STRAIGHT ON TILL MORNING (1972)

DIRECTED by Peter Collinson

SCREENPLAY by John Peacock

STARRING  - Rita Tushingham as Brenda Thompson,  Shane Briant as Peter,  James Bolam as Joey,  Katya Wyeth as Caroline,  Annie Ross as Liza,  Tom Bell as Jimmy Lindsay,  Claire Kelly as Margo,  Harold Berens as Mr. Harris.

PLOT - Brenda is a plain looking young girl who is bored with her life in a dull working-class suburb in Liverpool. She's lonely and wants a man and a baby. She decides to leave home and move to the bright lights and glamour of swinging London to achieve her dream.

Once there she finds that her life is just as hopeless as it was back in her native city - she still doesn't fit in and still is no closer to finding a man.

That is until she meets Peter - he's everything she's looking for. He's handsome, stylish and appears to be independently wealthy. Even better, he too seems to be craving companionship. The two are drawn together and Brenda moves in with Peter. However, little does Brenda know that Peter has a secret - he's a serial killer who is responsible for a string of disappearances and deaths across London. Peter kills those he finds beautiful and now he's starting to see past Branda's surface awkwardness and discover the beauty that lies within...

PERFORMANCES  - Straight On Till Morning is essentially a two hander between Rita Tushingham playing Brenda and Shane Briant playing Peter. Whilst there are other characters these appear only briefly for a handful of scenes, the onus of the film's runtime is carried mainly by these two central performances and what performances they are.

Rita Tushingham is perfectly cast as Brenda. By this point in her career Tushingham had made a name for herself by portraying niave working-class girls in a number of British films. Brenda is herself a niave working-class class girl (bordering on being a simpleton in fact), she lives in a fantasy world of her own making where she sees herself as the main character in her own fairy tale, this of course is just a way of her retreating into herself, to smooth over the cracks in her own dreary existence.

Seduced by the bright lights of the big city, Brenda makes her way to London, hoping to find a man and fall pregnant. She approaches this "ambition" with single minded determination that actually borders on the obsessive. She is hampered heavily by her total lack of anything even approaching social skills and her dowdy, plain looks. It has to be said that Tushingham is by no means an unattractive woman but she is undeniably unusual looking, she has a gawky awkwardness about her that both the camera and her own performance accentuates for the character of Brenda.

Brenda continues blundering along in her own sweetly depressing downward spiral until she meets Peter - well I say "meets" Peter...rather she spots him out walking his dog, takes a shine to him and in a totally stalkerish move steals his dog, takes it home, gives it a bath, grooms it and then turns up on his doorstep claiming to have "found" the dog. All this just being an excuse to talk to him and gain his attention.

From the outset its patently obvious that theres something not right about Peter. He's arrogant, condescending and comes over as a complete control freak, Brenda for her part is so totally head over heels in love with him that she cant see this. Within minutes Peter reduces her to tears, revelling in her discomfort, until relenting and letting her move in with him as his housekeeper with the "promise" of  maybe...perhaps impregnating her at some point - "we shall see". Brenda happily agrees to this exploitative situation, in fact she seems ecstatic about it.

Briant is as perfectly cast as Tushingham is. He's blandly handsome, a "pretty boy" with the cold aloofness of a shop window dummy. He only seems to show anything approaching "passion" when we see him (in flashback) killing old lovers (presumably all wealthy older women, its from his victims savings that he's able to keep himself in the lifestyle to which he's become accustomed). 

Peter kills for two reasons 1) The acquisition of money and (most importantly and most psychologically deep rooted) 2) He hates beautiful things. He gives the reason that women have only ever been attracted to him because of his looks, never for his personality (given all his faults, this is hardly surprising really), in turn he's grown to resent his own "beauty" (did I mention he's also massively vain ?). Thus, in turn he now despises physical beauty in others and so seeks to destroy it. Its the very fact that Brenda isn't beautiful that draws him to her and causes him (in his own twisted way) to fall in love with her.

Its obvious that this dysfunctional, twisted romance between an emotionally needy dreamer and a sociopathic narcissist is only going to - CAN ONLY - end in tragedy. And it does.

As the story progresses Brenda and Peter become more co-dependant on each other. For his part - whilst initially exploiting Brenda, Peter does seem to genuinely love her for who she is by the end of the film. Unfortunately, by this point the net is starting to close in on Peter - Brenda's mum has reported her missing also Peter murdured Brenda's friend Caroline (because she was beautiful), the police are now searching for the two missing girls. 

In an act of utter heartfelt desperation Peter decides to come clean to Brenda about his need to kill. He does this in the most disturbing way possible - by locking Brenda in a room and playing her a tape recording of him killing his dog (also killed because Brenda had made it "beautiful") and also a tape of him seducing and murdering Caroline. Let's face it - there's no good way of telling your new fiance that you're a murderous psychopath but he could have been a bit more subtle about it. This scene is genuinely one of the most chilling moments I've ever seen in a film - the dying yelps/wails of the dog are VERY uncomfortable to listen to, as are Caroline's death screams. Understandably, Brenda is absolutely terrified and traumatised by this. Peter pleads with her to understand, saying that they can still be together, that this revelation need make no difference to thier happiness.

The film ends with a shot of a grief stricken Peter sat alone. Its left to the audience to decide whether Brenda has walked out on him or if he's been forced to kill her, but judging by Peter's track record I'm guessing it's the second option. As the creepy, mournful lullaby style end song plays over the soundtrack you genuinely feel emotionally scarred and shaken by what you've just been witness to. It's testament to the sheer power of Tushingham and Briant's raw perfect performances that you feel this way.

SFX - None whatsoever.

SEX & VIOLENCE  - The elements of sex and violence are central to the story but they're never fully seen (just heard).

When Peter kills his dog we just see him grab a Stanley Knife and then hear it's whimperings (which we then hear again - for an uncomfortably long time - on the tape).

Same goes for the murder of Caroline. We just see Peter grab his trusty Stanley Knife of doom and hear Caroline scream whilst the light of life drains from her dead eyes. Theres no blood or gore shown, which in it's way makes it even more disturbing.

RATING - Aside from the stunning central performances and deeply disturbing script, another thing that makes this a great film is it's photography which perfectly evokes the grimy early 70's England in which the film is set.

From the opening shot of a dreary looking roofscape of working-class terraced houses to the brutalist concrete shopping malls and carparks, the bleak world that Brenda and Peter are trapped in is perfectly evoked.

This is a 70's London (and Liverpool) of dirty looking red brick houses, corner shops advertising Walls Ice-Cream and living rooms warmed with three-bar gas fires. Its a world where everyone smokes Rothman Superkings and drives Ford Cortinas. Its the same hauntological world that the later Hammer House Of Horror TV series and other 70's set British horror movies like Death Line also inhabit. Its a world I remember and perfectly fits this movie's grim tone.

The only hint of glamour and colour comes from the Caranby Street fashions and parties that Brenda aspires to be a part of in the film's early scenes - yet even these glimmers of hope and happiness are shown to be ultimately shallow and fake.

Uncompromising, disturbing and genuinely chilling. Straight On Till Morning is a legitimately good film full stop. 5 demented narcissists out of 5. An often overlooked classic. You owe it to yourself to watch this, even if only once.

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