Cul-de-sac (1966)

Director:

Roman Polanski

Writers:

Gérard Brach (writer)
Roman Polanski (writer)

Release Date:

7 November 1966 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama | Thriller

Plot:

A wounded criminal and his dying partner take refuge at a beachfront castle. The owners of the castle...

Plot Keywords:

Castle | Partner | Coward | Chicken | Eccentric

Awards:

Nominated for BAFTA Film Award. Another 1 win

Cast

Donald Pleasence	...	George
Françoise Dorléac	...	Teresa
Lionel Stander	...	Richard
Jack MacGowran	...	Albie
Iain Quarrier	...	Christopher
Geoffrey Sumner	...	Christopher's Father
Renee Houston	...	Christopher's Mother
Robert Dorning	...	Philip Fairweather
Marie Kean	...	Marion Fairweather
William Franklyn	...	Cecil
Jacqueline Bisset	...	Jacqueline (as Jackie Bisset)
Trevor Delaney	...	Nicholas

Also Known As:

Callejón sin salida (Mexico) (Spain) [es]
Wenn Katelbach kommt... (Switzerland: German title) (West Germany) [de]
Armadilha do Destino (Brazil) [pt]
Blind vej (Denmark) [da]
Cul-de-Sac - Återvändsgränden (Finland: Swedish title) [sv]
Djävulsk gisslan (Sweden) [sv]
Gislene (Norway) [no]
I nyhta ton dolofonon (Greece) [el]
Matnia (Poland) [pl]
Mavoy Satoom (Israel: Hebrew title) [iw]
Nyhta dolofonon (Greece) (reissue title) [el]
O Beco (Portugal) [pt]
Umpikuja (Finland) [fi]

Runtime:

113 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:12 | Portugal:M/12 | Norway:16 | Argentina:16 | Australia:M | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 | Switzerland:16 (re-release) | UK:15 | West Germany:16 (bw)

Filming Locations:

Holy Island of Lindisfarne, Northumberland, England, UK

Company:

Compton Films

Trivia:

Roman Polanski shot 16 takes of the scene in which Lionel Stander drinks a pint of milk.

Quotes:

Nicholas: [after being punished for scratching one of Teresa's records] That Froggy bitch pulled my ear off!
Philip Fairweather: Here, here, here! Who taught you to speak like that?
Nicholas: Mum did!
Philip Fairweather: [slaps the back of Nicholas's hand] That'll teach you to tell lies.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Chinatown: The Beginning and the End (2007) (V)

Too bizarre, too perverse, too incomprehensible to sustain the suspense that must have been intended…

"Cul-de-Sac" is another strange kind of a suspense film… It is about a hoodlum invading the privacy of a rich, highly eccentric couple, impresses with its darkly comic account of power games and communication breakdown…

Here Polanski isolated his characters in an old castle on Holy Island, off the Northumberland coast... And what characters they were: Donald Pleasance, putting on his wife's nightie and using her make-up in the retreat to which he had escaped from the unappealing world; Francoise Dorléac as the stunning bird; and Lionel Stander as the savage intruder blundering in…

A lot of critics gave a lot of praise to this film – presumably on the precept that if it's bizarre and a bit perverse and nobody understands it, it must be good… I found it just too bizarre, too perverse, too incomprehensible to sustain the suspense that must have been intended…