SECRET CEREMONY

"Secret Ceremony" is Joseph Losey's weird and wonderful and largely forgotten masterpiece about two women bound together by nothing more than their illusions and interdependency; a mother in search of a dead daughter and a daughter in search of a dead mother. They are played magnificently by Elizabeth Taylor and Mia Farrow in this dark tale of mystery, imagination and madness. Of course, you need to suspend disbelief from the start since Losey's film has nothing to do with logic; reality doesn't enter into the equation, at least not until Robert Mitchum's abusive step-father intervenes.

Using the famous Debenham House in Holland Park as Farrow's family home, this is as much about place and objects as it is about people so that the house itself becomes the sixth character in the picture, (the others are Peggy Ashcroft and Pamela Browne as a couple of duplicitous aunts), while George Tabori's screenplay taken from Marco Denevi's prize-winning short story is sheer poetry. Of course, the film's mystical tone meant it wasn't a success but it's as good as anything in the Losey canon and is still one of the great 'London' pictures.