“Deep End”: Classic Is Restored
The Guardian opines: ‘It’s not uncommon for movies to drop out of circulation and simply disappear, as fans of “Deep End” will attest. Barely seen since its release in 1971, the film concerns Mike (played by John Moulder-Brown), a floppy-fringed 15-year-old who becomes dangerously infatuated with Susan (Jane Asher), his co-worker at the public baths. What’s unusual about this prolonged absence is that it should have befallen a film so passionately admired. The influential critic Andrew Sarris thought it measured up to the best of Godard, Truffaut and Polanski. The New Yorker’s Penelope Gilliatt called it “a work of peculiar, cock-a-hoop gifts.” If something as venerated as Deep End can sink, what hope for the rest of cinema?’ After years of being mired in rights issues, this vivid, rapturous film is about to return in a restored print.
