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Four in the Morning
Directed by Anthony Simmons
Screenplay byAnthony Simmons
Produced byJohn Morris
Starring Ann Lynn
Judi Dench
Norman Rodway
Brian Phelan
Joe Melia
CinematographyLarry Pizer
Edited by Fergus McDonell
Music by John Barry
Release date
  • 1965 (1965)
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

Four in the Morning is a 1965 British film directed by Anthony Simmons and starring Judi Dench, Ann Lynn and Norman Rodway. [1] The score is by John Barry.

Plot

As dawn breaks, a young woman is found dead on the banks of the River Thames. The film follows the day experienced by two London couples. [2]

Cast

Critical reception

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote:

With Four in the Morning, written and directed by him and produced independently by a group formed expressly to make the film and handle its distribution, Simmons announces himself as a feature director of unusual sensitivity. The film was originally intended as a documentary attempt to capture the atmosphere of Thames-side life, but changed its character in the making and developed into a full-length feature. It still has the feel of a documentary about it, and apparently much of the dialogue was improvised as the scenes were shot. ... Though Simmons' direction just fails to keep the strands together, by the end of the film one begins to realise how the three stories are essentially a development from each other.  ... And in the final sequence, as the morning stream of officeworkers hurries across London Bridge while in the mortuary the dead girl is shut away as an iron door closes behind her body, one can see an echo of the end of Truffaut's Jules et Jim, the sense both of the finality of death and of its nearness to those of us who live. Four in the Morning is an uneven film, perhaps even a nihilistic film, but for the work of an independent British group it is an extraordinary achievement, and one waits to see more from Anthony Simmons. [3]

Accolades

The film won the Golden Leopard at the 1965 Locarno International Film Festival [4].

Judi Dench won the 1965 BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles [5]

References

  1. ^ "Four in the Morning". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 12 January 2024.
  2. ^ "Four in the Morning (1965)". Radio Times. Retrieved 7 March 2022.
  3. ^ "Four in the Morning". The Monthly Film Bulletin. 33 (384): 15. 1 January 1966 – via ProQuest.
  4. ^ "Winners of the Golden Leopard". Locarno International Film Festival. Archived from the original on 19 July 2009. Retrieved 2011-09-04.
  5. ^ "Most Promising Newcomer To Leading Film Roles in 1966". BAFTA. Retrieved 12 January 2024.

External links