The Third Secret

Plot synopsis:
Prominent London psychoanalyst Dr. Leo Whitset is discovered injured from a gunshot wound in his home by his housekeeper, and as he lies dying he whispers, "Blame no one but me." These words lead the coroner to rule the death a suicide, a verdict questioned by one of Dr. Whitset's patients, Alex Stedman, a popular American news commentator for British television who has been in therapy since the deaths of his wife and daughter. The dead man's fourteen-year-old daughter Catherine is certain he was murdered and enlists Alex's aid in finding the killer to preserve her father's reputation.
Catherine provides Alex with the names of three other patients. Sir Frederick Belline is a respected judge, Alfred Price-Gorham runs a prestigious art gallery with his assistant Miss Humphries, and Anne Tanner is a corporate secretary. As Alex investigates their backgrounds, he discovers each of the three, like himself, harbours a secret known only by the murdered man. Hoping to find more clues, Alex goes to the doctor's country home to search his files. There he learns Catherine was under her father's care, and when he confronts her she admits she killed the doctor when he threatened to send her to an institution to be treated for schizophrenia. While re-enacting the crime, Catherine stabs Alex and consequently is confined to a psychiatric hospital. Recovered from his wound, Alex visits her and promises to stay in touch. The Third Secret the doctor had hidden from himself was the seriousness of his daughter's illness, which made him delay committing her to a mental institution.

Tags: murder

Review:
A suspenseful Who Done It with compelling performances by Pamela Franklin and Stephen Boyd in challengingly complex roles.
I read somewhere that Stephen Boyd was so taken with the story and the character, he took a sizeable pay cut to play the role of Alex.
And Pamela Franklin, at the age of 14, is an incredible actress taking on a role that veterans would not have managed nearly as well.Great story - great film - great acting!.
I first saw this as a kid, in 1970, on tv, and thought the nightmare sequence at Diane Cilento's home to be one of the scariest scenes I'd ever seen on film.
After 29 years the impact is somewhat diluted, but overall the film holds together pretty well.
Take a look at the extraordinary Douglas Slocombe panavision cinematography, the driven performances of Franklin and Boyd - an underrated actor if there ever was one - the striking set pieces on the Thames riverbank.
A taut, brooding mystery, 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; elegantly written (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.The film is enhanced by an excellent cast, including 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..
"The Third Secret", on the other hand, waits until almost the last scene to reveal the murderer, which makes it a much more satisfying mystery.But what sets "The Third Secret" apart is an exceptionally well-written script with some of the most intelligent dialogue to come down the pike in years.
Couple this with flawless performances from all concerned, and you have a picture worth at least a seven in our rating system.I can go no higher because this movie is a bit long-winded, with protracted scenes of very capable actors engaged in aforementioned dialogue to the point of tedium.
You will, however, enjoy the overall premise - that the death of a well-known psychiatrist was a murder and not a suicide.
Precocity often took her into territory it's now fashionable to call "inappropriate," such as the schoolgirl love interest she played with a randy old artist in "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie." Though understated and implicit in "The Third Secret," her emotionally-troubled character's relationship with Stephen Boyd's character is in this same vein.
The movie is still a guilty pleasure, though you have to suspend a lot of disbelief to get back in that naive early-60s groove when sexuality was still portrayed indirectly through characters who were not exactly the Free Spirits that populated such films later in the decade.Look for a spooky cinematic trick toward the end of the film, when Stephen Boyd's character is just starting to unravel the big Secret.
Pamela makes a statement about how many patients her father had-- Stephen thinks he misheard her, and asks her to repeat what she said.
At the very least its understatement is a refreshing change from the noise-saturated frantic bombast of today's not-so-spooky films, with their mindless reliance on sensory overload and oh-so-special effects..
After a distinguished 15-year service for British cinema, director Charles Crichton (like several of his contemporaries) defected to TV at the start of the 1960s and only made the occasional feature film thereafter  the most notable of which were this star-studded psychological thriller and his Oscar-nominated swan song, A FISH CALLED WANDA (1988).
