Deep End (1970)

Deep End: Directed by Jerzy Skolimowski. With Jane Asher, John Moulder-Brown, Karl Michael Vogler, Christopher Sandford. 15-year-old dropout Mike takes a job at Newford Baths, where inappropriate sexual behaviour abounds, and becomes obsessed with his coworker Susan.

“Deep End is so true to Life – for any teenage boy who becomes infatuated with an older (but young and sensual) woman who he then sees romantically with a chauvinistic and nasty man – he wants to u0026#39;saveu0026#39; her.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eBut where any of us ordinary young men would have long stopped their pursuance of justice, young Mike here takes things to the very end, fulfilling the dreams of us mere mortals. You know all along that heu0026#39;ll never get the girl, thatu0026#39;s never in any doubt, but the madness as is pushes him further into trouble.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThat Mikeu0026#39;s (John Moulder-Brown) 15 and just out of school and his first boss is the gorgeous and sexually aware Jane Asher and his job entails attending to allsorts at some public baths, including some randy older women, no wonder his hormones are all over the place.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIt all starts out as light-hearted nonsense (the incorrigible Diana Dors scene a real hoot) but gradually gets darker, to a jet black and tragic end. The ending is one of the most profound and well mounted that Iu0026#39;ve witnessed and every frame of it perfectly staged.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIn between, we have the fumblings of a sexually naive lad, he who gets his first pay packet and it goes to his head, finding that the bright lights of a (pretend, film was shot in Munich) Soho turn his few pounds to mere pennies as he goes from club to club. But, all heu0026#39;s actually doing is stalking the girl that he works with, as he sees how her u0026#39;otheru0026#39;, more glamorous life, away from the bleach and rubber gloves at the baths, is both lived – and funded.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eTrue, John Moulder-Brownu0026#39;s acting lacks depth, or finesse, but imagine a 15 year old actually in those scenarios. Heu0026#39;d be even more blunt and less eloquent that Mike is in this.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eAs others have said, this is a true little gem of a film. How so much was actually said about human emotion in such a relatively short film is extraordinary. There were a few really good movies around at that time that covered similar-ish ground (Michael Powellu0026#39;s u0026quot;Peeping Tomu0026quot;, for example) that werenu0026#39;t appreciated fully then, but seen perhaps as novelty voyeuristic films, only for the u0026#39;specialistu0026#39; viewer. And, of course, thanks to the BFI for restoring it to a crystal-clear and beautiful print.”