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''The Offence'' is a 1973 British
neo-noir Neo-noir is a film genre that adapts the visual style and themes of 1940s and 1950s American film noir for contemporary audiences, often with more graphic depictions of violence and sexuality. During the late 1970s and the early 1980s, the term ...
crime drama Crime film is a film belonging to the crime fiction genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and fiction. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combine with many other genres, such as Drama (film and television), dr ...
film directed by
Sidney Lumet Sidney Arthur Lumet ( ; June 25, 1924 – April 9, 2011) was an American film director. Lumet started his career in theatre before moving to film, where he gained a reputation for making realistic and gritty New York City, New York dramas w ...
starring
Sean Connery Sir Thomas Sean Connery (25 August 1930 – 31 October 2020) was a Scottish actor. He was the first actor to Portrayal of James Bond in film, portray the fictional British secret agent James Bond (literary character), James Bond in motion pic ...
,
Trevor Howard Trevor Wallace Howard-Smith (29 September 1913 – 7 January 1988) was an English stage and screen actor. After varied work in the theatre, he achieved leading man star status in the film '' Brief Encounter'' (1945), followed by '' The Third M ...
,
Vivien Merchant Ada Brand Thomson (22 July 1929 – 3 October 1982), known professionally as Vivien Merchant, was an English actress. She began her career in 1942, and became known for dramatic roles on stage and in films. In 1956 she married the playwright Ha ...
, and
Ian Bannen Ian Edmund Bannen (29 June 1928 – 3 November 1999) was a Scottish actor with a long film, stage and TV career. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, Academy Award for his performance in ''The Flight of the Phoenix ( ...
. Connery plays a veteran police detective who suffers a psychological breakdown and kills a suspect during an interrogation. The screenplay was written by John Hopkins, who adapted his 1968 stage play ''This Story of Yours''. Released by
United Artists United Artists (UA) is an American film production and film distribution, distribution company owned by Amazon MGM Studios. In its original operating period, it was founded in February 1919 by Charlie Chaplin, D. W. Griffith, Mary Pickford an ...
on January 11, 1973, the film received positive reviews from critics, who praised Connery and Bannen’s performances. Bannen was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor, for his role. ''The Offence'' was the third of five collaborations between Lumet and Connery, and one of five films Lumet produced in the United Kingdom during the 1960s and ‘70s.


Plot

Detective Sergeant Johnson has been a police officer for 20 years and is deeply affected by the murders, rapes, and other violent crimes he has investigated. He is plagued by images of violence, and he appears to be losing his mind under the strain. His anger surfaces while interrogating Kenneth Baxter, who is suspected of raping a young girl. By the end of the interrogation, Johnson has severely beaten Baxter, who is then taken to the hospital where he later dies. Johnson is suspended for the beating and returns home for the night, getting into a violent argument with his wife Maureen. Two of Johnson's colleagues come to inform him of Baxter's death and they take him to the police station for questioning. The following day, Johnson is interviewed by Detective Superintendent Cartwright. During their long confrontation, flashbacks show the events of the previous night, when Johnson beat Baxter. The flashbacks portray Baxter – whose guilt or innocence is left ambiguous – taunting Johnson, insinuating that Johnson secretly wants to commit the sort of sex crimes that he investigates. Johnson at first flies into a rage and strikes Baxter, but he eventually admits that he does indeed harbour obsessive fantasies of murder and rape. He then tearfully begs Baxter to help him. When Baxter recoils from him in disgust, Johnson brutally beats him while Baxter continues to taunt and laugh at him. The film ends with another flashback, this time of Johnson attacking the police officers who pulled him off Baxter, and muttering "God...my God..." as he realises what he has done.


