Article: Navigating The Small World of Sammy Lee

Sometimes I find myself reminded of, and exasperated by, Britain’s neglect of its own cinema heritage. Chasing the American dollar has British modern filmmaking leaning on the Hollywood market for years. Our best talent often leaves for greener pastures overseas. British cinemas appear uninterested in their own product. Award Ceremonies like the BAFTAs only serve as a precursor to the Oscars. In the modern age, British film is only seen in piecemeal, with older movies feeling unheard of by anyone born past 1995.

1963’s The Small World of Sammy Lee, directed by Ken Hughes, didn’t shine at the time of its release. It found itself forgotten for decades, outperformed by weightier “kitchen sink” films of the era. Hughes and star Anthony Newley had seemingly high hopes for their “serious” tragicomedy, which has one foot in the emerging pop art cinema of its era, all the while glancing back to the noirs of previous decades. The Small World of Sammy Lee didn’t make its splash much to the dismay of Hughes, who was said to have bristled at being more known for the likes of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968). 

You’d think there would be room for Sammy Lee in a country that bangs on about Only Fools and Horses all the bleeding time. ‘Sammy Lee’ is a gem of sixties noir, that now encapsulates a London that to me is both familiar and foreign at the same time. Imagine a sixties set Good Time (2017) or Uncut Gems (2019) before the Safdie Brothers were twinkles in their father's eye. A precursor to those unhinged crime tales, ‘Sammy Lee’ is a film centring on a man nourished by addiction and desperation. He adores standing on the edge of the cliff. Wondering how close he might get to falling. There’s an unsettling feeling that he wouldn’t mind being pushed. 

 ‘Sammy Lee’ starts with its titular character getting absolutely trounced in a poker game. Losing £150 during this game has increased his six-month outstanding debt to £300. With five hours to locate and pay off the bookies, Sammy spends his time dodging, dealing and hustling in the streets of Soho, searching for ways to pony up his bill. 

While The Safdies lock viewers in with frantic, tightly framed visuals and hysterical barrages of overlapping arguments, ‘Sammy Lee’ distils a different kind of tension. A slow creeping, quiet desperation that inhabits ‘Sammy Lee’. Often displayed in simple images. Early on, we catch a glimpse of a previous victim bearing a Chelsea grin. There’s a look of abject misery on Sammy’s face as his plan slides further into anguish. Then there’s Soho itself. The film opens with a wry visual metaphor of the grime being washed away from the Soho streets in the early morning, while the interior strip clubs are smoke-filled tombs, filled with suited men leering at half-naked women whose dreams have met their limit. It’s almost like everyone has fallen into a greasy pit with no desire to escape. 

The Small World of Sammy Lee is a run-all-night film. Other examples of this would be After Hours or the previously mentioned Good Time. Procuring a deceptively unattainable financial goal is often the struggle of these protagonists. The problematic flaws that inhabit the antihero only exacerbate matters. Sammy Lee is a great run-all-night movie, although much of it occurs during the day. Sammy needs £300. This kind of money isn't the hardest to obtain. But with only 5 hours to retrieve the cash, it’s a target that’s just enough to be out of reach for a chancer like Sammy. When you see this low-rent compere working out the finances of his scheme, you witness someone whose addiction to the rush of playing the game helps impede his goal. Sammy repeatedly refuses help from people. It would be the easy way out. So swift is he in denouncing nine-to-fivers as mugs for earning their crust. He loves the complications of the creative breadline. 60s Soho is the perfect location for this master of ceremonies. It's a type of place where money feels loose enough to be borrowed, but difficult to claim back.

Sammy tries all manner of ploys to reclaim his debt. Borrowing from family, bargaining with the local merchants. Wheeling and dealing against the bookies, all the while, a naïve young girl, Patsy (Julia Forster), who’s travelled from the north to be with him, develops in the background. He juggles all this while telling his lewd-lite jokes at the strip club he works for in between. This is an absolute showcase for leading man Anthony Newley. The acclaimed Renaissance man was already highlighting how ahead of his time he was with surrealist sitcom The Strange World of Gurney Slade (1960). His turn as Sammy is equally as infuriating and affecting. Newley never hides the fact that Sammy, for lack of a better term, is a prick. Yet his charm and wit are infectious. Patsy makes a questionable decision, travelling from Bradford to London on the vague belief of a grounded, honest relationship with Sammy. But his charisma accentuates why someone like Pasty would bypass the soon-to-be-clear red flags and make the trip. Kudos go to Forster’s performance, which is light but holds just the right vulnerability to be affecting. 

