Bluray label Indicator will be releasing the film Connecting Rooms (1970) on 23rd May 2022. Directed by Frank Gollings and starring Bette Davis and Micheal Redgrave the movie was also the film debut of actor David Simeon who starred as the vet Crich in Kneale's 1975 play Murrain.
Murrain, which acted as a 'backdoor' pilot for the full series of Beasts, will also be covered in the book and David was gracious enough to allow me an interview. He discussed his role in the play as well as his career in general including his uncredited film debut in Connecting Rooms as a post office clerk.
“I do look back and think I was so lucky to have met and worked all the wonderful people I did. I particularly remember working with Bette Davis. It was on a film Connecting Rooms. My casting agent said ‘David you’ve got to go down to Pinewood tomorrow, be there about 7:15am, they will show you all the stuff.’ I didn’t even know what I was doing. I got there and this American said ‘Mr Simeon I got ya script here. Would you like to go in a room and go through it and then we’ll take you and see Miss Davis.’ And I said ‘Sorry? Miss Davis?’ And he said ‘Yeah Miss Davis. Miss Bette Davis.’ And I thought ‘Bloody hell! What am I doing here!’
Most of the dialogue was mine. So I had about three quarters of an hour to try and learn it! Anyway then I was led to the caravan she had in the backlot and I was introduced and sat down. I don’t know what is was but then I suddenly said ‘Miss Davis do you mind if I have a cigarette?’ And she said ‘Honey if there’s one thing you should know about me is that I smoke like a haystack!’ and there she was in front of me with a huge great pile of them she’d already had that morning.
Anyway this was on April 1st 1969 and we all know what happens on the first of April every year. There’s a picture of this in one of the books about Bette Davis though it doesn’t say it’s a still from the film Connecting Rooms. Anyway one chap is taking pictures of her and I’m stood just behind her thinking ‘this is odd. What’s going on?’ Anyway in this scene she’s lying in bed and there’s a knock at the door and all of a sudden and this man, who is the second assistant director, dressed up in space suit with a big potted plant.
He then proceeds to walk forward and present to her and she went bananas with laughter. Thank God! She went on and on and on. And this was a good thing as this meant the rest of the afternoons filming was going to be great. All of a sudden she’s just getting ready for the scene she was going to do with me and then they replay her laughter from upstairs off a recording and she just fell on the floor in front of me and rolled over and over cackling with laughter. She got up. She put her hands on my shoulders and said ‘I gotta tell you something. When I was young my father said to me I’ll give a dollar if you can laugh like a lady. I never got the dollar! She just laughed and laughed like a cackling drain and it just went on and on like that for ages. Eventually we got to my scene, which was in a post office, and suddenly I went wrong with the lines and we had to do it again. And she said ‘don’t worry I was an extra once.’ I’ve never ever forgotten that morning. She was a strange creature she really was.[1]”
Indicator's publicity for the release is below.
When enigmatic school master James Wallraven (Michael Redgrave, Time Without Pity) rents a small room adjacent to Wanda's (Bette Davis, The Nanny), an ageing cellist, he soon realises that the privacy he seeks is clearly unattainable. From there begins a parade of revolving doors through which the occupants of this seedy West London boarding house – a sleazy young musician (Alexis Kanner, Goodbye Gemini), a snooping landlady (Kay Walsh, The Rainbow Jacket) – all seemingly stuck in purgatories of their own making, desperately attempt to find their place in a tainted society.
Featuring a pair of screen legends and based on the stage play The Cellist by Marion Hart, Connecting Rooms is presented on Blu-ray for the first time in the UK, and is accompanied by a wealth of archival extras, including a rare recording of Bette Davis in conversation, and two short films by director Franklin Gollings.
To purchase the film click here!
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