George Lazenby usually makes it sound like he went from James Bond to Hong Kong, but he made a few films in between - an Italian flick called Who Saw Her Die? and this British TV movie, a Play for Today. I assumed this would be studio bound and cheap but it looks great - location filming, on film. I liked Roy Battersby's direction.
But it's a dumb story. So dumb. Dramatically bad. Maybe there's depth I'm not aware of. I don't think so. It's got early 70s in Britain smugness against captalism but makes it's own argument so badly.
The plot should be simple but is needlessly confusing. George Lazenby is a property developer who wants to knock down a building but there's a tenant who won't leave. He seduces the man's wife... but... he seems to like her, I think. The tenant won't leave because he's "built it up himself" even though he took over from his father and Lazenby offered him a lease in the new building. And when Lazenby seduces the wife it's no shock because the grocer hosts key parties.
Lazenby has this former best friend who is on the dole for five years who he gives a job to... um... be nice to the wife, even though he's hooked up with the wife (we don't see it, it happens off screen), and the wife and the friend hang out and get into bed together platonically and she has plastic surgery and.... I think at the end that's Lazenby dressed up in a uniform to have some bondage with the wife and they get shot by the husband.
It's weird. Lazenby answers the door to his friend and goes sorry I'm having a bath, hops in the bath and gets out again. Maybe it's art. I think it's just inept.
It's great to see Lazenby as a developer - he's got swagger and I buy him in the part (they cover his accent by saying he went away to school in Australia and worked as a car salesman). I wish he'd been able to play just a good old ruthless tycoon but they but away to this boring friend who wasn't really a friend and hasn't worked for five years so who cares about his crisis of conscience. Who cares about the grocer. I mean, the building has to be knocked down doesnt it? Why is that bad? What am I missing?
There is novelty seeing Lazenby in the lead in a drama and a British TV movie of the early 70s with a councillor getting a blow job, and a party which ends in a key party, and some bondage. The 70s were wild.
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