Chance Meeting (1959) User Reviews (27)

A measured mystery

[Sleepin_Dragon · 8/10 · 23 July 2018]

I wouldn't say this is a film to stimulate the senses, not one packed with energy, but it's success lies very much in its subtlety, delivery and superb performances.

It's a wonderfully stylish film, it looks so good, from the very bright start to the rather downbeat conclusion. The story is fed out very slowly, with the story unravelling teasingly slowly. As a mystery it works well, what seems so obvious initially isn't quite the case, so much more is happening, with a twist waiting.

Great performances, Hardy Kruger was fantastic in the lead role. Very much a battle of the classes, with a hugely socialist element on show, but it fits in well.

Very enjoyable, slick movie. 8/10

A pleasing early Losey

[jandesimpson · 7/10 · 8 August 2002]

It can sometimes be interesting to study the early work of directors who were later to emerge as important figures in cinema. Some show little indication of what is to come (Carol Reed's "Bank Holiday " for instance) while with others the fingerprints are all there (Hitchcock's "The Lodger" and David Lynch's "Eraserhead"). Joseph Losey falls somewhere between these two extremes. An early work such as "Blind Date" has a competence and clearheaded sense of narrative flow that place it on a higher level than most B-style thrillers to emerge from British studios in the '50's but there is little of the original stamp that was to mark his later work such as "The Servant", "The Go-between" and "Accident". These films provide fascinating commentaries that an outsider from the USA brought to bear on the British class system. There is a little in "Blind Date" about the social hierarchy within the British police force, but this is peripheral to Losey's main task of presenting a neat little thriller well. He keeps the tension going nicely to begin with, with a young Dutch artist visiting a flat where he expects to find a woman he has been having a liaison with, only to find himself soon embroiled with the police. The script has a neat way of evading what is going on until some way into the film. Some of the flashbacks go on for rather too long and are somewhat weakened by a rather wooden performance by Micheline Presle as the woman of mystery. Hardy Kruger, on the other hand, as the young Dutchman is excellent. We really identify with his frustration at finding himself in a situation that is beyond his comprehension and control. As the main detective Stanley Baker plays cat and mouse with his customary skill. "Blind Date" is in so sense an important or significant film, but the fact that it was competently made by a director who was later to produce some outstanding works of British cinema makes it worth a look. There are two other good reasons for watching - photography by Christopher Challis and music by Richard Rodney Bennett - both considerable artists in their respective fields.

Subtlety in thrillers are a plus.

[mark.waltz · 6/10 · 10 March 2021]

A good, thoughtful script leads this British mystery to the Scotland Yard of success as handyman Hardy Kruger is accused of murdering the wealthy Micheline Presle, a married French woman who coldly used him for thrills, and ended up paying dearly, even if he didn't smother her in her final moments. Scotland Yard investigator Stanley Baker has enough pieces in the puzzle to arrest him, but it's obvious in his quiet way that he's not sure, especially when there's also clues involving a prominent man that the bureau doesn't want to involve in the case simply because of his stature.

Through flashbacks between Kruger and Presle and conversations between Kruger and Baker, it's obvious that this case is a lot more complex than the evidence suggests, and Baker is unsure even of his own convictions. Presle is beautiful but cold, warm only enough to get what she wants, and that does indeed drive Kruger to the edge, but to murder? Baker's not sure.

As you get into this case, the intelligence of the script and the interpersonal relationship between Kruger and Baker makes their conversations all the more interesting. There's also some great location footage, particularly of Heathrow in its early years. A surprising twist towards the end is a jaw dropper, making this quite intense, a mystery thriller that just stops short of being film noir, both of the classic kind and the later neo classification.

