The fall of 2009 saw my sixteen-year-old self battle two bad colds twice in one month, and in all my online time, the bulk of it was spent exploring the non-Star Trek filmography of one Leonard Nimoy. So imagine my reaction when I came upon the opening of Baffled!, in all its cheesy, funky glory.
Distilled in one frame:
The borderline-self-parody within this movie.
A failed T.V. pilot repackaged into a "second-feature" U.K. cinema release and a T.V. movie stateside*, Baffled! is a cultural artifact too "dime a dozen" to be a total weirdfest, but too absurd to be totally forgotten.
Leonard Nimoy as Tom Kovack
Susan Hampshire as Michele Brent
Vera Miles as Andrea Glenn
Jewel Blanch as Jennifer Glenn
as Louise Sanford
Rachel Roberts as Mrs. Farraday
Ray Brooks and Angharad Rees
as George and Peggy Tracewell
as George and Peggy Tracewell
American racecar driver Tom Kovack (Nimoy) crashes his car after seeing a terrifying vision involving movie star Andrea Glenn (Miles), her daughter Jennifer (Blanch), and a stately manor in North Devon, England.
Dig that desk driving!
That's So Nimoy
With the help of ESP expert Michele Brent (Hampshire), the two set off for North Devon, in hopes of heading off the imminent danger seen by Tom, only to get tangled in a villainous plot to gaslight Andrea through her vulnerable daughter.
Insert Psycho II joke here.
Baffled! is a mish-mash, to say the least. A cheesy, absurd, yet oddly staid and "seen them all", it's clear to see why it didn't get picked up for a full series, but is still, well, "fascinating" to watch in seeing how transitional early-70s television really was.
A tip-off to Baffled!'s T.V. origins:
Michele merely sees Tom detailing his vision on T.V.
Baffled!: Spoiling one-twelfth of the solution to
Murder on the Orient Express since 1972.
Perhaps Baffled! would have fared better with a more potent pairing at the center of its plot, but as is, Nimoy and Hampshire are more believable to me as friends than "will-they-or-won't-they".
Refreshingly, Tom and Michele get along fine, without
the vitriol that taints many fictional pairings today,
though it's still at the expense of interesting interplay.
While Tom is written as a slightly smarmy, "prettyboy" type, Nimoy is more than a bit miscast in the role. Much as he tries, you'll wince a bit when he calls Hampshire "a great lookin' chick". I hate to say it, but in a role like this, William Shatner could probably play it in his sleep (not to mention up the cheese factor considerably).
Naturally, Nimoy fits his role best when Tom
has to investigate on his own.
Roberts, on the other hand, is so obviously the villain that she's one of the more enjoyable aspects of Baffled!, even if she gets a bit short shrift (especially in the U.K. cut*).
Roberts brings out her inner Eileen Brennan.
Another point in Baffled!'s favor is Blanch's performance as Jennifer, which mercifully avoids the overwrought hamminess common for child actors in the 60s and 70s. Blanch is just calm and laid-back enough for Jennifer's change in behavior to be that little bit unsettling.
Yep. Totally normal.
An iron-clad sign that Jennifer is acting weird? Tom and Michele notice her
going from dresses and pigtails to blouses and bell bottoms.
(Also, how did she get the latter clothes?)
Baffled!'s script comes off as two forces wanting different things from the same premise, despite having only one credited writer (Theodore Apstein, who also wrote the screenplay for What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice? (1969)). Dialogue seemingly switches between perfectly self-aware and cheesy and melodramatic (not helped by the score), and several plot holes rear their ugly head. As a result, several questions are left unanswered, despite the film's plot itself actually being pretty easy to follow.
While a "gathering of suspects" amusingly takes place about
halfway through the film, no actual solution is revealed here.
Michele makes the mistake of looking inside a black van in a mystery movie.
Baffled! has a fun chase between the black van and Tom's Bentley 3 Litre.
It's the hat that sells it.
Baffled! is the sort of film you imagine late night talk shows spoofing in the mid-to-late-90s as a fictional vehicle for William Shatner or Adam West. Nimoy, however, seems stuck in a thankless role, at least without a needed rewrite to bridge the difference in casting.
(*I've come to realize that my copy of Baffled! is the edited 90-minute U.K. cut, which, aside from reordered opening scenes and a few cut ones, is not substantially different from the 96-minute U.S. cut.)
THE STUFF OF
What keeps Baffled! memorable for this viewer are the laughably bad effects utilized for Tom's visions and the action sequences. I can't speak for the standards of 70s U.K. television, but if these effects were the best they had, I can't even fathom what the worst of them would be.
Dig that "day for night"!
OTHER OBSERVATIONS
Oh hai, Shane Rimmer!
Jennifer's father (Mike Murray) brings out his inner Kevin McCarthy.
That hat though...
Sorry, I can't hear you over my fabulous hat.
One of Baffled!'s best payoffs is at the end of this elevator sequence.
(Seemingly long as it is.)
No, Nimoy's not about to fight a prepubescent girl.
He's just trying to do this movie's equivalent of a "mind meld", that's all.
I think my work is done here.
Baffled! will likely be a disappointment for Nimoy fans, but as a "so bad, it's good" 70s artifact, it's a fun movie to riff with friends, whether or not they're well-versed in 70s supernatural thrillers.
Copyright © Chynna Moore
