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Synopsis: As
writer John Morlar (Richard Burton) is watching television coverage of
a doomed attempt to rescue a crew of astronauts stranded near the
moon, someone enters his apartment and beats him savagely about the
head with a small statuette. The following morning, Inspector Brunel (Lino
Ventura), a French police officer in London as part of an exchange
program, and Sergeant Duff (Michael Byrne) inspect Morlar's body.
Pennington (Robert Lang), the neighbour who saw Morlar's door open and
sounded the alarm, insists that Morlar never had visitors. Brunel
finds Morlar's journal. It is full of dark and melancholy - and
violent - reflections upon the state of humanity. Brunel's eye is
caught by the random phrase "West Front", and by the name
"Zonfeld". Suddenly, to the astonishment of the policemen,
Morlar starts to breathe again…. Brunel succeeds in tracking down
"Zonfeld": it is Dr Zonfeld (Lee Remick), Morlar's
psychiatrist. She is deeply shocked by the news of the assault,
insisting that Morlar had no enemies - and no friends, either. She
reveals to Brunel that Morlar suffered delusions, believing that he
was cursed with "a gift for disaster", the ability to will
death; a belief reinforced by a series of tragedies in his life. As a
child suffering from measles, Morlar was told hideous tales of
hellfire and damnation by his nursemaid, until he began to pray that she
might burn in hell. The woman was dead within days…. While staying
with his parents in a seaside hotel, the young Morlar overheard his
mother's harsh criticisms of himself. Later that afternoon, the boy
watched as, for no apparent reason, the family car began to roll down
a grassy slope towards his parents, who were strolling by a cliff edge….
Dr Zonfeld confirms to Brunel that Morlar had no actual involvement
with any of these deaths, but that the man himself had told her that
he had known they were "inevitable". Brunel reflects that,
if Morlar believed so strongly in the existence of his
"gift", he may have convinced someone else as well. The
Inspector insists on returning later to Dr Zonfeld's office to hear
more of Morlar's story. He then goes to the hospital to check on the
comatose man. He is received with hostility by Dr Johnson (Gordon
Jackson), who resents the fact that the incurable Morlar is tying up a
bed and some vital equipment, while the hospital is struggling to deal
with the aftermath of a jumbo jet crash. Leaving the hospital, Brunel
is waylaid by the Assistant Commissioner of Police (Harry Andrews),
who tells him that "interested parties" want him to drop
everything else and concentrate on finding out who attacked Morlar.
Back at Morlar's apartment, Brunel shows Duff the author's scrapbooks,
which contain newspaper clippings recounting endless disasters and
human misery. The final entry is the London plane crash. Another visit
to Dr Zonfeld elicits the story of a young Morlar's clash with a
sadistic schoolmaster, which ended in fire and death…. From Morlar's
neighbours, Duff learns that Pennington blamed Morlar for his wife's
death: an event that followed hard upon an argument between the couple
that Morlar was forced to overhear, and which ended with the
hypochondriacal woman's half-hearted threat to throw herself out of
the window, and Morlar's angry retort, "Oh, go ahead and
jump!" She did….
Comments: "I
have a gift for disaster," John Morlar tells his psychiatrist in
the course of The Medusa Touch, and by 1978 Richard Burton
might have been speaking for the direction that his film career had
taken over the preceding decade. Although the film is by no means a
catastrophe on the scale of the previous year's Exorcist
II: The Heretic (indeed - how could it be?), for Burton, The
Medusa Touch hardly represented a step in the right direction. The
film has its moments, granted, but it is ultimately a hollow exercise
- and far too tasteful for its own good. With its low-key approach to
its subject matter, its deliberate pacing and its quality cast, The
Medusa Touch was clearly a film made with pretensions of
importance. It is, in fact, an attempt at that most difficult of all
horror sub-genres, the stately horror film. A slow, steady
build-up to a crowning horror can work, of course, but The
Medusa Touch ultimately falls flat because it never really about
anything - or rather, because it misjudges where the true horror of
its subject matter lies. To me, the critical moment of The Medusa
Touch comes when, during a therapy session, an anguished Morlar
demands to know why his power is always destructive. No answer
is forthcoming, not even an inquiry as to whether he has ever tried
to accomplish something positive with it: Dr Zonfeld simply brushes
the question aside, as she does so much of what Morlar says to her. (I
like Lee Remick's Zonfeld, but all the same, I'm not sure I'd care to
have her as my psychiatrist. I'm no expert, of course, but her
standard approach of "You're delusional - stop it!" doesn't
strike me as being all that helpful - even were she dealing with a
patient who actually was delusional.) The film itself is little
less dismissive, and that is its critical error. Apparently failing to
recognise the potential for true psychological horror inherent in the
story of John Morlar, the makers of The Medusa Touch focussed
instead upon the purely external consequences of his existence. The
result is a film sorely lacking in substance. This wouldn't have
mattered so much if the film-makers had served up some genuine horror
in its place, but unfortunately, when it came to actually depicting
the results of Morlar's mood swings, they seem to have gotten cold
feet - or worse, contracted a fatal dose of "good taste". In
spite of its litany of disaster and death, The Medusa Touch is
doggedly, dully bloodless - right up to the final section of the film.
