Rapture
Directed by John Guillerman
Written by Stanley Mann from a novel by Phyllis Hastings
1965/USA/France
Panoramic Productions
First viewing/YouTube
[box] That’s the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over, lest you should think he never could recapture the first fine careless rapture! Robert Browning [/box]
Weird incesty plot is only partially redeemed by the phenomenal cinematography, gorgeous score and excellent cast.
Agnes (Patricia Gozzi) is a wild woman-child who lives on a farm near the coast of Brittany with her father Frederick (Melvyn Douglas), a retired judge, and housekeeper Karin (Gunnell Lindblom). Agnes lives in a world of fantasy and behaves like an out-of-control ten-year-old. Both Agnes and Frederick have been deeply scarred by the death of her mother years before. The resemblance of Agnes to her mother bothers Frederick at some existential level.
Agnes decides she must make a scarecrow and coerces Frederick to reluctantly contribute an old black suit (his funeral suit?) to the project.
Shortly after the scarecrow is erected, a convict named Joseph (Dean Stockwell) escapes when a prison transport crashes. He critically injures a guard in the process and is being hunted for attempted murder. Joseph hides out in Frederick’s barn. He puts on the clothes from the scarecrow. Shortly thereafter he meets with Agnes who believes he is her scarecrow come to life.
The whole family conceal Joseph from the police. He repays by succumbing to the advances of both Karin and Agnes.
I feel so torn about this one. Everything about it just great. Melvyn Douglas in particular was fantastic. I couldn’t really get past the relationship between Joseph and Agnes, though. She is clearly presented as having the mentality of a child, and a mentally ill child at that. This made love affair just icky as far as I was concerned. Thus it’s nothing I would rewatch and doesn’t get a recommendation from me. Probably in the minority here. Available for free on YouTube.
