Home Before Midnight (1979) User Reviews

Teenage sex oddity

[Leofwine_draca · 7/10 · 23 August 2015]

HOME BEFORE MIDNIGHT is an odd, one-of-a-kind type of kitchen-sink drama from cult British director Pete Walker, best known for making a series of grisly low-budget horror flicks. This sees a return of sorts to his old exploitation days, as the film is packed full of nudity from its young starlets, but nudity aside it actually turns out to be a decent little film.

The story is an interesting - and dare I say it, still timely - one. A twentysomething rock star meets a new groupie and is soon having it off with her, only for him to later discover that she's only fourteen. In due course the authorities become aware of the chain of events and the scene is set for a court-room showdown. The issue of underage sex remains a controversial one here in the UK with nary a week going by without the tabloid newspapers reporting on some former celebrity accused of unpleasant goings on in the 1970s.

As such, HOME BEFORE MIDNIGHT is an important film, and one which tells the story in a well-rounded way, I thought. There are no black and white characters here, just people who make mistakes and pay for them. It's a surprisingly mature production, well shot and never less than engaging. The acting isn't up to much and certain actresses only seem to be involved for the skin quotient (Debbie Linden in particular) but fans of 1970s British cinema will find much to interest them here.

10 To Midnight.

[morrison-dylan-fan · 7/10 · 25 July 2014]

With having enjoyed a number of film maker Pete Walker's Horror and Sex Comedy title,I was recently caught happily by surprise,when a family friend revealed that he had recently ordered a Teen Drama film by Walker,which led to me rushing back home to play it on the DVD player,before midnight.

The plot:

Hitch-hiking to a fashion show, Ginny Wilshire runs away from her friend Carol,when the gang of truck drivers giving them a lift,start to ask Ginny and Carol about receiving a 'special thank you.'Spotting Ginny running away,song writer Mike Beresford rushes over to offer Ginny a safe lift.Appreciating Mike's kind offer,Ginny soon changes her plans of attending the fashion show,thanks to her and Mike starting to full in love.

As Ginny and Mike's relationship blossoms,the couple start to do everything from sleeping with each other,to sailing on private cruise ships.Whilst Ginny gets off the cruise ship to dip into the sea,Mike discovers that Ginny has been keeping a secret from him,which is that she is 14 years old.

View on the film:

Shot at a time when co-writer/ (along with Michael Armstrong and Murray Smith) director Pete Walker felt that the Horror genre was becoming too gore focused,Walker and cinematographer Peter Jessop make the rather strange stylised mix of Kitchen Sink Drama and glossy Pop Video unexpectedly work,thanks to Walker and Jessop giving Ginny and Mike's romantic beginnings an eye-catching soft appearance,which gradually turns into rock,as their relationship starts to crumble.Along with the wonderfully contrasting styles,Walker also shows a real skill in using close-ups which express the intense feelings Mike (played by a very good James Aubrey) and Ginny (played by a much older than 14,beautiful Alison Elliott) have for each other,cast across their faces.

Running at an epic 110 minutes,the writers display a real care in allowing the quiet,tender moments in the main relationship to be scattered across the film,but are sadly unable to make a smooth transaction with the shift in tone that the movie experiences.Featuring a theme of misguided/abused justice which lays at the centre of Walker's work,the writer's make the title feel like it is set in the 50s instead of the late 70s,due to everyone,from Mike and Ginny's families being shocked that a teenager would be interested in having sex,to the life of a late 70s Rock star being weirdly shown as rather clean cut.

Final view on the film:

A very good,but deeply flawed midnight gathering.

Not a great film, but asks some pertinent questions

[JamesHitchcock · 6/10 · 13 July 2023]

Mike Beresford, a handsome young songwriter, picks up an attractive brunette hitchhiker named Ginny who tells him that she is studying fashion design at art college. Before long romance blossoms between the two and they begin a relationship. That might sound like the beginning of a romantic comedy, but in fact "Home Before Midnight" is not a comedy of any sort.

It soon becomes apparent that Ginny was lying when she said that she was at art college. In reality she is still a schoolgirl and only 14 years old. Mike is initially horrified when he discovers the truth, but Ginny persuades him that she is in love with him and their relationship continues. When her parents find out, however, they inform the police, and Mike finds himself on trial charged with having sex with a minor. (Not, as some have written, "statutory rape"- there is no such offence under British law. Consensual sex with a minor is an offence, but a less serious one than rape unless the minor is aged under thirteen).

What follows is narrated in a semi-documentary style. Although this was a feature film- it was probably too sexually explicit to have been shown on British television in 1979- it reminded me of a "Play for Today" or other similar television dramas of the period, which often focused upon some topical social issue. It rather gives the lie to the currently fashionable idea that under-age sex was taken less seriously during the seventies and eighties than it would be today. There may have been a vocal minority calling for the lowering of the age of consent, especially the so-called Paedophile Information Exchange, but the great majority of the population were opposed to the idea and held the PIE and its activities in contempt. We see this attitude reflected in the film; as soon as people know what offence Mike has been charged with, his friends and even his own parents turn against him.

The film does, however, also highlight one of the drawbacks of the under-age sex laws. The laws exist in order to protect young people, yet they can often only be enforced by persuading, or even compelling, the young person to give evidence against someone they once loved- perhaps still do love- something which much be psychologically very damaging to them. This happens to Ginny in the film. She is at first unwilling to give evidence against Mike, but is forced to do so by pressure from her parents, her school and the authorities, with the threat that she will be taken into "care" if she does not.

