Verging often on the brink of farce, this film just manages to remain a believable drama, and packs a certain punch in the third act.
On the way, it has to survive one of those difficult "retarded son" roles, with him skulking about peering through windows, failing to confront his dominant mother and receiving hand-jobs from his old nurse. This part bodes ill for the film until a peculiarly hideous murder ends act one, releases the son from his bondage, allowing him to become fairly normal.
SPOILERS HERE In act two the lovers are parted by duty and their bond is tested. In act three, they are reunited, but he is stricken with a mysterious coma. Desperate to buy his way to the coast and a doctor, she submits to the perverted will of the nurse and has sexual intercourse with the villain (female superior position), to her horror achieving her first=ever orgasm thereby.
Emerging from her confusing ordeal (is she radiant with gratification or utterly soiled? we aren't too sure) clutching her money, she finds that her lover has overheard her ecstatic yelps and is bleary with weeping, because, as we witnessed earlier, she has never climaxed with him, even in the tropical heat.
After a row about money, a second huge wad of dough is destroyed and the couple heads back to the coast older and wiser.
It's an overheated yarn, apparently built with an eye on the popcorn crowd, but delivered in a ponderous, Bergmanesque manner that dooms it to the art circuit.
Good performances save the film from a script that contains the line: "It's sick", an anachronism belonging in California in the 19 sicksties.
On the way, it has to survive one of those difficult "retarded son" roles, with him skulking about peering through windows, failing to confront his dominant mother and receiving hand-jobs from his old nurse. This part bodes ill for the film until a peculiarly hideous murder ends act one, releases the son from his bondage, allowing him to become fairly normal.
SPOILERS HERE In act two the lovers are parted by duty and their bond is tested. In act three, they are reunited, but he is stricken with a mysterious coma. Desperate to buy his way to the coast and a doctor, she submits to the perverted will of the nurse and has sexual intercourse with the villain (female superior position), to her horror achieving her first=ever orgasm thereby.
Emerging from her confusing ordeal (is she radiant with gratification or utterly soiled? we aren't too sure) clutching her money, she finds that her lover has overheard her ecstatic yelps and is bleary with weeping, because, as we witnessed earlier, she has never climaxed with him, even in the tropical heat.
After a row about money, a second huge wad of dough is destroyed and the couple heads back to the coast older and wiser.
It's an overheated yarn, apparently built with an eye on the popcorn crowd, but delivered in a ponderous, Bergmanesque manner that dooms it to the art circuit.
Good performances save the film from a script that contains the line: "It's sick", an anachronism belonging in California in the 19 sicksties.