While Sammy Lee didn’t make a splash as expected, it’s easy to see why. Sammy is tough to love, and his world is easy to dislike. The likes of Bosley Crowther found the film monotonous in its execution. It certainly isn’t a complicated picture.  Sammy needs to find that money. His relationship with Pasty may blossom. But the film isn’t one with airs and graces. However, Hughes' film is an exercise in mundane stress. The stakes aren’t huge, and yet with Sammy, they feel so high. Not many mugs would engage with such desperate, seedy life. And it's difficult love a man who runs on exploitation.  Yet what’s so engaging is what Sammy is willing to give up keeping the charade up for what may only be another day. One late scene is a wonderfully crafted moment in which Sammy gives in to sacrificing something of sentimental value. The moment is executed in one take and involves information handed to us in some seemingly throwaway lines earlier. But when the weight of Sammy’s decision lands, it’s a quietly saddening affair.

Hughes film flitters skilfully between the saddening and the sincere. Tap dancing amongst puddles of sleaze and tension. It is a film which highlights what British film does so well if left alone to play with genre. Sammy Lee is a heady blend of multicultural, kitchen sink and noir that doesn't get much airtime anymore. It hops from Soho to Whitechapel, showcasing a rare glimpse into British Jewish life, just because it can. For the most part, the action lingers around Soho, revealing (and revelling) in a sub-culture of cheesy MCs, lonely white-collar workers and London thuggery which has all but disappeared in the now much more gentrified district.  With the 1960s Soho now gone, films like Sammy Lee become a unique postcard to what had come before. If the audience cared a little more back then, we might have had more Sammy Lees and fewer Chitty Chitty Bang Bangs. If we cared more about the Brit films of the past, maybe we’d see greener fields on our own turf. Much like Sammy, we can all but dream.

Article: Rewatching The Hitcher

Roger Ebert hated The Hitcher. His zero-star review shows more disgust with it than a finger in French Fries. But Ebert's abhorrence is why I find The Hitcher effective. It stands within the transgressive space, which Ebert sometimes had little time for. His review shows frustration at Robert Harmon’s film for its murderous antagonist having no perspective. Believing there is something gross between the symbiotic relationship that quietly grows between Jim Halsey (C. Thomas Howell), the young motorist whose life takes a catastrophic turn when he decides to pick up John Ryder (Rutger Hauer), the titular Hitchhiker. But the unrepentant and transgressive identification with evil that the film has brings an unsettling allure to the viewer. Provoking the idea that evil is far more seductive than we may like to think, and we often do well not to succumb to it.

With certain films, I don’t feel that forces of nature need a motive. The desire for clear-cut intention can often be cloying. A quiet need for control amongst chaos. Something to explain away so we can all be safe when the book closes or the credits roll. I’ve always loved how The Hitcher eschews this. It keeps you off kilter. Installing more fear than a multitude of slashers released around the same time. The Hitcher’s screenplay was the brainchild of writer/director Eric Red, who had a successful run of notable screenplays such as Near Dark (1987), Cohen and Tate (1988) and Blue Steel (1990). His stories often have a knack for having people relate to the seductive nature of violence. The Hitcher has this idea in perhaps its purest form. Its story is distilled to that of a Grimm fairytale. In the Momentum Pictures Region 2 DVD release of the movie, the extras disc features Red talking about The Hitcher in a documentary entitled: How do these movies get made. Red labels Ryder as a “tough and resourceful” murderer who wishes to pass on to this impudent youth a “sense of survival”.

Red’s fascination with the allure of violence appears throughout The Hitcher in complicated guises. It’s easy to contemplate a lesser film with Rutger Hauer as a more simple-minded psychotic. Roaming around with the typical bloodlust, no different from many horror movies. However, Hauer’s Hitcher is constantly throwing strands of ambiguity, even empathy, to his character. Huger pushes scenes of this character into areas of discomfort. Not romanticised but almost bordering on something like understanding. He loads the character with a myriad of unexpected expressions which fracture our expectations of such a character. Whether it was Ryder’s impressed smirk when first thrown out of Jim’s car, the look of distain Ryder has for Jim when he threatens him with an empty gun, or the pained look of fear and resignation late on, when about to kidnap Nash (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a trusting young waitress who believes Jim’s story of the disturbed traveller stalking him like the angel of death. Hauer’s performance is disturbing due to how Hauer quietly manages to make his maliciousness strangely enticing. From the film’s first moments, it’s clear that Jim doesn’t want to murder anyone. Yet this aggressive fight for survival with Ryder slowly unlocks something primal within him. Eerily suggesting that Jim isn’t too far removed from John. What's scary isn't just the grisly nihilism on display, it's the unsettling idea of how well Jim, and by extension us, start to identify with such torturous despair.

The Hitcher was a debut feature for Still photographer Robert Harmon, who quickly moved into T.V. not long after. Hard not to see this as unfortunate, as The Hitcher does a formidable job of showcasing Harmon as a genuine creator of atmosphere. Shot by Oscar-winning Australian cinematographer John Seale, The Hitcher is hideous in theme but beautiful in its visualisation. It’s early, tightly framed car shots are suitably claustrophobic. When the film allows the beautiful Californian vistas to enter the movie, there’s a feeling that you might be able to breathe again, if the film weren’t so relentless. It is as propulsive as it is repulsive. Shifting gears from existential horror to full-blown action western with little trouble. While its set pieces, even now, are still eye-widening. The jewel in the crown is still the grisly, often-noted sequence involving a character bound between a truck and its trailer hitch. The moment not only subverts the expected outcome but stages the set piece in an almost Hitchcockian manner. Harmon mines the tension so well that people believe they’ve seen more than they do.