VERY CLASSY THRILLER WITH A GREAT LEAD ACTING PERFORMANCE

[blakedw · 9 June 2001]

The plot is pretty conventional Scotland Yard potboiler; Hardy Kruger suspected of a murder he didn't commit but the evidence looks bad. But the surprise of the film is a brilliant performance by Stanley Baker as the Police Inspector Morgan doing the investigation. Baker grew up in Wales near the home of the more famous Richard Burton, but he was every bit as good as an actor. His performance is tightly wound, with shafts of anger about the special treatment he is asked to give an upper class alternative suspect. Very different from the laid-back aristocrats that many films imagine populate the British police. It's a bit stagey and you won't find any of the car chases which litter so many police films. But the supporting cast are all good and Baker is a joy to watch.

Would You Care To Confess To Murder, Sir?

[boblipton · 7/10 · 21 August 2020]

It's springtime in Mayfair and Dutch artist Hardy Kruger is having an affair with Micheline Presle. He's madly in love, but she's rather cold, and meet according to her schedule, like he's her dressmaker. He asks her to come away with him, but she refuses, and one day he finds her address and goes to her apartment to leave a note saying he can't take it any more. The door is open, so he goes in. Soon policemen are swarming the place and Detective Inspector Stanley Baker is asking a lot of questions, because The woman whose apartment this is has been murdered. There she is in the bedroom. Would you care to explain yourself, sir. Nothing more frightening than a policeman being polite about a corpse.

Joseph Losey, a very chilly director of emotionally and intellectually challenging movies, handles this in his usual icy manner, with Baker growing more and more tigerish as Kruger keeps insisting he didn't kill her, but unable to offer any proof. The audience is on Kruger's side. We saw him enter the apartment, We follow him around until the corpse is shown to him, and we feel his confusion; Baker's growing anger puts us on any side but his. Losey, however, is not on the side of anyone in particular. Both men seek the truth, and that's what's important.

Flawed crime story by socialist director Losey

[genet-1 · 6/10 · 18 April 2010]

BLIND DATE starts out hampered by a misleading title and the miscasting of the key female role. The meeting in the Tate Gallery between penniless Dutch painter Hardy Kruger and French bourgeoise Micheline Presle is no blind date, but, superficially at least, a simple pick-up - the "chance meeting" of the film's US title. As for Presle, her advances to Kruger appear gauche, even desperate, with none of the allure that would be needed to snare him. A better actress might have accepted that her character would, in that situation, appear clumsy, and play on that, but Presle lets the lines do the work. The film only picks up with the appearance of Losey's preferred male lead, Stanley Baker, as the detective Morgan. With a broad Welsh accent, and troubled by a cold that has him sniffing repeatedly on an inhaler, Baker sketches out the role he would play with increasing assurance in later collaborations with Losey like HELL IS A CITY, EVA and ACCIDENT - a working-class outsider, in revolt against the elite of which he secretly wishes to be part, but which he knows will never accept him. Any strength in BLIND DATE resides in the confrontations between a disheveled, snuffling Baker and the Scotland Yard establishment, represented by three-piece-suited Robert Flemyng and his equally suave subordinate, John van Eyssen. By stressing that Morgan's father was a chauffeur and Kruger's a miner, Losey decisively places both on the opposite side of the social divide from these two, not to mention the awkward, chilly Presle. In a brief but significant scene, Flemyng, having hinted to Baker, none too subtly, that he should frame Kruger if he ever wants promotion, encounters van Eyssen in the corridor and reminds him they'll be meeting socially over the weekend. By contrast, Kruger and Baker languish in the cultural ghetto with losers like Gordon Jackson's PC Plod and Jack McGowran's furtive "nudge-nudge-wink-wink-know-what-I-mean?" postman. The film hammers home this point with its set design, in particular that of Baker's office, a draughty attic with exposed waste-pipes running down the wall. The office, along with Baker's clothing, advertises the fact that, by exposing the real murderer, he has incurred permanent banishment from the circles of power. Losey's supposedly socialist principles are seldom apparent in his films, which are mainly calculated exercises in style, but in BLIND DATE at least he appears to pin his left-wing colours to Baker's crumpled sleeve.

a man enters an apartment, not realizing there is a dead woman there

[blanche-2 · 7/10 · 24 December 2021]

Jan-Van Rooyer (Hardy Kruger) rushes into the apartment of Jacqueline Cousteau to have a romantic interlude with her. When he arrives, he tears through the apartment, room by room, calling her name, but the apartment appears empty.

