Amicus Productions are perhaps best remembered as the main competitors of Hammer Film Productions in the British horror boom of the late sixties and early seventies, but not all their films fell within the horror genre. "A Touch of Love" is one of the exceptions.
Rosamund Stacey is a highly intellectual but naïve and unworldly young woman, spending most of her time in the British Museum, where she is writing her doctoral thesis. The film may be set in the "Swinging London" of the sixties, but there is nothing "swinging" about Rosamund. The sexual revolution, the Pill and free love have passed her by. Where some people have a complex sex life, she has a complex lack-of-sex life. She is dating two men, Joe and Roger, but is sleeping with neither, although each of the two believes the other to be her lover. When we first meet Rosamund she is a virgin; her first, and only, sexual encounter is a one-night stand with a third man, George, a BBC newsreader, and as a result of this encounter she becomes pregnant.
In the latter part of the book, Rosamund's main relationship is not with George (although he remains a friend), or with either of the other men in her life, but with her daughter, Octavia. After briefly considering, and dismissing, both adoption and abortion (officially illegal at the time the film is set, but widely available through backstreet clinics), she decides to have her child and to raise it herself. She finds that being a mother brings her happiness, but this happiness is put at risk when Octavia falls ill with a serious condition.
The film is in fact an adaptation of Margaret Drabble's novel "The Millstone", written in 1965. In the four years between the book being written and the film being made, abortion had been legalised in England and Wales, but the film is set in 1967, shortly before the new law came into effect. Had I known that the film was based upon Drabble's novel I probably would not have bothered watching it, as this was not a book I enjoyed when I read it, but the film-makers seem to have thought that the title "The Millstone" was not good box-office and to have changed it for something more audience-friendly.
Unfortunately, the film is no better than the book it is based on. In fact, it is rather worse. The Rosamund of the novel is a rather passive character, passionless and sexless, not unpleasant but uninteresting, and the same could be said of the character played by Sandy Dennis here. (Dennis was regarded as a major Hollywood and Broadway star at this period; I am surprised that an outfit like Amicus could afford to employ her). To Dennis's credit, she handles the British accent well. None of the other acting contributions stand out, the best probably being Ian McKellen's George. (As in the book, George is rather camp and effeminate in manner, but the question of whether he actually is gay is tactfully avoided).
My verdict on Drabble's novel was that it was slight, lightweight and a disappointment, given that it had come from the pen of someone widely regarded as one of Britain's leading novelists; occasionally well written but also at times boring. The film, by contrast, is not just boring at times; it is boring all the time. This was the first film to be directed by Waris Hussein, and it shows. The action seems to move at a funereal pace; the running time is 107 minutes but it seems longer. By 1969 the theme of unmarried motherhood was no longer particularly original or controversial in the British cinema; it had been tackled much better in Tony Richardson's "A Taste of Honey" eight years earlier. 4/10.
Rosamund Stacey is a highly intellectual but naïve and unworldly young woman, spending most of her time in the British Museum, where she is writing her doctoral thesis. The film may be set in the "Swinging London" of the sixties, but there is nothing "swinging" about Rosamund. The sexual revolution, the Pill and free love have passed her by. Where some people have a complex sex life, she has a complex lack-of-sex life. She is dating two men, Joe and Roger, but is sleeping with neither, although each of the two believes the other to be her lover. When we first meet Rosamund she is a virgin; her first, and only, sexual encounter is a one-night stand with a third man, George, a BBC newsreader, and as a result of this encounter she becomes pregnant.
In the latter part of the book, Rosamund's main relationship is not with George (although he remains a friend), or with either of the other men in her life, but with her daughter, Octavia. After briefly considering, and dismissing, both adoption and abortion (officially illegal at the time the film is set, but widely available through backstreet clinics), she decides to have her child and to raise it herself. She finds that being a mother brings her happiness, but this happiness is put at risk when Octavia falls ill with a serious condition.
The film is in fact an adaptation of Margaret Drabble's novel "The Millstone", written in 1965. In the four years between the book being written and the film being made, abortion had been legalised in England and Wales, but the film is set in 1967, shortly before the new law came into effect. Had I known that the film was based upon Drabble's novel I probably would not have bothered watching it, as this was not a book I enjoyed when I read it, but the film-makers seem to have thought that the title "The Millstone" was not good box-office and to have changed it for something more audience-friendly.
Unfortunately, the film is no better than the book it is based on. In fact, it is rather worse. The Rosamund of the novel is a rather passive character, passionless and sexless, not unpleasant but uninteresting, and the same could be said of the character played by Sandy Dennis here. (Dennis was regarded as a major Hollywood and Broadway star at this period; I am surprised that an outfit like Amicus could afford to employ her). To Dennis's credit, she handles the British accent well. None of the other acting contributions stand out, the best probably being Ian McKellen's George. (As in the book, George is rather camp and effeminate in manner, but the question of whether he actually is gay is tactfully avoided).
My verdict on Drabble's novel was that it was slight, lightweight and a disappointment, given that it had come from the pen of someone widely regarded as one of Britain's leading novelists; occasionally well written but also at times boring. The film, by contrast, is not just boring at times; it is boring all the time. This was the first film to be directed by Waris Hussein, and it shows. The action seems to move at a funereal pace; the running time is 107 minutes but it seems longer. By 1969 the theme of unmarried motherhood was no longer particularly original or controversial in the British cinema; it had been tackled much better in Tony Richardson's "A Taste of Honey" eight years earlier. 4/10.