Fragment of Fear (1971)

Horrible, fascist and poorly acted

Great Film overall

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

A movie with Hemmings, Gayle Hunnicutt, Adolfo Celi (a serviceable supporting player), W. H. White, about insanity, severe delusions, grief, very accomplished unpretentious craftsmanship, it's not artsy, but stylish, lavish, colorful; the style is a European synthesis, not only British, but continental as well ….Very suspenseful, one of the most accomplished genre movies, of an ineffable freshness; the sense of creepiness is as efficient as nuanced and sober. It has an undertone of distorted sexuality, the predilection for aged women, Bunface and the schoolgirls, the eerie but certain appeal of the aged ladies, those kisses; the focus is on eyes, mouths, thighs in their shameless bare luxuriance. Tim Brett's flat gives a very suggestive sense of the place.The young women appear as naked thighs, and so does the seductress in the train, the temptress who knows the writer's address. Also, the leading character's 1st shot shows his legs.Those thighs symbolize the access, not as much denied (by the women), as repellent. He feels threatened by the walk, by the bride's walk …. The male characters, beginning with the copper who visits him, are paternal symbols. They are burly. The women's thighs are viscous. The women are cold, tempting, indifferent, desired. The writer resents them. Force, desire, dream, deceit; he feels deceived, and resents health, the insanity proves a stronger temptation than the drugs he used to take.In its depiction of the insanity, the movie shows the feverish phony cleverness of the delusion, with its crippling mistrust; and it's not a moralizing stance, but a clinical one, the twilight of a mind, clinically depicted. The addiction is a _crippleness, and the leading character ends in a wheelchair, i. e. denying himself almost everything, deprived of walk and deprived of rest, unable to walk, unable to rest, dominated by his wife, defeated. The puzzling plot has been meant to be dreamlike. The eerie, spooky story-line from the standpoint of insanity had a worthy career in the cinema, and occasioned other movies as well.Both leads give apposite performances. It's impressive how both of them understood the requirements of their roles.Gayle Hunnicutt is decorative, and her role required a bland act, she had to be a decorative doll. Hemmings made me think of a plumper and more urbane Dean; what might seem like overacting actually suits his part, suggesting the behavior of a psychotic, the feverish, sometimes frenzied behavior.

Fragment of Fear is a film that has somehow slipped under the radar since its release in 1970 and that's a real shame as while the film does have a few narrative problems; this is excellently produced and well worked mystery thriller that really does deserve to be more seen. The film is halfway between a murder mystery and a psychological thriller and director Richard C. Sarafian gives both halves of the film equal credence as the focus is stretched across the central character's questionable mental health and the murder of his aunt that he is investigating. The central character is Tim Brett; he's a reformed drug addict living in Italy. He returns to London when his aunt is found murdered and begins asking people who knew his aunt questions. It's not long before strange things start happening to him; his flat is broken into, he receives a letter that was written on his own typewriter and gets strange phone calls. It soon transpires that someone doesn't want Tim investigating. But naturally, considering he was a drug user, nobody will believe him...Some have labelled this film as a British Giallo; I don't agree that such a thing exists personally, but Fragment of Fear does feature some staples of Italy's finest type of film. The murder mystery is a given, but we also have an unseen killer and adding to that is the fact that many Giallo's feature a lead character with a fractured state of mind. The film is lead by the great David Hemmings who puts in a good performance. I was unsure of how he would across as a former drug user given his debonair screen presence, but he actually fits into this role really well and is not hard to believe. Director Richard C. Sarafian keeps the film streamlined and the action focused on the mystery which ensures that Fragment of Fear is always interesting and entertaining. The film gets more exciting as it goes along and it all boils down to a good ending that provides a nice twist and also manages a bit of ambiguity. Overall, it's a real shame that this film is so obscure as it deserves a wider audience and hopefully it will soon be picked up for a DVD release. Recommended if you can find it!

British cult classic with a memorable music score by Johnny Harris featuring a small tight group of top class jazz players including Harold McNair on screaming flute. Re-recorded cuts from this soundtrack feature on the 1970 Johnny Harris - Movements album (issued on CD by Warner Bros in 2002) which is highly recommended. Including flute and bongo driven main theme "Stepping Stones" (named after the secret society in the film) which has developed a life of it's own - used by Levi Jeans on it's Kung Fu TV ad in 1997, featured on film soundtracks, used by the BBC as the theme to a season of seventies cult film and played in clubs by DJ's to jazz, funk and northern soul crowds for four decades! P.S. This film is now on DVD from Columbia in the US and will soon be on blu-ray. P.P.S Now if only Sony Film Music can see sense and release the TRULY AMAZING score on CD for the first time ever please, good news: There is now a 12" LP release available. P.P.P.S. The reviews criticising the music written by chrisdfilm and a few other fools are total bs, ignore that garbage!!

SPOILER WARNINGThis is a little known gem from the underrated director of the cult road movie Vanishing Point which plays with audience expectations - before undermining them completely in an audacious and unexpected twist.Fans of David Hemmings, who appreciate his work at this time in Blow Up and Deep Red ( to name two of his most famous cult collaborations) will be delighted to discover this performance. Minor characters are also well drawn and much of the location work in London and elsewhere is atmospheric and excellent.The central concern of the film is Hemmings' suspicion that there is a conspiracy afoot attempting, amongst other things, to undermine his sanity. Some of the elements here recall Polanski's work on creating an effect of mental instability in his Repulsion.His increasingly frantic and neurotic attempts to unravel the mystery leads the viewers to expect a tidy denouement, when the true facts are revealed and Hemmings' self esteem and position is restored. Hemmings is too likeable and too much a central figure upon whom the viewer depends to make judgements to *really* be at fault...When in the last moments of the film there is no tidy conclusion to the matter, save the idea that Hemmings is actually unbalanced, and that what has happened has been the result of his delusions, it is far more shocking than a more conventional 'tidy' explanation.. the plot lines, the unexplained elements of the film, are left trailing, just as Hemming's character's sanity is left in shreds. Hemming's final collapsed journey in a wheelchair, both crippled by his experiences and mentally exhausted, is very disturbing. It is as if the viewer is staring into a bottomless pit of madness, where all certainty is stripped away, and ranks with the great moments of horror film.