ShangLuda Admirable film.

Hayden Kane There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Sarita Rafferty There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

robert-temple-1 This film has suffered from unjustifiable neglect. It is an intriguing film made with a high degree of intensity and seriousness. It contains what may perhaps be the finest performance by American actor Stephen Boyd, appearing in this otherwise British film. (Boyd died at the age of only 45 in 1977. He was mostly known for action films but clearly had deeper talents which were rarely seen.) The film was expertly directed by Charles Crichton. (He ended his directorial career with a bang, directing the huge hit A FISH CALLED WANDA in 1988, despite having been born in 1910. He had been a director for 44 years.) There are some very good lines in this film, and numerous odd and unusual touches. Take for instance the title of the film. Early in the film we are told that there are three kinds of secrets: the first are the ones we conceal from others, the second are the ones which we conceal from ourselves. We are left guessing about the third. But as the action progresses and so much is revealed, Boyd guesses the third kind: 'The third secret is the truth.' This high-level approach means that this film is not the usual run of the mill mystery film. The film starts with the murder of a prominent psychiatrist in his home. He was largely retired but retained a consulting room in his home for a tiny number of special patients. At first we believe there were four of them, but later we discover that there was a mysterious fifth patient. The death is ruled a suicide at an inquest, but the psychiatrist's young daughter, aged 10, insists that he was murdered by a patient. No list is known to exist of who the patients were, and the psychiatrist specially kept no files, at least none that can be found. The four patients of whom we know at first are played by Stephen Boyd, a prominent broadcaster, Jack Hawkins, a famous judge (filmed at Lincolns Inn), Richard Attenborough as an art dealer, and Diane Cilento as a pathetic glamorous woman who lives alone in a bedsit and cannot bear to be touched by men. Judi Dench plays a bit part but it is easy to miss her, as I must confess I did, despite seeing the film twice. The young daughter is played by Pamela Franklin, at her most intense and compelling. Probably she never was more intense, although that is what she specialized in. Certainly she more than fulfills the needs in this role, which positively required a child capable of drilling holes in people with her demanding gaze. My wife and I knew Pamela and her husband Harvey Jason very well indeed long ago, when she was grown up, and were involved in a film project with them which did not come to fruition because of financial corruption on the part of a distributor, and my refusal as producer to collude in it. Another actress whom I used to know, Patience Collier, appears in this film, but she too is easy to miss, as is also surprisingly the case with Nigel Davenport, who normally is impossible to miss. I refer to these invisibles in this mystery film as 'the case of the vanishing talent'. However, there is plenty of talent which does not vanish. The leading roles are all brilliantly played, and rarely did Richard Attenborough excel to this degree. Hawkins's performance of a man near to madness with anxiety is so impressive, and Diane Cilento never was such a waif in any other film, and is superb. The story is most ingenious, though under IMDb rules I cannot reveal the solution to the mystery, or mysteries. Pamela Franklin approaches Stephen Boyd and persuades him to investigate the murder, and gives him the names of three other patients, whom he meets and interrogates. There is very interesting footage of the south side of the Thames at Hammersmith, where the house of the murdered man is. Pamela and Boyd keep breaking in, despite its having been sealed by the police and about to be put up for sale against her wishes by her aunt and uncle who have become her guardians. Peter Copley, despite appearing only briefly, is excellent as the murdered man, and two superb oil portraits of him where made for the film, far better than the portraits one normally sees in films. I hope he was able to keep them, and I wonder who the artist was (uncredited). The evocative and moody cinematography was done by Doug Slocombe, with the excellent Chic Waterson as his operator. Waterson was an operator for 42 years and seemed never to want to graduate to cinematographer, one of the most extreme acts of modesty in the history of his profession. This film is highly recommended as a superior psychological mystery thriller.

christopher-underwood I enjoyed this a lot. It is a bit dialogue heavy but as long as the dialogue is as good as this is, for most of the time, I have no problem with that and there is sufficient and most effective visual bravura where needed. Very English, it has to be said, and I suppose very much of the cinema of the early 60s. Judi Dench has a small part and would have a much larger part the following year, in 'Four in the Morning' set, funnily enough along pretty much the same stretch of the Thames, at Strand-on-the-Green, between Kew Bridge and Chiswick. The credits appear over a shot of the Thames at Richmond but this would be poetic license rather than a mistake. Stephen Boyd is the main male lead and he does a difficult job well as we ponder the death of an eminent psychiatrist when his daughter insists that her father would not have killed himself. Pamela Franklin plays the fourteen year old who begins to make Boyd even consider he might have killed the doctor before the film races to a rousing conclusion. She plays her role most effectively and will be remembered as the young girl from the earlier, The Innocents. Quiet, considered, intelligent film making, little seen today. Great b/w cinematography.

foxfirebrand Pamela Franklin is at her precocious best in this tale of "psychoanalytical" intrigue with boundary-crossing sexual overtones. Precocity often took her into territory it's now fashionable to call "inappropriate," such as the schoolgirl love interest she played with a randy old artist in "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie." Though understated and implicit in "The Third Secret," her emotionally-troubled character's relationship with Stephen Boyd's character is in this same vein. All of 18 when I saw this in theatrical release, I was captivated. The movie is still a guilty pleasure, though you have to suspend a lot of disbelief to get back in that naive early-60s groove when sexuality was still portrayed indirectly through characters who were not exactly the Free Spirits that populated such films later in the decade.Look for a spooky cinematic trick toward the end of the film, when Stephen Boyd's character is just starting to unravel the big Secret. Pamela makes a statement about how many patients her father had-- Stephen thinks he misheard her, and asks her to repeat what she said. Watch carefully for the "subliminal" trick, which could easily go unnoticed-- it made the hair on my arms stand up.Hokey in parts, and based on some then-commonplace misconceptions about psychiatric disorders, the movie still works if you can accept it on its own terms. At the very least its understatement is a refreshing change from the noise-saturated frantic bombast of today's not-so-spooky films, with their mindless reliance on sensory overload and oh-so-special effects.

Joan Daniels I was the edge of my seat! A suspenseful Who Done It with compelling performances by Pamela Franklin and Stephen Boyd in challengingly complex roles. The plot is fairly progressive for its time - the topic of mental illness still somewhat taboo in our society. I read somewhere that Stephen Boyd was so taken with the story and the character, he took a sizeable pay cut to play the role of Alex. Versatile actor that he was, he seemed to most enjoy those demanding and unusual character roles with substance and depth that really challenge an actor and in which he performed so notably well. And Pamela Franklin, at the age of 14, is an incredible actress taking on a role that veterans would not have managed nearly as well.Great story - great film - great acting!