The old complaint that 'we don't make them like we used to' is tiresome. Writers like me need to refrain from saying a phrase so tedious. But watching the remake of The Hitcher many moons ago, I sharply realised how much secret sauce that made the original idea exhilarating seemed to have disappeared. Movies like this work due to their weirdness. Their resistance to playing by the rules. The otherworldliness they bring. Studios sense money like the smell of blood to sharks. And when the reboots, remakes and sequels come calling, that strange essence is first to go. The Hitcher feels like lightning in a bottle. Is it a surprise that the glossy Platinum Dunes retread is little talked about? The 1986 Hitcher draws from so much. An unbridled nature is developed between Eric Red, Robert Harmon and Rutger Hauer in The Hitcher that other movies cannot compete with. But most movies aren't looking to become an urban legend cum mythical neo-western actioner, this movie is. In the eyes of Robert Harmon, The Hitcher isn't even a horror story.  He's not even interested in the genre. Despite this, Harmon has crafted one of the films that has helped define the genre for many. That’s some feat.

Article: Flash to White - A Re-watch of Miracle Mile

Let's start this new year with a film about the end of the world. The low-budget nuclear thriller Miracle Mile, directed by Steve De Jarnatt, has a semi-similar conceit to Kathryn Bigelow's multi-focal-point feature A House of Dynamite (2024): What happens in the immediacy of an impending nuclear attack on a city? Only here, the launch is discovered accidentally, via pay phone, by nebbish Trombonist Harry (Anthony Edwards). A love-stricken young man who may have stumbled on thermonuclear destruction while doing what he could to reconnect with his recent date, Julie (Mare Winningham). With time rapidly decreasing, Harry has an hour to track Julie down and reach safety before impending Armageddon.

I found myself watching a batch of end-of-the-world movies in 2016 for some reason, and Miracle Mile was one of my favourites. It asks the question: What if Martin Scorsese's After Hours (1986) were apocalyptic? It has the same late-night vibe of Scorsese madcap, night owl farce, with Anthony Edwards sharing the same hapless energy that surrounds Paul Dunne. What I find most absorbing about Miracle Mile is the similarities to later apocalypse films such as These Final Hours (2013) and Last Night (1998). They are outlandish dramas and thrillers that hold acute examinations of the human condition. None of the films is afraid to lean into the bleakness of impending doom. But what also drives these films is often the feeling of love. Many of us will not choose our final moments, but if it were possible, we would like to envision them with the people we care about. And we would push every second to ensure that.

Starting with a meet-cute and ending up somewhere quite startling, Miracle Mile plays out like an anxiety-inducing nightmare. Never truly revealing until the end, whether what’s playing out is happening for real or a lurid fabrication. The film’s tone teeters between black comedy and paranoid thriller, but always preserves an entertaining balance.  Some of the film's wobblier dialogue and performances are quickly forgiven for the film’s relentless push towards its climax. This is a film that doesn’t stop once it gets started, and its cast gets whipped up into the film’s energy. From a filmmaking craft perspective, it’s a shame Steve De Jarnatt never became a more prolific filmmaker. Miracle Mile is shot with great care. Jarnatt stuck to his guns and remained director, even when big studios wished to take the film from him and make something more commercial. The outcome is something that remains quite unique in execution. For a film so small, there’s a sense of scale that modern films twice the budget would struggle with. Its visuals are vivid and punchy, and the fact that Tangerine Dream are wrangled in to score the movie is another bonus. With the group riffing on their Risky Business score, the film is given a soundscape that feels both immediate and large-scale.

But Miracle Mile is intimacy at the edge of the world. At 88 minutes, it’s astonishing just how much the film packs into it. From one of the tenderest first kisses made by a couple in a movie, to the film’s final waterlogged moments of both Harry and Julie, bathed in doom-laden red light. The film, for the most part, plays out in relative real time, so you feel for this pair in the relatively brief moments they spend together. By the time the film ends with a flash to white, there’s a realisation that time is too short. Julie’s words ring so true: “I don’t want this!” She exclaims. If you fell for these guys from that first kiss, neither do you.

 Miracle Mile is available on Amazon Prime and Blu-Ray. I recommend the wonderful Arrow region B Disc

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Article: Thank You Richie Adamson – Rewatching TwentyFourSeven

By Leslie Byron Pitt

The man who introduced me to Shane Meadows, Richie, is no longer with us. Around the time I started to consider writing this piece, Tyson Fury had recently stopped Dillon Whyte to retain his heavyweight boxing titles. I found myself with a profound desire to rewatch Shane Meadows' 90s tragicomedy TwentyFourSeven. Of all the films on boxing that one can seek in the hundred-plus years of cinema, this little indie that could wormed its way back into my consciousness. In turn, I found my thoughts centring on my old friend from Somerset. A man whose passion for media influenced me more than I even dare to think. We had first met in my hometown of High Wycombe. We were both working at the local cinema and bonded over the sitcom Spaced and our love of Hip-Hop. I started this piece before taking a long break from it. As the 4th anniversary of Ritchie’s death loomed overhead, I found myself back at my computer.