Irish actor-turned-Hollywood star Stephen Boyd plays the lead, an expatriate American newsman, who is engaged by precocious teenager Pamela Franklin to delve further into the mystery surrounding the would-be suicide of her celebrity psychiatrist father.
She firmly believes that he was murdered by one of his very exclusive clientèle and pinpoints knighted Judge Jack Hawkins, mousy art dealer Richard Attenborough (who has a very young Judi Dench for his assistant) and insecure secretary Diane Cilento as the main suspects; a fourth was initially to have been played by Patricia Neal but her entire subplot was dropped prior to the film's release!
After some initial trepidation (he does not want it known that he was also being treated by the dead psychiatrist) and anguish (feeling betrayed by the psychiatrist for abandoning him, he demolishes the latter's office in front of his daughter's very eyes!), Boyd approaches the 3 ex-patients who, understandably, are unwilling, unable or just too distraught (Cilento herself commits suicide after realizing the real reason why Boyd had slept with her) to be of any real use to him in the investigation.
Consequently, when all available avenues seem to have led to a dead end, Boyd becomes cognizant of the possibility that the truth might be much closer to home than he at first suspected.
Indeed, Franklin seems inexplicably hostile to her guardians (Rachel Kempson and Alan Webb) and bonds with Boyd instead through a game of 'complete the quotation' scribbled on walls (which she used to play with her late father).
Joseph, the film is, perhaps necessarily given the subject, full of pretentious chat but is also cleverly decked out with a Freudian dream sequence and the afore-mentioned starry cameoswhich, actually, makes Pamela Franklin's outstanding performance all the more remarkable an achievement.
Charles Crichron had already succeeded in the difficult task of having an adult and a child perform together :"the hunting" was one of the most moving British movies of the fifties as well as Dirk Bogarde's first important role .The Stephen -Messala-Boyd/Pamela Franklin pairing may seem strange first but this girl was really a wiz kid for she had already proved it in such works as Clayton's "the innocents" and "our mother's house" .Some kind of Jodie Foster of the sixties,she didn't make the career she deserved.A shrink has been murdered and his patients are all suspects;Boyd portrays one of them,investigating the others 'life and meeting his daughter (Franklin) ,a disturbed girl who writes strange lines on a wall and who seems to know things better left unsaid.Many scenes take place by the sea on a lugubrious beach children forgot a long time ago.Intriguing..
Just to elaborate on certain comments about Pamela Franklin; she was born in 1950, and 'The Third Secret' was made in 1964, which made her...
Her scenes with Boyd carry a sexual tension that film-makers and society in general were brave enough to confront at that time.
Although Charles Crichton was an Ealing man, his work here is more reminiscent of the Woodfall school of British realism, and light years away from his comedic timing in 'The Battle of the Sexes'.
It's hard to deny that the dialogue gets a bit stodgy at times - a pity, since the screenplay contains a great many sly clues to the solution which can get lost amidst the psycho-babble.
This was made at a time when much of the UK's cinema was in the hands of serious craftsmen and women - their films are exemplary lessons in thoughtful, considered cinema.
Stephen Boyd Best Performance.
This is an excellent movie featuring actor Stephen Boyd who once again exhibited his ability to perform well with a mediocre script.
The movie has a great story line and good suspense.
The actor made about 50 movies.The cast was superb and it tells the story of a psychiatrist and the few patients he had before he is murdered at the beginning of the movie.
The patients are all successful and relatively normal people that on the surface seem to fit into society, but definitely have neurotic tendencies with self-esteem issues at best.Boyd's character is that of a cynical American news reporter stationed in England where he mocks his own country-men on TV and his character is brilliant..
This is a far from perfect film and I am glad I stuck with it, as up until late in the movie I felt a little bored.
