Quelqu'un derrière la porte (1971) Online

Average thriller of a psychological nature about Anthony Perkins as a brain specialist finding amnesiac Charles Bronson and convincing him that his wife is his wife and is having an affair - all the while having a real affair. This is Perkin's way of dealing with the messy affair. There is quite a bit of plodding here as well as some leaps of logic in the script that are not easily believed. Perkins and Bronson are able to create convincing enough characters to make it work relatively well. Perkins plays the malevolent, to a large degree impotent(of taking command of the situation)doctor with his customary workmanlike manner. Bronson does get to act and though looks a little too lost at times fares well enough too. Lovely Jill Ireland plays the good doctor's sexy wife but does little for her role or the film other than looking quite appealing. The end is really not effective as it leaves no real resolution to any of the plot strands revealed. The director does have some obvious talent and the film moves briskly mercifully.

I'd always been interested in watching this one (which occasionally turns up on late-night Italian TV) due to its star combo; now that I've caught up with it, I found it to be an intriguing if deliberately-paced psychological puzzler – where, as was the case with the later THE LITTLE GIRL WHO LIVES DOWN THE LANE (1976), director Gessner demonstrates himself an unsung master of the offbeat and provocative thriller. Leads Charles Bronson and Anthony Perkins work very well off each other; while the latter has played this type of role before (it's what he does best, yet given enough subtle shadings to retain an element of surprise), the former credibly stretches his range with his amnesiac role (duped into committing murder by Perkins' scheming cuckolded doctor).

Most reviews I've read seem unable to swallow the central premise – that Perkins would devise the perfect crime by 'brainwashing' Bronson into believing himself to be a totally different person – but I feel that it works most of the time mainly due to the excellent leads (nearly falling apart at the climax but picks up again nicely with the ending, as Bronson's memory is suddenly jolted back through ironically similar circumstances and his real-life spouse Jill Ireland confronts on-screen husband Perkins with his failure as both doctor and man). The film, then, concludes on a marvelous note – a series of close-ups, alternating between Ireland and Perkins, that follow the rhythm of a beating heart (though the effect is somewhat dissipated by going on too long).

My viewing of SOMEONE BEHIND THE DOOR came via a public-domain print on a budget DVD I rented (which slapped this Bronson title together with two other lesser vehicles – GUNS OF DIABLO [1964] and COLD SWEAT [1970], both also watched recently). I'd like to own the Gessner film someday; at least, I know it's available in widescreen on a bare-bones disc from Lionsgate – though I wonder how long it will stay in print...

Bronson's fans would be very surprised ,had they the opportunity to see this Nicolas Gessner movie.He's not here the he-man they expect.He plays an amnesiac,caught like a fly in a cobweb by shrink Perkins.In this kind of thriller ,Perkins' "psycho prestige" works and it makes the audience feel he's watching a Hitchcock ersatz-which is not that much bad after all,a Hitchcock ersatz may be much better than a genuine X....... thriller.The main problem lies in the fact that most of the time,it seems like a filmed stage production.Hitchcock could easily get away with such works as "the rope " or "dial M for murder".Gessner has not his genius and his directing becomes sometimes ponderous. Hitchcok's lessons will be much better applied on "sleuth" ,Mankiewicz's triumph the following year,and to a lesser degree,on Penn's "dead of winter" (1987).

Late Jill Ireland plays the female part ,as it was often the case in those days,as far Bronson movies were concerned.Nicolas Gessner continued his work with American actors on his follow-up which would be a long time coming (late seventies) "la petite fille au bout du chemin" (the little girl who lives down the lane)and featured Jodie Foster and Martin Sheen.It was probably his best .Then he worked abroad without great success.His most notable work was for French TV "le château des oliviers " (early nineties,with Brigitte Fossey)which gained the audience's approval.

Back in the good old days, before the success of "Death Wish" forced him into playing the same role of the angry vigilante over and over again, Charles Bronson was a fine, versatile actor; in this 1971 film, he actually plays the victim of a larger scheme (though he does some victimizing of his own, too), and he's the best - if not the only - reason to see this otherwise static, plodding thriller. Anthony Perkins disappoints as the slightly deranged brain surgeon. The version I saw was in French, though the actors clearly spoke English on the set; this only added to the strangeness of the experience. Oh, and good luck to anyone trying to figure out what the title has to do with anything else. (**)

Nicolas Gessner adapted well this story from a french bestseller,with two great stars Charles Bronson,and Anthony Perekins.

Now it's really about acting and story,I mean this just could not be a bad movie.

I feel like most of us wanted to see Charles Bronson playing a character we could not decide who is he in this situation.This role shows he's real acting skills are better than what you think.

