Cinema
The Offence
Sidney Lumet · 1973
Synopsis
A police station. Police officers rush in slow motion into a room where Sergeant Johnson stands over men lying on the floor. We go back in time: a little girl, Janie, has disappeared after a series of assaults on schoolgirls, and she is found in a wood. A man, Kenneth Baxter, is spotted at night, alone and covered in mud, and taken to the station without any evidence. Johnson, who has twenty years in the police behind him, interrogates him.
Context
The film was born of a bargain. Sean Connery, called back for a new instalment of the spy series that had made him famous, obtained the studio's commitment to finance two films of his choice provided they cost less than two million dollars; this was the first, and the second, an adaptation of Shakespeare that he was to direct, was abandoned. The film comes from a play by John Hopkins first staged at the Royal Court in 1968; Hopkins had co-written the screenplay of one of those spy films, and the hand-to-hand fights were choreographed, uncredited, by Bob Simmons, the series' stuntman. It was shot in the spring of 1972 at Bracknell for less than a million dollars.
Who it is for
One hundred and twelve minutes, in English with subtitles. A large part of the film takes place in the interrogation room of the police station.
Prizes and reception
A commercial failure in Britain, it remained unreleased in France until its theatrical release in September 2007.
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