People are voting emotionally.

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Admirable film.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

Jerzy Skolimowski's masterful 1970 film Deep End went under the radar for half a century until a recent DVD release revealed its treasures. Deep End looks like but is not a coming-of-age film. The two main protagonists, 15-year-old Mike (John Moulder Brown) and 24-year-old Susan (Jane Asher), unfortunately never come of age. Neither is it a so-called black comedy, a horror film, or a surreal, dreamlike exercise in teenage angst, though it has elements of all of them. It is basically unclassifiable but is definitely closer in tone to Clockwork Orange than to The Graduate.Darkly erotic and sexually ambiguous, the film opens with a vision of dripping red paint backed by the music of Cat Stevens singing "But I Might Die Tonight." Mike, a high-school dropout, has gone to work as a pool attendant at Newford Baths, a sleazy and deteriorating public pool that is filled with middle aged patrons looking for something other than a swim. Having been accosted by a bosomy, obese middle-aged woman (Diana Dors) for her own pleasure, Mike realizes that his first job experience may not look good on his resume. The boy's interest is channeled to his co-worker Susan who reassures him that harassment by patrons is just part of the job, one that could lead to some liberal tips.A part of the job he had not bargained for, however, is his growing infatuation and obsession with the 24-year-old Susan, who has a fiancé (Christopher Sandford) and boyfriend, a married former high school teacher (Karl Michael Vogler), and also may just be an expensive call girl. Their relationship starts out full of fun and brotherly concern but it starts to turn creepy when he follows his mentor and her date to a porno movie and starts annoying her by touching her breasts. When her boyfriend alerts the manager, she thrills him when with a kiss on the lips just before he is ushered out of the theater.When Mike steals her poster found at a Soho strip club and attempts to compete in a footrace against runners at his old school, where he was himself a celebrated athlete, we know that the deep end is not far away. Mike's lust for Susan begins to include stalking and threatening and we begin to realize that his out-of-control emotional immaturity is the stuff of impending tragedy. Beginning and ending with the silence and comfort of water, the powerful and unsentimental Deep End may make you think twice before going for a swim.

I assumed this was a foreign film I found listed in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, it was directed by Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski, but it had elements of West German production, but it is a certainly a British set story, and one that sounded interesting. Basically fifteen year old Michael 'Mike' (John Moulder-Brown) has just left school, and finds himself a job at the local swimming pool and public baths, being trained by Susan (BAFTA nominated Jane Asher) who is ten years older than him but he cannot help but find her attractive. He finds that working at the bathhouse has more than just cleaning going on, he is being tipped to provide more services to clients of a more sexual nature, this includes his first lady client (Diana Dors) who is stimulated pushing his face into her bosom and talking about football suggestively, Susan explains that this tipping is normal practice, and that many of the clients ask for the opposite sex for their tips. Mike falls for Susan, despite the fact that she has a fiancé (Christopher Sandford), there is a night when he follows them into the cinema and an adult movie, sitting behind them and him touching her breasts, the fiancé goes to tell the manager and the police are maybe going to question him, but Susan kisses him and is amused, she and the fiancé do not press charges, the police instead allege a minor being allowed into an X rated movie, and the fiancé tries to get revenge before the police intrude. Mike later finds out that Susan is cheating on her fiancé with a swimming instructor (Karl Michael Vogler), who was also Mike's former physical eduction teacher, in jealous anger Mike breaks a fire alarm and cuts his hand, and he is curious to see what is going on between her and the fiancé. So one night he goes to the club he heard she would be, he avoids being spotted and hangs around the erotic area, buying many hot dogs from the salesman (Burt Kwouk), but also he finds a cardboard cutout of a girl, and it looms just like Susan, so he steals it, and hides with leg cast wearing prostitute Beata (Louise Martini) until the coast is clear, and eventually after ages of waiting he confronts Susan on the underground, she neither confirms or denies the image is of her exposing herself. Following a night where Mike swims naked in the swimming pool, with the cardboard cutout, he is angry again and blows the P.E. teacher's car tyres with broken glass, Susan confronts him and they talk in the park, but when she slaps him her diamond from her engagement rings falls into the snow, so he helps her by scooping the area of snow it would have dropped into plastic bags. They take the snow to the public baths, and with the swimming pool drained he lowers the ceiling lamp to use for electricity to connect a kettle and melt the snow, while he continues the melting in the empty pool, she makes the P.E. teacher walk away upset, not just because of the punctured car tyres, but she says that she borrowed the car keys and lost them as well. Mike finds the diamond, and lies naked in the empty swimming pool holding the stone on his tongue, she is given back the diamond and is about to leave, but she undresses as well and lies with him, they talk and make amends, she tries to leave but Mike wants her to stay, unaware they are there the attendant starts filling the swimming pool, and in anger at her trying to leave Mike hits Susan with the lamp in the back of the head, she falls unconscious into the water, he embraces her while they are still naked. I agree with critics, this is one of the strangest films that was made during the Swinging Sixties, it incorporates many of the aspects of the period, especially with the sexuality of the characters, the setting of the dank and grotty bath house is interesting, the acting is as good as you can get, there are some good funny moments, especially during the constant hot dog buying scene, but also the dark and surreal stuff to, but it is all of it's time and a watchable drama. Very good!