But I'll have more to say about that - quite a lot more - a little
later on….
Much about The Medusa
Touch seems designed specifically to test the patience of the
viewer. First of all, it suffers from the age-old horror film problem
of having the audience countless miles ahead of the characters in
terms of belief. The film presents its central impossibility
early on - namely, that Morlar has not merely been the victim of a
string of tragedies in the course of his life, but has actually caused
the tragedies himself, through the power of his will. The viewer
swallows this at a single gulp, of course - and is then forced to wait
impatiently while those investigating the attack upon Morlar take
their own sweet time about reaching the same conclusion. In fairness, The
Medusa Touch is less extreme in this respect than many films, at
least as far as Inspector Brunel is concerned. He, unable to believe
that so many tragedies in one lifetime could be a coincidence, begins
quite early on to contemplate the incredible. The same, unfortunately,
cannot be said of the supreme rationalist Dr Zonfeld, whose
point-blank refusal not just to entertainment such a notion, but even
to go so far along with it as, "Okay, let's just
suppose----", finally provokes Morlar into proving his
story - with widespread and fatal consequences. Another problem with The
Medusa Touch is its flashback structure. The film consists largely
of scenes of those who knew Morlar recounting their experiences with
him, intercut with Zonfeld's recollections of their therapy sessions.
The reluctance of the film-makers to show the outcome of
Morlar's displeasure can at least in part be attributed to a
half-hearted attempt to create some mystery about his actual role in
the various catastrophes, particularly in the early part of the film.
However, in practical terms all this means is that in place of action,
of drama, we get talk - and talk - and talk - and talk….
Moreover, there is a deadly sameness in the way these stories are
told. Even Brunel finally interrupts a witness with a weary, "Let
me guess----", as yet another account of Morlar's doings ends
with a description of him holding a potential victim - "with his
glittering eye", as it were. The other annoying aspect of The
Medusa Touch is its murky "government conspiracy"
subplot - and "murky" is being kind. All sorts of ominous
hints are dropped about the enemies in high places that Morlar has
earned for himself with his improbably effective books linking
"power with evil". "Interested parties" made sure
his books were never reviewed; the same "interested parties"
see that Brunel is assigned to investigate the attack on Morlar to the
exclusion of everything else. In the long run, however, there is no
pay-off to any of this; it simply adds up to an awful lot of
time-wasting. (Quite a lot of time is also spent upon Morlar's
rantings against society in general and the government in particular.
But when Morlar rants - things happen….) You would not blame
the viewer who, at this point in the film, decided that he had
something more exciting to do with his life - like watching paint dry.
But those who are able to
endure all the longeurs that are scattered throughout the film
will ultimately be richly rewarded with entertainment of the most
perverse and evil kind. In the final analysis, The Medusa Touch
is nothing less than a wickedly enjoyable tale of the ultimate
wish-fulfilment; a film for every put-upon individual who ever
muttered darkly, "I'll show them! I'll show them all!"
