| Four in the Morning | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Anthony Simmons |
| Screenplay by | Anthony Simmons |
| Produced by | John Morris |
| Starring | Ann Lynn Judi Dench Norman Rodway Brian Phelan Joe Melia |
| Cinematography | Larry Pizer |
| Edited by | Fergus McDonell |
| Music by | John Barry |
Release date |
|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
Four in the Morning is a 1965 British film directed and written by Anthony Simmons and starring Judi Dench, Ann Lynn, Brian Phelan and Norman Rodway. [1] The score is by John Barry.
As dawn breaks, a young woman is found dead on the banks of the River Thames. The film follows the day experienced by two unconnected London couples: a young man and a club hostess; and a woman coping with a teething baby and a frustrated husband who has been on a drunken night out with his friend. [2]
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]
The Radio Times Guide to Films gave the film 4/5 stars, writing: "The title's a clever pun, since the film deals with the time of a young girl's drowning, and with the (unrelated) trials and tribulations of two unnamed couples. Acclaimed in its day as a sharp slice of British neorealism, talented director/writer Anthony Simmons has done nothing quite as good. Judi Dench won a Bafta award for her role, while Ann Lynn, Norman Rodway and Brian Phelan have seldom been better. The bleak score by John Barry is superb." [4]
The film won several international awards including the Golden Leopard at the 1965 Locarno International Film Festival [5] .
Judi Dench won the 1965 BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles [6]
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