Interesting to consider that with the notable exception of Jack Clayton's 'The Pumpkin Eater', the most incisive depictions of middle-class, Anglo-Saxon angst have been filmed by an American. Of course both Joseph Losey and Jack Clayton were blessed to have the genius of Harold Pinter whose main interest lay in what is written between the lines.
Not to be overlooked however is this portrait of neuroses among the well-to-do, adapted by Julian Halévy from a French novel and directed by Stanley Kubrick acolyte Alexander Singer.
Halévy's taut script, Walter Lassally's superlative camerawork, Kenneth V. Jones' dissonant score and a quintet of strong performances make for a stylish, visually textured and sexually charged psychodrama which for its time was audacious.
The central character is blind and it is what she cannot see that is central to the film. She is played by Patricia Neal and even by her standards her nuanced performance is truly exceptional. This courageous artiste was shortly to fight her own personal battles. As her husband the charismatic Curt Juergens is here at the peak of his 'international phase' before he slowly moved down the cast list and began going through the motions. His character has immense charm but a decidedly dark side and his advice to lovelorn Ian Bannen on how to handle a woman will have many females foaming at the mouth and a few no doubt licking their lips. This decade was a particularly good one for Samantha Eggar and here she excels as a minx whose strong sexuality is more of a curse than a blessing. Unexpected levity is supplied by Beatrix Lehmann as a horoscope-reading matriarch.
This fascinating curio is certainly a step up from his earlier 'A cold wind in August', but Mr. Singer's subsequent output was far more 'conventional' and it is probably kinder to pass over in silence his spaghetti western with Lee van Cleef. His talents were later employed on the small screen.