So, bear with the glacial pace and you'll most likely enjoy the film overall.A psychiatrist is found dying by his housekeeper.
However, his young daughter (Pamela Franklin) insists that he was murdered and enlists Stephen Boyd to help her investigate--though this aspect of the film was very hard to believe.
Through the course of the film, Boyd tracks down the doctor's patients until he ultimately discovers the perpetrator in a nice twist.
Worth seeing but certainly NOT a film to rush to see.A few notes.
In an interesting twist, he was so appreciated as an actor (and as a person) that he continued acting and his voice was dubbed in all these post-surgery films.
"The Third Secret" from 1964 is a British film starring Stephen Boyd, Pamela Franklin, and Diane Cilento as well as a few stars in small roles: Richard Attenborough, Jack Hawkins, Rachel Kempson, and Nigel Davenport.
Judi Dench has a small role -- she was just coming up the ladder.Boyd plays a television journalist, Alex Stedman, who also happens to be the patient of psychiatrist Leo Whitset.
Everyone assumes he means responsible for his own death though no one checks it out.Whitset's teenage daughter (Franklin) appeals to Boyd, stating that her father could not have killed himself.
Suicide was a direct contradiction of his work.Stedman is able to get a list of Whitset's patients and starts visiting them to discern which one of them could be the killer.
Whitset's daughter tells Alex that her father said there are three secrets everyone has: the one you won't tell anyone, the one you won't tell yourself, and one other.I thought the acting was very good all around, with Franklin's young voice a little too high-pitched for me -- I had the same problem listening to Deanna Durbin as a child - after awhile, it becomes annoying.
It was interesting, it is by no means a bad film or badly directed, but it was hard for me to get into for some reason.
His 14-year-old daughter, Catherine (Pamela Franklin), goes to a famous TV reporter named Alex (Stephen Boyd), claiming it was murder, and insists that the killer must have been one of his patients.Sleepy elevator music at the film's beginning tips you off that what we have here is not a suspense film.
With a British setting and British actors, we can correctly describe this film as a British drama.
The dialogue for Catherine is way too precocious for a 14-year-old girl.Still, the story's theme is deep.
At one point, Alex asks an associate of the dead doctor: "Would it be possible for a (paranoid schizophrenic) to murder (the doctor) and make it look like a suicide?" Heavy stuff.
Casting and acting are acceptable.Stuffy and lacking humor, "The Third Secret" is an actor's film; all the players get to show off their dramatic skills.
I spotted something that no-one else has mentioned, which is that when Catherine (Pamela Franklin) tells Alex (Stephen Boyd) several times that her father had FOUR patients, it's easy to lip-read that she was originally saying FIVE patients.
Having now read that there were scenes deleted before the film's release involving an additional patient played by Patricia Neal, the reason for the redubbing with a different number is now clear.
Pamela Franklin was an outstanding child actress and it's a great pity she retired from acting so soon..
Stephen Boyd is the main male lead and he does a difficult job well as we ponder the death of an eminent psychiatrist when his daughter insists that her father would not have killed himself.
Pamela Franklin plays the fourteen year old who begins to make Boyd even consider he might have killed the doctor before the film races to a rousing conclusion.
Quiet, considered, intelligent film making, little seen today.
It contains what may perhaps be the finest performance by American actor Stephen Boyd, appearing in this otherwise British film.
He had been a director for 44 years.) There are some very good lines in this film, and numerous odd and unusual touches.
Early in the film we are told that there are three kinds of secrets: the first are the ones we conceal from others, the second are the ones which we conceal from ourselves.
But as the action progresses and so much is revealed, Boyd guesses the third kind: 'The third secret is the truth.' This high-level approach means that this film is not the usual run of the mill mystery film.
The film starts with the murder of a prominent psychiatrist in his home.
The death is ruled a suicide at an inquest, but the psychiatrist's young daughter, aged 10, insists that he was murdered by a patient.