At college, while writing film reviews, I cribbed quotes from his rants and received high marks. He introduced me to pulp movies like The Way of the Gun (2000) and Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001). I would argue about the virtues of Paul Thomas Anderson. Richie despised what he considered the pretensions of filmmakers like Anderson. He was more into the cult comedy stylings of films like Men at Work (1990) and The Adventures of Ford Fairlane (1990). Of those two titles, I preferred the latter over the former. But our friendship lay in other shared passions. Watching and yapping about the likes of Shane Meadows, Takeshi Kitano, and (early) Kevin Smith. This became our middle ground.

Photo by Charlie Pitt

Richie passed away in October 2021. He left us not even a week after my wife and I lost our second child, Ava. Two weeks before he passed, I was sitting on a patio with him, cackling over Warner Bros leaving one of the Nun characters from Ken Russell’s The Devils in the background of Space Jam 2’s medley of studio stars. Richie had moved back to Somerset but periodically returned to visit the few friends he still knew back in Buckinghamshire. At this time, we hadn’t seen each other since my wedding in 2018. He wasn’t one for social media. So, I spent some time informing him of what he missed. He was gutted at the news that my wife and I had lost our first child, Samuel, in 2020. But he was pleased to hear about Ava. Little did we know that tragedy would strike again. The one-two punch of these losses has made October a difficult month to process. A moment of compounded grief.

A bachelor for as long as I knew him, he always seemed pleased when his friends got into relationships. He would bombard my wife with GTA text updates.  She called him a true gent. A few people did. Maybe it was his Army training. He was good at hiding his cynicism. When I heard the news, I looked back at our group wedding photos. I couldn’t see him. He may have hidden in the crowd. He wasn’t too fond of pictures. I sense, Dear Reader, you are seeing a pattern.

While he was not one for stroking his ego on social media, Richie was a (not-so-quiet) influencer in getting others interested in stuff. Opinionated to the point of annoyance, Richie was best when he found something you liked, wandered down his memory palace, and found something similar he could recommend. He was a hype man for recreation. Shane Meadows was a big one for him. We headed to the cinema for the enjoyable Kitchen Sink Western, Once Upon a Time in the Midlands (2002), but Richie was big on Meadows' early features. “Oh, Dude,” he’d exclaim in his West Country accent, “you’ve got to check out A Room for Romeo Brass!” I picked up the Shane Meadows DVD box set at a time when doing so would cost most of your weekly cinema income. He wasn’t wrong, though. It’s a fine box set. One I still own. And it includes TwentyFourSeven.

Set in an unnamed Nottinghamshire town, TwentyFourSeven centres on Alan Darcy (a monumental Bob Hopkins). A hardworking and passionate man who has fallen on hard times after the reign of Thatcher. Fed up with the rival juvenile gangs who loiter around the area with little to do other than eat chips and fight each other, Darcy decides to unite the youths of the town by building a boxing club. Darcy holds an unwavering opinion that opening the club will bring crime down and give those who join something to believe in. Animosity slowly shifts to respect, and all signs point to Darcy’s idea being a source of good. However, tension builds when Darcy’s plan to hold a tournament between his crew and another club, and exterior conflicts build around the group.

Meadows is an outstanding economic filmmaker. With the ability to mine profound richness from seemingly very little. A quality like that of Terrance Davis. While Hopkins is the film’s lead performer, TwentyFourSeven has a considerable and varied cast who all play their part in the film’s 90 minutes. All of whom are given enough character to fill out their plot strands. There are familiar faces here as well. Yes, that is Les Battersby from Coronation Street. That certainly is a young James Corden. Every character gives something to the story. Even if they have limited screen time. The film touches on themes of coming of age, drug abuse, domestic violence, homosexuality, generational disconnect, and socioeconomical politics, but does so with an incredibly deft touch. Moments carry weight but never feel heavy-handed. Depth is found in simple, delicate moments. Handprints left on glass tables. A mentor lying at the bedside of a friend who’s had a momentary relapse. A glass being held by a hand shaking with anxious realisation. When the context is removed, these descriptions might sound odd or mundane. But watch how they fit into this narrative. They become moving. This quality has never left Meadows as a director. Even as he moved to larger “small” films such as Dead Man’s Shoes (2004) and This is England (2006). 

