Seance on a Wet Afternoon

Seance on a Wet Afternoon

This great, under-rated 1964 movie stars Kim Stanley as an unbalanced woman who holds seances in her home and concocts a plot to gain celebrity with her so-called "powers". With the help of her husband, she plans to kidnap the daughter of a wealthy couple, then use her "powers" to reveal the girl's whereabouts.
What's most interesting about the plot is that very little attention is paid to the kidnapped girl and her fate. Rather, it's the twisted, deluded couple (Richard Attenborough plays the role of Stanley's beaten down husband with understated beauty) that is at the center of the film. Stanley is oblivious to the fact that her "idea" is a train wreck and has no hope of working but her husband, being emotionally dependent on her, doesn't have the courage to dissent (even though it is obvious he knows the eventual outcome.)
Stanley really steals the show here but there are so many other elements that make this movie so great. The gliding camera-work is simply amazing, the music choices fit the action perfectly, and the the film features the most believable money hand-off sequence I've ever seen, done without any dialogue.
-Stephen