JANE ASHER HYPNOTICALLY DIVES INTO THE CURIO OF 'DEEP END'

Jane Asher in DEEP END Year: 1971 Rating: ***1/2

Had a more genuinely expressive, professionally-trained young actor starred in Jerzy Skolimowski's DEEP END, about virginal fifteen-year-old John Moulder-Brown working at a fictional English town's Newford Baths, this half British/half German production would be far less an exploitive art-piece and more a PEEPING TOM, TWISTED NERVE or PSYCHO style thriller — but then Jane Asher wouldn't be nearly as important...

She's a glib and worldly, experienced and extremely flirtatious bathhouse employee who shows the new kid around: in one scene failing what seems a rudimentary seduction after he timidly dodges an aggressive (and older) Diana Dors — this is obviously a place to heat-up more than cool-down...

John Moulder-Brown carries Jane Asher in DEEP END

And by the time this kid (not nearly attractive enough to merit such perpetual female attention) has gone off the titular DEEP END for Asher's Susan — blithely engaged to a common dolt while cheating with a handsome married man — there's little to no expanding story-arc in-between... so whether accidental or intentional, director Skolimowski's experimental feature becomes more a representation of sexual obsession than a story depicting it... 

Leaving Asher practically alone to make this offbeat odyssey work at all: for example, even when the poor lad's on a solo late-night traipse, he literally carries around her life-size cardboard cutout... and since Jane's timeless, alluring beauty still holds up, so does the entire picture— albeit wading mostly in the shallow end of a deeply troubled young soul.

Jane Asher in DEEP END

Jane Asher in DEEP END

Jane Asher in DEEP END

Anita Lochner as the boys high school ex-girlfriend in DEEP END

Jane Asher in DEEP END

Nightclub ticket-taker Anne-Marie Kuster in DEEP END

Hooker voiced by Diana Dors is Louise Martini in DEEP END

Jane Asher in DEEP END

Jane Asher in DEEP END with John Moulder-Brown

Jane Asher in DEEP END

Jane Asher in DEEP END

Jane Asher in DEEP END

Jane Asher in DEEP END

Jane Asher in DEEP END

Jane Asher in DEEP END

Jane Asher in DEEP END

Jane Asher in DEEP END

Jane Asher in DEEP END

Jane Asher in DEEP END with John Moulder-Brown

Diana Dors in DEEP END with John Moulder-Brown

Burt Kwouk in DEEP END with John Moulder-Brown

Opening title for DEEP END

Jane Asher in DEEP END with Karl Michael Vogler

Jane Asher in DEEP END with John Moulder-Brown

Jane Asher in DEEP END

Jane Asher in DEEP END

Jane Asher in DEEP END

Jane Asher in DEEP END with John Moulder-Brown

Jane Asher in DEEP END with Karl Michael Vogler

Jane's benign fiance Christopher Sandford in DEEP END

Jane Asher in DEEP END with John Moulder-Brown

Jane Asher in DEEP END

Jane Asher in DEEP END

Jane Asher in DEEP END