No, It's not about strange people, well, at least not entirely. 'Strange' is the surname of the young man who has just joined London's Metropolitan Police and become a 'bobby'. That was back in the days when there were really police on the streets. Nowadays one never sees them, because they are too busy filling in forms and having, one presumes, endless cups of tea. In fact, one wonders what they really are doing in the privacy of their own police stations (the few stations that are left). Constable Strange is played by a young Michael York (25 when he shot the film), who is always smiling and jolly. Meanwhile, the 'Met' as the Metropolitan Police is called today under its Commissioner Hunt has had to get rid of large numbers of corrupt officers who were employed by gangsters. Too sleazy for words. But back then they were all straight, or so we are to believe. Michael gets in trouble because he meets an irresistibly charming girl who is a 'free spirit' (sixties-style) who just happens to be, uh oh, two weeks short of being 16 and hence 'jailbait'. She is played by Susan George, aged 17 when she shot this, who had been acting in films since the age of 11. During the sixties and seventies, Susan George was considered very hot and very cute. After that she continued acting and became a grown up. She certainly has irrepressible energy in this film, and simply will not take no for an answer from Michael York. So he succumbs to her charms and, unknown to both of them, her crazy rich aunt and uncle with whom she lives in a large house in Hampstead have secretly filmed their lovemaking, because they are kinky and enjoy making and selling porno films. This quickly comes to the hands of a police sergeant in the Met, and York becomes a blackmail victim. The sergeant is played implacably by Jeremy Kemp, with enormous intensity, He is obsessed with catching and jailing a notorious criminal named not Hunt but Quince, who used to be a policeman and went crooked, and who has two identical twin sons who are psychopathic killers. So it is all very desperate. The story is based on a novel by Bernard Toms, who only had this one work filmed. The director was David Greene, whom I knew at that time. I visited the set of his previous film in this same year, which is now called SEBASTIAN (1968) but was originally called MISTER SEBASTIAN, starring Dirk Bogarde and Susannah York. David had only just made his way into features from television, and was considered a hot new director then, though he was already 46 years old. I still have a call sheet from that visit. David's direction early in this film is pretty rough, with too many extreme closeups, and edited in that jumpy style which was then fashionable. After the story really gets going and moves past the 'establishing the situation' stage (which goes on for too long), the film settles down and becomes more watchable, so it is worth sticking with it. Only in the sixties, I suppose, could such a film be considered 'normal'. Yes, things were pretty crazy back then. It was 'crazy London', which did more than just frantically swing.
Review of The Strange Affair
