The Medusa Touch

The Medusa Touch (1978)

Runtime: 105 minutes

Directed by: Jack Gold

Starring: Richard Burton, Lino Ventura, Lee Remick, Harry Andrews, Alan Badel

From: ITC Entertainment

You may have never heard of this before; I say that it is worth seeing, and I explain why: 

I sometimes mention how I am inspired to watch something due to discussion on a messageboard; well, this time it was someone making a query this movie which was the impetus behind me finally seeing this in full. A few years ago, I only saw a small amount when it aired late one night on Turner Classic Movies.

The plot: John Morlar (Richard Burton) is a novelist who is brutally beaten in his apartment and is barely hanging on to life. Lino Ventura is the detective investigating this and Lee Remick plays a psychiatrist. Via flashbacks you discover that Morlar is quite the character; he is a misanthrope, a sarcastic, arrogant haughty man who speaks ornately (this book is based on a novel so no surprise that a writer would write a writer like this) and he has some hilarious lines. Morlar believes that disaster follows him wherever he goes, but it's not just bad luck—he states that he has telekinesis. The movie spends a lot of time being ambiguous on whether this claim is true or not so I won't reveal the truth.

I could nitpick various aspects of the film but that'd be petty and besides, I found it to be pretty good. Ventura and Remick do a swell job yet it is Burton who is the most memorable. He is unfortunately better known for his quite public love life and equally public issues with alcohol rather than his prodigious talent as an actor. He did not sleepwalk through this role or just take it for a paycheck. He did quite well with such a role and delivered the flowery dialogue with no issue at all. Plus, at times his stare was creepy as hell.

There are definitely some frightening moments and the practical effects used there were effective. If you are a Burton fan, for sure you should track this down. The person who made the query about the movie, he will be getting the Blu-ray in a few days. I hope it was a worthy purchase for him.