Then the police arrive in the form of Detective Police Inspector Morgan (Stanley Baker) and assistant, asking what he is doing there, what his name is, and how he got into the apartment. Jan refuses to answer any questions, not knowing why they are there.

It turns out that Jacqueline Cousteau is dead on a bed in one of the rooms - actually, where Jan threw his coat and completely missed seeing the body. When he is brought into the room, he becomes faint and, unable to look at her, leaves the room.

Morgan believes Jan is responsible for the woman's murder, despite Jan's protests. Jan tells his story. He is an artist who works in a rented studio several times a week. He met Jacqueline, a sophisticated and elegant Frenchwoman a little older than he. She is married and claims her husband is violent.

The two have a volatile, sexual relationship, with Jan constantly angered by the little time they have together and how she seems to keep part of herself from him. He and Morgan go back and forth, with the story often going into flashback.

Morgan is puzzled. Jacqueline is described as wealthy, cultured, and sophisticated, yet her apartment is gaudy and seems almost like a bordello. Morgan receives a visit from the Assistant Commissioner, Sir Brian Lewis (Robert Fleyming) who reveals that Jacqueline, in fact, was not married and receives weekly bank deposits from a high-ranking government official, Sir Howard Fenton. At all costs, his name must be kept out of the case.

Morgan doesn't know what the story is - did Sir Howard Fenton hire Jan to kill his mistress? He takes Jan to the airport, where Fenton is arriving, but Fenton doesn't seem to recognize him.

Just as his car is driving off, Jan spots Jacqueline, alive! In looking at the photo of the dead Jacqueline, Jan realizes that this is not the woman he knew - he reminds Morgan that he never looked at her face when confronted with the body.

Good movie that past a certain point is easy to figure out, but it's nonetheless entertaining with good performances. Hardy Kruger was like a German Tab Hunter back then, very appealing.

Disappointing!

[JohnHowardReid · 7/10 · 7 October 2017]

THE STORY: Jan Van Rooyen (Hardy Kruger), a Dutch painter, stops to buy a bunch of violets on a London street as he hurries to keep a rendezvous with a woman. But Jacqueline Cousteau (Micheline Presle) is not waiting for him in the fashionable apartment to which he goes. Instead, shortly after his arrival he is confronted by Detective Inspector Morgan (Stanley Baker), who accuses him of murder. Jacqueline's body has been found in the vestibule of the house, and according to the police doctor she was killed after the time Van Rooyen, by his own admission, entered the apartment. Morgan, a tough, efficient policeman, listens sceptically to Van Rooyen's denials. Incredulously, the young man realizes that the circumstantial evidence against him is overwhelming.

COMMENT: Although it certainly sounds intriguing, the plot isn't much. It's mildly intriguing, but the solution is obvious once the central idea — borrowed from Vera Caspary's Laura — is introduced. Losey has tried to work up some interest. Most of the first half of the film is played in dark shadows and all the players work hard to give their characters credibility, but all they have really done is to make the little asides (Police Sergeant explaining to the suspect what he thinks is wrong with the police recruitment advertising, and all the business with the old school tie) more interesting than the main plot and thus to show up its inadequacy to sustain a film of this length.

