Plot
Leonora, a middle-aged prostitute, is despondent over the death of her daughter. Cenci, a lonely young woman, follows Leonora to the cemetery and strikes up a conversation with her, inviting Leonora to her home. Leonora is struck by the likeness between Cenci and her late daughter.
A resemblance of Leonora to Cenci's late mother becomes obvious once Leonora notices a portrait. Cenci, who is 22 but looks and acts much younger, asks Leonora to stay. A lie is told to her aunts, Hilda and Hannah, that Leonora is actually Cenci's late mother's cousin.
Cenci is found one day cowering under a table. Albert, her stepfather, has paid a visit. Cenci is terrified of him, claiming that Albert had raped her. Leonora is repelled by the man's presence until Albert tells her that Cenci is mentally unstable and had repeatedly tried to seduce him.
On a beach one day, Cenci and Albert have sexual relations. A despondent Cenci commits suicide. At the funeral, Leonora now knows whom she chooses to believe. After standing beside Albert in silence during the burial, Leonora produces a knife and stabs him.
The film ends with Leonora lying in the bedroom of her apartment, listlessly hitting the cord of a ceiling lamp while reciting a poem about perseverance. [8] [9]
Critical reception
The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "Secret Ceremony is constructed on the dualist view of man as a battleground for the twin aspirations of Good and Evil. Appropriately, in view of its schizophrenic theme, two is the film's magic number: two mothers and two daughters, two aunts, two fathers, two funerals, two baptisms (one actual, one metaphorical when Leonora accepts Cenci as her daughter), and above all, two temples of communion. ... In many ways, notably in its insidious illumination of the fascination of madness, Secret Ceremony reminds one of Lilith [1964], but the style is entirely Losey's own, a return to the crystalline ellipses of Accident [1967] after the opulent undulations of Boom! [1968], and with superb, unexpectedly funny characterisations by the entire cast." [15]
Renata Adler in the New York Times wrote that it was "incomparably better" than its predecessor, Accident, and that beneath its "elaborate fetishism and dragging prose, there is a touching story of people not helping enough," but she admitted that the film had its "longueurs, but not beyond endurance." [16]
Ernest Callenbach of Film Quarterly wrote it was "difficult to guess" what the film was about, but felt that its "dominant note, if there is one, is of Losey's usual creepy, misanthropic disgust with sex and how people misuse each other to get it." He also praised Mia Farrow's "touching and perverse and human" performance. [17]
Retrospective appraisal
Writing 30 years later after its release, John Patterson of The Guardian listed Secret Ceremony among the Losey films he dismissed as "woefully misguided material." [18]
Dave Kehr of the Chicago Reader lambasted the film as embodying the director's "worst tendencies as a filmmaker: the movie is cold without being chilling, confusing without being challenging." [19]
The Radio Times Guide to Films gave the film 2/5 stars, writing: "This moody mistaken-identity melodrama quickly becomes a macabre muddle of daft sexual psychosis and suspect psychology when nympho Mia Farrow adopts prostitute Elizabeth Taylor as her surrogate mother after a meeting on a London bus. The return of Farrow's stepfather Robert Mitchum provides this meandering morsel of Swinging Sixties gothic with a suitably off-the-wall climax. [20] Radio Times Guide to Films (18th ed.). London: Immediate Media Company. 2017. p. 814. ISBN 9780992936440.</ref>
Dan Callahan at Senses of Cinema suggests that Secret Ceremony’s failures may serve as its virtues, comparing the film favorably to Some Like It Hot (1959) or Duck Soup (1933). [21] Callahan writes:
Secret Ceremony is a film that is so bad, so irredeemably, lovably foolish, that it provides the sort of life-embracing laughs many comedies fail to engender…Is there room to include such a film among a great director’s great works? Unless we are unnecessarily stuffy, which would miss the point of his career entirely, the answer has to be yes. [22]
Leslie Halliwell offers this concise critique: "Nuthouse melodrama for devotees of the director." [23]
Joseph Walton Losey III was an American theatre and film director, producer, and screenwriter. Born in Wisconsin, he studied in Germany with Bertolt Brecht and then returned to the United States. Blacklisted by Hollywood in the 1950s, he moved to Europe where he made the remainder of his films, mostly in the United Kingdom. Among the most critically and commercially successful were the films with screenplays by Harold Pinter: The Servant (1963) and The Go-Between (1971).
Maria de Lourdes Villiers "Mia" Farrow is an American actress and activist. She first gained notice for her role as Allison MacKenzie in the television soap opera Peyton Place and gained further recognition for her subsequent short-lived marriage to Frank Sinatra. An early film role, as Rosemary in Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby (1968), saw her nominated for a BAFTA Award and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress. She went on to appear in several films throughout the 1970s, such as Follow Me! (1972), The Great Gatsby (1974), and Death on the Nile (1978). Her younger sister is Prudence Farrow.
Accident is a 1967 British drama film directed by Joseph Losey. Written by Harold Pinter, it is an adaptation of the 1965 novel Accident by Nicholas Mosley. It is the second of three Losey–Pinter collaborations; the others being The Servant (1963) and The Go-Between (1971). At the 1967 Cannes Film Festival, Accident won the Grand Prix Spécial du Jury award. It also won the Grand Prix of the Belgian Film Critics Association.
