SAY HELLO TO YESTERDAY

UK, 1970, 92 minutes, Colour.
Jean Simmons, Leonard Whiting, Evelyn Laye.
Directed by Alvin Rakoff.

Say Hello To Yesterday is a trendy title for what was advertised in 1970 as a contemporary brief encounter. The film is certainly an anonymous romance - and is set initially at a railway station and in a train. However, the comparison does not hold up. The film is interesting in its presentation of a day romance between an older woman and a younger man. Though they become intimate, they remain and part strangers. Leonard Whiting, Zeffirelli Romeo, is adequate in the central role. Jean Simmons is effective as the older woman and there is an amusing performance by Evelyn Laye as her mother. However, the film is very much anchored in the styles of the late '60s and loses its impact, especially in comparison with so many of this kind of romantic film.

1. The appeal of popular romance, soap opera? The traditions of soap opera?

2. The background of London, the style of the late '60s, the contrast between Cobham and the city of London? Colour photography, pace? The music, the title song and its lyrics?

3. The significance of the title, the focus on middle age, memories and regrets?

4. The success of the introduction to each character? Cobham and its class differences? The young man and his family? Relationship with father, mother, working class? His birthday? His work? The contrast with the woman and her middle class way of life? The quarrel with her husband? The mood in which she left home to go on a shopping expedition? The bringing together of these two characters?

5. The device of the train ride - the woman and her isolation, smoking, people's criticism? The young man and his exuberance? His advances? His stopping the train with its repercussions? The woman and her wanting to be by herself? The young man and the semi-comic device of his pursuing her? The sale and the women rushing to buy things? The young man and his taking her purse, the chase? How did these devices help the audience to accept the two coming together? The minding of the children in the park? The taxi ride and the bus chase?

6. How well did the film delineate the characters through these devices? The kind of young man, atmosphere of freedom, non-permanent relationships, the exhilaration of his birthday, the fascination of the woman, the reasons for his pursuit? The woman and her loneliness, primness, reaction against her husband, flattery with the pursuit, puzzle? Audiences identifying with the characters, their actions, attitudes?

7. The visit to the woman's mother and her tolerant attitude towards the relationship, advice about the affair? The shock of the daughter? The leaving after the visit and the deeper talk between the two, the dancing?

8. The potential for clash and the suspicions, fears especially on the part of the woman? The young many and his self-confident way of booking the hotel room?

9. The build-up to the sequence in the hotel, the sexual relationship, the possibilities of love, the discussion about cliche and language? The intimacy, the moving apart, the suspicions, the facing of reality? The hurt for the woman as she thought about going home? The more detached attitude of the young man?

10. The departure, the brief reconciliation? The young man going to the station - the symbol of the balloons? The woman going home to her ordinary life with the repercussions of the experience?

11. The film very much influenced by its trappings and atmosphere of the late '60s? The use of the song and the music? An exploration of an affair? Love, intimacy, values? The effect on the older woman? The casual affair of one day for the young man who already forgets it?