The performances of Kim Stanley and Richard Attenborough dominate the film
Seance On A Wet Afternoon. This one will leave with a feeling of creepiness
long after you've viewed it.
Stanley who is so good in the role that you barely notice that in this British production she has no trace of any kind of accent. She's a psychic medium whom I guess was spending too much time communicating with the world beyond. Attenborough is her weak and dependent husband. He suffers from asthma and barely works.
Now in a new location they need to advertise her powers. Stanley has this scheme to kidnap a little girl from wealthy parents which of course Attenborough does. Attenborough just obeys Stanley in everything. But the scheme goes horribly wrong.
Ever since the Lindbergh baby kidnapping, juvenile kidnap stories have done well in film. Everyone feels an empathy for the victim and wants to see the innocent returned and the guilty punished.
But Stanley imbues her performance with a certain quiet madness. She 'communicates' with the dead through the spirit of her dead baby. Attenborough knows what she is, but she is completely dominating as far as he's concerned.
Seance On A Wet Afternoon got Oscar recognition in the form of a nomination for Kim Stanley for Best Actress. The slightly more expensive and popular Mary Poppins with Julie Andrews in the lead took home the gold that year.
Still both the performances of Stanley and Attenborough are as fresh today as in 1964 when Seance On A Wet Afternoon was released.
Stanley who is so good in the role that you barely notice that in this British production she has no trace of any kind of accent. She's a psychic medium whom I guess was spending too much time communicating with the world beyond. Attenborough is her weak and dependent husband. He suffers from asthma and barely works.
Now in a new location they need to advertise her powers. Stanley has this scheme to kidnap a little girl from wealthy parents which of course Attenborough does. Attenborough just obeys Stanley in everything. But the scheme goes horribly wrong.
Ever since the Lindbergh baby kidnapping, juvenile kidnap stories have done well in film. Everyone feels an empathy for the victim and wants to see the innocent returned and the guilty punished.
But Stanley imbues her performance with a certain quiet madness. She 'communicates' with the dead through the spirit of her dead baby. Attenborough knows what she is, but she is completely dominating as far as he's concerned.
Seance On A Wet Afternoon got Oscar recognition in the form of a nomination for Kim Stanley for Best Actress. The slightly more expensive and popular Mary Poppins with Julie Andrews in the lead took home the gold that year.
Still both the performances of Stanley and Attenborough are as fresh today as in 1964 when Seance On A Wet Afternoon was released.