Enjoyable murder mystery

[bob998 · 7/10 · 24 December 2018]

I didn't think about Laura so much as I watched this but rather the Profumo-Christine Keeler affair that so fascinated English society in the early sixties. Losey did a fairly entertaining film around a manipulating society woman and a hapless young artist. The performances by Micheline Presle and Stanley Baker are expert; only Hardy Kruger disappoints with some unfortunate mugging. It's a shame they couldn't have had Horst Bucholz for that part. The sets were done by the splendid Edward Carrick, son of Gordon Craig. The décor of the dead woman's flat arouses the scorn of proletarian Baker, it's so exotic and you really feel you're in Losey territory.

I saw this in 1960.

[molehall-77285 · 10/10 · 7 October 2019]

I saw this film almost sixty years ago when I was a nineteen year old "usherette" in a first run movie house in Sacramento, CA. Yes we did wear satin bell-bottoms, and carry a flashlight.

I have never seen this film since seeing it several times many years ago. It was the relationship between the older woman, and the younger man, that made me fall in love with Hardy Kruger and the film. This story line was both new and daring for the time. London was still in recovery from World War II, and it was not the city that most film viewers know now. I don't remember a story of class, I only remember a great hot love story.

Hints of the Losey to come

[Chrid-909 · 6/10 · 1 May 2020]

Before I start my review I must point out that the version of the film I saw was quite poor, which may have coloured my overall impression. But anyway, here goes: 'Blind Date', or 'Chance Meeting', as this is also called, is one of Joseph Losey's first British films, some few years before major arthouse success began with 'The Servant'.

The film has a very upbeat and touristy, whimsical intro, with Hardy Kruger as boyish Dutch artist Jan hopping off a Routemaster by the Thames and buying flowers in Westminster Square, with, yes, the Houses of Parliament in the background. All this is of course setting us up for what is to come when he arrives at the Mews flat where he is expecting to meet the lady with whom he is having an affair.

Suddenly the police arrive, first uniforms and then plain clothes, who prevent him from leaving, and the scene turns into something reminiscent of Joseph K's predicament when he is arrested and interrogated without being informed of what he is accused of. This Kafkaesque scenario is protracted for some time and you get the distinct feeling that this is a film based on a stage play. Even the flashbacks showing Jan's claimed meetings (at art-dealer's, Tate Gallery and Jan's painting studio) with a sophisticated, and married, French lady, have a staged feeling to them. At last we, and Jan, get to see that there is a murdered woman in the flat, although her face is not shown and Jan assumes that the body belongs to the French lady whom he was expecting to meet.

In contrast to other reviewers I must say that Hardy Kruger's acting is annoying in this film. He does his version of the broody but earnest young artist. There is a lot of posing and gesturing and falling about - histrionics which Losey ought to have reined in.

Stanley Baker is competent but not brilliant as the brusque inspector who inexplicably drinks milk throughout the movie. (The first time, he actually helps himself to milk from the murdered girl's fridge!) It's funny to see in these old films how the police run riot all over the crime scene, picking up objects without gloves and generally contaminating everything.

Micheline Presle, with her beautiful eyes, is rather good in the part of the sophisticated French lady married to the English lord. The inspector works hard to unravel the truth, even though under pressure from his posh chief to not let the lord, who is also an important diplomat, be implicated in any way, even to the point of suggesting that the inspector offer Jan a manslaughter charge and reduced sentence if he confesses, instead of proven homicide if he doesn't. Jan however maintains his innocence and the inspector drives him to London Airport in order to observe the reactions of the arriving lord. And now we see that the lady is still alive. (The body in the Mews flat was really the lord's kept woman.)

In the end the inspector engineers a confrontation with the French lady, who (incredibly) can not keep up her mask of not knowing Jan and he is satisfied that Jan is innocent and releases him. Not that we care too much, as Hardy Kruger is so irritating that I certainly wouldn't have shed much of a tear if he had been condemned!

Worth seeing, if only for Baker and Presle, and for the views of a bygone London. One shot shows the skyline all the way along the riverside from Westminster to the City. Not a skyscraper in sight. In fact you can actually see the dome of Saint Paul's. (This film was made about seven years before the Post Office Tower was built which was for a while the tallest building in Europe.) I doubt if you can see Saint Paul's today amid the infestation of skyscrapers that now clog the City.

