Product: The Third Secret (1964)
Rating: 5.0
Taut, Brooding Psychological Drama, with Stephen Boyd Well-Cast in the Lead
A British psychologist has apparently committed suicide, but his teenage daughter is convinced it was murder and asks one of his patients (Stephen Boyd, as an expatriate American journalist) to investigate. Somber, brooding, introspective tale, with Boyd well-cast in the lead. The film is elegantly written (and worthwhile just for the dialogue) and moodily shot in black and white.Regrettably, the film is inaccurate in its portrayal of psychiatry; despite what the script says, people suffering from paranoid schizophrenia are no more likely to be murderers than anyone else, and people with schizophrenia cannot hide their illness as though they were undercover spies. That small suspension of disbelief aside, the film ruminates on all sorts of interesting ideas that fit together like inlaid wood.It's also enhanced by an excellent cast -- besides Boyd, it features Jack Hawkins, Richard Attenborough, and Diane Cilento as the three suspects, the now-legendary Judi Dench in her first credited role, and the much under-rated child actress, Pamela Franklin, as the psychologist's daughter. In particular, though, Attenborough's performance as an awkward, insecure art dealer stands out as a remarkable contrast to his performance in another film of 1964 -- "Guns at Batasi," in which he plays a tough, almost indestructible British Army sergeant.