The penthouse

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Movie
German title The penthouse
Original title The penthouse
Country of production United Kingdom
original language English
Publishing year 1967
length 96 minutes
Age rating FSK 18
Rod
Director Peter Collinson
script Peter Collinson
production Harry Fine
music Johnny Hawksworth
camera Arthur Lavis
cut John Trumper
occupation

The Penthouse is a British thriller from 1967 by Peter Collinson , who made his debut here as a film director with a "claustrophobic five-person thriller". Based on the play The Meter Man (1964) by Scott Forbes , Suzy Kendall , who had only played a supporting role until then, became known as the "mistress of a considerably older man terrorized by two strangers ..."

action

The unhappily married and established real estate agent Bruce Victor has an affair with the much younger Barbara Willason, who in her naivety hopes that Bruce will divorce his wife for her sake. For Bruce, the pretty lover is just a nice pastime, but he doesn't want to make it public. Both love nest is a modern, chic and furnished penthouse that Barbara and Bruce use regularly, but which belongs to his company. Bruce takes great care not to hear about the two of them as a couple.

One morning, two young men appear while she is there, who at first appear less threatening, but soon turn out to be rather intrusive and sadistic types. They call themselves Tom and Dick and claim to have to read the meter reading of a technical device in the penthouse. The unsuspecting Barbara lets them in, and the bad guys soon take control of the penthouse residents: Bruce is tied to a chair with tape and Barbara is pumped full of alcohol and other drugs . At first she seems to have fun in this wild orgy in a half foggy state, but then Tom and Dick attack Barbara and rape her several times.

When Tom and Dick want to leave again, Bruce and Barbara think feverishly how they can report to the police without their affair being exposed and Bruce's wife not getting wind of it. The two robbery victims believe that their ordeal is finally over when Tom and Dick are joined by a certain Harry who claims to be the probation officer of the two thugs. But the young woman turns out to be even worse than the two cronies, and now Barbara is also tied up, back to back with Bruce, and the harassment continues to intensify on both robbery victims in order to ultimately expose the true, shabby nature of their love affair ...

Production notes

The penthouse was built in London's Twickenham Studios and premiered on September 29, 1967 in London. In Germany, the film opened on December 21 of the same year. There are both black and white and color versions of this film.

Guido Coen and Michael Klinger took over the production management. The film structures were designed by Peter Mullins .

useful information

Almost at the same time a film was made in Hollywood with a wait until it's dark , in which a young woman (here: Audrey Hepburn ) is harassed and harassed by several men in her own four walls.

In 1997 the Austrian director Michael Haneke developed a much more brutal variation of the theme shown in Das Penthouse with Funny Games .

synchronization

role actor Voice actor
Barbara Willason Suzy Kendall Renate Küster
Bruce Victor Terence Morgan Heinz Petruo
Tom Tom Beckley Jürgen Thormann
Harry Martine Beswick Gisela Peltzer

Reviews

The film received very different ratings from critics, from laudatory to deeply disgusted. Here are a few examples:

Roger Ebert found words of praise for Das Penthouse : “This is not a bad film, nor is it an example of the pornography of violence, or at least not a good example. (...) "The Penthouse" is quite simply a pretty good shocker. (...) "The Penthouse" is not in the same class as "Psycho" (1960) but in the same school. "

The Monthly Film Bulletin contradicted this. Their reviewer decreed harshly: The film was "pornography in Pinter's garb".

The Movie & Video Guide just called the story "terrible".

In the lexicon of international films it says: "Cinematically unimaginative thriller, the allegorical story of which can be understood as a criticism of ambiguous bourgeois morality."

Halliwell's Film Guide found the film to be "a thoroughly disgusting and unsympathetic melodrama with no attractive characters and no attempt to explain itself."

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c “ Tom, Dick and Harry ” is used in Anglo-American to refer to unknown, arbitrary people, according to the German Hinz and Kunz .
  2. ↑ Kay Less : The large personal lexicon of films , Volume 2, p. 121. Berlin 2001.
  3. ^ The large personal lexicon of films, Volume 4, p. 355. Berlin 2001.
  4. ^ The penthouse in the German dubbing file .
  5. ^ Roger Ebert: The Penthouse. Roger Ebert , November 14, 1967, accessed on January 1, 2020 : “This isn't an evil movie, and it's not an example of the pornography of violence, or at least not a very good example. (...) "The Penthouse," quite simply, is a pretty good shocker. (...) "The Penthouse" isn't in the same class with "Psycho" (1960) but it's in the same school. "
  6. ^ Leonard Maltin : Movie & Video Guide, 1996 edition, p. 1002.
  7. ↑ The penthouse. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed December 31, 2019 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  8. ^ Leslie Halliwell : Halliwell's Film Guide, Seventh Edition, New York 1989, p. 788.

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