That's not a meeting you describe. It's a collision!

[hitchcockthelegend · 9/10 · 26 August 2015]

Blind Date (AKA: Chance Meeting) is directed by Joseph Losey and adapted to screenplay by Ben Barzman and Millard Lampell from the Leigh Howard novel. It stars Hardy Krüger, Stanley Baker, Micheline Presle, John Van Eyssen, Gordon Jackson and Robert Flemyng. Music is by Richard Rodney Bennett and cinematography by Christopher Challis.

Jan Van Rooyer (Krüger) arrives at the apartment of the lady he is having an affair with, only to find the police following him close behind. It appears that the lady, Jacqueline Cousteau (Presle), has been murdered and he is the prime suspect.

Another cracker-jack slice of British film noir produced by the brilliant Joseph Losey. Blind Date finds Losey on the sort of firm ground he thrives on, examining hot topics such as class consciousness, eroticism, political pot-boiling, corruption, misogyny and at the crux of the story there's a very intricate mystery to be solved. When Losey was at his best there was an edginess to his films, and this is no exception, the construction of the tale is akin to someone dangling a piece of red meat over a Lion's cage (or in this case a Cougar), only to keep pulling it away at the last second.

Hook - Line - Sinker.

It all begins in a jovial manner, Van Rooyer is so happy, skipping his way to his lover's apartment, the jazzy musical score soars and shrieks, then the tone changes considerably, Losey and his crew have offered a false dawn. It soon becomes apparent that Rooyer is something of an arrogant snot, a struggling and tortured painter, he's hard to empathise with as he gets leaned on first by Gordon Jackson's efficient copper, then the mighty presence of Stanley Baker as Inspector Morgan - with Welsh accent joyously in full effect, he's nursing a cold and drinking milk, but boyo this is a guy you don't want grilling you...

Cougarville.

Rest of the picture is predominantly told in flashback, how Rooyer and Cousteau came to meet, their initial sparring and eventual relationship, with the mature femme fatale lady wrapping the hapless painter around her finger. Losey sexes things up, really gets as much heat as he can into the coupling without bothering the censors, he even slots in a sex metaphor that Hitchcock would have approved of. Then the rug pulls begin, the can is opened, worms everywhere, or is it just smoke and mirrors?

Losey and Challis use every opportunity to use trusted film noir photographic techniques, but never in a lazy manner. Some of the isolated lighting used - particularly when Presle is holding court - is cheeky but potent with it, and the close ups, long takes and wide frames favoured by Losey ensure that no scene is merely being allowed to be ordinary. Baker, like Dirk Bogarde, was a classic Losey man, a meeting of minds that produced performances of steel and psychological intricacy. Yet it's not Baker who owns this film, it's Krüger, a multifaceted jumping-bean of a performance, simply terrific. As is the film itself, one of Losey's most under valued British treasures. 9/10

Disjointed Losey.

[sevisan · 6/10 · 7 August 2010]

The DVD I bought via amazon.uk is "cheap" and has not any kind of subtitles. I read English well, but I don't understand spoken English very fluently. So, I didn't feel very comfortable with this item (or must I put the blame on the film itself?).

Main assets: ChristopherChallis cinematography, Micheline Presle, intelligent use of the sets.

Main weakness: absurd script (Kruger does not recognize the dead woman, his character is sometimes hippie sometimes "macho", the "establishment gentlemen" wear black suit and bowler hat, and Baker has sinusitis).

Definitively, Losey did better than this one.

Talky murder mystery raises class issues but fails to thrill

[Leofwine_draca · 4/10 · 28 August 2016]

I wanted to like BLIND DATE but in the end I was a bit bored by the whole thing, which was a shame as the film has a decent script with strong characterisation and an excellent little cast which lifts this B-movie quite considerably. I enjoyed the way that the murder mystery story is used to explore British class issues but at the end of the day it's all rather staid and talky, which means that as a thriller it doesn't work so well.