TwentyFourSeven’s depth is cleverly wrapped up in a stylish and cine-literate package. The film happily name-checks Rocky (1976), with some of the subplots and themes appearing to be wry nods to the Hollywood crowd-pleaser. The textured monochromatic cinematography owes more than a passing acknowledgement to Raging Bull (1980). Again, TwentyFourSeven liberally borrows and twists themes from Scorsese’s savage biopic. Alan Darcy, much like Jake La Motta, is a passionate lover of the sport of boxing but also a man who is unable to quell the rage that swells inside him. Much like On the Waterfront (1954), quipping La Motta, Darcy could have been a contender; however, having surrendered himself to his aggressive actions, he becomes a bum. The film opens with the unfortunate road where Darcy’s rage takes him.

Part of my love for this film is the counselling aspect that I had also often found in Richie. He didn’t have a volatile nature. There was no aggressive streak that inhabits the mentor figures in Shane Meadows' movies. But the geeky passion Richie had for so much media felt like many of the characters witnessed in the films we watched together. Richie was a guide during my college and university years in a similar way Darcy became to his boxing group. It would be easy to get annoyed at his all-or-nothing opinion on things, but never in his desire to get you invested in the things that also entertained him. Watching TwentyFourSeven again, the key aspect in Darcy is that his enthusiasm was infectious. As was Richie’s. At one point, Richie and I would meet up once a month to watch wrestling pay-per-views and eat wings (or Ribs). Said meet-ups grew rapidly in numbers. Soon, becoming all-night events fuelled by chicken and caffeine. All situated within a rather moderately sized living room. Richie, with his broad grin, would inform everyone which wrestlers we should want to win. He was in his element. 

What’s enjoyable, and ultimately heartbreaking, is Darcy doing what he can to bring back a sense of community to a midland town that feels forgotten by everyone else. Believing wholeheartedly in the nobility of his cause, the wish to be a force for good to groups of boys who are struggling with abandonment, absenteeism, and despair is endearing. Watching the film almost 30 years on, this type of idealism feels so distant, yet still required.  Indeed, watching TwentyFourSeven in the social media era feels strange now. More towns look even more like the film’s unnamed, midland town. While the people these days who inspire young boys now are obnoxious, bigoted loudmouths who seem to exist in our phones like digital ether. Intangible but potent. I was no delinquent, but watching a film where one man tries to rouse a sense of belief in young men, all the while being similarly inspired by a person seemingly doing the same thing, is quite an experience. A melding of fact and fiction. Life and art. Both Richie and Darcy were beacons of motivation. To take what you can from them and use it to bring people together. 

Roger Ebert was dismissive of TwentyFourSeven, with the critic openly admitting from the start of his review that he didn’t understand why Boxing is recommended to young boys in depressed areas. His opening statement puts a distance between himself and the film. While the broad view that boxing gives boys an inner belief is vague as a gesture, TwentyFourSeven highlights that inspiration and community can be gained from unlikely spots. Ebert, who famously claimed that movies are vehicles of empathy, seems to neglect the compassion that TwentyFourSeven has in abundance. Much like the film’s patriarch antagonist, played by former Coronation Street mainstay Bruce Jones, Ebert was unconvinced by Darcy’s plight. It’s a shame not to be convinced by Darcy’s unconventional yet positive intentions. Much of the persuasion lies in the bullish yet sensitive performance from Bob Hoskins. There’s an anxiety that can be seen on his face when he pleads his case. His conviction is the key to the film. And it’s conviction that I still believe with every viewing. This is a man who wishes to give something back. He is devastated when things go awry.

Richie died of heart failure brought on by catching Covid-19. He detailed that he didn’t wish to have a funeral. His parents stated that all he asked for was for his friends to remember him and the time shared together. My memories of Richie were watching cult movies, wrestling events, playing video games, and eating wings. Nothing too out of the ordinary. But there was another layer. To share each other’s passions. No matter how trivial. To find common ground and connection, despite it being unconventional. I’ve never been too sure on how to do this right. To honour such a particular kind of friend. Pictures weren’t forthcoming. But the passion of his opinions was strongly remembered. For me, his recommendations certainly were. There are more than a few films that remind me of Richie. Possibly too many. I thought maybe writing about one would be the right thing. There’s a strong chance he would disagree. But I’d still write it. Pass on the passion. Like Richie did with me. I feel it’s best to leave this piece with two lines in the journal in which Darcy records his thoughts throughout the film.

“To give is the most splendid feeling. Letting go of your own for the pleasure of another.”

Thank You, Richard Adamson.

Getting Intimate: A Look Back at 9 1/2 Weeks

In earlier viewings of 9 ½ Weeks, I didn’t consider it to be a particularly great movie. This is possibly because the film's finale falls a little flat. Watching an erotic 80s film through modern eyes can be a little jarring, because it can feel like we’re possibly no longer at this point in the conversation anymore. And yet I’ve always found Adrian Lyne’s film to be a continuing fascination. There’s something so base about the film’s concept. A man and a woman meet. They begin a courtship and soon start to explore themselves physically. One individual pushes the other's limits so far that it leads to an emotional breaking point. The explanation for this character’s willingness to degrade the other still feels cheap. Yet fast-forward to 2015 and the release of 50 Shades of Grey, and the poignancy becomes more apparent. In this recent rewatch of the film, there’s frustration at the abruptness within the 9 ½ Weeks’ final exchange. This time, I believed earnestly in what one character was doing. While an emotional immaturity with another is felt with more starkness.

