Secret Ceremony
Secret Ceremony | |
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File:SecretCeremony'68.jph.jpg | |
Directed by | Joseph Losey |
Produced by | John Heyman Norman Priggen |
Screenplay by | George Tabori |
Based on | Marco Denevi (short story Ceremonia secreta) |
Starring | Elizabeth Taylor Mia Farrow Robert Mitchum |
Music by | Richard Rodney Bennett |
Cinematography | Gerry Fisher |
Edited by | Reginald Beck |
Production
company |
World Film Services
|
Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
Release dates
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Running time
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109 minutes |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Budget | $2,450,000[1] |
Box office | $3 million (US/ Canada rentals)[2] |
Secret Ceremony is a 1968 British drama thriller film directed by Joseph Losey and starring Elizabeth Taylor, Mia Farrow and Robert Mitchum.
Plot
Leonora, a middle-aged prostitute, is despondent over the death of her daughter. Cenci, a lonely young woman, follows Leonora to the cemetery and strikes up a conversation with her, inviting Leonora to her home. Leonora is struck by the likeness between Cenci and her late daughter.
A resemblance of Leonora to Cenci's late mother becomes obvious once Leonora notices a portrait. Cenci, who is 22 but looks and acts much younger, asks Leonora to stay. A lie is told to her aunts, Hilda and Hannah, that Leonora is actually Cenci's late mother's cousin.
Cenci is found one day cowering under a table. Albert, her stepfather, has paid a visit. Cenci is terrified of him, claiming that Albert had raped her. Leonora is repelled by the man's presence until Albert tells her that Cenci is mentally unstable and had repeatedly tried to seduce him.
On a beach one day, Cenci and Albert have sexual relations. A despondent Cenci commits suicide. At the funeral, Leonora now knows whom she chooses to believe. After standing beside Albert in silence during the burial, Leonora produces a knife and stabs him.
The film ends with Leonora lying in her bedroom apartment, listlessly hitting the cord of a ceiling lamp, reciting a poem about perseverance.
Cast
- Elizabeth Taylor as Leonora
- Mia Farrow as Cenci
- Robert Mitchum as Albert
- Peggy Ashcroft as Hannah
- Pamela Brown as Hilda
Production
The short story on which the film is based won a $5,000 prize in a competition run by Life en Español. It had already been filmed for Argentine television when it was optioned in 1963 by Dore Schary.[3]
In an October 1969 interview with Roger Ebert, Mitchum claimed that the film’s production was "in trouble" when he arrived and that his presence did not help.[4]
Locations
The main location for the film was Debenham House in London. Other London locations were St Mary Magdalene Church in Paddington, the area around the Molyneux Monument in Kensal Green Cemetery and the junction of Chepstow Road and St Stephen's Mews in Paddington.[5][6] The hotel and beach scenes were shot around the Grand Hotel Huis ter Duin in Noordwijk, The Netherlands.[6][7]
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Debenham House (35482927182).jpg
Debenham House
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St Mary Magdalene's Church, Warwick Estate, Paddington, London W2 - geograph.org.uk - 297563.jpg
St Mary Magdalene Church
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Monument to the Molyneux Family.jpg
Kensal Green Cemetery
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Chepstow Road, London W2 Geograph-1916059-by-Derek-Harper.jpg
Chepstow Road corner shop
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Huis ter Duin, Noordwijk (ca. 1930).jpg
Hotel Huis ter Duin as it looked at the time
Reception
Secret Ceremony has divided critics since its release. Renata Adler in the New York Times said that it was "incomparably better" than its predecessor, Accident, and that beneath its "elaborate fetishism and dragging prose, there is a touching story of people not helping enough," although she admitted that the film had its "longueurs, but not beyond endurance."[8] Ernest Callenbach of Film Quarterly said it was "difficult to guess" what the film was about, but felt that its "dominant note, if there is one, is of Losey’s usual creepy, misanthropic disgust with sex and how people misuse each other to get it." He also praised Mia Farrow’s "touching and perverse and human" performance.[9] Writing 30 years later after its release, John Patterson of The Guardian listed Secret Ceremony among the Losey films he dismissed as "woefully misguided material."[10] Similarly, Dave Kehr of the Chicago Reader lambasted the film as embodying the director’s "worst tendencies as a filmmaker: the movie is cold without being chilling, confusing without being challenging."[11]
References
- ↑ Alexander Walker, Hollywood, England, Stein and Day, 1974 p345
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Secret Ceremony (1968), IMDb.com, retrieved 18 November 2020
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Secret Ceremony, Reelstreets.com, retrieved 18 November 2020
- ↑ Movie-Walks: Secret Ceremony (1968), retrieved 18 November 2020
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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External links
Media related to Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. at Wikimedia Commons
- Lua error in Module:WikidataCheck at line 28: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value). Secret Ceremony at IMDb
- Secret Ceremony at the British Film InstituteLua error in Module:WikidataCheck at line 28: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).
- Secret Ceremony at the TCM Movie Database
- Secret Ceremony at LetterboxdLua error in Module:EditAtWikidata at line 29: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).
- Pages with broken file links
- Articles with short description
- Use dmy dates from May 2016
- Use British English from May 2016
- 1968 films
- 1969 films
- English-language films
- British films
- Films shot at Associated British Studios
- 1960s thriller drama films
- Films directed by Joseph Losey
- Films scored by Richard Rodney Bennett
- Universal Pictures films
- Films set in London
- Films based on Argentine novels
- British thriller drama films
- 1968 drama films