Secret Ceremony (1968)

You won't be disappointed!

hyped garbage

Don't listen to the negative reviews

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Secret Ceremony displays Mia Farrow's excellent portrayal of madness. In fact, her portrayal seems to come so easily to her we were wondering about her own sanity. She plays emotionally disturbed almost too well. Elizabeth Taylor at times may have wondered just what she got herself into by accepting this role. It's even stranger than Reflections in a Golden Eye. She at least uses some restraint and knows her character well. Still, despite the idea that an emotionally disturbed Mia could be helped by a mother figure strongly resembling her own birth mother and despite the fact that actress' both contribute a lot to their roles, there isn't really anything that deep happening here. If anything, the story never becomes too informative. We are given the basics and it never progress' beyond that. What happened to the birth mother? What was the relationship about between the mother and daughter? What is the true role of Robert Mitchum's character? We don't really get anything too descriptive and for that the film just becomes another soapy melodrama with some odd characters. What it really needs is to dig deep and give us more information and we only get small bits and pieces. Despite the odd story, nothing too profound here.

Joseph Losey who had blacklist troubles in the USA, came over to the UK and did such great films as The Servant and King & Country. But he came up short with Secret Ceremony of which I still am trying to figure out just what was happening.Elizabeth Taylor plays an aging prostitute for whom Mia Farrow gets fixated on, thinking Liz is her mother. Since Liz lost a child herself that works out well because the two at first fill a symbiotic need for family. And as Mia is one wealthy heiress Liz is thinking she's hit the jackpot.There are some dissenters however. Two of whom are aunts Peggy Ashcroft and Pamela Brown. To them Taylor says she's the American cousin of Mia's mom. Then there is the sinister Robert Mitchum who replete with beard that makes him look like a leprechaun on weed, who is her estranged stepdad. He knows there ain't no American cousin. And Mitchum is a big part of the cause of Mia's psychosis. According to Lee Server's fine book on Robert Mitchum, old rumple eyes got the part on the recommendation of Roddy McDowell to his friend Liz Taylor. It only involved a few scenes for Mitchum who sauntered through the part rather indifferently. Part of the reason he got it was Mitchum's uncanny ear for dialect and he goes in and out of an English accent which was proof positive of his indifference to the film. What he did enjoy was the company of Liz Taylor and her roistering husband Richard Burton. Those were two legendary drinkers, Mitchum and Burton and they really enjoyed night after night seeing who could drink who under.Secret Ceremony will never rate on the top of any of the three main players film resume. Nor will director Joseph Losey be acclaimed for this one in the future.

An aging prostitute who's lost a daughter and a rich, waif-like young woman who's lost a mother meet and bond. This is the premise for "Secret Ceremony". For my money a film had better have a pretty decent story to back up such an obvious conceit. As the cash-challenged Elizabeth Taylor character enters her surrogate daughter's gloomy mansion and spies the golden goose - and a particular fur coat - I wanted to scream, "Get out, you bonehead! Can't you see that no good can come of this?" But without boneheads poking around in places they don't belong there'd be no psycho-thrillers, would there? The problem with "Secret Ceremony" is that there's only a little bit of this and a little bit of that. There's not enough suspense to conjure up a decent thriller and, in fact, precious little meat on the bone for a feature film, even one as morose and dreary as this. In one scene Mia Farrow writhes in solo sexual heat against the kitchen table, but that was merely embarrassing to watch. It's a clunker of a scene because - at least for me - the story just simply isn't engaging enough to support such indelicate goings-on. Late in the film Robert Mitchum sleep-walks his way onto the set. The British turned out a lot of these moody psycho-dramas, as I call them, in the 60's, and I'll mention a few really good ones: Jack Clayton's "Our Mother's House" and "The Innocents", Bryan Forbes' "Seance on a Wet Afternoon", Losey's own "The Servant" (a masterpiece with a disturbing ring of truth). Oh, and a little Hammer B-movie gem, "Die! Die! My Darling!", which is a delightful breath of foul air. There's nothing to say that a film can't offer a little insight and be entertaining at the same time.

Secret Ceremony has an excellent central cast in Elizabeth Taylor, Mia Farrow and Robert Mitchum, but unfortunately it really misses out in the most important area; that being the story, as while the film features a handful of interesting themes and ideas, it never really seems to know what it wants to be and this results in a film that just feels completely pointless and thus will leave most viewers feeling cold. The film is based on a short story by Marco Denevi and primarily focuses on the idea of how people handle great loss. We focus on a young girl named Cenci, who prowls the streets since the death of her mother. She's looking for a woman to call her mother and finds that in look-alike Leonora, a prostitute who, coincidently, just happens to have lost her daughter also. Cenci takes Leonora back to her house and while it soon becomes apparent that Cenci is a few cards short of a full deck; the pair soon form a strange and playful mother and daughter bond. Things are going quite well for the pair until Cenci's stepfather, Albert, turns up...The source material is a short story, and at over a hundred minutes; I wouldn't call Secret Ceremony a short film, which largely seems to be one of the problems. Director Joseph Losey (who previously made the underrated Hammer Horror classic The Damned) gives the story too much time and since there isn't actually a lot of ideas; the film does soon start to drone on. The only real saving grace is the performances. Elizabeth Taylor gives a strong leading performance as always and manages to keep things at least slightly interesting. Mia Farrow is also good; although not as good as she was for Roman Polanski in the same year in the masterpiece Rosemary's Baby. It's a different and challenging role, however, and it gives the actress a chance to show her range. The real standout is Robert Mitchum as the detestable stepfather - he plays up to the role brilliantly. It becomes obvious very early on in the film that there's not going to be a point made at the end; and unfortunately, the film delivers on that promise. Overall, there really isn't many reasons to bother with this film; and I don't recommend anyone goes out of their way to find it.