Sick Product of a Sick System

Fresh and Exciting

Brilliant and touching

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Just to elaborate on certain comments about Pamela Franklin; she was born in 1950, and 'The Third Secret' was made in 1964, which made her... 14. Not 18, although she may have seemed precociously mature for her age - but then, that's very much part of the fabric of the film. Her scenes with Boyd carry a sexual tension that film-makers and society in general were brave enough to confront at that time. Indeed, don't films from the 60s and 70s (until Star Wars brought serious cinema crashing down) seem terribly grown up? Although Charles Crichton was an Ealing man, his work here is more reminiscent of the Woodfall school of British realism, and light years away from his comedic timing in 'The Battle of the Sexes'. It's hard to deny that the dialogue gets a bit stodgy at times - a pity, since the screenplay contains a great many sly clues to the solution which can get lost amidst the psycho-babble. This was made at a time when much of the UK's cinema was in the hands of serious craftsmen and women - their films are exemplary lessons in thoughtful, considered cinema. However, in this case, fine technique fails to overcome a wordy screenplay, although it's a close-run thing.

Among murder thrillers involving psychopaths, I have more empathy for this movie than for the blood curdling Psycho of Hitchcock which elicits disgust rather than sympathy. Somehow, despite its somber black and white Zone 5 photography, The Third Secret seems romantic and not only because of the delicate vulnerability of the beautiful Catherine (portrayed by Franklin) and the caring gentlemanliness of Alex (Stephen Boyd) but also because of the tone and mood emanating from the locations and sets.It is a very quiet film with none of the scary music and jarring sound effects widely used in this genre. But the seemingly calm voices of the main characters somehow carry you along towards a crescendo of excitement and terror.If you liked Pamela Franklin as a little girl in the Innocents, you'll like her even better as a teenager in this film.It seems obvious that the murderer of Catherine's father, the psychiatrist, was one of his patients. But which one? Since he treated severely disturbed patients, most of them are likely suspects even Alex (Boyd). To discover the murderer, you must understand the nature of the third secret.And what is the third secret? Spoiler ahead: The first secret is the secret you share with others. The second secret is the secret you keep only to yourself. And the third secret? Well, that's the secret!

One of the slowest, most plodding, and dreary movies that I have ever seen. No action at all unless you consider frequent lapses into hysterics by various characters as action. Skip this one folks. It's horrible and the ultimate conclusion is so obvious as this dull story inches along as to be painful to watch.

I first saw this as a kid, in 1970, on tv, and thought the nightmare sequence at Diane Cilento's home to be one of the scariest scenes I'd ever seen on film. After 29 years the impact is somewhat diluted, but overall the film holds together pretty well. Take a look at the extraordinary Douglas Slocombe panavision cinematography, the driven performances of Franklin and Boyd - an underrated actor if there ever was one - the striking set pieces on the Thames riverbank. It should be restored and re-issued on a VERY big screen. Scorsese, where art thou?