Follow Mia for Carol Reed’s Last Film (Follow Me, 1972)

• This article originally appeared as a booklet essay for the Network Blu Ray release of Follow Me. You can buy the film here: https://networkonair.com/all-products/3004-follow-me-blu-ray-

Carol Reed’s last outing is a sensitive film which touches on themes of love, marriage, cultural alienation and British parochialism. Follow Me is a sentimental romance which makes no apologies for its meandering plotlessness, slightly vacant lead characters and curious eccentricities (most of these arrive in the form of Topol’s private-eye character Julian Christoferou). Charles (Michael Jayston) is a successful accountant who suspects his wife Belinda (Mia Farrow) of having an affair. Belinda and Charles come from very different cultural and social backgrounds – Belinda is a free-spirited hippie who would just as soon board a plane for India as she would go to the shop for a pint of milk, whereas Charles is an aristocratic gentleman who is bound by the trappings of respectability. It’s a wonder that the couple get along at all, but in the initial stages of courtship it is these differences that they appreciate about each other, and they share their respective knowledge and life experiences (although Belinda occupies the role of student rather than partner in the relationship). After the couple marry the rot sets in early, however: Belinda begins to find the demands of marriage limiting while Charles is exasperated by Belinda’s refusal to become a ‘good’ wife. Charles’s benevolent lecturing becomes strict and patronising, while Belinda’s unstructured approach to life becomes absent-minded and disrespectful. Where their courtship was once characterised by the communication of shared joys and interests, their marriage becomes defined by missed signals and misunderstandings.

Mystified by his wife’s late hours and her inability to keep appointments, Charles hires detective Julian Christoferou to report on her movements. Christoferou is somewhere between a street philosopher and an idiot savant: a disarming, energetic, macaroon-munching character who responds to serious topics with trivialities and who treats trivial topics with the gravest seriousness. Christoferou is charmed by Belinda who, it transpires, is not having an affair. She is simply bored by her husband and would rather spend her time taking long walks, eating ice-cream and watching trashy horror movies than attending Charles’s stuffy dinner parties. Belinda, unware that Christoferou is a detective, is inexplicably charmed by the bizarre mannerisms of this strange man who takes to following her around town. A series of montages show Belinda and Christoferou walking, eating, watching films and visiting galleries, and while they smile, stare and point at each other, they never exchanging a single word (an idea which seems like it would be romantic on paper but intensely awkward in practice). When Charles realises that Belinda’s ‘other man’ is the detective that he hired, his finally loses his carefully cultivated aristocratic composure.

Follow Me is based on Peter Schaffer’s 1962 play The Public Eye, which on its first run starred the young Maggie Smith and Kenneth Williams as Belinda and Julian (renamed Christoferou for the film adaptation). Williams was initially in talks to reprise his role as the oddball detective in the film, which would have made for a very interesting take on the character. Indeed, Follow Me would have been a very different film but for a number of factors. Although the pre-production timeline is unclear, Ross Hunter, who bought the rights to the play, had entered into talks with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor to play the starring roles, but Burton and Taylor backed out because they could not agree on a suitable director. In 1965 Daily Variety noted that Julie Andrews was to star in the film and Mike Nichols was to direct. Paul Scofield and Dirk Bogarde were also considered for the role of Christoferou (Bogarde initially accepted but later opted out).[1] The director role eventually went to Carol Reed, a veteran whose career spans the history of British cinema. Reed’s early training had been the British quota quickies of the 1930s – cheaply-made pictures which were produced and distributed to satisfy the requirements of a government act which was designed to safeguard the industry against Hollywood monopoly. After the war he directed his most critically acclaimed films, Odd Man Out (1947), Fallen Idol (1948) and The Third Man (1949). Reed’s career is generally considered to have gone into decline in the 1950s and 1960s, though his more high-profile credits in these decades include Our Man in Havana (1959) and Oliver! (1968).

