User Reviews

At the time this film was made the Swinging Sixties in Britain were yet to begin. Britain's old social mores still held sway, while youth culture was bubbling up ready to take centre stage. In this film teenagers at the Paloma café call each other "nit" and "berk" and say things like "Cor! Strike a light!" While the word "virginity" is censored to a "V."

The star of the film is the pop singer Adam Faith. Although he sings the theme song "Mix Me a Person" and does an English language version of "La Bamba" in the film, he plays a serious role in a serious film dealing with serious issues. Faith can almost certainly act better than he can sing; and, as the teenager sentenced to death for the murder of a policeman is totally convincing throughout.

The plot is not too bad although it hangs together with a series of unbelievable coincidences. But I suppose that just goes to show that no matter how convincing the case against a condemned man is, there is always an element of doubt, which makes the irreversible death penalty useless in a civilised justice system.

The film is fairly well directed. The script is a little jaded and unreal. Otherwise Mix Me a Person is well above average for a British B movie; and is much, much better than the cops and robbers tripe that was typical of the period.

Now the acting. The warders, police, villains, do their jobs well. It's the principle characters that are - well - they are absolutely pathetic in many cases. As mentioned, Adam Faith is great. Anne Baxter, who plays the psychiatrist with gravity-defying hair who tries to prove Faith's innocence, acts well or badly, depending on whom she is playing the scene with. If she plays with someone who acts well, she acts well. Unfortunately, many of her scenes are played with her barrister boyfriend played by Donald Sinden. Sinden chews up the scenery so much that there must have been teethmarks all over the film stock; so, in her scenes with Sinden, Baxter does likewise. Then there are the new generation of actors represented by the kids at the Paloma Café. Of these, Dr Who girl Carole Ann Ford is excellent and totally convincing. The rest, which include Tony Blair's father-in-law Anthony Booth, are, in my opinion, absolutely APPALLING.

On the credit side, the abolition of the death penalty was a hot topic at the time. It would be easy for this film to sentimentalise and trivialise this subject; somehow this film avoids that, and no doubt had a minor role to play in the death penalty's final abolition a year or two later. The helplessness of the innocent man and those who take his cause against a bureaucratic and rigid justice system determined to exact its pound of flesh is captured wonderfully well.

For all its faults this mix-me-a-film is well worth watching. Its good points outweigh its bad ones, which is why I have given it 7 out of 10.

With her husband Donald Sinden the public defender for a young man accused of the manslaughter of a young girl and later a cop, Anne Baxter gets more involved in the case than her husband by going out of her way to prove him innocent when her husband runs out of ideas of how to get him off and prevent him from getting the death penalty. It's a very complex case that had witnesses. But their stories are not on the side of defendant Adam Faith who has a history of juvenile delinquency and is guilty of singing that noisy music called rock and roll that the adults don't get. In fact, he gets to sing a very different version of "La Bamba" that is one of the non tense highlights of the film. Her husband has pretty much moved on from the case, and her obsession with finding a way to help him causing some major issues in their marriage. Visits to the governor and other sources don't seem to help, but Baxter is not going to give up, at least not until after the pending death penalty is put into effect.

The Academy Award winning Baxter is just one of many major film stars who did a British film after the studio era ended, and this one gives her a juicy part that is far from the trashy fun of the same year's "Walk on the Wild Side" back in the States. It is mentioned that she has had an obsession with the issues surrounding juvenile delinquency that are not in tune with others of her generation, and she gets major harassment for her involvement in this case, even from young adults Faith's age. She finds assistance from some of his friends whom she makes her army of defense, pursuing their own methods of obtaining further evidence in his behalf. This film keeps the viewer entranced with every twist and turn because many of those twists are not in Baxter or Faith's behalf. It certainly could have gone down the path of teen exploitation but thankfully avoids that and thus becomes a film well worth seeing. But that title? No matter how much I think about it, it makes absolutely no sense to me.