Hardy Kruger (THE FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX) is the erstwhile lead and plays a young and idealistic youth who turns up at a flat looking for fun. Unfortunately he finds it empty, dozes off and wakes to find out that he's being investigated for murder with a corpse in the next room. The excellent Stanley Baker is the detective doing the questioning, and he gets to use his own Welsh accent for a change. The first half of the film, in which the viewer is almost as befuddled as the Kruger character, is quite taut and inventive and makes good use of the back and forth questioning style.

The second half loses the single location setting and also loses most of the suspense built up in the first section. The solution to the murder isn't really all that clever although it does allow supporting players like Robert Flemyng and John Van Eysson to shine. Gordon Jackson has an oddly small role as a copper which is strange as I saw him playing leads in other movies from the era. Jack MacGowran supplies humour and the one misstep is Micheline Presle, whose character is dullish and never really convinces as an object of lust. BLIND DATE isn't all bad and has plenty of potential, and most viewers will probably get more out of it than I did, but I just didn't connect with this film in its latter stages.

Laura and class struggle.

[dbdumonteil · 16 September 2002]

At first sight ,"Blind date" recalls some Agatha Christie play.Only three characters are really important and they all have. a different nationality:Baker is English,Krüger is German (Dutch in the movie!) and Micheline Presles is French.People who know Preminger's "Laura" cannot help but be struck by the way Presles's character is used.

But the essentials are somewhere else.Losey had always been fascinated by the social status,particularly the upper classes' decay:to name but three ,"the servant" ,"the gypsy and the gentleman" and "the go-between" were blatant examples.Here prole Kruger would be an ideal culprit,he who only owns one suit,thus a good way of avoiding scandal.Presles and her husband are the posh people at the top,but they are about to fall in their mire.

That said,Losey's directing is a bit static,and looks like some filmed stage production.The jaunty first and last pictures seem irrelevant.

Methinks Krugar Detracts

[jcappy · 7/10 · 14 November 2021]

Stanley Baker and Hardy Krugar are the keys to the ups and downs of "Chance Meeting." The flashbacks are a drag, but at least they're necessary to the plot. And the hesitant, rather clunky ending doesn't help either. Nor does the imbalance between the central character (Hardy) and the convincing supporting cast.

But to the degree "Chance Meeting" succeeds, it does so via Stanley Baker's riveting crack detective. Not only is he in charge of the case, but of his role, his acting and, it seems, the movie itself. Who can imagine it without him? His absence from the flashbacks is the film's loss (Michiline Presle's acting saves them, however). Even when his given lines and plot twists let him down, he hangs in, his acting canceling the script's shortcomings in the same way his detective's s nasal spray routine gets him through doubts and challenges. But if Baker's strikingly in command, he seems all the more so because this is what the protagonist suspect lacks.

Whether Krugar's role, direction, or acting (probably all three) is at fault, there's no doubt that it's misaligned and unappealing. Perhaps there's more of the theatre than the cinema in his 'Angry Young Man' portrayal. Too often he seems bratty, defiant, manipulative, self-pitying, and generally obnoxious. His superior quips and mockery of his "bourgeois" female art buyer (his "chance" encounter) and subsequent "lover," offers immediate proof of his rudeness, and galling character. He comes off as a boy among adults, the least real of all the actors, and the most stereotypical. To boot, he seems more the hipster artist than the working class painter, more the mod misogynist than the avant-garde rebel, and more the pretentious charlatan than a convincing artist. Thus his disconnect from any inner reality, from his imposing pursuer, and from "Chance Meeting" itself.

