The Penthouse (1967)

★ 5.6 1h 36m IMDb

Drama Thriller

A married man and his young mistress suffer sadistic torture when Tom, Dick and Harry invade their penthouse.

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Cast

Suzy Kendall as Barbara Willason Age 89 · Belper, Derbyshire, England, UK Suzy Kendall (born Frieda Harrison 1 January 1937) is a British actress best known for her film roles in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Her blonde attractive looks got her leading roles in some fairl...

Terence Morgan as Bruce Victor Died 2005 · Lewisham, London, England, UK Terence Morgan was born on December 8, 1921 in London, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Hamlet (1948), Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N. (1951) and The Steel Key (1953).

Tony Beckley as Tom Died 1980 · Southampton, Hampshire, England, UK Tony Beckley (1927/29?-1980) was a British actor best known for his roles in the films The Italian Job, Get Carter and When a Stranger Calls, the latter proving to be his final film as he died from ca...

Martine Beswick as Harry Age 84 · Port Antonio, Jamaica Martine Beswick (born 26 September 1941) is an English-Jamaican actress and model perhaps best known for her roles in two James Bond films, From Russia with Love (1963) and Thunderball (1965), who wen...

Norman Rodway as Dick Died 2001 · London, England, UK

Director Peter Collinson

Cast Suzy Kendall, Terence Morgan, Tony Beckley, Martine Beswick, Norman Rodway

John Chard 7/10 Jan 28, 2014

Penthouse Pandemonium.

The Penthouse is written and directed by Peter Collinson and is an adaptation from the play The Meter Man by Scott Forbes. It stars Suzy Kendall, Terence Morgan, Tony Beckley, Norman Rodway and Martine Beswick. Music is by John Hawksworth and cinematography by Arthur Lavis.

Alligators and Sharks

Home invasion 1960s style. Story finds Kendall and Morgan as illicit lovers tormented by two deranged intruders in the penthouse apartment they use for their nights of passion. It's a five person play, well for the majority it's a four person production, and it's 99% set in a dimly lighted apartment. Narrative subjects our two hapless lovers to an hour and half of mental cruelty and sexual humiliation.

The two main perpetrators, Tom (Beckley) and Dick (Rodway), are fascinating nutters, they are childlike in a chilling way, yet always they exude a sense of intelligence. They feed off of each other like some double-take twins, and always they have handy a deep meaning monologue or a philosophical justification for the black heart of the human being.

Collinson does a grand job of keeping things claustrophobic, making sure the emotional discord and sense of menace haunts every frame. The camera zooms in and out of focus, something which proves to be a masterstroke for the sex scenes, while the various angles that the camera looks through during the course are suitably nightmarish.

Originally Collinson was at pains to say his movie didn't have a message, but over the years the only thing consistent was his inconsistent viewpoint on the film. It's nigh on impossible not to seek out a message here, the film is just too odd-ball and unsavoury to not court a deeper meaning than the lazy "it's just a thriller" statement that Collinson trundled out upon pic's release.

Pretentious? Absolutely, but this film has the ability to get under your skin, either in a good way to make you ponder, or to utterly irritate you. If someone said to me it's the worst film they have ever sat through, I would understand. Yet for me I felt challenged and uncomfortable, that's the medium of film doing a good job as far as I'm concerned. 7/10