ianlouisiana Review of Chance Meeting

Chance Meeting (1959)

A small but significant episode in Losey's Class War.

[8/10 · 25 January 2018]

Mr.S.Baker as a resentful and bloody - minded Detective represents the old time coppers who moved through the ranks on merit. No University Entrant he,fast - tracked for promotion to the highest command. Welsh working - class,veteran of a hundred pub fights,"hard" stops and years of listening to weaselly criminals deny everything until a quick slap brings them to their senses,he is ill - equipped to take on Establishment figures determined to muddy the waters in a murder investigation.Nowadays we would expect no less but in 1959 it was still a bit of a revelation that our betters should conspire to protect their own at the expense of some prole who would never amount to anything,wasn't a Mason and didn't belong to the right clubs. Mr H.Kruger -who had a brief but glorious career in British pictures as a "Good German" despite his Nazi credentials - plays a Dutch artist who is the first and initially only suspect in the murder of his mistress(Miss M.Presle) but as Mr Baker digs around it becomes apparent that he is being denied access to any other line of enquiry. The Establishment,the exemplars of privilege,power and corruption are closing ranks to prevent him getting at the truth. He is cajoled,he is threatened,but he is grimly determined to get to the truth. Seen on the other side of the fence in Losey's later,"The Criminal",Mr Baker has anger and energy to spare and a clear idea of who's side he is on. "Blind Date" is heart on sleeve time for the director and his leading man. Sadly Mister Losey's efforts to reveal upper - class malfeasance were met with political indifference and nearly sixty years later the police are just as spavined by politicians as they were then. The only difference is you've got to have a degree,apparently.Which is nice.