IN SEARCH OF GREGORY

UK, 1969, 90 minutes, Colour.
Julie Christie, Michael Sarrazin, John Hurt, Adolfo Celi, Roland Culver.
Directed by Peter Wood.

In Search of Gregory is a curiosity item. It is very much of the 60s, a swinging kind of romantic comedy. Julie Christie plays a neurotic young woman who is invited to her father’s fifth wedding in Geneva. He talks to her about a young man called Gregory. When Julie Christie sees a poster with Michael Sarrazin’s picture on it, she fantasises about him as Gregory. When she finally encounters him, she realises he is not Gregory. John Hurt plays her almost equally (or more) neurotic brother who is in contact with the real Gregory.

The film was directed by stage director Peter Wood. Julie Christie had won an Oscar for Darling in 1965, had shone in Doctor Zhivago and Far From the Madding Crowd and had built up a strong reputation. The year before she had appeared in a similarly oddball film with George C. Scott, Petulia. Michael Sarrazin was at the beginning of his career. Although John Hurt had been in many films during the 1960s, including A Man for All Seasons, he was yet to emerge as the strong screen presence and star that he became.

Definitely a curiosity item from the 60s.

1. How could this film be categorised - as romantic melodrama, comedy? The title and its suggestion of a puzzle? Interest value? Indication of themes: as each of the principal characters sought out Gregory, especially Katherine?

2. The contribution of the Italian and Swiss locations, colour, music, the European atmosphere? Gregory as a product of this kind of environment? The Morelli family as a product of this environment? (The tone of the film as a British/Italian co-production?)

3. The importance of the style for this film: an atmosphere of authentic reality, an atmosphere of fantasy, flashbacks, imagination on the part of Katherine and the way that this was visualized? Trick photography, stunts? A mod approach as corresponding to the personality of Katherine and this contemporary puzzle?

4. How interested was the audience in searching out and finding Gregory? Could they identify with Katherine in her search? What was Katherine really searching for? How well did the film make her the centre of attention? Julie Christie and her style and performance? Her personality? The filling in of Katherine's way of life, her style in Rome? The background of her family and its strangeness? Curiosity as regards her father's marriages? Katherine and the comparison with Daniel? The masculine/feminine sides of puzzled people in search of something? Katherine and her decisiveness, indecision? Her fascination with Gregory? Her search an a quest? What did she really want? What was significant in her life?

5. The audience sharing her trip by plane, her arrival, her fascination with Gregory and the strange identification of him with the football player? Gregory and his appearance on the poster? The basis for her fantasies? The origins of her information about Gregory, especially from Daniel? And yet her making the others' information the grounds for her fantasies? What can be derived about Katherine's attitudes from the styles of hallucinations and fantasies: Gregory and his trick driving, his stunts on the car? The question of Gregory's wanting her photo? His prowling around the house naked? The information given by Daniel? by her father, by Nicole? Her imagining Gregory and his infatuation and liaison with Nicole?

6. The character of Morelli? His background, marriages, relationship with his children? His attitude towards his wedding? His being imagined in Katherine's fantasies - especially an regards the infidelity of his fiancee? What did this indicate about Katherine's attitude towards her father?

7. How much did the film want us to examine Daniel? The little boy, a retarded developer, his isolation? His stories about Gregory and the seeming infatuation? His moodiness and contrariness? Katherine's potting him? Daniel's story about Gregory and the car? About wanting Katherine's photo? The range of Daniel's emotions, especially jealousy? The confrontation at the end? Daniel's future?

8. What picture of Gregory did the film give in his imagined presentation? How did he correspond with the real character?

9. The sequence of the wedding, home life? The picture and critique of society?

10. The coincidence of the football player being at the airport? The different accent from that of Gregory? Michael Sarrazin varying performances? The casual nature of the liaison with Katherine What it meant to each of them? Did Katherine find Gregory in this liaison?

11. The final irony with Gregory and Katherine both on the phone at the end and so close to each other and yet so far? What had been achieved?

12. What were the values about human nature, appearances and reality, searches and quests?