Pressure Point
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Actor: Bobby Darin, Carl Benton Reid, Mary Munday, Peter Falk, Sidney PoitierBrand: TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language)
Format: Color, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.66:1
Running Time: 89 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-01-15
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: MGM
DVD Reviews of Pressure Point
DVD Review: A Well-Shrunken Head
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a truly excellent & powerful film that portrays the tense therapeutic relationship between a prison psychiatrist (Poitier) and a self-exalted American Nazi upstart (Darrin). Although incarcerated for sedition, Darrin's real imprisonment is within his own mind and persecutory complexes. and he suffers agonizing panic attacks, which results in his having to submit to therapy at the hands of someone he considers his inferior. He learns that his terrors are really the eruption of PTSD symptoms, and that his whole enterprise of hatred is a compensatory mask covering his deeper feelings of rage and inferioriy. Does this knowledge change him, however? To answer that question, you'll need--and want--to see the entire film and decide for yourself.
At the same time, this couch-opera is also an allegory about race relations, and perhaps about the spiritual battle between the forces of light/truth and darkness/deception--which is NOT protrayed lining up as Caucasian = light/truth and Black = darkness/deception, quite the opposite--even if one wants to be so literal about it. This film never takes the simple way out--it confronts unsavory hatred & bigotry, tackles some very subtle points about the process of psychotherapy, and portrays in painful detail the genesis (via graphic, bizarre parental abuse/neglect/cruelty) of a young man with an Antisocial Personality Disorder. Rather ambitious, I'd say!!
There are some pretty far-out special effects in this film, and even though perhaps crude by today's standards, they are still gripping and effective. As Darrin reluctantly unfolds his story in flashbacks, there are some excellent supporting performances by the actors portraying the parents and the Darrin-as-a-youngster character. Also, look for a young, earnest, sincerely befuddled, and non-trenchcoated Peter Falk in the framing story as a novice psychiatrist confessing his professional failures to the older, more experienced Poitier as his supervisor.
While I have not heard the commentary on the DVD, I can verify one other reviewer's surmise about director Kornfeld having medical problems and speaking through an electronic voice box. In the early 90's I saw Kornfeld speak at a showing of this film and 'Night of the Following Day' and while his remarks were hard to decipher, one could not help but admire his courage and erudition that shown through his handicap. He clearly had to struggle to make these dark, non-traditional films HIS way, and some pretty choice talent was happy to go along with him.
For clinical background contemporary to the making of this film, one might read texts such as 'The Authoritarian Personality' (Adorno, et.al.), Lindner's 'Fifty-Minute Hour' or perhaps John Bowlby's 'Forty-Four Juvenile Thieves' or Aichorn's 'Wayward Youth'. This was the heyday of psychoanalysis in the US, and there are really no punches pulled between the two stars as far as the therapeutic part of the film. Part of the film's achievement is that it closely follows clinical theory while remaining a piece of riveting, vital, and still-relevant entertainment. I think any thoughtful viewer will be quite enthralled with this hidden gem.
Description of Pressure Point
OscarĀ(r) winner* Sidney Poitier sizzles in an electrifying role (Show Business Illustrated) as a prison psychiatrist who clashes with a racist inmate (Bobby Darin) in this explosive and provocative (Citizen News) drama that packs a powerful wallop (LA Herald Examiner)! A prison doctor is charged with treating a hate-filled young man who's been jailed for sedition. As he probes the patient's nightmares, the psychiatrist realizes his twisted visions mask a lust for violence. But the inmate has become a model prisoner, and unless the doctor can convince officials that he's dangerous, he'll soon be back on the street. *1963: Actor, Lilies of the Field; 2001: Honorary AwardBestsellers in DVD
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