DEEP END is a low-key British movie with plenty of artistic flourishes. It's set at the tail-end of the Swinging Sixties, taking place in a grubby, run-down old swimming baths where new recruit John Moulder-Brown develops a crush and then an obsession with cute attendant Jane Asher.Like many such realist productions, this is a meandering story which depicts various episodes in the life of its protagonist. His trawls through a grubby, slightly seedy London are brimming with atmosphere and the director seems to take great delight in delivering sleazy locations, from adult cinemas to a prostitute's room. Meanwhile, Moulder-Brown's encounter with a gropey Diana Dors is memorable for all the wrong reasons.It's hard to dislike this film, which remains unpredictable throughout and builds to a shocking climax. Moulder-Brown (VAMPIRE CIRCUS) is excellent as the protagonist and Jane Asher equally good as the young and lovely object of his affections. Colourful cinematography adds to the experience and makes DEEP END a highly watchable film for fans of the era.

For many years a somewhat obscure and unseen semi-avant garde melodrama,DEEP END has had a recent revival in digitally restored fashion in cinema,DVD and television,and has an undercurrent of strangeness running through it's entire oeuvre.Set in post-swinging 60's London,but an American/West German co-production directed by Polish-born Jerzy Skolimowski mostly filmed in Germany,with an eclectic cast and musical score,a dubious story and related characters.This overall oddness does not necessarily equate to greatness,but DEEP END still nevertheless manages to hold the attention throughout.A decidedly gauche,awkward 15 year old youth,Mike (John Moulder-Brown) starts his first job at a grimy,dilapidated London municipal bathhouse,and falls in love with a beautiful but uninhibited female co-worker,Susan (Jane Asher),a few years older than him.Susan is apparently engaged but uses and exploits other males for her own pleasure,including the hapless Mike himself.The attraction gradually seems to become more mutual,if dangerous.Coming at the end of the optimistic,happy-go-lucky 60's and populated with rather unlikable characters,DEEP END is packed with so much symbolism as to be in peril from drowning in it.The setting of the seedy,crumbling bathhouse is an obvious metaphor for being literally thrown into the deep rather than shallow end of life,with the related problems,frustrations and behaviour on show signifying this.For a while,DEEP END comes across as a familiar but wispily charming essay on the pains of growing up,with an amusing cameo from Diana Dors (who became a better actress as she got into early middle-age),holding Mike to her bosom while mumbling platitudes about football,though it's not long before it all becomes progressively darker,with dubious behaviour from a male swimming instructor (who Susan has a dalliance with) towards young female students,and an increasingly unhealthy relationship between Mike,so wet behind the ears as to be soaking,and the voluptuous Susan.Moulder-Brown is fine as the hopelessly naive adolescent,though as with many teens his character's behaviour and traits often becomes very irritating,while Ms Asher is convincing as his and other males object of desire,outrageously sexy and knowing it,teasing and cajoling as many males as she can muster,mostly for her own entertainment and amusement in the skimpiest clothing imaginable.With all this symbolism (such as Mike stealing a cardboard life size poster of Susan from London's underground) and semi-Freudian obsession,DEEP END has little in the way of plot,and much of the cast are not British but mainland European (mainly German).This sometimes gets in the way of authenticity for the more pessimistic mood of late 60's/early 70's London (not surprising as much of the film was apparently filmed in Munich),and Skolimowski often seems not to have an ear for the English language,with some scenes allowed to ramble with somewhat stilted dubbed and non-dubbed dialogue.There is much use of hand-held camera and other scenes which have an improvised feel,which is not necessarily a bad thing as said moments have a more spontaneous,humorous and natural feel to them.Such locations as the bathhouse and Soho (which features a funny cameo from Burt Kwouk) add to a sense of decline and seediness while observing the dubious behaviour of the main and secondary characters involved,which inevitably leads to the climax in the swimming pool,with the symbolism at it's height as it being empty and drained of water,but there is a twist in store.....With it's dreary,seedy setting and unsympathetic characters,DEEP END could have been utterly disposable,yet it's very style deem it oddly compulsive and curiously watchable,with it's best moments reserved for it's finale with haunting and extraordinary imagery that linger in the mind long afterwards,confirming it's reputation of being a bizarre,rediscovered cult classic.RATING:7 out of 10.