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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Willie Oleson" data-source="post: 417099" data-attributes="member: 8">THE MAN WHO HAUNTED HIMSELF (1970)[ATTACH=full]55369[/ATTACH]At long last I found a new copy but was a little alarmed by the Network label. They never do subtitles and I have a long history of Network DVDs behaving very temperamentally.Luckily, no problems at all this time, and there are subtitles that helps me to decipher the muffled and/or floridly old-fashioned British dialogue.Quite bizarrely, the DVD is housed in a slim case, something I had previously only seen as part of a collection or box set (e.g. Knots Landing, Falcon Crest).And perhaps this is also the case (no pun intended) for TMWHH because the image posted here shows bluray and dvd and the one I have only has the DVD logo on it.I guess I could  say something about the film....The story opens with Roger Moore as boardroom executive Harold Pelham driving his car, unfastens his seat belt and starts to drive fast and recklessly.The grimace on his face plus the visual overlapping with a different car strongly hints at a supernatural force taking over Pelham's behaviour.Not surprisingly this journey ends with a crash. It doesn't look too exciting - some traffic cones get smashed in the process.He almost dies in surgery but is revived with two different heartbeats.The story makes a post-recovery time jump and that's when things become very complicated for Pelham. He's been in places and has said or done things he can't explain.Since these events contradict what we see on screen it's kinda obvious that there is in fact a physical doppelganger wheeling and dealing and sleazing on behalf of our confused protagonist.Still, the story leaves enough room for themes like short-term amnesia or gaslighting, and eventually Harold Pelham ends up on the couch, so to speak.The psychiatrist is...similar to how a gay man or French person would be portrayed in a British film from the 1970s. Very  colourful. In fact, I kept thinking of Dr. Lawrence Jacoby from Twin Peaks.Nevertheless, this therapy session reveals the possibility of an internal, sociological conflict. Harold's impersonator is the man Harold wants to be: the confident, greedy, pre-eighties yuppie without scruples. So here we have a distinctive 1970s connection with Man At The Top   and Colin Baker in The Brothers. The only reason why both Pelham and I refuse to buy into it is because we're too focused on the thriller aspect of the story. It's got to  be something more sinister than that.In the film's final act it does indeed seem like a case of supernatural villainy, including the wrong man being accused of the identity theft.But then New Harold explains to Old Harold that Old Harold wasn't supposed to have survived the accident, and when Old Harold dies (or disappears?) in the second car chase, New Harold grabs his chest as if he's losing one of the two hearbeats. But we don't know which one...And so it turns out that the wacky psychiatrist was right after all. Conventional, suburban Harold wanted to break free from his midlife crisis.The ending could also suggest, in a "It's A Wonderful Life" sort of way, that it was Old Harold who survived the second accident and regained his personality.On Her Majesty's Secret Service gets mentioned, by Roger himself, and perhaps it capitalised on George Lazenby's peculiar introduction in that Bond film, or the idea that Roger Moore was considered for the role (before he did it a few years later). It's always nice to overthink stuff, isn't it.The DVD has the loveliest special feature I've ever seen: a 34 minutes suite of Michael J. Lewis'  original score.In the film, that score also came from an LP record.[ATTACH=full]55370[/ATTACH]Of course. A Souvenirs From Greece, how very Euro seventies.All things considered, the film's a nice pastime but it hasn't aged wonderfully. The theme had been done before and has been done after TMWHH but that shouldn't be an obstacle, imo. I've seen hundreds of Get Carters before I saw the film from 1971, and yet that seventies film sizzles with authentic menace and sleaze.TMWHH isn't "sexy" enough and doesn't look particularly cinematic - except for the traffic cones,of course.I don't think I'll put it on the shelf....which inadvertently solves the problem of the funny-looking DVD case.</blockquote>

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