The Strange Affair *** (1968, Michael York, Jeremy Kemp, Jack Watson, George A Cooper) – Classic Movie Review 8,836

The 1968 British crime thriller film The Strange Affair stars Michael York, who has a strange role as a young policeman whose honesty is tested when he comes up against a corrupt superior (Jeremy Kemp), in a tricky case of drug smuggling.

Director David Greene’s 1968 British crime thriller The Strange Affair stars Michael York, who has a strange role as rookie copper PC Peter Strange, a young metropolitan policeman whose honesty is tested when he comes up against a corrupt superior, Scotland Yard Detective Sergeant Pierce (Jeremy Kemp), in a difficult, problematic case of drug smuggling.

Pierce (Kemp) wants Strange (York) to plant drug evidence to convict the obviously guilty, particularly London mob boss Quince (Jack Watson), leading Strange (York) into very deep water, especially when he falls for an under-aged girl and is compromised by a pair of pornographers.

Michael York stars in The Strange Affair (1968).

Director Greene turns in a brutal, fairly exciting Swinging London thriller, souped-up as a typical Sixties romp with ‘sex kitten’ Susan George (only 17 at the time the film was shot) as Frederika ‘Fred’ March, a young porn star in a seedy game run by her supposed relatives.

Strange is having an affair with Fred, but does not know she is part of a porn ring and that her supposed aunt (Madge Ryan) and uncle (George Benson) are recording her sex encounters from behind a one-way mirror.

Pierce gets copies of photographs of Strange’s sex encounter with Fred and threatens to end his career by telling his superiors unless Strange plants heroin on one of the drug smuggling gang.

It is based on the 1966 novel by former Metropolitan policeman and private investigator Bernard Toms, which was believed to be inspired by the story of Harold Challenor, a Metropolitan Police CID Detective Sergeant charged in 1963 with corruption offences but found to be suffering from mental health problems and sent to a secure hospital.

Stanley Mann scripted from Bernard Toms’s novel between his notable attempts at Shakespeare for Franco Zeffirelli in Taming of the Shrew and Romeo and Juliet, both of which featured Michael York.

It is shot at Twickenham Studios, St Margarets, Richmond upon Thames, London, and on location around London.

Release: 24 July 1968.

Also in the cast are George A Cooper as Kingsley, Barry Fantoni as Charley Small, Artro Morris as Inspector Evans, Nigel Davenport as Defence Attorney, Madge Ryan as Aunt Mary, George Benson as Uncle Bertrand, George Selway, Michael Gover, Terence de Marney, Rita Webb, Patrick Newell, Richard Warner, Richard Vanstone, Richard Pearson, Jeremy Wilkin as PC Wills, Patrick Connor as Sergeant Mac, George Ghent and David Glaisyer.

Barry Fantoni (28 February 1940 – 20 May 2025) 

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8836

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