''Intimate Relations'' is a 1953 British

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-g ...

directed by

Charles Frank Charles Reser Frank (born April 17, 1947) is an American actor noted for playing Bret Maverick's cousin Ben Maverick in the 1978 TV-movie ''The New Maverick'' with James Garner and Jack Kelly, and in the short-lived 1979 television series '' ...

and based upon the play '' Les Parents terribles'' by

Jean Cocteau Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau (, , ; 5 July 1889 – 11 October 1963) was a French poet, playwright, novelist, designer, filmmaker, visual artist and critic. He was one of the foremost creatives of the su ...

. The film was known in the U.S. as ''Disobedient''. It was entered into the

1953 Cannes Film Festival The 6th Cannes Film Festival was held from 15 to 29 April 1953. The Grand Prix of the Festival went to ''The Wages of Fear'' by Henri-Georges Clouzot. The festival opened with ''Horizons sans fin'' by Jean Dréville. During the opening ceremony, ...

Plot

Crisis in a middle-class family when the son falls in love with his father's mistress. Family ties are stretched to breaking point, and the mother fears she'll lose her son as well as her husband.

Cast

* Harold Warrender as George * Marian Spencer as Yvonne * Ruth Dunning as Leonie * William Russell as Michael (as Enoch Russell) * Elsie Albiin as Madeline (as Elsy Albin)

Critical reception

''The New York Timess review concluded "the film's highlight, one superbly conceived and well-performed scene with the father and girl at loggerheads over the boy. As we contend, the author does know better. He has perceptively hammerlocked youth and age, and until the half-way mark, the above-mentioned encounter, the quandary is genuinely intriguing. But M. Cocteau's triumphant rattling of the

Oedipus Oedipus (, ; grc-gre, Οἰδίπους "swollen foot") was a mythical Greek king of Thebes. A tragic hero in Greek mythology, Oedipus accidentally fulfilled a prophecy that he would end up killing his father and marrying his mother, thereby ...

legend tilts the apple cart, and some of his own dialogue provides the best summary. "What a nightmare!" moans Miss Spencer at one point. Mr. Warrender: "You're telling me" ; and ''TV Guide'' wrote "the film is too talky and constricted by stage motifs. Enoch and Albiin, the mistress, do have a nice chemistry, though."

References

External links

*{{IMDb title, id=0206046, title=Intimate Relations 1953 films 1953 drama films British drama films Films based on works by Jean Cocteau British black-and-white films 1950s English-language films 1950s British films