Chance Meeting (1959)
"Blind Date" (original title)

Dutch painter Jan-Van Rooyer hurries to keep a rendezvous with Jacquleine Cousteau, an elegant, sophisticated Frenchwoman, slightly his elder, whose relationship with him had turned from ... See full summary »

Director:

Joseph Losey

Writers:

Ben Barzman, Leigh Howard (novel),

Stars:

Hardy Krüger, Stanley Baker, Micheline Presle

Nominated for 1 BAFTA Film Award.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Hardy Krüger	...	Jan-Van Rooyer
Stanley Baker	...	Insp. Morgan
Micheline Presle	...	Jacqueline Cousteau
John Van Eyssen	...	Insp. Westover
Gordon Jackson	...	Sergeant
Robert Flemyng	...	Sir Brian Lewis
Jack MacGowran	...	Postman
Redmond Phillips	...	Police doctor
George Roubicek	...	Police constable
Lee Montague	...	Sgt. Farrow

Storyline

Dutch painter Jan-Van Rooyer hurries to keep a rendezvous with Jacquleine Cousteau, an elegant, sophisticated Frenchwoman, slightly his elder, whose relationship with him had turned from art student into one of love trysts. He arrives and is confronted by Detective Police Inspector Morgan who accuses him of having murdered Jacqueline. Morgan listens sceptically to the dazed denials of Van-Rooyen as he tells the story of his relationship with the murdered woman. Morgan, after hearing the story, realizes that the mystery has deepened and it becomes more complicated when the Assistant Commissioner, Sir Brian Lewis, explains that Jacqueline was not married but was being kept by Sir Howard Fenton, a high-ranking diplomat whose names must be kept out of the case.

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Plot Keywords:

lingerie slip | sergeant | murder | british noir | based on novel

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Taglines:

A motion picture brilliantly, mysteriously different... as man is to woman!

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Genres:

Mystery | Thriller | Crime | Drama

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Details

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Release Date:

29 April 1960 (USA)

Also Known As:

Chance Meeting

Filming Locations:

Beaconsfield Studios, Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, England, UK

Company Credits

Production Co:

Sydney Box Associates, Independent Artists

Technical Specs

Runtime:

95 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Did You Know?

Soundtracks

"Chance Meeting"
Music by William Katz
Lyrics by Ruth Roberts

User Reviews

A pleasing early Losey

It can sometimes be interesting to study the early work of directors who were later to emerge as important figures in cinema. Some show little indication of what is to come (Carol Reed's "Bank Holiday " for instance) while with others the fingerprints are all there (Hitchcock's "The Lodger" and David Lynch's "Eraserhead"). Joseph Losey falls somewhere between these two extremes. An early work such as "Blind Date" has a competence and clearheaded sense of narrative flow that place it on a higher level than most B-style thrillers to emerge from British studios in the '50's but there is little of the original stamp that was to mark his later work such as "The Servant", "The Go-between" and "Accident". These films provide fascinating commentaries that an outsider from the USA brought to bear on the British class system. There is a little in "Blind Date" about the social hierarchy within the British police force, but this is peripheral to Losey's main task of presenting a neat little thriller well. He keeps the tension going nicely to begin with, with a young Dutch artist visiting a flat where he expects to find a woman he has been having a liaison with, only to find himself soon embroiled with the police. The script has a neat way of evading what is going on until some way into the film. Some of the flashbacks go on for rather too long and are somewhat weakened by a rather wooden performance by Micheline Presle as the woman of mystery. Hardy Kruger, on the other hand, as the young Dutchman is excellent. We really identify with his frustration at finding himself in a situation that is beyond his comprehension and control. As the main detective Stanley Baker plays cat and mouse with his customary skill. "Blind Date" is in so sense an important or significant film, but the fact that it was competently made by a director who was later to produce some outstanding works of British cinema makes it worth a look. There are two other good reasons for watching

• photography by Christopher Challis and music by Richard Rodney Bennett -

both considerable artists in their respective fields.