Mia Farrow was not yet in the prime of her career when she starred in Follow Me but she was still a recognisable name. Farrow had worked as a fashion model in the early 60s before starring in the American soap opera Peyton Place, but during the mid-1960s she was perhaps better known for her relationship with Frank Sinatra, whom she married at the age of 21. In 1968 she landed her first role as a leading lady in Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby, which remains a widely acclaimed classic of the horror genre. Farrow took roles across stage and screen and in 1971 she became the first American actress to join the Royal Shakespeare Company. Chaim Topol (known as Topol) is probably best known today for playing Milos Columbo in For Your Eyes Only (1981), and for his long-running part as Teyve the Dairyman in the play Fiddler on the Roof (a role he has reportedly played 3,500 times). Topol was used to playing a much older character (Teyve is in his 50s) and Follow Me offered him the rare opportunity to play a young, charismatic romantic lead.

The critical reception for Follow Me was overwhelmingly negative, and this is curious because the film is so pleasantly innocuous. A reviewer for the New York Times dubbed it ‘a comedy that pretends to be in favor of all of life's good things—more or less in the order of love, horror films, sunsets, dolphins, ice cream and Franco Zeffirelli's “Romeo and Juliet”—and succeeds in making them seem more unbearably boring than need be.’ [2] Roger Ebert felt the film was so dull that it did not even deserve the benefit of his (usually) droll prose style. He called it ‘dumb, dumb, dumb. Worse than that, it’s boring…one of those sickening movie romances in which adults play child’s games in soft focus while the sound track stages a forced march through congealed honey. [3] These disappointingly superficial readings seem to have missed out on the deeper messages contained within the film. Yes, there are some dialogue-heavy scenes which suggest that Follow Me was adapted a little too directly from the stage, and yes, Carol Reed’s location shots of London occasionally have the air of a Pathé travel newsreel, but this is much more than a bland romance.

Ebert notes that Michael Jayston acts as if he is in a film about investment banking, an odd criticism given that Charles is supposed to embody the characteristics of an uptight Englishman.[4] As the film opens we are introduced to Michael Jayston’s character walking down the street in the classic businessman’s uniform of bowler hat and umbrella, and in this scene he gives such a good impression of a middle class bourgeois gentleman that he would be quite at home in a Rene Magritte painting. If that seems like a slightly obscure cultural reference, Follow Me is full of obscure references to art and culture which would only be understood by someone with a classical education. This is intentional; the film is as much about the relationship between high and low culture as it is about the breakdown of a young marriage. Charles and Belinda’s marriage represents a clash between young and old, British and foreign, cosmopolitan and provincial. It is no accident that Belinda, ‘an armor‐plated anti‐intellectual of scary determination’, is an American. [5] It is also worth noting that Christoferou, the idiosyncratic oddball who lives outside of polite society, is Greek and therefore positioned as something of a foreign other. In the film much is made of the fact that Belinda simply does not belong in Charles’s social circle, where a knowledge of implicit social rules is a pre-requisite to polite conversation.

Belinda believes that people are the sum total of their education and cultural experiences, but Charles is limited by his cultural experiences. They are a way of negotiating his social world but they prevent him from experiencing it. Belinda is very much the Eliza Doolittle in this dynamic which seems to be ripped from the pages of Pygmalion, but unlike Charles she is enriched by art, music and books. She also recognises that, where culture is concerned, there are no hierarchies but the ones we impose, and she will happily watch Franco Zefferelli’s Romeo and Juliet and then settle down for a double-bill of ‘Werewolves From Mars, Bloodsuckers from Venus’ and ‘I Was A Teenage Werewolf’.[6] The sociologist Pierre Bourdieu argues that in a society organised along class lines, an individual’s education, style of dress, taste in music, knowledge of culture and manner of speech all form part of their ‘cultural capital’, and this in turn determines their social status. Charles has the cultural capital of an upper middle-class businessman and Belinda, as a classless and uncultured American, has none. But unlike Eliza, she is unwilling to change herself in order to join the club. She makes it clear to Charles that he must change if he wants to win back her affections.

