paranoia that come with them -- one vertical, out of Morlar's past, and the other horizontal, in the here-and-now as the characters move about London -- intersect for the denouement, which is one of the most exciting and one of the more horrific seen in this kind of movie. Lino Ventura and Lee Remick are coolly credible as two characters on the periphery of Morlar's life, trying to understand what is happening, and it is difficult to imagine an actor other than Richard Burton who could bring the degree of pathos, anger, and dignity that he encompasses within his portrayal of Morlar. The plot resembles an old Outer Limits script entitled "The Man With The Power," which was produced with Donald Pleasence as the tormented possessor of psychokinetic power, but his was a more sad and sympathetic character, even when his subconscious mind was triggering peoples' deaths -- Burton's Morlar evokes a far more complex range of emotions here, including raw fear when, at the denouement, his worst destructive impulses manifest themselves, seemingly without any way of stopping them. The film's believability is helped greatly by the presence in supporting roles of Harry Andrews, Gordon Jackson, and other top British acting talent, and the script's and the director's occasional display of a nasty sense of humor, such as in the flashbacks to Morlar's relationship to his parents and the circumstances of their deaths, and a scene involving a bickering couple arguing over a fish. There is also a decidedly topical, Watergate-era slant given to the plot as the investigating detective is told that his superiors want the assault/attempted murder case wrapped up quickly and quietly, because of Morlar's supposed possession of incriminating facts about government and business leaders -- that elements is almost lost, however, amid the ever heightening destruction depicted in the story as the time-line of Morlar's life advances to the present, and the suspense that comes with it as the nature of Morlar's final plan becomes clear. Thanks to the presence of Lee Remick in the cast and the script's suggestion at one point -- in a frankly delightful scene with Michael Hordern -- of a possible mystical (or demonic) source for Morlar's abilities, The Medusa Touch was compared with The Omen and other horror films of its era depicting demonic manifestations; in fact, it's a better, more rational chiller than The Omen or its sequels, closer in spirit and substance to science fiction of the Quatermass variety, though not remotely as inventive as that esteemed cycle of productions written by Nigel Kneale. Though it was very successful in England, The Medusa Touch never found an audience in America, possibly because its story, images, and characters were too English to capture the imaginations of American filmgoers. The script's explanation of the movie's title -- ironically, one of its numerous strong attributes -- probably didn't help either, being rather vague and rooted as it was in classical mythology rather than more conventional and easily understood notions of demonism and Christian imagery. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
Michael Hordern - Atropos, the Fortune Teller; Gordon Jackson - Dr.Johnson; Derek Jacobi - Townley, the Publisher; Michael Byrne - Duff; Jeremy Brett - Edward Parrish; Robert Lang - Pennington; Denise Alexander - Hospital Doctor; Alan Badel - Barrister; Norman Bird - Father; Joseph Clark - 14 Year Old Morlar; John Flanagan - Police Constable; Robert Flemyng - Judge McKinley; James Hazeldine - Lovelass; Gordon Honeycombe - TV Newscaster; George Innes - Van Driver; Jennifer Jayne - Mother; Ian Marter - Detective in Street; John Normington - Schoolmaster; Maurice O'Connell - Sgt. Robbins; Earl Rhodes - Parson; Colin Rix - Engineer; Philip Stone - Dean; Frances Tomelty - Nanny; Brook Williams - Male Nurse; Malcolm Tierney - Deacon; Stanley Lebor - Police Doctor; Matthew Long - Copilot; Avril Elgar - Mrs. Pennington; Wendy Gifford - Receptionist; Victor Winding - Senior Police Officer; Mark Jones - Sgt. Hughes
A French detective, Brunel (Ventura), is on an exchange scheme in London. He is assigned to investigate the murder of novelist John Morlar (Burton). As they examine the crime scene, the policemen find that the victim is actually still alive in spite of his heavy injuries and have him rushed to hospital.
With the help of Morlar's journals and Dr Zonfeld (Remick), a psychiatrist whom the author had started visiting, Brunel reconstructs Morlar's past life, which (seen in flashback) is full of inexplicable catastrophes, including the tragic deaths of people he disliked or who offended him.
Morlar is, in fact, a psychic with powerful telekinetic abilities. Disgusted at the world (in his 1988 book Nightmare Movies, Kim Newman described Morlar's dialogue as "incredibly misanthropic"[1]), Morlar has caused two recent disasters: an airliner crash and the loss of a manned spacecraft.
From his hospital bed he manages to bring down a cathedral on the "unworthy heads" of a VIP congregation giving thanks for the building's preservation; and he seems able to keep himself alive by sheer willpower. An enraged Brunel himself tries in vain to finish Morlar off and fails. The man has written on a pad the name of his next target - the nuclear power station at Windscale.
Film and novel
The film follows the plot of Van Greenaway's novel fairly closely, but changes several details.
In the novel, the detective is not a Frenchman but an English character named Inspector Cherry, who appears in several other Van Greenaway books.