This film was not just a mirror exercises for him,today when we just crying back real character filling,this film has real right to exist for crime -thriller fans,and all for those wants to see a good drama.

While this is not a feel good movie,you have to understand it's about how important something that now I can not tell you cause,it will hurt your watch.

7/10-recommended.

Is it just me or did it seem like Charles Bronson was a serious, Academy Award-winning actor in this film? Maybe it is just me. But, most who've seen this flick will concede that it is a bit different from the usual Bronson fare, and that his acting was top-notch. The only thing hurting this movie is its slow pace and its somewhat convoluted plot. Other than that, it's a fairly decent movie. Appreciate the cinematography! 6/10

A man is brought to a hospital with a severe case of amnesia and neurosurgeon Laurence Jeffries takes it upon himself to help out the patient. He dismisses it as intoxication, and pretends to take him to the station. However he brings him back to his home, but the motivation for this is unclear, and everything he's doing to supposedly treat him is done in secrecy. The identity of the stranger is becoming clearer, but so are the doctor's true intentions as he begins to manipulate the situation.

Confined, low-key low-budget French/Italian psychological drama with commendable performances by Charles Bronson and Anthony Perkins. The whole-set-up is like a stage show, were it lies heavily upon the expressively versatile performances and ambitiously novel material. The layer-bound premise is totally illogical, but strangely absorbing with its unforeseeable offbeat nature of offering up numerous surprises, and interestingly unlikely developments. However there are some questionable, teething problems involving the scheming, and its possible outcome. There's just too many cracks, to make it bullet proof that you just wonder if there was much thought put in behind it. Still there are elements that are smartly conceived, and this can be contributed to the manipulative tension (where the repressed anger, and violence is played out through a human tool) and mind-messing that director Nicolas Gessner (the man behind the superb 'The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane (1976)') ably works in. As well the believably committed turns of the two leads. Bronson and Perkins worked off each other magnificently. Perkins' cold, planned performance with Bronson's disorientated, assailable figure is sincerely pre-figured. There's no doubt this is one of Bronson's best acting turns. Jill Ireland is adequate in her small role. Gessner's sure-footed direction subtly paints a glum, intrusive puzzle with unique filming techniques that slowly strings you along to a powerfully bitter climax, which finally concludes on an inspired final shot of possible sickening regret. Sometimes it loses out by ponderously stretching it out too much with some raggedy editing, and another weak spot was the playful, but unremarkable misplaced music score by Georges Garvarentz. It just didn't add any sort of punch, or feel. Pierre Lhomme's slick cinematography is steadily framed.

Enjoyed this film starring Charles Bronson,(The Stranger),"The Indian Runner",'91 who plays a man who has lost his memory and is treated at a hospital and taken home by Anothony Perkins,(Laurence Jeffries),"Edge of Sanity",'89. Laurence is a psychiatrist and decides to use this Stranger as an experiment and at the same time play games with his brain that seems to be empty of all personnel remembrance. Jill Ireland,(Francis Jeffries),"The Mechanic",'72 is a very attractive wife to Laurence Jeffries, but is neglected in the bedroom love making and has drifted a part from her husband. This is a rather interesting drama and suspense film, but rather slow paced.

Someone Behind the Door is based on the French novel by Jacques Robert "Quelqu'un derriere la porte". In the novel the neurosurgeon (played by Anthony Perkins) is a writer and the Mystery Man 'behind the door'(Charles Bronson) is a fictitious character from the novel he's writing. The novel's fantasy world of writing became the movie's realistic and dramatic psychological duel between Perkins and Bronson.

I saw this movie in 2018. Looking at the star cast of the movie charles Bronson & Anthony Perkins, I was quite excited about this movie. Since Bronson is my favorite action star from 70s & 80s. I love his death wish franchise & other action movies. And Perkins for his Psycho act as the main antagonist. But within half an hour my all excitement vanished. As the movie was becoming slow. And slow going movies often makes me feel bore of them. So after 45 to 50 mins i stopped watching this movie. I didn't saw the end or the climax of this movie. That's why i will not say much words about this movie. In all its a slow movie based on crime & thriller. I really can't say what the makers were thing while making this movie & what the message they wanted to give to its audience at that (70's) time. If u r a charles Bronson fan or a thriller movie fan u can watch this movie. Other wise i will not suggest any body for this movie even for a timepass also as it has got nothing much to offer you.

