Review of The Collector (1965) by Tim S — 01 Nov 2011

You could call this a love story if you wanted to, but it doesn't quite describe William Wyler's 1965 psychological thriller The Collector. It's more about learning about a man who's mind is clearly not stable, and what we find out about him later.

The film builds on a tension through the eyes of the culprit and his victim and rarely moves away from that, if ever. Through dialogue and body language, we learn a lot about these two people and we're interested in seeing what becomes of them.

A minor complaint would be the film's look. Despite very strong direction from Wyler, the look of the film is pretty sparse and uninteresting. It looks like a television show rather than a film, which is a shame because playing with the color palette and lighting could have been a real benefit for such a tense atmosphere.

Regardless, it's still a masterwork of terrific performances and story Wyler and from both Terence Stamp and Samantha Eggar.