Double Feature - Really?
It is an interesting conceit that two movies, being made in the 60s, could have pivotal (perhaps) moments in their conceptions intertwined into a single, (or is it?) dramatic piece.
Double Feature, at the Hampstead offers us that, with Marnie (1964) – directed by the very well established Alfred Hitchcock, with the relative ingenue Tippi Hedren starring; and Witchfinder General (1968), directed by the virtually unknown Michael Reeves – a brilliant new director trying to prove his worth and starring Vincent Price in the midpoint of an already very established career.
So, a couple of one act plays – one set in 1964 and one in 1967 (for a 1968 release)? – No, a single act play with two directors and two actors on the same set at the same time, handing dialogue across to the other two like relay runners or tag team wrestlers.
Both parts are about the power struggle between director and actor, but (quite famously) Hitchcock is seducing Hedren, whereas Reeves is trying to get Price to act away from his Hammer House of Horror type (in the worst possible way, by humiliating the actor).
To get away with this at all requires meticulous direction (Jonathan Kent) and some very good acting, and without Jonathan Hyde (Vincent Price); Rowan Polonski (Michael Reeves); Ian Mcneice (Alfred Hitchcock) and Joanna Vanderham (Tippi Hedren) this would have got nowhere.
I only don’t know of Michael Reeves (who sadly died in early 1969 at 25 from an accidental overdose), but the other actors caught their characters believably well. Both directors are well written and are believable as directors, both actors respond well in character to difficult situations. There is humour, there is emotion, there are points to both playlets.
But the problems are clearly not the same in each movie, there are no real shared points of revelation or resolve, in the end the playlets tell of documented differences between star and director which are resolved sufficiently for the films to be released. Interestingly one documented line between the actual Price and Reeves (Price:- "Young man, I have made eighty-four films. What have you done?" Reeves:- "I've made three good ones.") wasn’t, I think, used, as snappily as it could have been.
This is a curate’s egg of a play (or two plays?) – worth seeing perhaps for the acting and staging – but it won’t be revived in 20 years time, I feel sure.