strange movie


just this on cable and was very confused about the ending. wasn't one of liz taylors best, but interesting.

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I probably was watching the same time as you and I stepped out of the room for a minute, and a plot twist had taken place. Can you tell me exactly how and when Cenci realized that Leanora had just pretended to be Margaret (the dead mother). What the heck was she doing hanging out in the cemetary with Robert Mitchem. What a pedophile!

If you don't want to post spoilers, send me a private message please?



Never vomit in a wicker trashcan.

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warning: spoiler

I saw the film yesterday in cinema and i liked it. It has an interesting subject that may be sick to someone but it's a rather feminist film and if you have an open mind you should be able to understand that those kind of things happen.
It seems to me that there are two different versions of the film. This conclusion is based on some comments on the plot that i saw on web. In the version i saw it's clear from the begining that Elisabeth Taylor is a prostitute and that she's not Mia Farows mother. Mia needs fantasy and she's willing to play it. Elisabeth first declines the role but accepts it after she sees that Mia is wealthy. As the time goes she gets more emotionaly involved and starts to behave and feel like mother. The bond craks in an incident when Elisabeth "attacks" Mias act of pregnancy and destroys her toy child. Mia can't handle reality and kills her self with pils.
Robert Mitchums and aunts provide us with the background, so that we can understand Mias insanity. Robert is also some kind of catalyst for the drama.
I wrote above that film is feministic because men are the reasons behind the Mias trauma and they have all the power in the movie (just think of Robert Mithcum and he's threats with lawyers).

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huh?

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They actually weren't in a cemetary. They were in the beach area of the seaside resort where Mia and Elizabeth's characters were staying.

The director wanted it to resemble a cemetary. Those grave stone like items were actually the high backed wicker chairs which were on the beach! The chairs were simply arranged like grave stones.

This movie is very typical of the types of films made in the 1960s, too much drug use going on, I reckon! Which inevitably made it's way into the scripts of that era.

Elizabeth Taylor and Mia Farrow did their best I suppose. Mia's character was a bit too close to the character in "Rosemary's Baby", too twitchy, waify and mannered.

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Totally agree with you emo_ville2002. Very typical style of movie for that time period. Might have been a provocative movie with better direction and dialogue. Taylor was good but I tire of Mia Farrow's "I'm just a helpless little waif" portrayals.

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If you find "Secret Ceremony" strange try Elizabeth Taylor's The Driver's Seat.

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Strange overtones of both Rosemary´s Baby and Who´s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf - as well as 3 Women, Images, Repulsion etc. Wasn´t quite on the level of those films though as the pacing´s kinda awkward (especially towards the beginning), the dialogue´s often kinda silly and the whole thing has got a bit crude feel to it; clearly, Joseph Losey didn´t have as firm a grip on this picture as he did in the marvellous The Servant. Fascinating movie though.



"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan

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I thought it was terrible, but I couldn't help thinking of Mia Farrow's daughter turning out to take Mia's husband (Woody Allen, a pervert) as her lover/husband. Kind of like the relationship she has in this movie with Albert!

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