9 ½ Weeks is a psychological drama that plays out in a way one would perhaps expect from an erotic feature from that decade. It’s a film in which the emotional burden is weighed upon the female lead, while the sexually aggressive male city trader seems to get off lightly. This is something that feels more explicit in Lyne's Fatal Attraction, released a year after 9 ½ Weeks. The sexual politics within the film never really allows a true sense of liberation with Kim Basinger’s carnally naive Gallery owner. With a sense of emotional punishment being felt for the character as Rourke’s John Gray ups the ante of their sexual parlour games. Lyne’s treatment of Basinger is well documented, with the director using psychological manipulation to capture the heightened emotions he demanded from his lead actress. Using tactics that no doubt would be more than frowned upon today. Lyne obtained the results he wanted from Basinger via acts of cruelty. The type of production malice that helped sow the seeds of films like this. Features seeped in sin and shame.  It’s difficult to shake off the uglier side of films like this and, of course, The Last Tango in Paris, knowing how the filmmakers pushed past the line with their female collaborators to gain results.

The book that 9 ½ Weeks is based on is a much bleaker affair in comparison to the film. Written by Austrian-American author Ingeborg Day, the book was a semi-autobiographical novel published under the rather ordinary nom de plume of Elizabeth McNeill. The memoir details a brief, sexually violent relationship between an Art Gallery owner and a Wall Street stockbroker. What starts as a passionate affair quickly descends into tragedy as the trader’s demands start to escalate into brutal aggression. Starker turns are taken in the book with scenes such as the gallery owner being painfully tied up within her lover’s extravagant home and robbing a man at knifepoint under his orders. In the novel, the story climaxes with the gallery owner enduring a nervous breakdown and being sectioned in a mental hospital, never seeing the trader again. 9 ½ Weeks is one of only two books Day wrote. The other was about her father’s Nazi past. She never spoke publicly about 9 ½ Weeks.

The film adaptation of 9 ½ Weeks may be flawed, but it’s safe to say that the rougher tone of the book would have been far harder to display on the screen. In England, the book isn’t readily accessible in print without some digging. However, reading about the novel on what could be found on the internet displays a rather affecting piece. Something that doesn’t say glossy Hollywood picture. Surprisingly, Lyne crafts something as approachable as he does.  His film is often as playful as it is deceptive. Lyne is more than happy to feature scenes of a lively, thriving, multicultural New York City. Basinger’s Elizabeth dines in Italian eateries, shops at market stalls, and Chinatown meat markets. Her bopping to Reggae music is beyond corny, but, along with her ethnic shopping, also helps imply a curator that indulges in culture outside of her norm. It helps you believe in her job, and it’s padding which builds a character with far more depth than we’d perhaps like to believe. Basinger, in a breakthrough role, sells her early scenes well, ensuring the later emotional sequences are felt with a great sense of vulnerability.  When John is introduced, a sliver of intensity is added to the proceedings. However, the stockbroker’s charm is enough to play their early encounters off like a meet-cute. This rom-com vibe reoccurs in a later scene when John and Elizabeth interact with some kids on the boardwalk.

But a sense of danger often looms on the edges of the screen. Early on, while on a date, John takes Elizabeth to a nearby friend’s house. As they stand in the bedroom, John gives the implication that Elizabeth could be in danger of sexual assault. It’s a marked moment. One that more than hints at John’s darker impulses. Another sequence featuring a fairground ride also hints at some of John’s later indulgences. John asks the ride operator to leave Elizabeth at the top of a Ferris wheel. It’s a situation that teeters between fear, excitement, and a strong sense of control being abandoned. Moments of jest or harmless pranks always feel like boundary testing in the hands of John. The film, possibly unconsciously, illustrates the palpable sense of anxiety felt by modern women. A sense that nothing is wholly playful. With every situation being tinged with risk. 

What becomes more concerning is when Elizabeth, clearly shocked by the threat, does little to distance herself from John afterwards. Already intoxicated by his allure, her attraction to him clouds her sense of judgment. It’s here where the grey area emerges. It becomes clear that Elizabeth is deeply attracted to how being with John allows her to vacate the controlled, composed real life she usually inhabits. This is what makes the film compelling. Female desire is so minimised on screen that when you see a film which toys with the unspoken social boundaries of what’s expected of “what women may want” in English-speaking films, it’s still quietly shocking. 9 ½ Weeks would join well with Jane Campion’s In the Cut (2003) or Looking for MrGoodbar (1977), with how much those films are unapologetic in their female protagonists’ attraction to danger.   

