80,000 Suspects

Last updated

80,000 Suspects
80,000Suspects1963Poster.jpg
US poster
Directed by Val Guest
Written byVal Guest
Based onPillars of Midnight by Elleston Trevor
Produced byVal Guest
Starring Claire Bloom
Richard Johnson
Yolande Donlan
Cyril Cusack
Cinematography Arthur Grant
Edited by Bill Lenny
Music by Stanley Black
Production
company
Val Guest Productions
Distributed by The Rank Organisation [1]
Release date
  • 15 August 1963 (1963-08-15)(London)
Running time
113 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Budget£250,000 [2]

80,000 Suspects is a 1963 British drama film directed by Val Guest and starring Claire Bloom, Richard Johnson, Yolande Donlan and Cyril Cusack. It was written by Guest based on the 1957 novel Pillars of Midnight by Elleston Trevor. [3] An outbreak of smallpox in Bath, England leads to a race to contain the virus. [4]

Contents

The film was not released in the United States.[ citation needed ]

Plot

On New Year's Eve in the city of Bath, Dr. Steven Monks diagnoses a mystery patient with smallpox and triggers a citywide quarantine to contain the outbreak. His commitment to the task is affected by the deterioration of his marriage following his clandestine affair with a family friend. His wife Julie becomes infected with the virus. The medical team gradually contains the outbreak until only one case remains, that of Ruth Preston, the woman with whom Monks had been having an affair and the wife of his close colleague Clifford. Ruth is traced to a deserted hotel where she is sheltering, lonely and desperately ill.

Cast

Original novel

The novel was published in 1957. It was adapted for television as Pillars of Midnight in 1958. [5] [6]

Production

Film rights were bought by Val Guest who raised money through the Rank Organistation. [2] The film was shot in early 1963 on location in Bath, England and the city's population at the time inspired the name of the film. [7]

Reception

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "A veneer of authenticity (Bath locations, queues for vaccination, hospital staff eternally hopping in and out of decontamination units) is effectively smothered by the collection of appallingly stock characters and situations. Richard Johnson and Claire Bloom mouth all those married-couple platitudes, about taking a long look at their marriage and being brought together by shared experiences as if they had only just been thought of; Yolande Donlan, as an unsatisfied wife given to drink and free love, oozes little girl charm and ends up, like Mrs. Danvers, in flames in Ye OId Dark House; Michael Goodliffe, as her hangdog husband, suffers expressionlessly; and Cyril Cusack, as the wryly humorous Catholic priest, nobly kisses a Protestant smallpox patient on the brow. Val Guest's (rather strained) flair for story-telling, and the Bath locations keep things more or less ticking over." [8]

Variety wrote: "Val Guest is successfully following his method of making pix that combine a documentary flavor with a fictional, human interest. This time the combo doesnt quite jell yet 80,000 Suspects has a holding interest and is screened with a professional know-how that rarely flags. It hasn't the impact of his film The Day The Earth Caught Fire [1961], but nevertheless emerges as a worthy boxoffice entrant." [9]

Sight and Sound wrote: "Guest does his best to give both narrative threads equal weight, which proves engrossing up to a point, but the film flags appreciably when the outbreak element peaks too early; and the characterisation on the domestic front never quite delineates the couple's marital malaise with enough insight to make it something special. Still, as in Jigsaw [1962], there's a definite sense that old moral certainties have become much more flexible – something Cyril Cusack's presence as a worldly priest makes clear – and Johnson, never the most nimble of performers, puts in a decent shift as the harassed medic realising that he's lost the ability to feel anything much at all." [10]

References

  1. ↑ Vagg, Stephen (30 July 2025). "Forgotten British Film Studios: The Rank Organisation, 1963 and 1964". Filmink. Retrieved 30 July 2025.
  2. 1 2 "Secretary or suspect?". Western Daily Press. 8 January 1963. p. 6.
  3. ↑ "80,000 Suspects". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 17 December 2023.
  4. ↑ Fowler, Roy (1988). "Interview with Val Guest". British Entertainment History Project.
  5. ↑ "Weekend telereview". Manchester Evening News. 13 September 1958. p. 5.
  6. ↑ Pillars of Midnight at IMDb
  7. ↑ Todd, Derek (20 December 162). "Production". Kinematograph Weekly . p. 12.
  8. ↑ "80,000 Suspects". The Monthly Film Bulletin . 30 (348): 130. 1 January 1963. ProQuest   1305824299.
  9. ↑ "80,000 Suspects". Variety . 231 (13): 6. 21 August 1963.
  10. ↑ "80,000 Suspects". Sight and Sound . 25 (12): 96. December 2015. ProQuest   1760213347.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.