BFI's excellent Flipside series has released the critically acclaimed Deep End (1970), directed by Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski and starring Jane Asher, John Moulder-Brown and an unforgettable cameo from Diana Dors. The film resurfaced with a cinema release in May 2010 and is now available having been digitally remastered to HD on DVD and Blu-ray (in a Dual Format Edition).
In at the Deep End
The drama is set around a run down, sleazy swimming baths in London. It involves a naïve teenage boy, Mike (John Maulder-Brown), who takes his first job after leaving school as a bathroom attendant. He becomes besotted with his attractive co-worker, the older and worldly wise Susan (Jane Asher). Mike's infatuation with Susan turns to jealousy as he tries to sabotage her relationship with her fiancée (Chris Sandford). Finally, Mike becomes totally obsessed with Susan, who continues to toy with him until tragedy strikes.
Deep End treads delicately around coming of age themes. It does so with an awkward air of spontaneity that reveals the complex workings of the male adolescent mind. Indeed, the improvised nature of the film and in particular the sexual tension between Susan, who dominates Mike, means the audience cannot predict what stunt Asher is going to pull on her gullible co-worker, such as in the cinema scene where she slaps him and within a few moments kisses him. Mike feels like he has been thrown in at the deep end as his sexual yearnings are mixed with real feelings for Susan, who always seems two steps ahead of him as she teases him to distraction.
How Deep End Was Made
In 1969 Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski, best known for co-writing Knife in the Water (1962) with Roman Polanski, was editing a film in London when he heard a true story about a diamond lost in snow that was only retrieved when the snow was scooped up and melted. This formed the implausible starting point for his film, coupled with a news item about a mysterious death in an East End swimming pool.
Skolimowski who had been excited with the energy of Swinging Sixties London was determined to have his film set in London, although he spoke little English. Fellow Pole Jerzy Gruza co-wrote the script and Bolek Sulik translated the work. He secured funding from American Bernard Judd who set up production in studios in Munich.
Skolimowski cast Jane Asher who, as well as being an accomplished actress, had been Paul McCartney's girlfriend during the 1960s until they split up in 1968. Meanwhile, John Maulder-Brown, who had a string of juvenile acting credits behind him, had just finished a similar coming of age role in the film First Love (1969). As luck would have it Maulder-Brown as Mike (shy, polite and irritating) and Asher as Susan (confident, unpredictable and cruel) had great chemistry – Mike's restless need to gain her attention contrasting well with Susan's playful ambivalence towards him.
Although the Skolimowski's script is watertight he encouraged the actors to improvise. The scene where Susan takes the poster of the pregnant man (an early Saatchi poster about birth control) and places on Mike's head is a case in point. The unpredictability of the scenes and the unforeseen accidents (when Mike falls off his bike) lend to an edgy spontaneity in the film.
London Baths via Munich
The interior pool shots were filmed mainly at Cathall Baths Leytonstone and the Soho scenes took place at Walkers Court (between Berwick Street Market and Brewer Street). However, the splendid Müllersches Voksbad, in Munich was used for the bath house corridor shots, while the London park was in fact a public park in Munich (complete with real snow).
Many of the minor cast members (such as the policemen) were German actors whose parts were overdubbed into English. All these elements add to the overall quirky, slightly off kilter feel of the film.
Another key element in making Deep End look fresh is the handheld camera work Charley Steinberger. In the scene when Susan and Mike look for the diamond in the snow Steinberger circles the characters with a restlessness perfect for the scene, one minute turning to Susan the next encircling Mike.
When the Swinging Sixties Stopped Swinging
The verve, the colour and youthful exuberance of places like Soho, Carnaby Street and the King's Road had made a big impression on Skolimowski on his visits to London in the 1960s. While Skolimowski taps into the bright lights, the bright young things and the liberating sense of sexual permissiveness that the Swinging Sixties espoused, he chooses to view the aftermath of that epoch from a slightly different cultural perspective.
He introduces dark elements of the film, particularly with the predatory customers of the baths, who aim to contaminate and corrupt the naïve and innocent. The dodgy schoolmaster, who inappropriately slaps schoolgirls during swimming classes, typifies this seedier aspect– we later learn that he deflowered Susan. Equally disturbing is the scene that steals the film, where Diana Dors (one time British pin-up poster star from the 1950s) plays an ageing, frustrated woman who sexually assaults the bewildered and frightened Mike, while evoking footballer George Best's six goals against Northampton Town as a perverted sexual metaphor - "It's always tackle, tackle, dribble, shoot".
There is an edginess and playfulness in Skolimowski's direction, which also sprinkles surreal qualities to an already taut film, such as when the topless poster of Susan dives into the dimly lit swimming pool. He also adds symbolic visual elements to the film. The foreboding red blood at the beginning of the film becomes a recurring subtle motif – red paint, the school master's car, the red on Mike's bike, red in the prostitute's room and even Susan's red hair – indicating that something unpleasant might happen later on. There is also a bright yellow motif symbolising freedom – Susan's coat, the yellow on Mike's bike and the yellow painted walls outside the Soho clubs.
With an opening soundtrack song from Cat Stevens and a long uninterrupted sequence from German experimental band Can, Skolimowski's instincts work aurally as well as visually with two pieces of music that represent the changing times as prog rock made its entry into 1970s rock culture.
The film received critical acclaim premiering at the Venice film festival in September 1970 (the year that it was decided that no prizes should be awarded for films). However, some critics were uncertain about the wisdom of such a downbeat ending – ironically, the starting point of Skolimowski's film. Its performance in the UK was stymied due to a limited theatrical release, and even though Jane Asher was nominated for a BAFTA for her performance, the film became a rarely seen hidden gem.
Special Features
Once again one can only praise BFI Flipside for the thoroughness of their presentation. The accompanying booklet full of stills and poster images and complete filmography also serves up essays by David Thompson, Yvonne Tasker and William Fowler and includes a biography of Jerzy Skolimowski by Ewa Mazierska.
The accompanying film Starting Out: The Making of Jerzy Skolimowski's Deep End (2010, directed by Robert Fischer) gives the viewer the most complete insight into the film one could wish for – from Jerzy Skolimowski's modest recollections of the film from concept to filming, to a welcome reunion of its stars Jane Asher and John Moulder-Brown, who recall the inventive process that went into the film. Added to this come technical insights by art director Anthony Pratt, cinematographer Charly Steinberger, editor Barry Vince (and even a spot of fishing from actor Christopher Sandford!)
The DVD also features the original trailer of the film complete with its overt attempts at titillation particularly with quotes such as "the most extraordinary love scene I have ever witnessed".
Normally DVD's/Blu-rays provide deleted scenes. In this presentation deleted scenes are recalled by some of his crew who refer to pages from the original script. In the 1970s deleted scenes stayed on the cutting room floor before they were swept away.
There is also a bonus short film Carless Love (Francine Winham, 1977, 10 mins) which stars Jane Asher in a dark tale where her drastic attempts to secure the affections of the man she loves are shocking.
References
Review of the theatrical re-release from the Guardian
www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/may/01/deep-end
Further Reading
Jerzy Skolimowski: The Cinema of a Nonconformist by Ewa Mazierska (Berghahn Books, 2010)
Eddie Dyja - I have been working as a freelance editor/writer since 2006. My specialist subject is British film and television having worked at the ...
