The Rough and the Smooth

When this film began, I thought it offered a less coy approach to sex than most 1950s film, but it turned out to be far more misogynistic. None of the women were favourably presented. It was redeemed, however, by Nadja Tiler's acting, which was quite extraordinary!

Interesting to see films like The Spiral Staircase, The Killers (Burt Lancaster version), The Crimson Pirate, Custer Of The West etc, dismissed as 'B' pictures, but then anyone is permitted to post a comment here even those who don't know their ass from third base. In my case Robert Siodmak was the only reason to waste any time on this film and although the storyline was definitely Siodmsk country it was a strangely emasculated terrain, Siodmak country with a Capra landscape, like Laura as Disney may have handled it. The Story was made to order for the Siodmak signature touches, light, shadow, odd angles, atmosphere, but it was as if he'd been ordered to check them at the door and/or mislaid them.

There are several interweaving plot lines to this film, and none of them seem to go anywhere. The basic plot line is that Mike Thompson (Tony Britton), a young socialite who is engaged to be married, picks up Nadja Tiller in a London pub. The pair have an affair which all but ruins Thompson's life. Everything about this film is unreal. I have been in many London pubs, and I can assure anyone reading this that the possibility of seeing anyone like Nadja Tiller in a London pub, let alone of picking her up, is about as remote as the Antarctic. The direction is so-so, the acting and casting is OK. Tony Britton's part is a bit of a nonentity. Nadja Tiller is hot, and one wonders if the muddled film is due not to incompetence but to the scissors of the overzealous British film censors. But at the end of the film you find yourself asking yourself: "What was that all about?"

Nadja Tiller, fresh from playing a blackmailing callgirl in 'Das Madchen Rosemarie' (1958) played a blonde tease in this screen version of the 1951 novel by the nephew of W.Somerset Maugham which amply demonstrates that he was another chip off the old block. Tony Britton goes to pieces over blonde slattern Tiller as Lawrence Harvey would five years later over Kim Novak in Ken Hughes' version of 'Of Human Bondage' and James Fox would over Sarah Miles in 'The Servant'. Enhanced by noirish photography by Otto Heller, there's a remarkable amount of sex talk; and Donald Wolfit again represents the cynicism and venality of the establishment as he had just done in 'Room at the Top'.