Best of Losey

[jromanbaker · 10/10 · 15 February 2023]

Joseph Losey was the USA's loss and the UK's gain. He was a great director because he took chances on subject matter, and he made excellent films as well as disappointing ones. All original director's do, and ' Blind Date ' is in my opinion one of his best. Hardy Kruger playing a young Dutch artist ( brilliant acting ) meets up with a very beautiful Micheline Presle, and a murder opens the film and Kruger arrives at the right place at the wrong time. The place is ( probably ) set in Chelsea, London and I have a hunch Losey liked Chelsea as he set the famous film of his ' The Servant ' there. Cat and mouse games happen in that film, and they happen too in ' Blind Date. ' Kruger is suspected of murder and Stanley Baker plays an over aggressive policeman and a lot of the film is a game of entrapment and a rapid confession. Between these scenes we go back in time to the murder victim, played by Presle at her very best, and without explicit sex the film exudes eroticism. A lot of the visuals that Losey seemed to like a lot; mirrors, cluttered interiors etc are all there, and made as it was in 1959 it equalled any film made by Louis Malle or Claude Chabrol in France. But Losey was his own man, and as well as leaving the USA he brought over with him shades of nightmares that are there in ' M ' and in ' The Big Night. ' I give no spoilers about the end only that the last words said by Presle ( and in passion ) will resonate in my mind for a long time. This is no minor work of Losey and it should be rated far higher than it is. I dare to use that overused word masterpiece again, and it is my personal favourite of his films as it shows just how close love is to dislike, indifference and betrayal. Watch it on the UK's Talking Pictures, or on YouTube or be generous and buy it. If you own it I bet you will want to see it much more than once to catch the fine dialogue, superb acting and a London that was once achingly beautiful.

Taut police procedural

[dctrevans · 8/10 · 28 February 2021]

An excellent Stanley Baker in full Welsh-accented flow as the idiosyncratic DI David Evan Morgan unravelling the murder of a French woman at her oddly gaudy London flat. Baker keeps an unconventionally close rein on Hardy Kruger, who maintains his innocence whilst withholding enough information to keep the inspector interested in his relationship with the dead woman. Being found at the murder scene doesn't help the young Dutchman's situation. Some flashbacks give us the background to the tensions between the struggling artist and his muse. Downing a considerable quantity of milk (peptic ulcers were the cause of the commonest surgical operation in the late 1950s - fewer cigarillos would help Stanley) Morgan has to juggle his quest for the truth with the usual insistence from above that a top level government minister is not to be embarrassed by the outcome.

Love Is The Very Devil

[writers_reign · 5/10 · 14 June 2009]

For French star Micheline Presle this movie must have emitted the faint aroma of deja vu; twelve years before she had starred in a French classic Le Diable au corps (Devil In The Flesh) in which she was the love object of a much younger man, as is the case here, but there the comparison ends. Le Diable au corps reeked Class, from the writers, Jean Aurenche and Pierre Bost, through the director, Claude Autant-Lara, to Presle's co-star, Gerard Philipe; match that with their equivalents here and it's not even funny, we're talking Bush League and/or Second Eleven depending on whether you take your metaphors from baseball or cricket. I suppose the likes of Stanley Baker, Hardy Kruger, Gordon Jackson etc, do their best but alas, their best is light years away from the best of Aurenche, Autant-Lara and Philipe. One to see only for Presle, a class act in whatever language.

Fabulous Film showing a lost London.

[toytrains-492-957106 · 10/10 · 19 January 2017]

This may be a black and white film is a great film, but is well worth a viewing as the three leading members of the cast were first rate and it should hold your interest throughout. Stanley Baker was a tremendous actor and plays a determined but sympathetic DI. Hardy Kruger a struggling young artist and Micheline Presle has such poise and beauty that she looked good enough to eat. Gordon Jackson also makes a believable Police Sergeant. As for the rest of the cast in this film they all have the right 1950's 'air' about them The plot has a nice number of twists and the locations in central London and around the then small London Heathrow Airport are nice and nostalgic. London as it used to be.

