"Fragment of Fear" certainly isn't your average type of whodunit/mystery thriller, and whether or not you like it will entirely depend on your own personal attention span and tolerance towards screenplays that reveal very few clues and depict only a minimum amount of action. Who killed Lucy Dawson, the elderly aunt of recovering drug-addict turned novelist Tim Brett, whilst she was on vacation in Italy and seemingly visiting the ruins nearby Pompeii? More importantly, are we really supposed to care by whom Aunt Lucy got strangled and why, because the script (adapted from John Bingham's novel) remains distant and vague regarding the actual murder and clearly only wants us to worry about the deteriorating mental state of protagonist Tim Brett. Shortly after the murder, and having fallen in love with the witness who first discovered the body, Tim returns to London and decides to investigate the murder himself. Although he discovers almost nothing, he does receive a few unmistakably clear warnings to restrain from looking further. He is repeatedly visited by a peculiar old lady (who turns up dead later), gets threatening letters coming from his own typewriter and someone is laughing mysteriously on his answering machine. The police don't take him very seriously, being a former heroine junkie, and rather than killing him as well, the person (or persons) Tim Brett tries to unmask is merely attempting to bring his persona in further discredit. Yes, I do realize this brief description is rather confusing, but so is the entire film! I'm not even sure if I understood half of it! "Fragment of Fear" is definitely one of the best films ever made in terms of depicting the paranoiac state of its lead character! Throughout the entire film everybody is wondering whether or not everything that is happening is real or not; and even the denouement doesn't provide a conclusive answer. Like Tim Brett mumbles at one point during the film: "Either I am mad and all this isn't happening to me, or else I'm sane and it is…" There you go: "Fragment of Fear" accurately summarized in one single line of text. Paranoid or not, the film does contain a couple of remarkably suspenseful moments, a marvelous illustration of London society during the late 60s/early 70s, a catchy soundtrack and a number of solid acting performances. David Hemmings remains one of the most phenomenal but sadly underrated actors of his generation. He carries the entire film, which must have been quite a heavy burden, without a lot of effort. There are many truly gifted actors and actresses in the supportive cast, like Adolfo Celi, Flora Robson and Yootha Joyce, but their screen time is bizarrely limited.

A movie with Hemmings, Gayle Hunnicutt, Adolfo Celi (a serviceable supporting player), W. H. White, about insanity, severe delusions, grief, very accomplished unpretentious craftsmanship, it's not artsy, but stylish, lavish, colorful; the style is a European synthesis, not only British, but continental as well ….Very suspenseful, one of the most accomplished genre movies, of an ineffable freshness; the sense of creepiness is as efficient as nuanced and sober. It has an undertone of distorted sexuality, the predilection for aged women, Bunface and the schoolgirls, the eerie but certain appeal of the aged ladies, those kisses; the focus is on eyes, mouths, thighs in their shameless bare luxuriance. Tim Brett's flat gives a very suggestive sense of the place.The young women appear as naked thighs, and so does the seductress in the train, the temptress who knows the writer's address. Also, the leading character's 1st shot shows his legs.Those thighs symbolize the access, not as much denied (by the women), as repellent. He feels threatened by the walk, by the bride's walk …. The male characters, beginning with the copper who visits him, are paternal symbols. They are burly. The women's thighs are viscous. The women are cold, tempting, indifferent, desired. The writer resents them. Force, desire, dream, deceit; he feels deceived, and resents health, the insanity proves a stronger temptation than the drugs he used to take.In its depiction of the insanity, the movie shows the feverish phony cleverness of the delusion, with its crippling mistrust; and it's not a moralizing stance, but a clinical one, the twilight of a mind, clinically depicted. The addiction is a _crippleness, and the leading character ends in a wheelchair, i. e. denying himself almost everything, deprived of walk and deprived of rest, unable to walk, unable to rest, dominated by his wife, defeated. The puzzling plot has been meant to be dreamlike. The eerie, spooky story-line from the standpoint of insanity had a worthy career in the cinema, and occasioned other movies as well.Both leads give apposite performances. It's impressive how both of them understood the requirements of their roles.Gayle Hunnicutt is decorative, and her role required a bland act, she had to be a decorative doll. Hemmings made me think of a plumper and more urbane Dean; what might seem like overacting actually suits his part, suggesting the behavior of a psychotic, the feverish, sometimes frenzied behavior.

For the most part, "Fragment Of Fear" is a gripping film. Although sometimes it can get too talky, it cleverly builds an atmosphere of justifiable paranoia, as we can see both why the hero feels so trapped and scared and why it is difficult for other people to believe his stories. But in the last 5 minutes or so, the film goes all vague and ambiguous on us, leaving us to interpret it all in our own way. The problem is that either way leaves too many unanswered questions. What does hold the film together is a committed central performance by David Hemmings; in what is largely an one-man-show, he creates a believable Everyman, a regular guy who gets in over his head. And an amusing credit for those who stick to the very end: "Colombus" is played by....a London pigeon. Who would have guessed? **1/2 out of 4.

British cult classic with a memorable music score by Johnny Harris featuring a small tight group of top class jazz players including Harold McNair on screaming flute. Re-recorded cuts from this soundtrack feature on the 1970 Johnny Harris - Movements album (issued on CD by Warner Bros in 2002) which is highly recommended. Including flute and bongo driven main theme "Stepping Stones" (named after the secret society in the film) which has developed a life of it's own - used by Levi Jeans on it's Kung Fu TV ad in 1997, featured on film soundtracks, used by the BBC as the theme to a season of seventies cult film and played in clubs by DJ's to jazz, funk and northern soul crowds for four decades! P.S. This film is now on DVD from Columbia in the US and will soon be on blu-ray. P.P.S Now if only Sony Film Music can see sense and release the TRULY AMAZING score on CD for the first time ever please, good news: There is now a 12" LP release available. P.P.P.S. The reviews criticising the music written by chrisdfilm and a few other fools are total bs, ignore that garbage!!