- even while knowing full well that they will never do anything of the
kind. (Oh, dear. I suppose, this day and age being what it is, that I
should append a disclaimer to that remark. So: The Medusa Touch
is a wickedly enjoyable tale of wish-fulfilment for anyone who ever
muttered, "I'll show them all!" - and who has the ability to
tell the difference between reality and fantasy.) That The Medusa
Touch works so well as a guilty pleasure can be attributed almost
entirely to the contribution of Richard Burton - which is not to say,
necessarily, that he gives a good performance. As did The
Heretic the year before, The Medusa Touch features
Burton at his most constipatedly intense. It's all here: the clenched
teeth, the bulging veins, the close-ups of the starting eyes, and of
course, the sweat. But given the overwrought nature of the
character of John Morlar, these things are not always out of place in The
Medusa Touch - and upon occasion, are even surprisingly effective,
particularly in combination with some of the ripest dialogue I have
heard in many a day. Whether we have Peter Van Greenaway or John
Briley to thank for this I couldn't say, but every time Morlar opens
his mouth a positive deluge of purple prose bursts forth - and Burton
makes the absolute most of it. Two scenes in particular stand out. In
the first, Morlar, at the time a practising barrister, launches into a
"closing argument" that turns into a tirade against the
glorification of war. A fine and impassioned speech it is, but made to
the wrong audience: a vengeful judge takes his anger and disgust out
upon Morlar's unfortunate client, hitting him with a maximum sentence
for what is at worse a misdemeanour - and ending Morlar's legal career
in the process. (No prizes for guessing what happens to the judge.) In
the other - which really is quite brutally funny - Morlar excoriates
his faithless wife and her lover ("My God!" the interloper
exclaims in astonishment. "You really are as foul as she
says!") before cheerfully sending them off to their inevitable
doom. While these two scenes stand out, others are improved by being
narrated by Morlar. Whatever one thinks of Burton's performance here,
the impact of his voice is indisputable.
And there is a further
scene that deserves mention simply because it is probably the only one
in the film that can be praised without reservation: that in which
Morlar inadvertently "wills" his ghastly, shrieking,
shrewish neighbour to jump out of the window. In contrast to the
overripe histrionics that characterise most of The Medusa Touch,
this single sequence has a reality about it, and a degree of
psychological acuteness, that is both unexpected and refreshing. Just
this one time, Morlar's situation is one that any of us could be in -
that many of us probably have been in - and his irritation, and
his subsequent loss of temper, are a perfectly natural response -
except that this response happens to have fatal consequences. (There
is some nice direction from Jack Gold here, and acting from Robert
Lang, too, as the tale is recounted in flashback. We see Pennington's
slowly-growing bewilderment, and then horror, as the significance of
his empty living-room dawns upon him - and then we cut from Pennington
looking out of the window then, to him looking out of the
window now, as the police officers walk away.) Most of The Medusa
Touch is so overblown and melodramatic that you never really feel
anything for Morlar. His situation is certainly piteous, but he
himself is so self-pitying, so self-absorbed, and so self-righteous,
that it's hard to work up to any real feeling of sympathy for him. But
just in this single instance, everything clicks into place - and we
are encouraged to wonder what it would be like to live like
Morlar; to know that every time we said, or even thought, an
impatient, "Oh, drop dead!" - someone did…. But,
alas - the death of Grace Pennington is a tiny frisson of the
genuinely unsettling adrift in a raging ocean of meaningless sound and
fury. As the body count grows in The Medusa Touch, the film
becomes, perversely, harder and harder to take seriously. There's just
too much of it. Disaster is piled upon disaster, death upon death. It ought
to be disturbing. Instead, it's rather comical - up to a point.
Up to a point. The
Medusa Touch is one of those films that have been overtaken by
recent history; granted a power to affect an audience far beyond that
which it possessed at the time of its production. The critical point
in the film comes when Morlar invades Zonfeld's apartment. Angry and
frustrated by her refusal to take him seriously, to even genuinely listen
to him, he resolves to give her a demonstration of his power - and
does so by willing a jumbo jet to fly into a skyscraper. The special
effects work in this sequence is extremely well-executed;
distressingly well-executed. This was a powerful, upsetting scene when
The Medusa Touch was first released. These days, it's well-nigh
impossible to watch. And the plane crash itself is not all. We see
that happen in a flashback positioned towards the end of the film, as
Zonfeld finally brings herself to describe the scene in her apartment
to Inspector Brunel. Before this, indeed right throughout the action,
as Brunel travels back and forth through the London streets, we have
been forced to view the aftermath of the crash: devastated buildings,
pieces of the shattered plane being carried away, fatality lists in
the newspapers. Undoubtedly, many viewers will find all of this very
difficult to watch. (I was, frankly, astonished when The Medusa
Touch turned up on cable. I had it on my list of films we wouldn't
be seeing again any time soon. Luckily for me, though, my cable
provider turned out to be completely lacking in tact and good taste.
[Okay, that's unfair. I imagine they just didn't bother to screen the
film before it was scheduled.]) And the plane crash and its
consequences aside - The Medusa Touch manages to get even more
topically painful. Having appointed himself a one-man judge, jury and
executioner, Morlar takes it upon himself to protest the money being
"wasted" on the space program by bringing about a disaster
in space (not a crash, thankfully, a stranding). It is this act
that opens the film, and that provokes the savage, bloody attack upon
Morlar himself.
