Ruth Rendell's book was not among her best ;it's a far cry from her masterpiece " a judgement in stone" or such triumphs as " a fatal inversion "; the love triangle subject is hackneyed ,and it seems that they 're in it just to secure a sweetened ending . The detective story was written well before the movie,so I do not think that Rendell had Perkins in mind when she wrote it ;but it's obvious that a sexually-repressed shady guy making love to a mannequin dressed up as his mom , it inevitably reminds the viewer of Norman Bates who followed the highly talented actor through his whole career ; filmed in studio in England and on location in Hamburg , in a drab part of the city , the film , except in rare moments such as the Guy Fawkes Day , is complicated instead of complex:too many characters ,( Perkins ' young homesake is uninteresting ,it already was on the paper and Uwe Bohm is extremely bland .)
Sometimes truth can be stranger than fiction: a package (containing cannabis) was sent to another Perkins who was staying in the same hotel in Cardiff and the actor was fined 200 pounds ;in the film there's an -insignificant- subplot : in the seedy appartment house,there are two persons named Johnson ,Arthur (Bohm) and Anthony (Perkins!) , and the latter intercepts his namesake's letter and sends a fake one to his lover . The only reason where you would sit through this deja vu thriller is Perkins : even with clichés such as childhood memories flashbacks which come back to haunt him ,even unsupported by a weak cast , he was professional to his fingertips and,considering his huge talent , it's a sad and tatty end to a man who provided a model for countless thrillers and whose career was partially blighted by Hitchcock's tour de force .An extra star just for him and his unforgettable hangdog looks ,still the man with the child in his eyes .
Sometimes truth can be stranger than fiction: a package (containing cannabis) was sent to another Perkins who was staying in the same hotel in Cardiff and the actor was fined 200 pounds ;in the film there's an -insignificant- subplot : in the seedy appartment house,there are two persons named Johnson ,Arthur (Bohm) and Anthony (Perkins!) , and the latter intercepts his namesake's letter and sends a fake one to his lover . The only reason where you would sit through this deja vu thriller is Perkins : even with clichés such as childhood memories flashbacks which come back to haunt him ,even unsupported by a weak cast , he was professional to his fingertips and,considering his huge talent , it's a sad and tatty end to a man who provided a model for countless thrillers and whose career was partially blighted by Hitchcock's tour de force .An extra star just for him and his unforgettable hangdog looks ,still the man with the child in his eyes .