Very good!

[RodrigAndrisan · 10/10 · 23 September 2023]

Here we have three exceptional acting performances: that of Hardy Krüger, natural, very realistic, that of Stanley Baker, strong and convincing, and that of Micheline Presle, very believable in the role of a woman with two faces. Boring more than likely for many viewers because most of the film takes place inside a house and in a room in a police station, the film excels in its subject matter, the dynamic way it is filmed, the careful movements of the camera and, more chosen, the superior quality of the main actors. I knew that Stanley Baker is a very good actor, I have seen him in many other films. I also knew that Joseph Losey is one of the best film directors, I have seen many of his films. I didn't know that Hardy Krüger and Micheline Presle are so good, I haven't seen them in many other films.

nicely done

[gilli · 7 May 1999]

This is basically a mystery story, but the mystery itself and its solution are not very satisfying. The best is that in the mean time we get to see some character study. And Losey's mise-en-scene is above average, as usual.

Blind Date review

[JoeytheBrit · 5/10 · 17 May 2020]

A talky murder mystery in which a number of actors compete to see who can be the least likable. Hardy Kruger raves with arrogant self-absorption as an angry artist accused of murder, prickly Stanley Baker barks accusations as an angry cop with a cold, and icy Micheline Presle plots revenge with ruthless efficiency as an angry wife. It does at least underline the importance of looking at the face of a murder victim when identifying them for the police...

A small but significant episode in Losey's Class War.

[ianlouisiana · 8/10 · 25 January 2018]

Mr.S.Baker as a resentful and bloody - minded Detective represents the old time coppers who moved through the ranks on merit. No University Entrant he,fast - tracked for promotion to the highest command. Welsh working - class,veteran of a hundred pub fights,"hard" stops and years of listening to weaselly criminals deny everything until a quick slap brings them to their senses,he is ill - equipped to take on Establishment figures determined to muddy the waters in a murder investigation.Nowadays we would expect no less but in 1959 it was still a bit of a revelation that our betters should conspire to protect their own at the expense of some prole who would never amount to anything,wasn't a Mason and didn't belong to the right clubs. Mr H.Kruger -who had a brief but glorious career in British pictures as a "Good German" despite his Nazi credentials - plays a Dutch artist who is the first and initially only suspect in the murder of his mistress(Miss M.Presle) but as Mr Baker digs around it becomes apparent that he is being denied access to any other line of enquiry. The Establishment,the exemplars of privilege,power and corruption are closing ranks to prevent him getting at the truth. He is cajoled,he is threatened,but he is grimly determined to get to the truth. Seen on the other side of the fence in Losey's later,"The Criminal",Mr Baker has anger and energy to spare and a clear idea of who's side he is on. "Blind Date" is heart on sleeve time for the director and his leading man. Sadly Mister Losey's efforts to reveal upper - class malfeasance were met with political indifference and nearly sixty years later the police are just as spavined by politicians as they were then. The only difference is you've got to have a degree,apparently.Which is nice.

enjoyable thriller

[myriamlenys · 8/10 · 31 December 2018]

A Dutch painter staying in London walks into a rich lady's house. He is in a good mood, hoping for both a reconciliation and an amorous encounter with his lover. Much to his surprise and disgust, he finds himself stopped and interrogated by the police...

I don't know how to qualify the movie best - as a mystery thriller or a "noir". Whatever it is, it is a well-directed, well-written and well-acted movie with an intruiging plot and memorable characters. The flashback technique is used to good effect, with well-chosen episodes recapitulating and illuminating the development of a dangerous relationship between a struggling painter and an older, richer, more sophisticated woman.

The props and sets have been created with considerable care. During the first half of the movie, watch the richly appointed house with its over-romantic, over-feminine accents and furnishings : it will give you a useful clue as to the nature of its inhabitant.