Cast


Production

When Connery agreed to return as
James Bond The ''James Bond'' franchise focuses on James Bond (literary character), the titular character, a fictional Secret Intelligence Service, British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels ...
in '' Diamonds Are Forever'', David V. Picker, CEO of
United Artists United Artists (UA) is an American film production and film distribution, distribution company owned by Amazon MGM Studios. In its original operating period, it was founded in February 1919 by Charlie Chaplin, D. W. Griffith, Mary Pickford an ...
, pledged to back two of Connery's own film projects, provided they cost $2 million or less, in association with Connery's own production company, Tantallon Films. ''The Offence'', made under the working title ''Something Like the Truth'' (a line that appears in John Hopkins' original play), was the first. Connery was keen to shake off the image of James Bond and expand his range as an actor. Connery had previously worked with Hopkins when the writer had co-scripted '' Thunderball'' and had seen the play during its original run in London in 1968. Seeing potential in the story, Connery bought the option on the film rights and asked Hopkins to adapt the script for the big screen. Having made two films with Sidney Lumet, '' The Hill'' (1965) and '' The Anderson Tapes'' (1971), Connery offered him the job of directing. Lumet accepted. Ian Bannen, who had also appeared in ''The Hill,'' was hired as co-star. The film was shot on a small budget of £385,000 in March and April 1972 in and around
Bracknell Bracknell () is a town and civil parish in Berkshire, England, the westernmost area within the Greater London Built-up Area, Greater London Urban Area and the administrative centre of the borough of Bracknell Forest. It lies to the east of Re ...
,
Berkshire Berkshire ( ; abbreviated ), officially the Royal County of Berkshire, is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Oxfordshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the north-east, Greater London ...
, notably the Wildridings Mill Pond area and
Easthampstead Easthampstead is a former village and now a southern suburb of the town of Bracknell, in the civil parish of Bracknell, in the Bracknell Forest district, in the ceremonial county of Berkshire, England. The old village can still be easily ident ...
's Point Royal. Interior sets were filmed at
Twickenham Studios Twickenham ( ) is a suburban district of London, England, on the River Thames southwest of Charing Cross. Historic counties of England, Historically in Middlesex, since 1965 it has formed part of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, who ...
. A collection of location stills and corresponding contemporary photographs is hosted at reelstreets.com. The fight sequences between Connery and Bannen were choreographed, uncredited, by Bob Simmons, who had designed similar action scenes for the Bond films. The film was Sir
Harrison Birtwistle Sir Harrison Birtwistle (15 July 1934 – 18 April 2022) was an English composer of contemporary classical music best known for his operas, often based on mythological subjects. Among his many compositions, his better known works include '' T ...
's only film score. United Artists released ''The Offence'' early in 1973. It was a critical success but a commercial failure and did not yield a profit for nine years, even going unreleased in several markets, including
France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
, where it did not premiere until 2007. Due to the commercial failure of the film, United Artists opted out of the two-film financing deal they made with Connery and his production company.


Reception

''
The Monthly Film Bulletin The ''Monthly Film Bulletin'' was a periodical of the British Film Institute published monthly from February 1934 until April 1991, when it merged with '' Sight & Sound''. It reviewed all films on release in the United Kingdom, including those wi ...
'' wrote: "The emphasis is on character – and particularly, of course, that of Johnson, vividly drawn as a man of limited sensibilities, trained to stifle emotion, brutalised by years of police work, and mentally battered into a sado-masochist frenzy... But there is little resolution beyond Johnson's climactic and inarticulate explosion of violence.  ...The dialogue is too dense and sustained at too high a pitch for cinematic comfort and – no matter how much the camera may sniff restlessly around looking for fresh angles – the static, confined settings add to the general oppressiveness. The acting, too, appears out of sorts, although the parts are meaty enough: Sean Connery's hard, reticent style suits Johnson the acerbic copper, but never suggests the brand of high-tension playing called for in the principal scenes; while both Vivien Merchant and Trevor Howard seem curiously subdued in their set-pieces. The exception ... is Ian Bannen who, as Baxter, brings off a minor tour de force with his depiction of bewildered, tormented hysteria. The saddest disappointment, though, is Sidney Lumet's portentous and leaden direction. Had he been able to inject the pace, crispness and audacity of his last film ('' The Anderson Tapes'') into his latest, some of the underlying substance of John Hopkins' script might perhaps have emerged." ''
TV Guide TV Guide is an American digital media In mass communication, digital media is any media (communication), communication media that operates in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. Digital content can be created, vi ...
'' wrote: "A powerful and complex performance by Connery is somewhat weakened by Lumet's typically stiff and stagey direction, which tends to sap the life out of the film."


