The Brute (1977) Online

The Brute is written and directed by Gerry O'Hara. It stars Julian Glover, Sarah Douglas, Roberta Gibbs, Bruce Robinson, Suzanne Stone, Kenneth Nelson, Jenny Twigge and Nicholas Barnes. Music is by Kenneth V. Jones and cinematography by Dennis C. Lewiston.

Model Diane Shepherd (Douglas) is emotionally stuck in a violent marriage to her husband Tim (Glover), who in his constant paranoia accuses her of infidelity. Finally having enough, she finds shelter with photographer Mark (Robinson) and his girlfriend Carrie (Stone). Meeting up with another abused wife, Millie (Twigge), Diane begins to find hope for the future, but then Tim informs her that if she doesn't come back to him, he will see to it that he gains custody of their young son and make it impossible for her to see him freely.

Tricky subject matter inevitably invokes tricky human reactions, something writer and director Gerry O'Hara knows only too well. Given the "X" certificate upon its release in the UK, the film was promptly vilified by most critics and caused uproar in press and women's group circles. It seems that back in 1977 the issue of domestic abuse should not be put up as a filmic subject. Things didn't help that the marketing department played it up as a horror movie, something O'Hara wasn't aiming for, whilst some mischievous critics angled it as sensationalist soft-core pornography!

Viewed now, and it's become something of a rare movie, there's flaws aplenty for sure, but one of them isn't being sensationalist for sensationalist's sake. Tonally the picture is all over the place, one minute it's grabbing you by the throat and shaking you, the next it's almost like we have been transported into some swanky kitchen sink drama. In fact quite early on it gets a little bit sketchy as to where its heart is, but once Diane makes the decision to leave Teddy (how inappropriately cuddly a name can be eh?!), and we get brought into Millie's awful world (Twigge excellent) then pic finds its rhythm and makes telling and dramatic points.

The violence here is tame by today's standards, unsurprisingly of course, but it's still terrifying, especially with the Millie scenes, but I reiterate, this is not a horror movie per se. Don't seek this out if you are looking for something like The Stepfather, this is a social concern movie about horror inflicted domestically, there is a big difference. Lead cast members are more than up to the task of bringing the story home safely, though some of the support work is decidedly amateurish, and those irked by PC issues in movies are likely to draw back their bow and arrows ready to fire off a poisonous dart.

A journalist friend of mine went to a special educational double bill screening of The Brute and The Burning Bed (Farrah Fawcett TV movie) in the early 90s. She said that at the end of The Brute the audience applauded and it was a hot-bed of debate in the bar afterwards. I didn't feel like clapping myself when I watched it yesterday, I felt exhausted yet strangely uplifted. You see here's the thing, it's all in the finale, in its hopeful denouement, and with the realisation this is not about The Brute of the title, this is about the women. Very much so. No masterpiece is this, but a very smart and misunderstood piece of cinema. 7/10

Back when cable TV was new (early 1980s) some of the movie channels were airing obscure British films like this to fill time slots. Most of the them (like this one) were pretty good. It deals with Diana Shepherd (Sarah Douglas) being routinely beaten by her sadistic husband Teddy (Julian Glover). She realizes she can't deal with it anymore and leaves...but Teddy won't let her have their child Timmy.

The beatings themselves are (pretty obviously) faked but this does deal with an touchy subject matter with taste and intelligence. This is much better than the TV movies over here dealing with the same subject back then. The acting is good across the board and it does have a happy and believable ending. No great shakes but it's stayed with me for almost 30 years! Recommended.

The British film industry in the seventies was in a very strange place, which ironically paved the way for a number of films you just can't imagine being made in any other decade, or under any other circumstances. With the wealthy American backers out of the picture and the home video boom lurking just around the corner, the seventies remains perhaps British cinema's most insane and strangely compulsive decade, where bona-fide cult classics such as the Wicker Man and Get Carter rub alongside dirt-cheap sex flicks like 1972's the Love Box and Derren Nesbitt's ill-fated the Amorous Milkman, and big budget Bond films and Lew Grade-sponsored splashy blockbusters flickered onto fleapit screens only recently vacated by the 'moral obscenities' of the bad boys of British horror, Pete Walker and Norman J. Warren.

The Brute, with its uneasy combination of gloss and glamour, sordid violence and kitchen-sink realism, dingy location filming and titles apparently rendered in transfer lettering, is seventies Britain to its toenails, although the introduction from a psychiatrist seems to hark back to the 'white coat' sex films of the previous decade, where narration from a practising doctor was a crafty way of getting nudity and naughty bits past the ever-vigilant censor. Other concessions to contemporary trends are apparent in a bit of pro- feminist black power arse-kicking doled out to a serial abuser, the overall appearance of Bruce 'Withnail and I' Robinson's sympathetic hippy photographer, and the inevitable spacious house apparently in the middle of nowhere, which (as anyone who's seen A Clockwork Orange or Straw Dogs will readily testify) was seventies cinema shorthand both for comfortable living, and the nagging feeling that something horrible was about to happen.

The biggest problem with the film is that it's not really sure what it wants to be, and as a result, the mood of the piece is all over the place, swinging wildly from shadowy, Gothic-horror theatricals to quasi-documentary bleakness and back again, buoyed by the largely fine performances. Some sensible points are made, there's food for thought to spare and we are never once asked (or allowed) to be sympathetic toward the abusers, but the plot feels strangely tacked on and the denouement lamentably botched.

The Brute opened briefly in early 1977 to a storm of protests and accusations of bad taste and quickly vanished, though it did receive a video release in the early eighties on the Brent Walker label and a region one DVD release seems to be doing the rounds in collector's circles. It's a difficult film to enjoy - it's frequently a difficult film to watch - but fans of obscure British cinema with a taste for the offbeat should definitely track it down and remind themselves just how eclectic (if decidedly strapped for cash) the domestic film industry really was in that most conflicted of decades.