It is why the film’s most notable imitator, Fifty Shades of Grey (2015), pales in comparison to 9 ½ Weeks, even despite having near identical characteristics. The story formulated by E.L. James is explicit yet sanitised. Shade’s female protagonist is a docile and naïve cypher, for whom any true interiority is lacking. Basinger’s Elizabeth is buttoned up and repressed – she considers her friend gross for the possibility of her owning a vibrator – but as a person, she has emotional depth. Fifty Shades as a franchise enjoys the aesthetic pleasures of its simple sexual fantasies, but is uninterested in establishing any emotional resonance, while the trilogy of films wraps itself within a deeply unserious thriller plot, which removes any real idea of the series making any sort of commentary on relationships at all.

One of the cardinal sins Fifty Shades makes is in its unfun sexual sequences. It never once grasps that its protagonist is intoxicated by her potentially dangerous partner. Nor does it give its male counterpart the roughish charm which would make the relationship believable. But what’s far worse is that Fifty shades never truly indulges the idea that Anastasia enjoys any of Christian Grey’s particular interests. I won’t speak for everyone regarding whether sex scenes are titillating or necessary, but I will say the sex scenes in 9 ½ Weeks often look like a couple who are enjoying the intimacy they share. For all the sexual equipment that litter Christen Grey’s red room, for all the discussions about his sexual taste, Fifty Shades presents sex as clinical and mechanical. It’s quite cynically “packaged”. Online arguments about whether sex scenes should be in movies are appropriate here. Should we be surprised that such scenes are viewed as “cringe” when these modern sex scenes view people as superficially transactional? Sex in films like Fifty Shades is rarely presented with the intimacy or emotional connection they claim to aspire to. They mirror the viewpoints of modern dating, where people are determined by their “value”. Fifty Shades is perhaps the most egregious example of modern relationships where superficial status and value are seemingly deemed more important than emotional resonance or actual chemistry. The most playful scene in the first Fifty Shades film is a contract negotiation.

A lot of 9 ½ weeks’ eroticism is not only personable but also centred around pleasures that feel more relatable as well as tangible. They are also shot with a more convincing sense of sensuality of the activity as the focus. Lyne’s time as an ad man really makes its mark here. He is selling a good time. One of 9 ½ Weeks' most notable scenes involves a blindfolded Elizabeth being fed various items of food by John. The mischievousness of the scene is felt in its choice of shots, often framing Elizabeth’s lips as different foodstuffs are placed in her mouth. The sequence is shot mostly in close-up. The food is suggestively textured. With many of the items having an element of messiness to them. There’s also a sense that Elizabeth hasn’t a clue what might be given to her next. The Newbeats’ bouncy hit ‘Bread and Butter’ is the mood music. Whatever Elizabeth is fed could be sticky, sweet, sour, or spicy, but importantly, the scene makes simple sensory pleasure sexy. They don’t have sex, but the scene sells the game as just as enjoyable.

The other infamous scene involves Elizabeth stripping to Joe Cocker’s ‘Leave Your Hat On’. Basinger’s raunchy strutting to the song is, in no doubt, appealing to most red-blooded men. She gives it her all, and her dancing ensures the scene never rings false. However, what makes the scene is the reaction shots of Mickey Rourke. Looking like a naughty schoolboy, the scene is effective because Rourke’s John’s expression jumps from bashful to vulnerable, to impish, then back again. He doesn’t look at her like a leery drunk at a strip club. He watches her like a man truly captivated by the woman dancing in front of him. Things like these reaction shots pinpoint what so many other films of its kind miss. The sex is there with them, but not the sensitivity. There’s a sincerity here that is completely lost in other “sexy” movies.

When John’s abusiveness is shown for what it is, the film becomes problematic. While an awkward word to use, it best describes the most potent aspect of 9 ½ weeks. Once John is seen using Elizabeth as an object, the connection between the couple and the audience becomes rocky. In Fifty Shades of Grey, Christian Grey’s money elevates him. Making him more eligible despite his sexual appetites. In 9 ½ Weeks, John uses his money differently. The relationship between him and Elizabeth reaches a low rung when John, a Wall Street broker, goads Elizabeth to crawl and pick up money on all fours. Elizabeth rejects this, finding it too demeaning. This was also the scene Basinger had to perform in the audition to gain the role. Something that left her emotionally distressed. There isn’t such an explicit scene like this in Fifty Shades of Grey. However, the way the character of Anastasia is quickly wooed by Grey’s billionaire status and riches feels like a stark contrast between 1986 and where we might be from 2015 and beyond.