The Servant is a 1963 British drama film directed by Joseph Losey. It was written by Harold Pinter, who adapted Robin Maugham's 1948 novella of the same name. The film stars Dirk Bogarde, Sarah Miles, Wendy Craig and James Fox.
Marco Denevi was an Argentine author of novels, short stories, and plays, as well as a lawyer and journalist. His work is characterized by its originality and depth, as well as a criticism of human incompetence. His first work, a mystery novel titled Rosaura a las diez (1955), was a Kraft award winner and a bestseller. In 1964, it was translated into English as Rosa at Ten O'Clock. Other famous works of his include Los expedientes (1957), El emperador de la China (1959), Ceremonia Secreta (1960), El cuarto de la noche (1962), and Falsificaciones (1966).
Modesty Blaise is a 1966 British spy-fi comedy film directed by Joseph Losey, produced by Joseph Janni, and loosely based on the popular comic strip Modesty Blaise by Peter O'Donnell, who co-wrote the original story upon which Evan Jones and Harold Pinter based their screenplay. It stars Monica Vitti as "Modesty", opposite Terence Stamp as Willie Garvin and Dirk Bogarde as her nemesis Gabriel. The cast also includes Harry Andrews, Michael Craig, Alexander Knox, Rossella Falk, Clive Revill, and Tina Aumont. The film's music was composed by Johnny Dankworth and the theme song, Modesty, sung by pop duo David and Jonathan. It was Vitti's first English-speaking role.
Boom! is a 1968 British drama film directed by Joseph Losey and starring Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and Noël Coward. It was adapted by Tennessee Williams from his own play The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore.
The Boy with Green Hair is a 1948 American fantasy-drama film in Technicolor directed by Joseph Losey in his feature film directorial debut. It stars Dean Stockwell as Peter, a young war orphan who is subject to ridicule after his hair mysteriously turns green, and is based on the 1946 short story of the same name by Betsy Beaton. Co-stars include Pat O'Brien, Robert Ryan, and Barbara Hale.
The Go-Between is a 1971 British historical drama film directed by Joseph Losey. Its screenplay by Harold Pinter is an adaptation of the 1953 novel The Go-Between by L. P. Hartley. The film stars Julie Christie, Alan Bates, Margaret Leighton, Michael Redgrave and Dominic Guard.
The Criminal is a 1960 British neo-noir crime film directed by Joseph Losey and starring Stanley Baker, Sam Wanamaker, Grégoire Aslan, Jill Bennett, and Margit Saad. Baker plays Johnny Bannion, a recently-paroled gangster who is sent back to prison after robbing a racetrack, with both the authorities and the criminal underworld looking for the money.
A Doll's House is a 1973 drama film directed by Joseph Losey, based on the 1879 play A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen. It stars Jane Fonda in the role of Nora Helmer and David Warner as her domineering husband, Torvald.
Eva, released in the United Kingdom as Eve, and in the United States as The Devil’s Woman a 1962 Italian-French co-production drama film directed by Joseph Losey and starring Jeanne Moreau, Stanley Baker, and Virna Lisi. Its screenplay is adapted from James Hadley Chase's 1945 novel Eve.
The Assassination of Trotsky is a 1972 British historical drama film directed by Joseph Losey with a screenplay by Nicholas Mosley. It stars Richard Burton, Romy Schneider and Alain Delon.
The Damned is a 1962 British science fiction horror film directed by Joseph Losey and starring Macdonald Carey, Shirley Anne Field, Viveca Lindfors and Oliver Reed. The screenplay was by Evan Jones, based on H. L. Lawrence's 1960 novel The Children of Light. It was a Hammer Film production.
Figures in a Landscape is a 1970 British film directed by Joseph Losey and written by star Robert Shaw, based on the 1968 novel of the same name by Barry England.
King and Country is a 1964 British war film directed by Joseph Losey, shot in black and white, and starring Dirk Bogarde and Tom Courtenay. The film was adapted for the screen by British screenwriter Evan Jones based on the play Hamp by John Wilson and a 1955 novel by James Lansdale Hodson.
John and Mary is a 1969 American romantic drama film directed by Peter Yates, and starring Dustin Hoffman and Mia Farrow in the title roles. It was the film debut of Tyne Daly. The screenplay was adapted by John Mortimer from the 1966 Mervyn Jones novel.
Blind Date is a 1959 British murder mystery film directed by Joseph Losey and starring Hardy Krüger, Stanley Baker, and Micheline Presle. It was written by Ben Barzman and Millard Lampell based on the 1955 novel Blind Date by Leigh Howard.
Galileo is a 1975 British biographical film directed by Joseph Losey, about the 16th- and 17th-century scientist Galileo Galilei, whose astronomical observations with the newly invented telescope led to a profound conflict with the Roman Catholic Church. The film stars an ensemble cast, led by Topol, Georgia Brown, Edward Fox, John Gielgud, and Margaret Leighton.
The Trout is a 1982 French drama film directed by Joseph Losey based on the novel by Roger Vailland and starring Isabelle Huppert. This was the last film that Losey directed to be released in his lifetime, as he died two years after its release.