Follow Me feels like a distant great-aunt of films like The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) and (500) Days of Summer (2009), and Belinda does seem to typify the classic ‘Manic Pixie Dream Girl’, a female character comprised of charming quirks who essentially functions as a blank screen for the projection of the fantasies and anxieties of a male protagonist. But Farrow brings some charm and substance to this character who wears funny hats and ponchos and makes jokes about the male genitalia over aperitifs. Follow Me has the air of a lost classic which was under-appreciated on its original release. It is no darkly comic Harold and Maude (1971) and it is more restrained than a challenging melodrama like The Way We Were (1973) but it does offer a quietly intelligent take on modern relationships.

Reference list:

[1] American Film Institute, ‘Follow Me’, https://catalog.afi.com/Film/54618-THE-PUBLIC-EYE?sid=d0451b8b-4f61-411a-baf0-17c5fe1a9e85&sr=3.426523&cp=1&pos=6 [accessed 21/02/2019] [2] Anon, ‘Public Eye’, The New York Times, July 19 1972. [3] Roger Ebert, ‘The Public Eye’, September 26, 1972, https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-public-eye-1972 [accessed 02/02/2019]. [4] Roger Ebert, ‘The Public Eye’, September 26, 1972, https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-public-eye-1972 [accessed 02/02/2019]. [5] Anon, ‘Public Eye’, New York Times, July 19 1972. [6] These horror movies are fictional. The clips that Belinda is shown watching in the cinema are from Hammer’s Brides of Dracula (1960)

Frankenstein Reimagined: The Mind of Mr Soames (Alan Cooke, 1970)

• This article was originally published as a booklet essay for the Powerhouse/Indicator Blu-Ray release of The Mind of Mr Soames. The film was a limited edition and is now out of print, but you can view the release info on the Powerhouse website here: https://www.powerhousefilms.co.uk/products/the-mind-of-mr-soames-le

The Mind of Mr Soames uses the premise of scientific progress to explore some unpleasant aspects of contemporary society. Terence Stamp plays John Soames, a man who has been in a coma since birth as a result of congenital brain damage. He is awoken, aged 30, following a highly experimental operation pioneered by the neurosurgeon Dr Maitland (Nigel Davenport). A literal baby in the body of a man, Soames has to catch up on years of education in the space of just a few months. Soames’ journey is captured by television cameras for a documentary series and attracts great interest from the medical community and the press. Soames’ education is overseen by Dr Maitland, who designs an intense training regimen in order to accelerate his mental growth. However, trapped in the institute and forced to study ceaselessly, Soames eventually becomes frustrated and acts out. Buoyed by his first encounter with the outside world, Soames finally realises his own strength and escapes…

The Amicus House of … Drama?

The Mind of Mr Soames represented a foray out of horror and into science fiction drama for Amicus, a production company known for their portmanteau horror films such as Dr Terror’s House of Horrors (Freddie Francis, 1965) and The House that Dripped Blood (Peter Duffell, 1970). Producers Milton Subotsky and Max Rosenberg had previously dabbled in science fiction with the modestly successful Dr Who and the Daleks (Gordon Flemyng, 1963), based on the popular BBC television show of the same name, and its sequel Daleks Invasion Earth 2150A.D. (Gordon Flemyng, 1966). They had also worked in the intersection between horror and science fiction (two genres that are often conflated) with The Projected Man (Ian Curteis, 1966), a film which follows the familiar trope of scientific-experiment-gone-wrong resulting in the physical and emotional disfigurement of the lead protagonist (played by Bryant Haliday).