The four patients of whom we know at first are played by Stephen Boyd, a prominent broadcaster, Jack Hawkins, a famous judge (filmed at Lincolns Inn), Richard Attenborough as an art dealer, and Diane Cilento as a pathetic glamorous woman who lives alone in a bedsit and cannot bear to be touched by men.
Judi Dench plays a bit part but it is easy to miss her, as I must confess I did, despite seeing the film twice.
The young daughter is played by Pamela Franklin, at her most intense and compelling.
My wife and I knew Pamela and her husband Harvey Jason very well indeed long ago, when she was grown up, and were involved in a film project with them which did not come to fruition because of financial corruption on the part of a distributor, and my refusal as producer to collude in it.
I refer to these invisibles in this mystery film as 'the case of the vanishing talent'.
The leading roles are all brilliantly played, and rarely did Richard Attenborough excel to this degree.
Hawkins's performance of a man near to madness with anxiety is so impressive, and Diane Cilento never was such a waif in any other film, and is superb.
Pamela Franklin approaches Stephen Boyd and persuades him to investigate the murder, and gives him the names of three other patients, whom he meets and interrogates.
Pamela and Boyd keep breaking in, despite its having been sealed by the police and about to be put up for sale against her wishes by her aunt and uncle who have become her guardians.
Peter Copley, despite appearing only briefly, is excellent as the murdered man, and two superb oil portraits of him where made for the film, far better than the portraits one normally sees in films.
This film is highly recommended as a superior psychological mystery thriller..
It was not that Stephen Boyd was a second stringer performer.
His last movie was called "Graf Dracula", and he played the Count.But in 1964 he turned in what may have been his saddest, most poignant performance as "Alex Stedman".
He is one of several patients being treated by a psychiatrist named Dr. Whitset.
He does this because he discovers the Doctor had a daughter named Catherine (Pamela Franklin) who is apparently upset but not letting out her emotions.
He sees (among others) a high court justice ( Jack Hawkins); a woman's clothing dealer (Richard Attenborough); and Diane Cilento.
Being a Pamela Franklin fan, I just had to watch it.
I can't get the scene of Ms. Franklin trying to stab Steven Boyd with a pair of scissors out of my head!
Reminds me of the scene where she kills Dirk Bogard with a fire poker in "Our Mother's House." Pamela has done a lot of interesting film roles that are different from the norm.
A young girl asks a mental patient to solve the mystery of her psychiatrist father's murder..
Somehow, despite its somber black and white Zone 5 photography, The Third Secret seems romantic and not only because of the delicate vulnerability of the beautiful Catherine (portrayed by Franklin) and the caring gentlemanliness of Alex (Stephen Boyd) but also because of the tone and mood emanating from the locations and sets.It is a very quiet film with none of the scary music and jarring sound effects widely used in this genre.
But the seemingly calm voices of the main characters somehow carry you along towards a crescendo of excitement and terror.If you liked Pamela Franklin as a little girl in the Innocents, you'll like her even better as a teenager in this film.It seems obvious that the murderer of Catherine's father, the psychiatrist, was one of his patients.
Since he treated severely disturbed patients, most of them are likely suspects even Alex (Boyd).
A murder mystery that certainly holds your attention!.
Joseph Production, filmed in black-and-white CinemaScope at the Elstree Studios of Associated British Picture Corp.
Alex Stedman (Stephen Boyd) had been one of those few private patients.
Because it was felt the film ran too long, her role has been completely eliminated.COMMENT: "The Third Secret" is a long and rather talky affair, directed by Charles Crichton of all people, here to some extent abandoning his usual stiff and ruthlessly routine style.
Considering the ambiguous and somewhat illogical and unconvincing nature of their characters, the players do a good job, particularly young Pamela Franklin who gives a positively stunning performance (even if her part, like many of the others, could stand some trimming).
Production values are excellent.OTHER VIEWS: For once in his life, Charles Crichton has directed a picture creatively.