Pamela Franklin is at her precocious best in this tale of "psychoanalytical" intrigue with boundary-crossing sexual overtones. Precocity often took her into territory it's now fashionable to call "inappropriate," such as the schoolgirl love interest she played with a randy old artist in "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie." Though understated and implicit in "The Third Secret," her emotionally-troubled character's relationship with Stephen Boyd's character is in this same vein. All of 18 when I saw this in theatrical release, I was captivated. The movie is still a guilty pleasure, though you have to suspend a lot of disbelief to get back in that naive early-60s groove when sexuality was still portrayed indirectly through characters who were not exactly the Free Spirits that populated such films later in the decade.
Look for a spooky cinematic trick toward the end of the film, when Stephen Boyd's character is just starting to unravel the big Secret. Pamela makes a statement about how many patients her father had-- Stephen thinks he misheard her, and asks her to repeat what she said. Watch carefully for the "subliminal" trick, which could easily go unnoticed-- it made the hair on my arms stand up.
Hokey in parts, and based on some then-commonplace misconceptions about psychiatric disorders, the movie still works if you can accept it on its own terms. At the very least its understatement is a refreshing change from the noise-saturated frantic bombast of today's not-so-spooky films, with their mindless reliance on sensory overload and oh-so-special effects.
Look for a spooky cinematic trick toward the end of the film, when Stephen Boyd's character is just starting to unravel the big Secret. Pamela makes a statement about how many patients her father had-- Stephen thinks he misheard her, and asks her to repeat what she said. Watch carefully for the "subliminal" trick, which could easily go unnoticed-- it made the hair on my arms stand up.
Hokey in parts, and based on some then-commonplace misconceptions about psychiatric disorders, the movie still works if you can accept it on its own terms. At the very least its understatement is a refreshing change from the noise-saturated frantic bombast of today's not-so-spooky films, with their mindless reliance on sensory overload and oh-so-special effects.