What the Peeper Saw (1973)

People are voting emotionally.

Good movie but grossly overrated

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

"What the Peeper Saw" is an okay erotic B suspense movie type that's filled with drama and a past that haunts the central character. And the movie is spiced up okay with some sexy skin scenes from model Britt Ekland. The film has a plot that involves A beautiful woman(Britt Ekland)who's married and her husband has a little boy from his previous marriage and her little innocent looking stepson(Mark Lester)supposedly murdered his mother.All of a sudden signs are seen that this little boy is crazy and may murder again as strange things start to happen yet after some bonding and trust is made the film takes an unexpected twist at the end as what comes around goes around karma!

Precocious 12-year-old boy, a thief and a liar--and possible sociopath--has been expelled from boarding school for voyeuristic behavior and for killing an animal; now, he's turned his attentions to his new stepmother, a sympathetic young woman in her 20s who comes to suspect (over her husband's objections) that the lad is spying on them...and was instrumental in his own mother's death. Deranged tale with a perverse, uncomfortably sexualized scenario that puts great demands on its two main players, pre-teen Mark Lester and beautiful (if sulky) Britt Ekland. Both seem to struggle with this material, which is often ridiculous when it means to be shocking and titillating. The narrative is choppy and fails to hang together, particularly in the third act which darts around hoping to set up a delicious twist ending but instead makes the participants look foolish. *1/2 from ****

I'd always been intrigued by this controversial film, given its cast and subject matter; being an international production between Spain, Great British and Italy, it was released under various titles – DIABOLICA MALICIA in Spain, LA TUA PRESENZA NUDA in Italy and several more in English-speaking countries, but perhaps most popularly as the obscure NIGHT HAIR CHILD (which is how I knew it) and the lurid WHAT THE PEEPER SAW; the print I watched, then, omitted the middle word from the former and left it at that! Anyway, the film is notorious for turning Mark Lester, the cute protagonist from the musical OLIVER! (1968), into a true nightmare of a child: liar, sadist, voyeur, lecher, murderer! As I said earlier, he's surrounded by other notables: Britt Ekland (at the height of her beauty) is his bewildered stepmom; Hardy Kruger plays the boy's clueless and over-protective father; and, also appearing in bit parts, are Harry Andrews as the headmaster of Lester's school (who's forced to expel him due to gross misconduct) and Lilli Palmer as a psychiatrist (intending to analyze the boy, she ends up checking in Ekland for treatment!).The film is undeniably sleazy, as we get to see Ekland stripping in front of Lester (at his behest, but to which she acquiesces in order to get at the truth of his mother's mysterious demise!) and even getting into bed with him stark naked (though this is presented as a mere hallucination on her part, witnessed by a cackling Kruger!); however, it's lifted out of the exploitation rut by all-round credible performances and a typically nice score by Stelvio Cipriani. The scene, then, in which Lester imagines his mother's corpse (whom he has callously killed in the film's very opening scene) in the pool is effectively macabre; the finale, too, is worth waiting for: the boy almost coerces Ekland (no sooner has she been released from the asylum) into murdering Kruger and becoming his lover since he tells her she's closer to his own age (Lester being 12 and Ekland 22, while Kruger's 42!); she gives him the impression of agreeing with this latest scheme of his but, realizing the kid will never change, Ekland immediately provides herself with the opportunity to get rid of Lester once and for all… Incidentally, co-director Bianchi would go on to make an even more explicit 'monster child' effort on his home turf with MALABIMBA – THE MALICIOUS WHORE (1979); as for Britisher Kelly, his only other film was the passable Tigon production THE BEAST IN THE CELLAR (1970). By the way, I have two more of Lester's vintage films to check out – MELODY (1971) and another Italian-made "Grindhouse" flick, REDNECK (1973); while I'm at it, I should try to get my hands on EYEWITNESS (1970), the well-regarded Hitchcockian thriller he starred in that was entirely filmed in Malta.

This underrated '70's psycho-thriller is aided by a strong cast, which includes Mark Lester(of OLIVER! fame) as the disturbed youngster, Britt Ekland as the terrified stepmother, Hardy Kruger as the boy's well-meaning, but clueless father, and Lilli Palmer as a seemingly level-headed psychologist. Admittedly, it's little more than THE BAD SEED with a sex change and a few kinky, voyeuristic sequences thrown in for good measure, but the wonderful cast has done wonders with their roles, particularly Lester who gives a startlingly mature and downright chilling performance as the evil child. After seeing him go at it as the little stepson from Hell, it's hard to believe that this is the same little boy who captured our hearts in the award-winning musical "OLIVER!". It takes a good actor to play two wildly different roles so convincingly, and that's Lester. After seeing him in these two films alone, I'm convinced he's one of the finest child actors of all time! After doing some research, I've discovered that the magnificent Lester has retired from show business and is now an osteopath. The medical profession's gain is our loss.