Couples

 

There’s a good deal of symmetry to Joseph Losey’s career, such that one can easily arrange his films in pairs. He made several films with Pinter as writer, with Gerry Fisher as cinematographer, with Dirk Bogarde and with Stanley Baker, and other actors appear two or three times, sometimes at extreme ends of his career. So here’s a set of suggested Fever Dream Double Features, but by no means the only arrangements possible: one could just as easily put his home invasion films, THE SERVANT and THE GYPSY AND THE GENTLEWOMAN, together, and pair up the Burtons rather than the Taylors…

A DOLL’S HOUSE / STEAMING — filmed plays.

DON GIOVANNI / BORIS GODUNOV — filmed operas.

M. KLEIN / THE TROUT – French, with Moreau.

EVA / THE ROMANTIC ENGLISHWOMAN– writers failing to write.

THE ASSASSINATION OF TROTSKY / GALILEO — the leftist biopics.

KING AND COUNTRY / LES ROUTES DU SUD – war.

MODESTY BLAISE / FIGURES IN A LANDSCAPE — the helicopter spies!

SECRET CEREMONY / BOOM — Liz Taylor flops.

THE SERVANT / ACCIDENT – Bogarde, Pinter and Losey.

THE BOY WITH GREEN HAIR / THESE ARE THE DAMNED – paranormal children double feature.

THE CRIMINAL / BLIND DATE - Stanley Baker crime films with Baker on opposite sides of the law in each.

THE BIG NIGHT / TIME WITHOUT PITY — fathers and sons.

THE INTIMATE STRANGER / THE SLEEPING TIGER — psychoanalytic crime dramas.

STRANGER ON THE PROWL / THE GO-BETWEEN — men and boys.

M / THE PROWLER — crime and punishment.

THE GYPSY AND THE GENTLEMAN / THE LAWLESS — turkeys.

And, more frivolously still, here are some CONJOINED FILMS:

THE PROWLER ON THE PROWL, MR. GIOVANNI, THE BOY WITHOUT PITY, BLIND CEREMONY, EVA BLAISE, THESE ARE THE LAWLESS, STEAMING TIGER, THE BIG HOUSE, THE INTIMATE ENGLISHWOMAN, THE TROTSKY AND THE GENTLEMAN.

And some whimsically foolish double bills:

ACCIDENT / BOOM

STEAMING / THE TROUT

THE LAWLESS / THE CRIMINAL

M / M. KLEIN