Secret Ceremony (1968)

I love this movie so much

Am I Missing Something?

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

. . . before "Blue Velvet" rips apart a fake pregnancy which has nothing to do with being afraid of Virginia Woolf. SECRET CEREMONY makes far less sense than the sentence above. This flick is set FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD, with some or all of its main characters sentenced to death for being too implausible to be brought to life. Who wants to hear "pot-head Bob" bragging about canoodling his step-daughter as if he's on an ACCE$$ H0LLYWOOD tape or something? Folks who eat up bulimia, incest, suicide, pedophilia, family affairs, pillaged estates, incoherence, child abuse, eating disorders, derangement, ham acting, sleazy creepiness, and the "Ick Factor" to get their jollies no doubt will love SECRET CEREMONY. However, those of us who are NOT perverts will question the sanity of the leads in this film. Certain career decisions can be seen as making "Pacts with Old Scratch." The latter individual has a notorious sense of perverse humor. Sometimes the "price" of such an ill-advised deal might be that your husband will dump you to marry your daughter. Other consequences might see you cursed to spend your declining "Walrus Years" hooked up with a notorious Real Life pedophile. That's why they say, "Be careful for what you bargain."

Elizabeth Taylor starred along with Mia Farrow and Robert Mitchum in this campy drama filmed in England in 1968. Liz is a lady of the night who meets an extremely strange young woman played by Mia Farrow. Mia's character believes that Liz is her recently deceased mother. "Mummy, Mummy" says Mia throughout this disturbing film. Mitchum shows up as Mia's step-father who had been tossed out of the big, beautiful manor house by mummy due to his unhealthy interest in his step-daughter. Mia speaks in a bizarre manner and Liz plays along in order to remain in her newly discovered lavish abode. Step-dad returns to get his grubby hands on the estate. If you are not in a good mood to begin with. I strongly suggest that you avoid this downer of a film at all costs.

Secret Ceremony (1969) *** (out of 4)Extremely bizarre psychological thriller from director Jospeh Losey about the strange relationship between a prostitute (Elizabeth Taylor) and a young woman (Mia Farrow) living alone in a large house. The Farrow character thinks that Taylor is her dead mother and Taylor sees that the girl resembles her dead daughter and things just grow more bizarre from here. SECRET CEREMONY is apparently available in a couple versions and most point out that the alternate, studio cut of the film is pretty bad but I'm not sure what the differences are. The version I watched was the uncut one and whenever rape and incest are the most normal things going on you know you're watching something completely different and strange. This is one crazy movie from start to finish and I think it's safe to say that many people will hate this thing and probably won't make it through to the end. In fact, I'd say that if the film doesn't grab you in the first ten-minutes then it's probably best to hit the stop button because I feel the opening sequences are the most important in the film in terms of getting you involved for everything that's going to follow. The brilliant acting and directing in these first ten-minutes were something I found quite special because there's no dialogue and the two actresses must tell us everything we need to know with their eyes and body gestures. Just take a look at Farrow as she stalks Taylor trying to figure out if she's her dead mother or not. Check out Taylor once she realizes that this strange woman looks like what her dead daughter would have at this age. This is an extremely bizarre way to start up a friendship and the movie has a deliberately slow pace with one crazy thing happening after another. Taylor and Farrow deliver some of the best work of their career and the way the two play off another another is something truly terrific to watch. There's no question that Farrow's character is quite demented and the way the actress pulls this off is rather remarkable. Taylor gets some extremely tough scenes to play because while her character isn't quite as crazy, there's no doubt she has a few loose screws. Robert Mitchum plays the possible rapist step-father who has some sort of strange control over the girl. Mitchum, as one would expect, comes off perfectly creepy and the actor does a very good job with the part. Director Losey does a brilliant job building up this rather creepy and unsettling atmosphere. I thought the director did a great job at building all this craziness up and bring it all together in the end. The music score by Richard Rodney Bennett is also another major plus. Again, this is about as art-house as you can get but if you can get caught up in the story, the brilliant acting and directing really make it worth sitting through.

This movie is a tad pretentious and muddled, but it'll get under your skin. All the characters are either so deluded (crazy rich girl Mia Farrow), desperate (middle-aged hooker Liz Taylor) or demonic (scummy pedophile Robert Mitchum) that watching it is like spending two hours in a psych ward with no attendants on duty. Also gripping is the atmosphere created by director Joseph Losey, who was considered as a genius in the 60s and is pretty much forgotten today. With wide-angle shots and a minimum of noise, Losey reinforces his characters' isolation and solipsism by making London, one of the most crowded cities in the Western world, seem as empty and quiet as a tomb.The plot is a psychological inversion of the classic haunted house story -- Liz and Mia take shelter from an outside world that threatens their relationship. And that relationship is, to put it mildly, weird. Mia lures Liz into her huge, empty home because she resembles her late mother. Liz indulges Mia's fantasy because as a homeless prostitute she's in need of shelter, plus, she lost a daughter who looked a lot like Mia. This arrangement could be sweet to the point of treacly if these two grown women didn't enjoy doing things like bathing together and discussing ex-lovers. And Mia has a particularly repulsive ex-lover in Mitchum, her former stepfather who started molesting the girl in her early teens. Though the experience clearly ripped Mia to shreds, the creep still has some power over her and the film becomes a battle of wills between Taylor and Mitchum. Along the way there's a fake pregnancy, a nightmarish seaside holiday and a visit to Mia's two horrid old-maid aunts. The movie isn't particularly pleasant or coherent, but it does pull off the impressive feat of telling its story the way its characters are experiencing it, and that's pretty damn disturbing when you're dealing with a bunch of warped people. See it, then watch a romantic comedy or something so you're able to sleep that night.