'A Severed Head'

     Currently reading Iris Murdoch's 1957 novel 'The Sandcastle', so last night, and faced with our almost daily struggle of an evening to find something decent to watch, and scanning the shelves of the bf's dvd collection my eyes lightened upon the Indicator edition of 'A Severed Head', the 1970 film version of Murdoch and J B Priestley's stage adaptation of her novel of 1961.  Directed by Dick Clement, with a screenplay by Murdoch, Priestly and Frederick Raphael, and a quite stellar cast - Ian Holm, Richard Attenborough, Lee Remick, and Clare Bloom etc.  You would have thought with all this talent the result  would have been a quality cinematic experience.  You would, however, be wrong.  It was, instead an utter shambles, with little if anything to redeem it. Murdoch thought the film 'terrible'.  She was not wrong. Best avoided.

A Severed Head

1970

Director                 Dick Clement
Cinematogrpahy  Austin Dempster
Producer               Denis Holt, Elliot Kastner, Alan Ladd Jr