Dir: Val Guest | Cast: Diane Cilento, Claude Dauphin, Ronald Lewis | US comedy drama 100’
Reviewed by Richard Chatten
Although its running time, foreign locations, widescreen photography by top British cameraman Gilbert Taylor and international cast mark this Cote D’Azur set comedy caper out as one of the more ambitious productions on Hammer’s production slate for 1960, ‘The Full Treatment’ (to give it it’s original British title) remains one of Hammer’s most obscure productions; and you’ll know why once you’ve seen it.
Directed for all its worth by the usually reliable Val Guest, you keep wondering where all this earnest talk about Ronald Lewis’s psychological (and sexual!) problems is actually leading (his hair-trigger temper comes across more as boorishness than emotional turmoil), and waiting for evidence of some sort of diabolical plot to emerge to justify listening to all this talk.
The stunning Diane Cilento is amazing as usual, and fleetingly appears topless, but – oh dear! – that accent! Claude Dauphin has the most entertainingly written part, but the script’s relentless determination to withhold the final ‘twist’ until absolutely the last possible moment simply tries the patience as various clues to upcoming plot developments – like the emphasis on the cable car – are sledge-hammered into the plot.
The final ‘revelation’ about the motivation of one of the main characters had been so obviously telegraphed that it came as an acute disappointment when it proved not to be the simple red herring I had hoped for, but the film’s punchline.
NOW ON YOUTUBE