The film starts off well. We are on a bus. As the Peddlers sing and play the song "Tell the World We're Not In," We see a carefree pair of star- crossed lovers. As the film progresses, we find out that the pair are actually twins. They are both immature. And they talk to a teddy bear named Agamemnon. In one scene the male twin uses the teddy bear as an oracle, which is probably how the source novel is called "Ask Agamemnon". In real life, twins can shut the world out even to the point of constructing their very own language. This pair have not got that far, but they have reached the point where incest is very much in evidence. Jenni Hall, the novelist also wrote: My Son, My Lover, which also touches on incest.
The pair fall into the Swinging London scene. There are drugs, scotch whisky, very camp gays, transvestites to add to incestuous twins. The impression I get is that the whole thing is to shock people for the sake of shocking them...under the guise of Swinging London. I was up and about in Swinging London. If you were at a party, chances were you would be drinking wine or beer, dancing with someone of the opposite sex,and dressed according to your own gender. People even smoked tobacco. And I can't say I ever witnessed anyone conversing with a teddy bear.
The male twin is the most unstable of the two, and wants to shut the rest of the world out; he just wants to be with his sister. That does not stop him for going out for the night with his sister's boyfriend to a seedy hotel, where he is seduced by transvestites. His sister's boyfriend photographs the proceedings, and uses it to blackmail the male twin,so that he can pay off a large sum of money to a violent loan shark, played by a moustachioed Mike Pratt.
The male twin challenges his sister's boyfriend to tell the twins apart. While the latter is out of the room, the twins dress in bedsheets where eyeholes have been cut with a sword. The sheets of course conceal the sword as well. The boyfriend is invited back in....Having been through incest, violence, smoking illegal substances, cross-dressing, male-on- male rape; then murder and subsequent suicide are mere bagatelles.
Quoting from Dame Edith Sitwell has not been fashionable for years. But her criticism of "that insignificant, dirty little book" which is how she described "Lady Chatterley's Lover," is what comes to mind when seeing this film. There comes a time in life when you stop pretending to be open-minded, and say: "Look I don't want to see this. I really don't want my nose nailed to other people's lavatories." We all know that there are people who have minds like sewers. The problem comes when they ram their filth down other people's throats. And Society really does degenerate as a result.
Fortunately, the Peddlers made a record of "Tell the World We're Not In;" so you can enjoy the best bit of this "insignificant, dirty little" film without having to watch it.
The pair fall into the Swinging London scene. There are drugs, scotch whisky, very camp gays, transvestites to add to incestuous twins. The impression I get is that the whole thing is to shock people for the sake of shocking them...under the guise of Swinging London. I was up and about in Swinging London. If you were at a party, chances were you would be drinking wine or beer, dancing with someone of the opposite sex,and dressed according to your own gender. People even smoked tobacco. And I can't say I ever witnessed anyone conversing with a teddy bear.
The male twin is the most unstable of the two, and wants to shut the rest of the world out; he just wants to be with his sister. That does not stop him for going out for the night with his sister's boyfriend to a seedy hotel, where he is seduced by transvestites. His sister's boyfriend photographs the proceedings, and uses it to blackmail the male twin,so that he can pay off a large sum of money to a violent loan shark, played by a moustachioed Mike Pratt.
The male twin challenges his sister's boyfriend to tell the twins apart. While the latter is out of the room, the twins dress in bedsheets where eyeholes have been cut with a sword. The sheets of course conceal the sword as well. The boyfriend is invited back in....Having been through incest, violence, smoking illegal substances, cross-dressing, male-on- male rape; then murder and subsequent suicide are mere bagatelles.
Quoting from Dame Edith Sitwell has not been fashionable for years. But her criticism of "that insignificant, dirty little book" which is how she described "Lady Chatterley's Lover," is what comes to mind when seeing this film. There comes a time in life when you stop pretending to be open-minded, and say: "Look I don't want to see this. I really don't want my nose nailed to other people's lavatories." We all know that there are people who have minds like sewers. The problem comes when they ram their filth down other people's throats. And Society really does degenerate as a result.
Fortunately, the Peddlers made a record of "Tell the World We're Not In;" so you can enjoy the best bit of this "insignificant, dirty little" film without having to watch it.