Not special. not surprising. using Anthony Perkins for a role who seems be the most comfortable for him. remembering Hitchcock. and proposing the slow pace as basic tool for atmosphere. but it has a virtue who did it more than one of many thrillers from the "70. this virtue - Charles Bronson who propose a different hero, exotic for his career, vulnerable, passionate, fragile and innocent, part of dark plot , remembering a sort of Prince Myshkin. Bronson performance is the lead motif to see this film. and maybe, the last scene . short, a thriller who gives not exactly a credible story but one well made , respecting the rules of the genre.proposing a form of duel.

Interesting psychological thriller. (I'd love to know what stage play it is based on.) The angst and drama don't quite hold up to the end but it is a nice ride getting there.

**SPOILERS** Working his usual 16 hour shift at the hospital Dr. Laurence Jefferies, Anthony Perkins, spots a confused and discombobulated stranger played by Charles Bronson in the emergency ward and a light-bulb light up in his head.

Laurence's sexy wife Frances, Jill Ireland, had been cheating on him and is about to leave for Paris to see her secret lover French journalist Paul Damien, Henri Garcin. With this stranger suffering from amnesia Laurence can now get his revenge without ever getting his hands dirty and ending up behind bars.

The stranger wants to go home but doesn't quite know where home is and Laurence volunteers to drive him to the Bogston train station where he can get a train to London where the stranger strangely feels that he comes from.

Found on East Cliff Beach the stranger has a nasty scratch on his chest as if he was being fought off by somebody, most properly a woman. Later in the movie we get a flashback, from the stranger, that he was involved in a rape and murder of a young woman on the beach.

Laurence instead of taking the stranger to Bogston Station takes him back to his home and manically conditions his unbalanced and violent mind, with drugs that he slips into his orange juice, to murder his wife's Frances lover Paul but makes it as if Frances is really his, the stranger's, wife who cheating on him.

Laurence is so obsessed in getting the stranger to murder Paul that he overlooks the fact that he had a gun on him, that Laurence found in the stranger's raincoat,that should have tipped him off how dangerous and violent he really is.

Planting love letters from Paul, and a nude photo of Frances on the stranger's clothes whacks out the stranger's mind. This tricked him into thinking that Frances is his wife, and gets him all riled up and crazy and more then willing to do in her lover Paul.

Laurence also get's his brother in law Andrews, Adriano Magistretti, to get in touch, as a middle man, with Paul so he would come to England and talk his differences over with him in a clam and civilized way but in reality be confronted with the now mad and almost insane stranger. Laurence's plan works to perfection until the stranger and Paul meet at his front door, with him hiding like the coward that he is upstairs. It's then that something terribly goes wrong and the stranger balks. Instead of immediately shooting Paul Frances, who was unexpectedly with Paul outside in his car, Paul realizes that the stranger is not her husband at all but an impostor.

Undoubtedly this was Charles Bronson's best acting but the movie "Someone Behind the Door" is far from his best movie with a totally unbelievably story-line that doesn't give his acting any credit.

Anthony Perkins is so weird that I pity the patients that he's attending back at the hospital, or in his doctor's office, if you consider Charles Bronson, the stranger, as a prime example of his "top notch" medical work.

Jill Ireland is by far the most believable, with her lover Henri Garcin playing Paul a close second, of the actors in the movie with her shock and total confusion at the end of the movie when she meets her "husband" the stranger Charles Bronson, even though he's her husband in real life. The wild and furious fight that they have is inter-cut with the stranger's rape and murder of the young woman that caused his amnesia was by far the highlight of the movie.

"Someone Behind the Door" is not bad but not great either. It still is better than most of Bronson's other films but this film is not recognized because it is so rare. I would never have found out about it if it weren't for accidently running across it in a video store. Charles Bronson plays an amnesia victim who is taken in by doctor Anthony Perkins. But Perkins has a plan to kill his wife so he convinces Bronson to murder her. "Someone Behind the Door" might disappoint some of Bronson's fans because it does not have the violence that is other films have.

As an actor, Charles Bronson was late developing into a European star and even later finding fame as a star in his native America. Ironically, it was after he became a recognisable face that his performances rapidly became less animated, less colourful, earning him the unfortunate nickname in some circles of Great Stone Face. Anyone coming to Someone Behind The Door (aka Two Minds For Murder) familiar with Bronson's later roles – especially his 70s and 80s American output – will be pleasantly surprised to find him giving a real performance here, a performance of some depth and nuance. As the amnesiac-on-the-run, he is required to be confused and frightened, with periodic mood swings from harmlessly docile to violently enraged. It's quite refreshing to see Bronson going through a greater range of emotions than usual – would you believe it, with the right role and director to coax him through it the man can actually act! No such questions hang over Anthony Perkins who, as usual, is a picture of urbane sinisterness, outwardly pleasant but inwardly a thoroughly evil piece of work. Perkins always makes a splendid villain and this film is no exception.

