The Walking Stick ** (1970, David Hemmings, Samantha Eggar, Phyllis Calvert, Ferdy Mayne, Francesca Annis, Bridget Turner, Emlyn Williams, Dudley Sutton) – Classic Movie Review 7585

Director Eric Till’s 1970 British movie The Walking Stick is an only middling suspense thriller. But there is very decent playing by David Hemmings as a handsome, smooth London crook called Leigh Hartley and Samantha Eggar as Deborah Dainton, the shy polio victim who falls in loves with him after meeting him at a party. Their intriguing relationship is the centre point of an interesting character-driven thriller.

Deborah gradually finds Leigh has lied to her about his past and that he and his associates are planning to rob the auction house where she works and need her insider knowledge.

The film’s two main problems are that (1) there is nothing very surprising about the story based on Winston Graham’s novel, so interest starts eroding away around half time, and that (2) the direction surprisingly muffles the climactic robbery.

Phyllis Calvert, Ferdy Mayne, Francesca Annis and Bridget Turner provide reliably solid support as other members of the Dainton family. It also stars the ever valuable Emlyn Williams and Dudley Sutton.

The Walking Stick is directed by Eric Till, runs 101 minutes, is made by Gershwin-Kastner Productions and Winkast Film Productions, is released by MGM, George Bluestone provides the screenplay, it is shot in Metrocolor by Arthur Ibbetson, produced by Elliott Kastner and Alan Ladd Jr, scored by Stanley Myers and designed by John Howell.

Also in the cast are John Woodvine, David Savile, Derek Cox, Harvey Sambrook, Gwen Cherrell, Walter Horsbrugh, Basil Henson, Anthony Nicholls, Nan Munro, Donald Sumpter, David Griffin and Susan Payne.

It introduces Stanley Myers’s Cavatina theme, re-used in The Deer Hunter.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7585

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