Matcollis This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

Beystiman It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Huievest Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Phillipa Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

LeonLouisRicci A fascinating, ahead of its time Thriller, this is Film Acting at its finest. It is the two Lead Performances that mesmerize in this subtle and effective Psychological Study that was beginning to emerge in the 60's and has become common Today.The tension here is sometimes more of what doesn't happen then what does. There are many Set-Ups that dither and divert to other than expected conclusions becoming at times unbearable and add to the chilling Scenario.Nothing here is exploitive or over-shot, it is presented with a realism that can be familiar but frightening. The sparse Sets and the two Character story are told in Minimalist fashion and the rather long running time unfolds evenly and is never dull. No Gore here or punctuations of punishment or pleasure, although one soft Bondage scene is a stand out. To top it off the ending is surprising and the final scene is a complete and clear representation of a previously hidden insight that is the second surprise in this well crafted and daring but almost forgotten Film.

Film Watchin Fool Watch this if.... you are a fan of psychological thrillers. Although a bit dated, this is still a very fine film in this genre.Acting/Casting: 8* - Let me say that I was blown away by the performance of Terence Stamp, who I thought portrayed a troubled and disturbed young man to a tee. Samantha Eggar is solid as well, but her performance is second rate to Stamp in this film.Directing/Cinematography/Technical: 8* - I thought the film was well directed by Wyler and had nice music and scenery to accompany the movie. There are some slow spots, but it keeps the audience engaged for the amount of dialogue that is involved.Plot/Characters: 6.5* - A man kidnaps a local art student in hopes of making her fall in love with him. I thought the storyline was intriguing and it came together really well while watching the film.Entertainment Value: 7* - I was pleasantly surprised by this film considering that it was made in 1965 and would recommend to anyone that is looking for a good psychological thriller.My Score: 8+8+6.5+7 = 29.5/4 = 7.375Email your thoughts to [email protected]

ConDeuce Director William Wyler's adaptation of a novel by John Fowles concerning a disturbed young man's obsession with a beautiful woman who he eventually kidnaps and places in a basement room. The film is solidly made and acted and while it is interesting to watch, it is never gripping or compelling. It doesn't have any of the sordid messiness that the material requires and would have given it the edge it needs. Wyler's solid direction is at odds with the material. It's too neat and tidy. Samantha Eggar is a standout despite the fact that the ending feels like a cop out.I was interested in seeing "The Collector" only because it was directed by William Wyler who was one of the top directors in Hollywood from the 1930's through the 1950s. "The Collector" is fascinating because the story itself is a bit perverted and falls into the realm of Hitchcock, not Wyler (I kept thinking about Hitchcock's "Psycho" throughout). Why would Wyler, a solid veteran of Hollywood Movie Workhorses, be drawn to a dark film about an egotistical "head-case" who collects butterflies and decides that he wants to collect a beautiful woman he has long admired and keep her to himself? I have not found anything about his reasons but his involvement makes "The Collector" worth a look. Certainly, nothing about the story makes it worthy. What might have seemed daring and cutting edge back in 1965 now seems tame and has been done numerous times and better (the film is like "Misery" with the gender roles reversed). Nothing about what happens between the beautiful Miranda (a painfully beautiful and likable Samantha Eggar) and creepy Freddy (Terence Stamp) is really unique or even very interesting. But "The Collector" does hold your interest. The movie's opening moments are confusing. Wyler's attempts to establish Freddie as a character does not work completely enough to substantiate the act of kidnapping. Once Freddie has kidnapped Miranda and places her in a dungeon like setting, "The Collector" starts to come together. It becomes a character study of a demented, delusional loser who still pines for love and his prisoner's attempt to some how get out of the situation alive. In the scenes between Miranda and Freddie, Wyler's strength shines and Eggar is particularly good. She's lovely to look at and you can certainly understand why Freddie is attracted to her. Eggar's eyes show us how she is trying to assess the situation for an escape while Freddie keeps changing his methods and reasons for holding her captive. Without Eggar or a comparable actress, "The Collector" wouldn't work at all. It is too bad that what limited success the film does achieve falls squarely on Eggar's shoulders because Terence Stamp's Freddie is the reason the film fails to compel. It's not necessarily Stamp's fault. He is a great actor and though he is playing a stiff (or a demented dork), Stamp is never stiff or dull. "The Collector" simply does not establish how we are meant to feel toward Freddie until the very end when a piece of throwaway narration finally lets us know that he is psychotic (probably a sociopath). I doubt the intention by Wyler's was to create this ambiguity. If the film had made Freddie's character clear, then we would feel more peril for Miranda and her situation. As it plays out, we are confused by him and never really know if he is dangerous or just a bit of a lonely nut looking for love. This confusion elicited some seemingly contradictory and expected reactions. Take for example the scene where Miranda is tied up in the bathroom while the neighbor visits Freddie. When Miranda turns the bathtub water on so it overflows I found myself actually not wanting the neighbor to notice. I was actually on Freddie's side for some reason. If Hitchcock had made "The Collector" then I could see him doing something like this. He's the type of director who would have loved to have the audience side with the psycho but he would have made Miranda somehow unlikeable. In Wyler's film, he has not convinced us of Stamp's true nature (the upbeat, chirpy music that underscores many of Stamp's scenes certainly does not help). Therefore, the film feels uncertain and unfocused and it kills any tension.In the end, it comes down to the direction. As good as Wyler is, material like this is not something that is within his expertise. Perhaps he was, in his late career, trying to do something new. Having been a long time film maker, he might have sensed the changing times and tried to stay relevant. It's a worthy effort. "The Collector" required a director with a vision to create a sense of constant menace. The material should not have been smartened up the way Wyler does it but played for it's pulpy, scary aspects. Hitchcock could have done it. Certainly Polanski could have too and his "Rosemary's Baby" just three years later managed to be lot of what "The Collector" could have been.

