The Walking Stick

I think I've mentioned that I've got a disproportionate number of British movies (or, at least, some made in part by the British arm of a US studio) to blog about. One that showed up late last year and was new to me was The Walking Stick. I recently got around to watching it which means that of course you get the obligatory post on it now.

Samanta Eggar is one of the two stars here, and the person who uses the titular walking stick. She plays Deborah Dainton, who at the start of the movie is leaving work in London one evening on her way back home in one of the leafier neighborhoods of London where she lives with her parents and two adult sisters, this being the era when it wasn't uncommon for adult children to keep living with parents until they got married. Deborah uses that walking stick because she had polio when she was young, being a "pre-Salk" kid as she refers to it. She was placed in an iron lung when she was sick as a child, and as a result doesn't like tight spaces or crowds.

When she gets home, she learns that one of her sisters is hosting the sort of grown-up party that adults have, reminiscent of the one in Loving since I just did a post on that a few weeks back. There, she's introduced to Leigh Hartley (David Hemmings). He's a starving artist who lives in a docklands part of London in the era before the gentrification and massive changes of the past 50 years or so. Deborah doesn't care to go out with Leigh, but he's very forward, and keeps calling her up, including at the auction house where she works as an appraiser. So eventually, she gives in and decides to go to the movies with him.

It feels as though this is the first time anybody has really taken notice of Deborah for something other than the disability, and she seems to be somewhat OK with the idea of being with this man bringing new and exciting things into her life. This, even though there are warning signs. When the two go to an estate sale at a manor house, Deborah points out how only one of the porcelain statuettes is authentic, with the rest being late 19th century reproductions. Leigh jokes about stealing the authentic piece, and even hides it under his jacket! And the people who come to visit him at his residence seem mildly dodgy, too.

The big warning sign, however, comes when Leigh is up front about asking Deborah for detailed information on the security systems at the auction house. He claims some people he knows are thinking of stealing the stuff that's stored there, and what difference would it make to the business since they're insured? The information would also be worth the £500 the two need to open up the antiques shop Deborah would really like to run. And yet, instead of immediately going to her bosses and telling them about the security breach, Deborah simply tries to get Leigh to ignore everything.

Of course, Leigh doesn't, and this only draws him and Deborah further into the heist scheme. Well, it draws Deborah further in; she starts wondering whether Leigh wasn't already in on it and the whole point of getting to know her was to get the information needed on the business' security arrangements. The heist happens although one of the alarms goes off. Deborah has to figure out what to do.

The Walking Stick is an interesting movie in several ways. One is as a time capsule of London as it was in 1969/1970. London has undergone a great deal of urban renewal since the production of movies like this (or 10 Rillington Place and Frenzy from a couple years later), and both the culture and physical locations no longer exist. As a film itself it also stands up well due to the good performances of both Eggar and Hemmings. The only issue I'd have is with the technique used to highlight Deborah's claustrophobia, which is to show a scene of young Deborah being locked into the iron lung, set against a black background. It feels way too artificial to me. But that's just a minor quibble. Finally, and it's just a bit of trivia, but this is the movie that introduced the cavatina that is much more famously used in The Deer Hunter.

If you get the chance, definitely watch The Walking Stick.