In regard to posts earlier in the thread about audiences laughing at this film during screenings... I have to admit that, on seeing it for the first time by myself this week, I laughed quite frequently but it wasn’t in a derisive way. Ever since I was a child and saw
Jurassic Park theatrically, I have often laughed — somewhat nervously, but also joyously — when I am surprised at how
extreme the situation in a film or TV show is, it’s mostly a response of actual surprise at a movie having conviction enough to go as far as this film does, for instance, down the
potential-child-murderer hole.
I don’t know if that’s an unusual response or not but I did like the film (though it’s not, on first pass, among my favorites of Nicholas Ray’s films) and certainly didn’t feel superior to it in any way, and found James Mason’s performance most credible and only “over the top” insofar as it needed to be to serve the narrative.
That said, I relate immensely to the despair of hearing an audience refuse to take a film seriously. As a teenager I fell in love with Truffaut’s
Fahrenheit 451; it hit me just right and I found it terribly moving. One day in English class we unexpectedly screened the film and not only did my friends/classmates ridicule it relentlessly when they paid attention to it at all, I found myself able to “see it” through their eyes — even though I didn’t agree with their dismissiveness — and felt vulnerable and stupid for being upset about the whole ordeal.
