Darling (1965)

User Rating:

7.2/10   

Director:

John Schlesinger

Writers:

Frederic Raphael (screenplay)
Frederic Raphael (idea) ...

Release Date:

3 August 1965 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Romance

Tagline:

A powerful and bold motion picture...made by adults...with adults...for adults!

Plot:

A beautiful but amoral model sleeps her way to the top of the London fashion scene at the height of the Swinging Sixties.

Plot Keywords:

Model | Fashion | Journalist | Love | Italy

Awards:

Won 3 Oscars. Another 13 wins & 8 nominations

Cast

Laurence Harvey	...	Miles Brand
Dirk Bogarde	...	Robert Gold
Julie Christie	...	Diana Scott
José Luis de Villalonga	...	Prince Cesare della Romita (as Jose Luis De Villalonga)
Roland Curram	...	Malcolm
Basil Henson	...	Alec Prosser-Jones
Helen Lindsay	...	Felicity Prosser-Jones
Carlo Palmucci	...	Curzio della Romita
Dante Posani	...	Gino
Umberto Raho	...	Palucci
Marika Rivera	...	Woman
Alex Scott	...	Sean Martin
Ernest Walder	...	Kurt
Brian Wilde	...	Willett
Pauline Yates	...	Estelle Gold

Runtime:

128 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Hong Kong:IIA | Australia:M | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 | UK:X (original rating) | UK:15 (video rating)

Filming Locations:

40-41 Wimpole Street, Marylebone, London, England, UK

Company:

Joseph Janni Production

Trivia:

Sam Costa and Fanny Cradock's roles were deleted from the final print.

Goofs:

Continuity: In a compartment on a train after their visit with the writer Southgate, Diana and Robert kiss. Both of Robert's hands touch her face in a close shot. When the angle changes to a shot from the corridor looking into the compartment, they are still embracing but Robert has a cigarette in his right hand which is resting on his knee.

Quotes:

Miles Brand: Why, Carlotta. How savage we are tonight. Did someone go back to their wife?
Carlotta: If he had, you'd have been there to greet him.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Factory Girl (2006)

Fascinating mix of glitz and grit

What a delight. Possibly the best of the British New Wave and one of the finest British films of all time. The story follows Julie Christie's rise up the social ladder by a succession of affairs and social posturing – she's infuriating, but you can't resent her behaviour, she is so natural and full of joie de vivre – impossible to keep in a cage. She first appears walking along the street swinging her handbag – the same entrance as she made in "Billy Liar" and surely an indication that we are dealing with essentially the same character. Bogarde, a television journalist, is the first man she takes up with, and is as serious as she is reckless, yet somehow they are well-suited and their relationship, with some painfully familiar ups and downs, is touching.

The emotional core of the film is Bogarde and Christie's visit to an old writer. This, her first step up the social ladder, gives her the thrill of being somewhere, doing something. It is also a gently melancholy and thoughtful scene. Humour and emotion come in equal measure throughout, and every exchange crackles with meaning:

Christie: "You used me!" Bogarde: "You used me. It's a moot point."

Christie really earned her Oscar for this. Her performance is full of humour and irony, but she's mainly being herself and she has a genuine sensitivity and humanity that lifts you and carries you along. Only some slightly flippant scenes with her photographer friend (especially the shoplifting scene which was too much like "Breakfast at Tiffanys") were a little out of alignment. But Schlesinger does special things throughout. Every scene is like a little self-contained story, so sharply done you can almost hear a snap at the beginning and end as it falls into place.

This is a big film, almost as big as "La Dolce Vita" which it sometimes echoes - better, perhaps, on account of the razor sharp script by Frederic Raphael which is so accomplished, smooth, intelligent, witty and ironic that it has an almost poetic quality while still being thoroughly down-to-earth. The ending is unexpectedly downbeat, and doesn't feel like the real end, just a line they had to draw somewhere - which is perhaps what the film really was all about: the lines that we have to draw at certain points in our lives that rule some things in, other things out, that enable us to go on, for better or worse. Really splendid stuff.