Robert J. Maxwell There were a number of films produced around this time involving a woman being kept prisoner -- "Whatever Happened To Baby Jane," "Lady In A Cage" -- but this particular format itself belongs to a genus that might be called the Hostage Movie. They're too numerous to recount but examples include "The Desperate Hours" and "Dog Day Afternoon." In "The Collector," Terence Stamp is a repressed young bank teller who wins seventy thousand pounds in a lottery, buys a Tudor country home, kidnaps the luscious young art student, Samantha Eggar, and holds her captive in a reasonably comfortable cellar until (he hopes) she falls in love with him. Stamp may be sullen but he's been desperately desirous of her since he began stalking her some time ago. He has this Gothic dungeon outfitted with a rack of clothes, personal gear, a comfortable bed, an electric fireplace, and modern lamps. He brings her whatever food she asks for. Of course it doesn't work out. It doesn't work out in two senses. She doesn't fall in love with him, nor are the viewer's expectations about her escape fulfilled.The movie doesn't avoid the usual clichés of the genre: the banging on locked doors, shouting through a newly broken window, feigning illness, offering sex in exchange for release, trying to slip a secret message to someone outside, making false promises. But the novel's author, John Fowles, is a skillful and imaginative writer, and this is a LOT more thoughtful than a run-of-the-mill hostage movie.Stamp's character is unsympathetic but in a way that engages out sympathy. He's an uneducated working-class bloke. Eggar is a doctor's daughter, not rich but talented and upwardly mobile. It's not just a conflict between personalities; it's a clash between classes.One of her favorite books is Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye." Stamp has never heard of it but is determined to read and understand it. But he CAN'T. To him, Holden Caulfield, the preppy protagonist, is a phony himself because he's been pampered and has money, so he has no right to condemn others. Stamp doesn't phrase his criticism exactly this way because he's not articulate enough. And yet he has a point. How much more disturbed would Holden Caulfield been, and how much wiggle room would we give him for his disdain, if he'd been a student at a vocational high school in Pittsburgh? Eggar counters this argument at first by transparently agreeing with him -- "an interesting point of view" -- but Stamp may be unschooled but he's not stupid and sees through the condescension and recognizes the motive behind it. The motive, of course, is that Samantha Eggar will say or do anything to get the hell out of that dungeon, otherwise she'll be there until she dies. They go briefly through a similar routine with a Picasso portrait. Stamp: "It's ugly. People don't look like that." Eggar: "He's trying to show us different sides of the subject." Again, maybe my aesthetic appreciation apparatus is deteriorating but I can see Stamp's point when he argues that people say it's great only because everybody else is saying so.But this isn't a movie about art -- except to the extent that it embodies it. It's still about social class. And Stamp carries around the resentment, anger, and suppressed self-loathing of somebody with the mentality of a fifth grader who knows he'll never fit into the "posh" world of a young lady like Eggar.Terence Stamp has a limited acting range but he fits the template of the role rather well. Samantha Eggar is a beautiful woman with alarmingly auburn hair who is liable to remind a view of Mrs. Emma Peel with more generous features and more tentative vocal contours. The other contours are pretty similar.At one point, Eggar describes Stamp as a "madman" and she's not far off the mark. His butterfly collection suggests obsession. (The movie spells out the connection between the butterflies and Eggar a little too clearly, underestimating the audience.) But Stamp's character is mad in another way. He's not exactly crazy but he lacks social skills in the same way that most schizophrenics do. He simply doesn't know how to handle himself with other people. He does and says things that are odd, ungainly, and probably a little bizarre. He's not sinister. He's pathetic. And like most hostage takers, he creates a tiny world in which he is the King.