The plane crash is not
the true climax of The Medusa Touch, although I imagine that
most viewers will find subsequent events to be fairly anti-climactic.
Or perhaps this depends upon your political persuasion. The attack
upon Morlar should have killed him, of course, but it does not
- simply because he refuses to die, as his mystified doctor reports to
Brunel. (In an evocative little moment, the doctor points to Morlar's
jagged EEG, and comments that what's left of his brain is screaming.)
Morlar, needless to say, is not the man to let a little thing like
massive brain damage slow him down. We know that he has identified
another suitable target for his righteous wrath, in the costly
restoration of a London cathedral. Morlar's oath, as we have heard, is
to "bring the edifice down upon their unworthy heads"; the
occasion he chooses, a thanksgiving ceremony to mark the beginning of
the restoration, which is to be attended by many dignitaries -
including the royal family. (Not just the royal family, though:
among the other invitees are - "the Commonwealth heads of
government". YES!! Malcolm go squish now! Heh, heh,
heh….) Brunel, however, has by this time accepted the truth about
Morlar, and understands only too well the significance of his sudden
violent brainwave activity. The final section of the film depicts the
police inspector's desperate race against time to convince others of
the danger and to stop the thanksgiving ceremony - or at least, to
prevent the attendance of the royals. (Dammit, Brunel! - mind your
own business! Call yourself a Frenchman!?) Morlar, however,
is not so easily thwarted….
The Medusa Touch
is, for better or worse, dominated by Richard Burton; struggling
vainly against his central maelstrom of overacting, Lino Ventura and
Lee Remick are so low-key as to be almost invisible. Still, they do
what they can; and Ventura in particular manages to project a great
deal of sleepy-eyed charm as Inspector Brunel. The Medusa Touch
was based upon one of a series of novels by Peter Van Greenaway, all
of them centring on Police Inspector Cherry - who, as you may have
surmised, was neither French nor Italian. (I am not currently
in a position to know how much of the novel survived in the
screenplay. However, I do have a copy of the novel of The
Medusa Touch on order. Perhaps I'll pass it on to my good friend Zack
Handlen, and see what he can make of it. [Sadistic bitch, ain't
I!?]) The casting of Lino Ventura can obviously be ascribed to the
fact that The Medusa Touch was a UK-Italian co-production;
internally, Brunel's appointment is justified by the invention of a
French-English exchange program, one created so that - as Brunel puts
it - the police officers of London and Paris can "acquire each
other's weaknesses". Despite the anachronistic nature of his own
position, Brunel greets Zonfeld with, "I was expecting a
man!" "I was expecting an English police
officer," she retorts, not unreasonably. (No explanation at all,
by the way, is ever offered for the American Zonfeld's presence in
England. And just in case you were wondering - yes, Zonfeld is
referred to throughout simply as "Zonfeld".) But beyond its
three central characters, The Medusa Touch is worthy of
attention purely for its supporting cast, which is nothing short of
extraordinary. Sit back and enjoy this parade of talent - a
number of these actors present for one scene only, but very welcome
all the same: Gordon Jackson as Morlar's doctor; Derek Jacobi as his
publisher; Harry Andrews as the Assistant Commissioner of Police;
Marie-Christine Barrault as Morlar's unfaithful wife; Jeremy Brett as
her smug actor lover; Michael Hordern as a palmist whom Morlar in his
desperation consults - and who recoils in nauseated horror after one
glance at his client's hand; Robert Flemyng, Dr Hichcock himself, as
the hanging judge on the receiving end of Morlar's evil eye; and
Norman Bird and British genre mainstay Jennifer Jayne as Morlar's
insensitive parents. Whew! (There's also a very brief glimpse
of Ian Marter, who shortly before The Medusa Touch completed
his tour of duty on Dr Who.) No film with such a cast can be
entirely negligible, and so it is with The Medusa Touch. In
addition to this remarkable line-up of actors, the score by Michael J.
Lewis is also noteworthy; in fact, it deserves to be in a more
successful production. It is difficult to know how to summarise The
Medusa Touch. It is sometimes engaging, sometimes dull,
occasionally disturbing, and frequently rather silly. Still, if you
can give yourself up to its excesses, you'll probably have quite a
good time with it - particularly if you hide a sadistic streak beneath
your more socially acceptable exterior. Needless to say - I
find The Medusa Touch to be - a great deal of fun…. |
Director:
Jack Gold