clanciai A very interesting dive into the world of spiritualism with an almost devastating charting of the psychology of a disturbed medium. Kim Stanley's performance as Myra, using the spirit of her stillborn child as a link with the other side, is almost ghoulish, being totally blind to reality and having lost all touch with her own humanity. A drama of great suspense, especially as she insists on a séance when the mother of the child they have kidnapped appears, the child being sick in the next room, it's almost unbearably uncomfortable but extremely interesting and fascinating. Bryan Forbes, born today in 1926, died last year, made a number of very diverse and tricky films, sometimes experimental, but always intelligent. This was one of his best, certainly a suspense thriller dealing with the out of the ordinary... One of the last great noir films.

James Hitchcock The title of this film is a bit baffling. Two séances play an important part in the plot, but neither takes place on a wet afternoon. One takes place in the evening, the other on an obviously fine day. Perhaps its significance is clearer in the original novel, which I have never read.Billy and Myra Savage, a middle-aged, middle-class suburban couple, kidnap Amanda, the young daughter of a wealthy businessman. Although they send her father a ransom note, their motive is not financial. Even though Billy is unable to work because of ill health, they live in a large, imposing Victorian house and are clearly not short of money. Rather Myra, a medium who holds séances in her home, believes that she can become famous for her supposed psychic abilities by helping the police to solve the crime.When I first saw this film many years ago I disliked it for what I saw as a lack of realism. How on earth did Billy and Myra imagine that they were going to get away with a plan so obviously badly conceived and badly executed? Looking back, I can see that my criticism was unfair and that I had been unduly influenced by films in which a gang of master- criminals put together an intricate, seemingly foolproof, scheme only to come unstuck because of some minor detail, of the tenacity or brilliance of the investigating detective, or of sheer bad luck. Because the truth is that Billy and Myra are not brilliant master- criminals. Far from it. She is mentally unstable and detached from reality to the extent that she hardly realises that she is committing a crime. She insists that she is merely "borrowing" Amanda, not kidnapping her. She believes that she is in touch with the spirit of her son Arthur, who died at birth, but fails to realise that she does not actually have any psychic abilities. If she did, she would not have to go through such a ridiculous charade in order to "demonstrate" them. As for her husband, he is merely a weak and cowardly little man unable to stand up to his domineering wife, although at the end he does display a greater humanity than she is capable of.This is the only film in which I have ever seen Kim Stanley. She was, apparently, a theatre and television actress who had only appeared in one previous feature film, "The Goddess", and was only the third choice for the role of Myra, Deborah Kerr and Simone Signoret having turned it down. Yet she is excellent here, showing us the way in which her self- deluded character's personality disintegrates bit by bit to the point where she can no longer distinguish fantasy from reality and can see no objection to killing Amanda. Richard Attenborough, the film's co- producer and her co-star, paid tribute to her "complexity of dramatic impression". She received an Oscar nomination for Best Actress (losing to Julie Andrews in Mary Poppins) but this did not persuade her to make a career in films. It was to be another eighteen years before she appeared in another film, "Frances". (She was Oscar nominated for that as well). Attenborough is also very good as the cowed Billy.This was the third film directed by Bryan Forbes, who had made such a brilliant start to his directing career with "Whistle Down the Wind", one of the great classics of the British cinema; his wife Nanette Newman appears as Amanda's mother. Like Forbes's two earlier films (his second was "The L-Shaped Room"), this one is in black-and-white, something still regularly used in Britain (unlike America) during the mid-sixties, probably because colour television had not yet come to Britain. I was reminded of some of the early works of Alfred Hitchcock, especially "Shadow of a Doubt", another psychological thriller about a young girl in danger and which takes place in a seemingly tranquil suburb. "Séance on a Wet Afternoon" doesn't have quite the same emotional impact as something like "Whistle Down the Wind", largely because the two leading characters are so unsympathetic. It is, however, a taut and engrossing psychological drama.

Spikeopath Myra Savage is a struggling psychic, who along with her weak-willed husband, Billy, kidnap the young daughter of wealthy parents. The plan is to extort money from the fretting parents and then for Myra to help the parents find the child with her psychic ability, thus improving her standing in the psychic field. But as the story unfolds, Myra grows ever more close to the edge of insanity, could the still born death of the Savage's own child be the critical issue?Seance On A Wet Afternoon is something of a hidden/forgotten British treasure, not only because of its eerie atmospherics, but also because it contains a quite incredible acting performance from Kim Stanley as the troubled Myra Savage. Stanley was nominated for an Academy Award but lost out to Julie Andrews for Mary Poppins, I wonder just how many people even remember Stanley's film? Tho chiefly marketed as a crime picture, this piece actually feels more like an offshoot of the horror genre, it's a genuinely creepy picture that has unease lurking in every marvellous black and white corner. Boosted by an excellently understated turn from Richard Attenborough (also producer here) as Billy Savage, directed with exceptional skill from Bryan Forbes (Whistle Down the Wind), and with a plinking creepy score from maestro John Barry, this adaptation of Mark McShane's novel comes highly recommended for those that like a great psychological character study. Oh and of course for those that know brilliant acting when they see it! 8/10

ianlouisiana Particularly if the medium in question is the clearly raving Myra Savage unhinged by the stillbirth of her only child many years before.She and her husband have a desperate marriage cobbled together by the pretense that the dead child is in fact still alive and living in their creepy old house with them.Wracked with guilt,her husband Billy will do anything to sustain the illusion that theirs is a perfectly normal relationship and that Myra is always right about everything. When she evolves a plan to publicise her "gift" by kidnapping a child for ransom then miraculously divining its whereabouts to an eager world he goes along with it simply to placate her.More by luck than judgement they muddle through until the child becomes seriously ill.......... There are three remarkable performances in this movie.Miss Kim Stanley gives it large as Myra the medium.My goodness me doesn't she act.You can almost see Lee Strasburg standing at her shoulder egging her on. In complete contrast Mr Richard Attenborough is almost an anti-actor. Not always known for his restraint,Mr Attenborough glides silently through the picture with a small grimace here,a nod there,an anguished glance every so often,in the manner of a man who knows he is sure to be hanged quite shortly .And then there's Mr Patrick McGee,surely one of the most menacing of British actors.As the senior detective he is a man who knows only too well human weakness and duplicity.He is cunning,cruel even,but ultimately compassionate as Myra descends into madness before his eyes during her final seance.He is the very epitome of controlled violence,strength and anger contained within his smart overcoat. Much of the credit for this movie must go to Mr Bryan Forbes,director,writer,producer and actor par excellence in British cinema since the early 1950s.He can make "issue" pictures without making an issue of it - if that isn't too contradictory.His masterpiece may well have been the near-contemporary "The L - shaped Room" which earned Miss Leslie Caron an Oscar nomination,but in "Seance on a wet afternoon" he prevents the theatrical Miss Stanley from completely going over the top and coaxes a quiet and subtle performance from his friend Mr Richard Attenborough that he has never bettered. The minutiae of the picture may work better than the whole but it is still a fine example of the output of the British Studios at what has - with hindsight - become recognised as the height of their powers.