Pressure Point
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Movie Reviews of Pressure Point
Movie Review: Pressure Point
Summary: 5 Stars
I really enjoyed this movie and would recommend it to any Bobby Darin or Sydney Poitier fan. They both did an excellent job during a time when civil rights issuex were highly controversial. I was a young married woman when the movie was made so knew full well just how accurately the times were portrayed. I am an avid Bobby Darin fan and also love Mr. Poitier's work, as well! So happy you offered this movie!Movie Review: Pressure Point on DVD gets 5 Stars
Summary: 5 Stars
Pressure Point is now available on DVD in Black and White in Widescreen 1.66:1 with Dolby Digital sound. Also, included is the original theatrical trailer. Another quality release from MGM.Movie Review: A Well-Shrunken Head
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a truly excellent & powerful film that portrays the tense therapeutic relationship between a prison psychiatrist (Poitier) and a self-exalted American Nazi upstart (Darrin). Although incarcerated for sedition, Darrin's real imprisonment is within his own mind and persecutory complexes. and he suffers agonizing panic attacks, which results in his having to submit to therapy at the hands of someone he considers his inferior. He learns that his terrors are really the eruption of PTSD symptoms, and that his whole enterprise of hatred is a compensatory mask covering his deeper feelings of rage and inferioriy. Does this knowledge change him, however? To answer that question, you'll need--and want--to see the entire film and decide for yourself.
At the same time, this couch-opera is also an allegory about race relations, and perhaps about the spiritual battle between the forces of light/truth and darkness/deception--which is NOT protrayed lining up as Caucasian = light/truth and Black = darkness/deception, quite the opposite--even if one wants to be so literal about it. This film never takes the simple way out--it confronts unsavory hatred & bigotry, tackles some very subtle points about the process of psychotherapy, and portrays in painful detail the genesis (via graphic, bizarre parental abuse/neglect/cruelty) of a young man with an Antisocial Personality Disorder. Rather ambitious, I'd say!!
There are some pretty far-out special effects in this film, and even though perhaps crude by today's standards, they are still gripping and effective. As Darrin reluctantly unfolds his story in flashbacks, there are some excellent supporting performances by the actors portraying the parents and the Darrin-as-a-youngster character. Also, look for a young, earnest, sincerely befuddled, and non-trenchcoated Peter Falk in the framing story as a novice psychiatrist confessing his professional failures to the older, more experienced Poitier as his supervisor.
While I have not heard the commentary on the DVD, I can verify one other reviewer's surmise about director Kornfeld having medical problems and speaking through an electronic voice box. In the early 90's I saw Kornfeld speak at a showing of this film and 'Night of the Following Day' and while his remarks were hard to decipher, one could not help but admire his courage and erudition that shown through his handicap. He clearly had to struggle to make these dark, non-traditional films HIS way, and some pretty choice talent was happy to go along with him.
For clinical background contemporary to the making of this film, one might read texts such as 'The Authoritarian Personality' (Adorno, et.al.), Lindner's 'Fifty-Minute Hour' or perhaps John Bowlby's 'Forty-Four Juvenile Thieves' or Aichorn's 'Wayward Youth'. This was the heyday of psychoanalysis in the US, and there are really no punches pulled between the two stars as far as the therapeutic part of the film. Part of the film's achievement is that it closely follows clinical theory while remaining a piece of riveting, vital, and still-relevant entertainment. I think any thoughtful viewer will be quite enthralled with this hidden gem.
Movie Review: Lost Classic's Handling of Racism is Sadly Still Relevant Today
Summary: 4 Stars
Bobby Darin holds his own against the great Sidney Poitier in an intense psychological duel between a black prison psychiatrist and a charismatic, white supremacist patient angling for parole. Even as he helps Darin conquer his personal demons, Poitier realizes that his patient remains an unrepentant threat to society. Worse, he finds that Darin has fooled the rest of the staff into believing he has reformed. Darin cunningly taunts Poitier by explaining how easily the visceral appeal of his "cause" is spread to those inclined to hate and blame minorities for their problems. The doctor's restraint, intelligence, and ultimate effectiveness in helping his patient wins the latter's apparent personal admiration but does not change said patient's overall racist beliefs.
For brevity I keep citing the actors but of course the credit belongs as well to screenwriters Hubert Cornfield and S. Lee Peterson. Cornfield, who also directed, contributes an audio commentary that is sadly all but unlistenable due to his obvious ill health. I would have liked to learn how the two actors got along during filming, but I just couldn't get through more than a few minutes of the commentary.
Peter Falk appears briefly at the beginning and end of "Pressure Point," but a far more impressive supporting role is that of young Barry Gordon as the childhood version of the Darin character's psycho-in-training.
I highly recommend this to fans of Poitier and Darin, as well as to anyone with the stomach for a deeper-than-usual examination of the unfortunate (and unfortunately continuing) appeal--to some--of white supremacist movements.
Movie Review: great movie, poor commentary
Summary: 4 Stars
i'm not going to go on about the movie as the other reviewers do a good job. it is a great movie, especially if you want to see how conduct disorder begins and becomes an adult antisocial personality. i do want to spend some time talking about the commentary, which is horrible. mr. cornfield provides the commentary and either has throat cancer or some kind of throat disease. he struggles talking and it's painful just to try to listen to him. it's embarrassing and i don't know why it was even recorded and presented. this is not a cut against what he says, but against mgm for even presenting this on dvd. they should of had someone else do the commentary, like some film critic. i still highly recommend the movie as it is a classic, but forget the commentary.
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