I had originally considered writing a piece about Rourke in a heap of his earlier films because he was so engaging to watch. However, his ousting on Celebrity Big Brother had me consider otherwise. His early work is a constant reminder of how appealing he was as a talent. Balancing roguish charm with something far darker behind the slight smile.  At first, Rourke’s velvety smooth voice is soft; you wouldn’t believe he’d say boo to a ghost. Then at times, he stares at Elizabeth with a sensitivity as though they’re the last two people on earth. Yet that same glare can also suggest that he would be ok with being the only person around. Zalaman King, the infamous producer of this film, as well as many other soft-core features, stated in an interview with film scholar Peter Lehman in 2006 (also in a 2017 article for The Telegraph): “Nobody wanted Mickey because he was a struggle. Everyone thought he was a thug. Mickey, to me, was always beautiful, always dangerous, and always charming. He also is not frightened of women, and women can sense that, and he’s got that animal instinct.

Said instinct is what makes his depiction of John so arresting. That Rourke was compared to Marlon Brando was no joke. It’s easy to see why in films like 9 ½ Weeks. A quintessential rogue of the highest order. His performance here makes it understandable why Elizabeth has trouble with him, so connected he is to her sexual awakening. The magnetism is like Brando’s Stanley Kowalski. With John, being with the bad boy can make Elizabeth feel so good.

When Elizabeth begins to reject John’s demands, it’s a sign that this is not transactional to her and that she can’t be bought. Similar tensions arise when John books a hotel room, blindfolds Elizabeth, and hires a sex worker to sleep with her. We can stand our ground on our modern, sanctimonious views about sex work another day, but what is happening here is that Elizabeth is demanding that their relationship just isn’t in this transactional arena. There is a limit to what they do. To Elizabeth, John’s actions begin to feel less about desire or boundary pushing, for the benefit of both. For her, she is seen as less of a human being and more of an object.

Where 9 ½ Weeks stumbles is when trying to convey clarity to the emotional weight that is being placed upon Elizabeth. A running subplot involving Elizabeth setting up an exhibition for an elderly painter named Farnsworth stamps the impression that someone like this artist, whose absent-mindedness appears to be teetering on the verge of senility, can see the true woman where John cannot. This all seems to come across in a muddled heap. As if the film wasn’t sure where to place it in the movie. Meanwhile, John’s controlling behaviour weighs so heavily on the film that when he finally shows Elizabeth a hint of vulnerability, the acknowledgement comes far too late for any contemplation.

Interestingly, like Fifty Shades of Grey, John is like Christian in that they try to compartmentalise their indulgence of darker sexual habits in ways that seemingly only make them appear more dismissive of their female partners. The finale of 9 ½ Weeks feels hastened and muddled. Is that all John has to say about what he’s done to Elizabeth? His final moments feel more like indifference than regret. John is an emotionally stunted individual. Never wanting to meet Elizabeth’s friends, his wish to keep Elizabeth at home and look after her is connected more to selfishness and sexual gratification than to building a healthy relationship with Elizabeth. Strangely, the ending of the book feels more honest despite its malice. Abandoning your partner in a mental institution after psychologically breaking them via sex is callous and ugly, yet leaving them and never contacting them again, while cowardly, probably works on the page rather than on the screen, where John gives little more than a shrug and a weak semi-plea for some sort of forgiveness. If we were given nothing, it would be beyond wicked. If the film moved towards a happy conclusion, it would feel cheap. But what occurs here feels abrupt and unsure. Lyne remarked in interviews that hours of footage were left on the cutting room floor. Perhaps there was something that gave its final third more shape.

Then, of course, there is Lyne’s handling of his actors on set. Doing what he could to make Basinger feel discomfort throughout the ten-week shoot. On Lyne’s most recent feature, Deep Water, he expressed frustration with having intimacy coordinators on set, suggesting that such a role displays a lack of trust between a director and his actors. However, it is doubtful that Lyne’s methods would fly today. It also begs the question: Do we still try to humiliate and destroy performers for entertainment like this? The troubling aspect is that so much of the darker material doesn’t make 9 ½ Weeks. Making the reasoning behind Basinger’s trauma even more trivial.

That said, this is what Lyne wanted.

Said Lyne at the time: “Rather than saying here are two strange people doing perverted stuff in a posh New York apartment, I wanted it to be a movie couples might see and argue about.”

I believe 9 ½ Weeks is effective in this aim. Basinger is still more impressive here than in her award-winning turn in L.A. Confidential (1997). She has stated that despite the stress of the production, the role helped her grow as an actress. Much like Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct, Basinger has made peace with a challenging role, partly due to the potency she gave it. Elizabeth is a complicated individual whose awakened, specific desires both excite and build conflict within her.  These desires almost override her emotional needs in a distressing way, yet still often seem plausible. She is the earnest heart of a film, which even now is still seen by most as a hot mess of titillation over anything else. One may argue about why Elizabeth would stay in such a perilous relationship, but Rourke’s performance, along with Lyne’s mining of the chemistry between the two characters, makes it understandable in a way imitators struggle with. Modern media critique seems to be having a hand-wringing moment with sexual relationships on screen. It’s troubling to see pearl clutching at even the idea of sex being simulated on screen. Rewatching 9 ½ Weeks was a clear reminder to me of grown-up, adult entertainment, which can still be stimulating if not perfect.