INADMISSIBLE EVIDENCE
UK, 1968, 95 minutes, Black and white.
Nicol Williamson, Eleanor Fazan, Jill Bennett, Peter Sallis, Eileen Atkins, Ingrid Boulting, Isabel Dean, John Normington, Lindsay Anderson.
Directed by Anthony Page.
Inadmissible Evidence is based on the play by John Osborne (Nicol Williamson played it on stage – and transferred his power performance to the screen.) It is a frantic and intense performance, focusing on a man who is undergoing a mental and moral breakdown, reassessing his life, his relationships, his past. A number of women are in his life including a young Jill Bennett and Eileen Atkins.
John Osborne’s other plays which were filmed include Luther, The Entertainer and Look Back in Anger.
Direction of this film is by Anthony Page, a prolific director of television films and stage director. He made two films for the cinema in the late 1970s, Absolution and The Lady Vanishes, but otherwise his career was with television films, some of them outstanding including Johnny Belinda, The Patricia Neal Story, Bill, A Pack of Lies.
1. The impact of this piece as cinema, as theatre? Theatre successfully transferred to the screen?
2. Why was it evident that the film was based on a play? The quality of the dialogue, its intensity? Too verbal? The scenes confined to the various rooms? The attempts at opening out the plot? The style of photography with the emphasis on faces and profiles? Suitable for this film and its themes?
3. The impact of the opening dream and its setting the tone for the rest of the film, the importance of the silence, the visuals of the dream and Bill Maitland's involvement? A presentation of the psyche of Bill Maitland? How did he need to confront his dream? Comment on the presentation of the other places in Bill Maitland's life, his office, home, the strip-joint, the dinner party? What contribution did the musical score make? The importance of the black and white photography for the landscapes of Bill Maitland's life? How authentic did this make the film?
4. Comment on Maitland's worlds a world of his own creating, the places in which he lived, the work that he did, his attitudes, his moulding the characters around him? The narrowness of his world, fear, introspection, selfishness, defiance? Which sequences best illustrated these aspects?
5. The significance of the title? Who was to do the judging of Bill Maitland? The audience's role as judge or jury? The importance of the title and the evidence about his life and his guilt? Why inadmissible? How much did the inadmissible evidence tell the truth about him? The visualising of the court, a world of dream in which judgment was done in his psyche? Did he see himself as guilty or not? His own condemnation of self-hatred? What was the charge against him? The importance of presenting the characters in his life as witnesses against him? Did they condemn him? Why?
6. How effective was the structure of the film? the audience to know the charge, the fact that the audience could see in detail and in its human reality the inadmissible evidence? The interrelationship between law, morality? On what should judgment be based?
7. Bill Maitland as a person? His strengths and his weaknesses of character, his home life, his relationship with his wife, his deception of her, his worries? His condemnation of his daughter and son? The attitude of the middle-aged man looking down on the young? The quality of his relationship with Shirley and her pregnancy? Responsibility and lack of responsibility? His infatuation with Joy and impulsive sex? His relationship with Hudson in terms of working together, loyalty? Mrs Eaves and his plans and their having to be broken? Why was his life too complicated? How well did he handle the complications? How much did they bear in on him?
8. The audience's examining from a legal and moral point of view, his day, Maitland as nasty, the sarcastic nature of his comments, his erratic behaviour, his phone calls, his cynical approach to his work and to his colleagues, his harshness? The insertion of his memories into this framework? Did this elicit any sympathy and favourable judgment from the audience?
9. The presentation of his being trapped and depressed? The walk through Soho, his experience of the strip?club, the encounter with his clients and his listening and not listening? His clients presenting a chance for sympathy and some kind of outgoing concern? The woman who saw him and spoke at great length about her situation and her husband? The Affect on him? The effect on the audience? Being trapped with Joy and the sexuality, his wife waiting? The party and his comments?
10. How sympathetically was Anna presented? As a credible character, the nature of her suffering, her waiting for him and knowing what was happening in the office, listening to his pretences and his excuses, did she condemn him? Relationship with their children?
11. The character of Hudson, his work, the importance of the other offers? His covering for Maitland? His critique of him? Did he condemn him? Liz and her role in Maitland's life, she was so often left or waiting? A credible character in herself? The phone calls? Infidelity? Attitude towards Anna? Her condemnation of him?
12. The generation gap and the presentation of Jane, her attitudes, ordinary behaviour of young people, as contrasting with her father's behaviour and his condemnation of this? Did this imply a condemnation of himself?
13. His callous attitudes towards Shirley? Her pregnancy, her scathing attack on him?
14. How was this play a modern parable of modern man groping in his life for love and understanding? The mediocrity and indecision and inability to act of the modern man? A character of pathos? How much sympathy, how much blame? The portrait of so many modern individuals in modern society?