Accolades

Ian Bannen was nominated for a 1974
BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role Best Actor in a Supporting Role is a British Academy Film Awards, British Academy Film Award presented annually by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) to recognise an actor who has delivered an outstanding supporting performan ...
, but lost to Arthur Lowe for '' O Lucky Man''.


Home media

In 2004, MGM UK released a
DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...
of the film which contained no extras or trailers. Simultaneous releases from MGM were made in other
PAL Phase Alternating Line (PAL) is a color encoding system for analog television. It was one of three major analogue colour television standards, the others being NTSC and SECAM. In most countries it was broadcast at 625 lines, 50 fields (25 ...
-format countries, such as
Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
and
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...
. On 20 October 2008, the film was again released on DVD in the UK by Optimum Releasing, again without extras or trailers. A French Region 2 DVD, preserving the film's original ratio of 1.66:1, became available in 2009. In April 2010, MGM put the film out on a US DVD-R "on demand" for the first time. It is available as an exclusive from
Amazon.com Amazon.com, Inc., doing business as Amazon, is an American multinational technology company engaged in e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. Founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos in Bellevu ...
and contains no extras. In 2014 the film was released on
Blu-ray Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of high-defin ...
in the US, and in 2015 it was released in the UK in the same format.


''This Story of Yours''

John Hopkins' original play, ''This Story of Yours'', takes the form of three dialogues between Johnson and, in Act One, Maureen, then Cartwright in Act Two and Baxter in Act Three. Directed by Christopher Morahan, it opened at London's
Royal Court Theatre The Royal Court Theatre, at different times known as the Court Theatre, the New Chelsea Theatre, and the Belgravia Theatre, is a West End theatre#London's non-commercial theatres, non-commercial theatre in Sloane Square, London, England, opene ...
on 11 December 1968. The cast was as follows: *Johnson – Michael Bryant *Maureen – Alethea Charlton *Cartwright – John Phillips *Baxter – Gordon Jackson *Policemen – Edward Clayton, Steven Barnes, Oliver Maguire, Colin Pinney The first major revival of the play was directed by Jack Gold at London's
Hampstead Theatre Hampstead Theatre is a theatre in South Hampstead, in the London Borough of Camden. It specialises in commissioning and producing new writing, supporting and developing the work of new writers. History The original ''Hampstead Theatre Clu ...
, opening on 5 February 1987 with the following cast: *Johnson –
David Suchet Sir David Courtney Suchet ( ; born 2 May 1946) is an English actor. He is known for his work on stage and in television. He portrayed Edward Teller in the television serial '' Oppenheimer'' (1980) and received the RTS and BPG awards for his pe ...
*Maureen – Jane Wood *Cartwright –
Bryan Pringle Bryan Pringle (19 January 1935 – 15 May 2003) was an English character actor who appeared for several decades in television, film and theatre productions. Life and career Born in Sheffield, Yorkshire, he was brought up in the Lancashire town ...
*Baxter – James Hazeldine *Det Sgt Jessard – Richard Cubison *Police Constables – Paul Fryer, Frederick Lane


References


External links

* *
Original theatrical trailer
for ''The Offence'' *
Review A review is an evaluation of a publication, product, service, or company or a critical take on current affairs in literature, politics or culture. In addition to a critical evaluation, the review's author may assign the work a content rating, ...
a
Cinepassion
{{DEFAULTSORT:Offence, The 1973 films 1973 crime drama films British police films British crime drama films 1970s English-language films British films based on plays United Artists films Films directed by Sidney Lumet Films about child sexual abuse Films about rape in the United Kingdom Films with screenplays by John Hopkins 1970s British films Films about police brutality English-language crime drama films ru:Оскорбление