Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.
In other words,this film is a surreal ride.
The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.
View MoreThis is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama
View MoreInfantile psychotic twins Jacki and Julian (Judy Geeson and Martin Potter) arrive in London, immediately arranging an accident for their grouchy landlady so that they can have the run of the place. The siblings then set about experiencing the swinging London party scene, where they meet louche rogue Clive (Alexis Kanner, sporting some impressive mutton-chops). After Clive is roughed up by a bookmaker to whom he owes £400, he tricks Julian into bed with a pair of transvestites, takes a few photos and proceeds to blackmail the young man. However, instead of getting cash for his troubles, Clive gets knifed in the neck instead.As a child of the '70s, I have an affinity with films from that era, especially those set in the UK, but Goodbye Gemini was a tough one to endure. It's horrible, hippy nonsense that features hedonistic characters hard to sympathise with, atrocious dialogue, and incomprehensible behaviour from all involved. An incestuous relationship between the inseparable twins is hinted at, which adds an edginess to proceedings, the music is groovy, and there are a couple of outrageously camp homosexuals who are mildly amusing (one wears a bright pink shirt and uses the word 'ducky' a lot—you don't get much more '70s than that!), but there really is very little else worthy of mention.
View MoreThe freak twins, Judy Geeson (Jacki) and Martin Potter (Julian) come to London to stay in a house in Chelsea and they immediately hit the party scene thanks to a meeting with Alexis Kanner (Clive) in a pub. Kanner is strange – he's a nasty conman who uses people but he's not as strange as the twins. Geeson and Potter are both child-like with Geeson laughing way too much at things that aren't funny and Potter being obsessively possessive about his sister. Worse, they love each other – and I mean actually love in an incestuous way that includes a physical relationship. So, it's uncomfortable viewing. The twins exact revenge on a couple of people. Are they untouchable? This film is way too weird and not particularly enjoyable. You watch because you don't know where it's going but once watched, I think you get rid. It reminded me a bit of "Beyond the valley of the Dolls" but set amongst a seedy London party scene. Both films are not good and dish out some horror as well as peculiar characters that are scary and hard to relate to. Scary in a sexuality scary kind of way. Michael Redgrave (James) pops up in this as a familiar face on TV whilst Mike Pratt (Rodd) is probably the best in the cast as a debt collector.As a Londoner, I recognized the locales – I spotted Cheyne Walk, Notting Hill Gate and Shepherds Bush Market and I know for a fact that there were hotels like that in Paddington in the 1980s. Dodgy ones. The central characters of the twins were just too weird.
View MoreThe film starts off well. We are on a bus. As the Peddlers sing and play the song "Tell the World We're Not In," We see a carefree pair of star- crossed lovers. As the film progresses, we find out that the pair are actually twins. They are both immature. And they talk to a teddy bear named Agamemnon. In one scene the male twin uses the teddy bear as an oracle, which is probably how the source novel is called "Ask Agamemnon". In real life, twins can shut the world out even to the point of constructing their very own language. This pair have not got that far, but they have reached the point where incest is very much in evidence. Jenni Hall, the novelist also wrote: My Son, My Lover, which also touches on incest.The pair fall into the Swinging London scene. There are drugs, scotch whisky, very camp gays, transvestites to add to incestuous twins. The impression I get is that the whole thing is to shock people for the sake of shocking them...under the guise of Swinging London. I was up and about in Swinging London. If you were at a party, chances were you would be drinking wine or beer, dancing with someone of the opposite sex,and dressed according to your own gender. People even smoked tobacco. And I can't say I ever witnessed anyone conversing with a teddy bear.The male twin is the most unstable of the two, and wants to shut the rest of the world out; he just wants to be with his sister. That does not stop him for going out for the night with his sister's boyfriend to a seedy hotel, where he is seduced by transvestites. His sister's boyfriend photographs the proceedings, and uses it to blackmail the male twin,so that he can pay off a large sum of money to a violent loan shark, played by a moustachioed Mike Pratt.The male twin challenges his sister's boyfriend to tell the twins apart. While the latter is out of the room, the twins dress in bedsheets where eyeholes have been cut with a sword. The sheets of course conceal the sword as well. The boyfriend is invited back in....Having been through incest, violence, smoking illegal substances, cross-dressing, male-on- male rape; then murder and subsequent suicide are mere bagatelles.Quoting from Dame Edith Sitwell has not been fashionable for years. But her criticism of "that insignificant, dirty little book" which is how she described "Lady Chatterley's Lover," is what comes to mind when seeing this film. There comes a time in life when you stop pretending to be open-minded, and say: "Look I don't want to see this. I really don't want my nose nailed to other people's lavatories." We all know that there are people who have minds like sewers. The problem comes when they ram their filth down other people's throats. And Society really does degenerate as a result. Fortunately, the Peddlers made a record of "Tell the World We're Not In;" so you can enjoy the best bit of this "insignificant, dirty little" film without having to watch it.
View MoreI really didn't know what to expect when I got to watching this. After the end, I walked away with a sense of watching twins who were not far outta their element.What you'll get with this one is a fraternal twin brother and sister come to London. They're new in town and they have 2 real issues, they haven't grown-up and they're a tad too close to each other. They're in the early 20's and they cling to each other like white on rice and still like to play childhood games we all did when we were young. Problem is, they're right smack dab in the middle of swinging London in the late 1960's and there's a lot of strange characters lurking about. Of course not 1 is even close to the bizarreness these twins are but they are of the normal variety with "criminal" tendencies and they decide to try and pounce on what they think is an "easy" opportunity. Big mistake...these twins aren't that naive.For me to go into scenes and plot would be a big mistake. I will say to expect some cross dressing, rape and murder. Strange scenes to say the least. You almost get the feeling that this was a wanna-be art film.Most of the film you'll be trying to figure how these twins were raised...i.e...how they became the way they are. Of course we never do find out. Just expect a strange film about twins who are way to close to each other for their own good.
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