Though science fiction had long been a part of the company’s oeuvre, The Mind of Mr Soames still represented something of a departure from type in terms of its dramatic ambitions; its subtle exploration of the human mind is a far cry from science fiction of the spaceships-and-aliens variety. The move into drama was one that the company had been pondering for some time. Subotsky had tried to buy Flowers for Algernon, the 1966 novel by Daniel Keys about a young man with a low IQ who participates in a scientific experiment that increases his intelligence (this became the successful film Charly [Ralph Nelson, 1968]). When this deal fell through, he decided to develop The Mind of Mr Soames from the 1961 novel of the same name by Charles Eric Mane.[1]

It’s Alive!

The Mind of Mr Soames may be a serious drama with a dash of science fiction, but the plot of the film seems somewhat horror-inspired, particularly as it adheres closely to various popular adaptations of Frankenstein (and in some ways, Soames is the Frankenstein film that Amicus’s Milton Subotsky was never able to make[2]). Soames is effectively ‘brought to life’ by advancements in medical science. His ‘creators’ do not understand his thought processes and as a result Soames is frustrated, escapes and causes mayhem in the local area. This is Mary Shelley’s story with a modern update: Soames’ life is fodder for popular entertainment, and his movement is restricted by the presence of cameras and reporters who are filming his progress for a television show. Soames is a romantic individual (romantic in the original sense of the word): he is sensitive and filled with wonder at the sublimity of the natural world, and he constantly delights in the discoveries of new feelings and experiences. The flashbulb that goes off in Soames' face when he is accosted by journalists in the final scene of the film is reminiscent of Frankenstein’s monster acting out in response to sensory overload. Like Frankenstein's monster, Soames’ rare innocence is pulled through the wringer of modernity and all it entails: the suppression of the individual in favour of collective social and scientific progress.

The first half of the film is framed by an intellectual interplay between two competing schools of psychological thought. Dr Maitland believes in discipline and study, with a highly structured schedule that keeps Soames constantly learning. He becomes fatigued and irritable and acts out as a result. Dr Bergen (Robert Vaughn), a consultant on the project, believes in the power of play in shaping early childhood experiences, and with that in mind he allows Soames to briefly leave the confines of the institute. The scenes in which Soames discovers nature for the first time are beautifully shot, and the juxtaposition between the natural world and the sterile hospital environment (in which the camera remains relatively static) is striking. The hospital scenes have a particularly ‘televisual’ feel, and this is perhaps influenced by the pedigree of director Alan Cooke, a prolific and able television director who had previously worked on Theatre 625, Armchair Theatre, and The Wednesday Play, among others.

Whilst proceeding from an interesting premise, the plot of Soames often feels slightly underdeveloped, and this is surprising given the fact that producer Milton Subotsky was obsessed with script editing and would often direct much of his energies into sourcing and developing new material. Roger Greenspun of the New York Times agreed, writing, ‘The Mind of Mr. Soames is full of boldly introduced but ultimately undeveloped character clichés.’[3] There are many aspects of Soames that one feels could have offered thought-provoking perspectives on society and media culture if only they were developed more fully. Other plotlines were lost in the process of adaptation, but could have added some extra tension to the film had they been incorporated. For example, in the novel of the same name, a reporter locates Soames’ long lost mother and sister to cash in on his story, and a legal battle follows which overwhelms our protagonist.

That said, the scientific-experiment-gone-wrong trope is an exceptionally common one in science fiction – and often, as in Amicus’s previous production, The Projected Man, it can be a hackneyed device deployed in the service of advancing the plot. But The Mind of Mr Soames attempts to use its premise to go further. This is not the trite myth of the modern Prometheus, in which scientific progress results in the potential for dire widespread social consequences (after all, how many comatose-from-birth adults could possibly exist in the world?). Rather, Soames focuses in on one character in order to explore the human condition; but what the film seems to crave is the space to address this subject in a satisfying way.

