The moment where she turns to Attenborough and says “She’s seen your face. Kim Stanley received Academy Award, National Board of Review and British Academy Award nominations for her performance and is excellent. Director Bryan Forbes constantly throws in nerve-wrackingly unexpected twists and turns – the appearance of boys throwing a ball as Attenborough struggles to get Judith Donner out of the Rolls the bobby who comes knocking at the door (represented only by a shadow passing a window) as Attenborough and Kim Stanley hide in the house, they becoming endangered as Judith Donner calls out upstairs and, in particular, the séance where desperate mother Nanette Newman turns up as Richard Attenborough keeps the daughter hidden in the very next room. This realist approach makes for a particularly gripping and suspenseful drama – the kidnap being contrasted with moments of banal reality like the couple sitting proofreading the ransom note or the irritated passer-by tapping on the phone box just as Attenborough delivers his ransom demands.
Seance on a wet afternoon serial#
Indeed, producer/star Richard Attenborough appeared in several other of these films, most notably the excellent serial killer film 10 Rillington Place (1971). It belongs to a particular genre of 1960s British thrillers that were shot in black and white with a kitchen sink realism. Séance on a Wet Afternoon is a kidnap thriller. The film never entirely rules out the possibility that its medium’s abilities are real, just that the psychological portrait offered of the medium makes it very unlikely. However, Séance on a Wet Afternoon is worthy of inclusion for it makes excellent contrast to the usual portrait – here the medium is shown to be a person of frail sanity whose belief in spirits is a denial of reality. The very nature of fantastic cinema tends to rule out films like Séance on a Wet Afternoon that deal with the other side of the coin – studies of psychics who are deluded as to their abilities. However, it does concern itself with a genre theme – mediums – and makes interesting contrast to those films that are more overtly fantastic in their treatment such as The Sixth Sense (1999), the underrated Black Rainbow (1989) and a whole body of mediumistic thrillers – Eyes of Laura Mars (1978), Fear (1990), Sensation (1994), In Dreams (1999) and The Gift (2000). Séance on a Wet Afternoon is not a genre film per se.
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