Alicia I love this movie so much

Boobirt Stylish but barely mediocre overall

GurlyIamBeach Instant Favorite.

Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

hawktwo I was in my twenties when this first came out and thought it was a very emotional and sensuous movie. Playboy did a pictorial layout of the film and since I worked in a drugstore that sold it, I was able to sneak peeks while the manager wasn't watching. Perhaps I was too young to appreciate some of the plots and emotions. I did not understand the jealousy that could be provoked in young children by the introduction of a potential step-parent. I did not understand the emotional and physical needs of the widow. The ending produced a tremendous feeling of sadness which stayed with me. I recently saw it again. Disappointingly it has one of the most erotic scenes edited. The trick of showing time passing by having a picture boat glide across a picture ocean really seems corny. For a better Sarah Miles movie which holds up for its eroticism and story quality, I'd recommend "Ryan's Daughter".

sddavis63 Although it has a handful of powerful and disturbing moments, the reality is that for most of its runtime my general reaction to this movie was a sense of wonder that anyone would bother to put out a movie that was so dreadfully boring. There are basically two aspects to the story: first is the lonely widowed mother Anne (played by Sarah Miles) who meets and falls in love with a sailor named Jim who's just arrived in port (Kris Kristofferson), and second is the widow's troubled son Jonathon (Jonathon Osborne) and his reaction to his mother's growing relationship with Jim.Most of what power there is in the movie comes from the story of Jonathon. The boy has a definite Oedipus complex, regularly spying on his naked mother as she engages in various types of sex play (with Jim and with herself) and he's fallen in with a bad group of kids who've formed a secret society of some type under the leadership of an even more disturbed boy who has a fixation with mutilating animals. There's nothing particularly likable about the boys. They're disturbed - perhaps even evil. The leader of the group (Earl Rhodes) plots to make sure that Jonathon will turn against Jim (perhaps he was afraid that a relationship between the two would lessen his own influence over Jonathon) and succeeds in enlisting Jonathon as part of a horrendous plot to deal with the situation. The story of the relationship between Anne and Jim was less interesting to me. It seemed to come out of nowhere and perhaps for that reason didn't strike me as believable. There's some humour in the movie (especially the tea room scene!) but overall this is a very dark and twisted story. For the most part I found it uninteresting and unpleasant, although it does lead up to quite a climax in the end. There's a fair amount of nudity involving Sarah Miles, and a few sex scenes (although nothing explicit.) My own opinion, though, was that overall - in spite of a few good scenes - this was dreadfully dull. (3/10)

kenjha A lonely British widow living in a seaside town strikes up a romance with an American sailor, much to the disapproval of her son. The pacing of the film is rather lethargic, as there is more emphasis on atmosphere and characters than plot. Unfortunately, the characters are not very interesting. The film also loses points for an unpleasant and unnecessary scene where a cat is dissected. Miles is alluring as the sexually frustrated widow and mother of a troubled, teen-aged son. Kristofferson is the studly sailor of the title. The film is probably better known for a steamy Playboy pictorial featuring the two stars that effectively ended Kristofferson's marriage to Rita Coolidge.

Coventry Ever since her husband passed away, the introvert but endearing widow Anne Osborne (Sarah Miles) raises her son Jonathan by herself. Life isn't easy, as Anne feels lonely and clearly needs male affection while her son dangerously gets hooked on the mildly unsettling ideas of a fellow school boy who proclaims to eliminate all adults. When the handsome and charismatic sailor Jim (Kris Kristofferson) arrives in town in his enormously impressive cargo-boat "Belle", Anne finds in him a new lover and Jonathan a new fatherly role model. But when Jim stays to marry Anne, Jonathan feels that he "betrays" the sea and plots a morbid vengeance. I expected a whole lot from "The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea", actually. The unusual title as well as the oddly designed DVD-cover always appealed to me and, moreover, the story is adapted from the works of controversial Japanese writer Yukio Mishima. This notorious author, who literally shocked the world with his sudden suicide, wrote perverse tales and had an awkward interpretation on human psychology, and thus I was anticipating a slow-brooding melodrama that is disturbing and beautifully enchanting at the same time. Unfortunately the transition to a remote English sea-town setting and its depressed inhabitants isn't totally successful and, despite remaining to be a stylish & well-made film, "The Sailor..." miserably fails in terms of offering genuine shocks and sheer creepiness. Writer/director Lewis John Carlino hints at several controversial themes (like voyeurism, the Oedipus complex and "Lord of the Flies"-esquire ideas) but never really has the courage to translate them on screen. The two main plots, about the romance between the adults and the boys' peculiar descent into mental insanity, never conjunct like they should, resulting in a rather incoherent film that comes across as absurd and highly implausible. Although the DVD-box guarantees chills, the film sadly never becomes disturbing or even remotely frightening. Nonetheless "The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea" remains a curiously fascinating piece of 70's film-making, as the atmosphere is continuously compelling and the acting performances are convincingly emotional. Especially Sailor Jim's extended speeches about the mysteriously untameable sea are downright staggering. Because of his poetic monologues, the sea itself almost becomes an uncredited extra character and you willingly allow him to take you on imaginative journey around the world. Contrary to these mesmerizing sequences are the rather nasty and gratuitous images of the fascist children's cult relentlessly torturing animals in order to revolt against the grown-up world. The supposedly 'startling' climax filmed on a beautiful hillside location overlooking the sea is painfully disappointing. Not having read the novel, I don't know whether or not it's supposed to end like this, but I found it to be an extremely cowardly finale after building up to it so much.