cult film freak: CHARLES BRONSON 'SOMEONE BEHIND THE DOOR' ANTHONY PERKINS

Year: 1971 Title: SOMEONE BEHIND THE DOOR Rating: ***1/2

French shot/English speaking psychological thriller mirroring François Truffaut mirroring Alfred Hitchcock has a perfectly cast Anthony Perkins as a neurosurgeon taking an amnesiac patient to his plush home in order to (supposedly) help the nameless stranger, played by an only slightly miscast Charles Bronson, pacing taut and timid like a caged beast during his pre-fame European Phase...

But this is really Perkins' ride... more logical than psycho in a psychological thriller... providing another hiding-a-dark-secret creepy guy role... And from the mellow cadence, what could have been cat-and-mouse is more like mouse-and-mouse, or mouse and toothless cat, even during Bronson's sporadic tantrums in a noirish plot involving Jill Ireland as the doc's cheating wife (employing a cute Agathe Natanson as their maid, who'd have fit the ingenue role better)...

Charles Bronson and Anthony Perkins in SOMEONE BEHIND THE DOOR

It's no irony that both Bronson and Perkins are ultimately best remembered playing killers the audience sympathizes with and maybe even root for, and director Nicolas Gessner uses effective zooms and strategic camera angles/setups to the advantage of this "chessboard mystery" (albeit involving one set) where both antagonist and protagonist seem equally sinister and vulnerable....

And despite SOMEONE BEHIND THE DOOR wielding an art-house short film plot-line stretched to 90-minutes, it doesn't drag or where-out its offbeat and intentionally uncomfortable, avant-garde unwelcome either way.