Brain surgeon and brilliant mental analyst Laurence Jefferies (Anthony Perkins) is widely regarded as a genius in his field, but his love life is less than successful. His marriage to Frances (Jill Ireland) is in chaos: he dedicated to his work, she desperate to feel wanted and loved. Frances has been having a secret affair with a journalist, but unknown to her Laurence knows all about the betrayal and is plotting his own warped revenge scheme. All he needs to complete his evil plan is a scapegoat, someone to take the rap for the ruthless crime he has concocted. The arrival of an escaped mental patient (Charles Bronson), suffering from amnesia and possibly responsible for a savage sex attack, provides Laurence with just the opportunity he needs…

Someone Behind The Door has about it the feel of a stage production, reminiscent of thrillers like Wait Until Dark, Rear Window and Bronson's own Rider On The Rain with its action restricted mainly to a single set (aside from a handful of exteriors). There's little direct action per se, certainly not the visceral gun battles/fist fights/car chases of later Bronson actioners, but this works in the film's favour since its thrills are built up more through the exchanges of dialogue and the accumulation of small details. The film suffers from a couple of longueurs, and its narrative relies heavily on twists and surprises (meaning there's not much scope for repeat viewings), but for what it is it's a very smooth, watchable and suspenseful piece which deserves a look. Not bad at all.

A slow moving thriller with no thrills, suspense or logic to it. Anthony Perkins turns in an unconvincing performance as a brain surgeon and criminal mastermind. Charles Bronson, playing an amnesia victim, spends the whole time looking lost and confused; Maybe he thought he was part of the audience. Jill Ireland looks good but shows no real talent for acting. The lack of a tense background score (Instead, a movement from Dvorak's "New World Symphony" plays on a record player) makes the proceedings seem even more dry and lifeless. The tedium goes on far too long, with scant reward for those viewers who make it to the end. Cannot recommend this film.

I really don't know how much money Charles Bronson used to make when he appeared in these overseas films, it must have been a nice chunk of change. This movie is hardly watchable. If you are a fan of the lead actors, you probably won't mind watching this once. Otherwise avoid this film at all costs.

Sadly after watching this thriller, based on the French novel by Jacques Robert "Quelqu'un derriere la porte", I can only say that it didn't stand the time. It's very slowly and has nothing to offer. To make it even worse Anthony Perkins isn't really great here and Jill Ireland is only for a few moments in it. Even Charles Bronson, an actor I do like didn't gave his best performance here.

To make it even worse the version I saw was out of sync and had a lot of drops and hiss on the sound. Not even that, it also had a few reels with the wrong colour temperature. It was on official DVD but looked clearly as a VHS rip of bad quality.

Anthony tries to give a creepy performance as in Psycho (1960) as doctor Laurence Jeffries who has bad things in his mind with the amnesiac unknown man (Charles Bronson) to make him believe that his wife Frances Jeffries (Jill Ireland) is in fact the unknown man's wife and is cheating on him so she has to die. But Anthony somehow just can't give us a creepy or even believable performance. Charles Bronson is okay but he was here in a period that he wasn't really cast in blockbusters. He just came from Once Upon A Time In The West (1968) and was casted as a man with few words but much action. Here he has a lot of words and no action and you can see that it wasn't his thing. He was casted in European flicks but after this one he went back with his wife Jill Ireland to US soil to make a few hard-edged crime and western dramas starting from 1972. Of course the big break through came in 1974 together with his wife in the controversial revenge flick Death Wish. The audience couldn't get enough of tough guy Bronson while his flicks became more and more violent. He was a late bloomer in Hollywood but what an actor he became.

Someone Behind The Door has a title that is never explained and isn't one of the three main actors (Perkins, Ireland, Bronson) most famous flick.

Gore 0/5 Nudity 0,5/5 Effects 0/5 Story 2/5 Comedy 0/5

The only other movie I have ever watched with Anthony Perkins as a lead was Psycho and as far as this movie goes, I really think Mr. Perkins had an uncanny knack for playing creeps very well in film. Charles Bronson's role as an amnesiac who is trying to piece together his finite and cloudy past amidst Perkin's manipulative ways is just superbly amazing. This film might possibly possess one of the finest performances Mr. Bronson has ever done. Jill Ireland turns in a good performance as Frances, the wife of Perkin's character who dabbles in adultery behind his back from time to time. This film really has a lot of potential to be a very good suspense chiller but it lacks what you'd call a satisfactory climax. It seems as if the ending was rushed along so the end credits could come quicker. 6 out of 10 stars, good job by Charles Bronson.