Stamp Collection

Actors select roles for a variety of reasons and it is perhaps crass to be struck by the peculiar dissonance of seeing a favourite star departing from type. It is also difficult to assign a particular ‘star persona’ to Terence Stamp, a peripatetic artist who moved between a variety of eclectic leading roles throughout the height of his career. Nevertheless, it is a little disconcerting to witness Stamp, three years after he played Dave in Poor Cow (Ken Loach, 1967) wandering around a city dressed in a pink romper suit (an outfit that he reportedly chose for himself).[4] Though Stamp’s 1960s filmography was limited, he starred in some of the defining films of that decade: Billy Budd (Peter Ustinov, 1962) Poor Cow (Ken Loach, 1967) and Far From The Madding Crowd (John Schlesinger, 1967). He also made some bad decisions, turning down the role of Alfie (Lewis Gilbert, 1966) in order to star in the retina-burning camp spy-comedy flop Modesty Blaise (Joseph Losey, 1966).

Stamp worked with some of the greatest directors of the era, collaborating with Pasolini in Theorem (1968) and with Fellini in Spirits of the Dead (1968). His personal life was no less glamourous: he shared a house with Michael Caine and he dated two of the most beautiful, accomplished women of the 1960s, Julie Christie and Jean Shrimpton. Stamp acknowledges that the ‘work dried up after The Mind of Mr. Soames in 1969. Hu-Man (1975) was the only serious film I did [during those years], and that was really independent.’[5] In truth, the work had dried up a few years before: in 1969 a writer for the Chicago Tribune noted that it ‘seemed a long time, another era, since [Stamp] was being hailed as the golden boy of the British screen – though, in fact, it was only five years ago.’[6] Stamp, at a loss to explain why his success turned fallow, largely gave up on the idea of being a leading man by the 1970s, and by the time he was offered the role of General Zod in Superman (Richard Donner, 1978), he was finally ready to be, in his words, a ‘character actor’.[7]

For much of his early life Soames is unable to speak, but Stamp effectively manages to communicate his bewilderment at new sensations and his frustration with Maitland and his demands. At other times, Stamp plays the role with a vacant, wide-eyed naivety that is surprisingly convincing given the strangeness of this juxtaposition of a baby in the body of a mature adult. Some of the action here borders on the absurd. As Roger Greenspun notes, ‘Terence Stamp must have the best fun in the movie. Not only does he get to cry a lot and to play with toys, but he also is allowed at one time or another to dump baby food on all his doctors and keepers.’ The Mind of Mr Soames brings together a cast of distinguished actors: Robert Vaughn is excellent as the caring and compassionate Dr Bergen, while Nigel Davenport’s Dr Maitland is a compelling foil to Bergen’s more progressive teaching style. The Mind of Mr Soames never achieved the success or acclaim of Ralph Nelson’s Charly, and according to the fanzine Little Shoppe of Horrors this was because the distributors, Columbia, did not give it enough of a ‘push’.[8] This must have come as something of a disappointment to Amicus at the time, but we can still appreciate the film today for its fascinating themes, its excellent all-star cast and, of course, that gloriously absurd image of Terence Stamp in a pink romper suit.

Reference list:

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[1] 'Amicus: Two's A Company', Little Shoppe of Horrors, Issue 2 (1973), p. 13. [2] In 1956 Subotsky had written a screenplay titled ‘Frankenstein and the Monster’ for Hammer Films, (then a fledgling company) but this was thought substandard by Hammer’s top executives, who scrapped it and commissioned a different screenplay to be directed by Jimmy Sangster. This became The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), and it launched Hammer as the company that became the last word British horror. In interviews, Subotsky denied being bitter, although in subsequent years he was frequently critical of Hammer’s horror productions. [3] Roger Greenspun, ‘Screen: Wild Child of 30’, New York Times, 13 October 1970. [4] The Courier Journal, 20 April 1969. [5] See https://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/interviews/meetings-remarkable-men-terence-stamp-interview. [6] The Courier Journal, 20 April 1969. [7] Andrew Pulver, Interview: Terence Stamp, The Guardian 12 March 2015. [8] 'Amicus: Two's A Company', Little Shoppe of Horrors, Issue 2 (1973) p. 13