Secret Ceremony (1968)

What an unexpected, odd, treat. Films that travel undetected, spotted by accident - as it was in my case. I was reading about this startling Argentinean writer, Marco Denevi, when I discovered that one of his short stories had been adapted for the screen, directed by Joseph Losey of "The Servant" fame and with a cast to die for. Elizabeth Taylor as a prostitute that takes advantage of a peculiar girl, played with real zest by Mia Farrow who mistakes her for her mother, and Robert Mitchum, as the disruptor. This classy if bizarre production also includes Pamela Brown and Peggy Ashcroft in the cast. I enjoyed the weirdness thoroughly. It unsettled me and made me wonder how this film had been received in 1968. Apparently not very well. The one thing that made people talk about Secret Ceremony at the time was an infamous still with Elizabeth Taylor and Mia Farrow in a bathtub together. For lovers of the odd and unique this is a real treat.

I saw "the girl in the park" yesterday and although it featured Sigourney Weaver's moving performance ,I couldn't help but be struck by the similarities with Losey's forgotten movie: Sigourney Weaver was in search of a long lost daughter whereas Mia Farrow is in need of a mother.Farrow is impressive in her performance which was outstripped by the success of "Rosemary's baby" -in which she is terrific too-.As soon as we see her ,we feel how irrational she is.Her smiles,her gentleness ,her tenderness have something spooky.Ther's also an attic where the characters try to invent a brand new past for themselves.Liz Taylor and Robert Mitchum are as good as Farrow and the movie is one of Losey's sleepers,almost in the same league as his overlooked "Monsieur Klein" (another case of mistaken identity)

The major talents involved with this movie -- director Joseph Losey and actors Robert Mitchum, Elizabeth Taylor and Mia Farrow, have done some great work and some lousy work -- Mitchum was inclined to phone in performances unless he got interested. But, like many people who get involved with the arts, when they were doing something on the edge, they doubtless knew they could fail -- but a lot of the people here seem to fall into the common fallacy that great talent can never fail -- as if DONOVAN'S REEF is a great film because it was directed by John Ford or A COUNTESS FROM HONG KONG was a laugh riot because it was directed by Chaplin. Or that every performance given by Paul Newman was great. Sometimes people make mistakes and the greater the genius, the greater the mistakes.About the only good thing I can say about this movie is that the camera work by Gerry Fisher is excellent and occasionally distracting. After that, everything bogs down because of the idiotic, minimalist story in which nothing is ever really explained -- but the plot is that psycho Mia Farrow's mother has just died so she falls in with psycho hooker Elizabeth Taylor, whose daughter has just died, until psycho step-daddy Bob Mitchum, in a hideous beard and sporting an accent that varies form Irish to Australian to his basic accent, discourses on statutory rape.That's very little to build a hundred-minute movie on and, despite everyone -- except possibly for Mitchum -- doing their best, there are long periods of nothing. Some might look upon these as meditative sequences. I find them boring.So what is the result? You have characters you don't care about doing very little of interest in a cluttered world -- I suspect the set decorator was getting a kickback from prop suppliers -- and the question arises why this was released at all. Answer: because some people would go to see it based on the track record of the major talent involved and even if the project would not show a profit, at least the loss would be ameliorated.... and forty years later some money is still being picked up by showing it on cable TV.

One has to be in the right mood to accept this unusual, moody psychological drama. Taylor plays a low-rent prostitute who still mourns the death of her young daughter. Farrow plays a disturbed, flaky young lady who is having trouble reconciling the recent death of her own mother. Farrow bears a passing resemblance to Taylor's deceased daughter while Taylor is a dead ringer for Farrow's mom. One day, these two meet on a bus and then again at a grave site and strike up a sort of unwritten, even unspoken, agreement that Taylor will assume the identity of Farrow's mother. Taylor can hardly believe her good fortune as the woman was wealthy, lived in a spacious house full of antiques and enjoyed a closet full of designer clothes and luxurious furs. The fun doesn't last too long, however, when Farrow's two meddling aunts (Ashcroft and Brown) stop by to loot the place, followed by the arrival of Farrow's lascivious step-dad Mitchum, who is always on the go, evading the fallout from his many instances of molestation and statutory rape. Things become more and more complicated until death and violence ensues. Taylor, in one of her floundering periods as an actress and looking thick and matronly through much of the picture, gives an uneven and in-cohesive performance. She's always been interesting to watch, even when bad, but this character lacks focus and motivation. This is not helped by the fractured means of storytelling and the spotty screenplay. She is, at times, unintentionally hilarious as she flops around and brays over various things, frequently in cheap-looking, tacky costumes (none so bad as a loud, purple patterned dress with white go-go boots.) She does have one high-glam scene near the end in which she's decked out in pink chiffon with embroidered flowers and a massive Alexandre of Paris hairdo. Watch her woof down a huge longshoreman's breakfast in the blink of an eye! Farrow, while not particularly likable or accessible, at least gives a very strong performance in a challenging part. Her dementia and manipulativeness is excellently presented. Mitchum is all wrong for his role. His accent (or lack there of) wavers hideously and he never seems like someone who would have been wife to Taylor and step-father to Farrow. Most of his acting in the film is atrocious though he begins to rise to the occasion in a heated beach scene with Taylor. Very welcome and solid support is given by Ashcroft and Brown as the vaguely dykish sisters with sticky fingers and selfish hearts. The film has some sordid aspects to it, though it stays reasonably smut-free. Farrow refused to film her big love scene with Mitchum, so it was cut and note how a convenient (and gargantuan) sponge is always floating in front of Taylor in her bathtub scene. It has definite curiosity value and features interesting settings and situations, but it's also challenging to get through and unclear at times. Perhaps multiple viewings will help. The hacked-up TV version should be avoided entirely.