Indeed, Ginny is forced to testify not only that she had sex with Mike (which is perfectly true) but also that she was forced to do so against her will (which is not), meaning that he can be charged with the more serious offence of rape. Both her headmistress and her parents feel that there will be less scandal and less reputational damage if it can be shown that she was not a willing participant.

Ginny's relationship with her parents is an odd one. At first they seem ultra-liberal to the point of reckless folly, allowing their fourteen-year-old daughter to go hitchhiking accompanied only by a classmate and to spend the weekend in the company of a man twice her age and complacently accepting her assurances that her relationship with Mike is non-sexual. Her father Harry comes across as particularly creepy, slapping his daughter on the bottom and calling her "sexy". As soon as they discover the truth, however, they switch virtually in an instant from ultra-liberal to ultra-protective.

"Home Before Midnight" is not a great film, and there are no acting performances that stand out. Alison Elliott who plays Ginny was making, at the age of twenty, the last of her three appearances in a feature film. Apart from Richard Todd, in his heyday a star of the British cinema, as Mike's lawyer, the only cast members I had previously heard of were Debbie Linden (better known as a glamour model) and Chris Jagger, brother of the more famous Mick. Yet it manages to ask some pertinent questions about the law and sexuality in seventies Britain. 6/10.

Kind of controversial, and REALLY hard to swallow Pete Walker flick

[lazarillo · 9 February 2008]

Whether you're a fan of British director Pete Walker like I am or not, you have to admit his horror films are considerably better than all the other stuff he tried to do. Still I kind of enjoyed the soapy and preposterous melodrama of his swinging 60's flick "Cool It Carol", and films like "The Four Dimensions of Greta" certain succeed as ripe sexploitation if nothing else. This film though...well, I don't know. This is about an unbelievably naive and clean-cut British "rocker" who gets involved with an underage groupie. At first he doesn't know her age, but even after he finds out he can't give her up. Her parents are oblivious; even after they meet him, they assume(obviously confusing rock musicians with Catholic priests) that the relationship is platonic. But when the truth comes out, his career is ruined and he is charged with statutory rape.

Walker, never one to shy away from controversy, at best remains neutral here, but actually tends to sympathize with the guy. He also muddies the moral waters quite a bit. The girl (the never-to-be-heard-from-again Allison Eliot)and her best friend (Debbie Linder, who later died tragically of a drug overdose) do not look even remotely like fourteen-year-old girls, mostly because they definitely weren't. And as in any Walker film there's also plenty of gratuitous nudity (the two friends seem to have their most intimate conversations during full-frontal shower scenes after gym class). It's hard to defend, especially today, the position on statutory rape Walker takes here. But he's right in that it is a more complicated issue then it's often made out to be, especially when the guy in question is handsome and young himself (not to mention impossibly naive) and not some dirty old rotter trying to rub up against a school girl at a bus stop.

The bigger problem though is Walker's shaky grasp on the rock and roll milieu of the time (also a problem in his previous horror film "The Comeback" where he laughably cast the very washed-up singer Jack Jones as someone who had a proverbial snowball's chance of mounting a comeback in the late 70's music industry). The aptly-named band in this movie "Bad Accident" (featuring Mick Jagger's wholly untalented brother Chris, and lip-syncing to godawful British band Jigsaw) would no doubt have even the most desperate, skankiest, crab-ridden groupies screaming for the exit doors. And since when would having sex with underage girls ruin, as oppose to advance, a rock star's career. About the same time this movie came out the lead singer of a flash-in-the-pan American band called the Knack actually penned a raunchy song about his underage girlfriend, "My Cherona", which turned into a top-40 hit that has long outlived the band itself, and even in these slightly less libertine times one famous R and B star is still around making music even after videotaping himself urinating on a thirteen-year-old groupie. The biggest problem with this movie isn't that it's all that controversial, but that it is really pretty hard to swallow.

Walker centers his attention on the consequences of his actions and less on the whole love and sexuality of the story, which is kind of a let down.

[bryank-04844 · 3/10 · 15 August 2015]

Pete Walker's 'Home Before Midnight' is a very different film for him. As we have come to realize, Pete Walker is in the horror and gore business. With films like The Comeback', 'Die Screaming, Marianne', 'House of the Whipcord', and 'Schizo', Walker is known for his gory horror movies. But back in 1978, Walker set aside the blood and guts and made this dramatic court room film called 'Home Before Midnight' that touched on some taboo subjects as well as the late 1970's music scene.

The taboo subject in question is statutory rape and Walker almost makes you a pervert for even watching this film, as a lot of his camera angles are made to look as if you are spying in on a couple consisting of an older man and a very young girl. Needless to say, there are a few awkward moments throughout the film as Walker explores a man and a young girl's sexuality. But it's interesting that Walker took this odd transition into a court room drama. This director is known for pushing the bounds as far as horror, and as he entered into 'Home Before Midnight', he came in guns blazing, but in the second half, we are taken to a courtroom where we are to decide who is at fault here and who is to be punished.

A young woman named Ginny (Alison Elliot) and her promiscuous friend Carol (Debbie Linden) are out on the town where Carol is always trying to convince Ginny to flirt and get with guys. Ginny seems a little uncomfortable most of the time. But the real story begins with Ginny hitchhiking on the side of a road when a man by the name of Mike (James Aubrey) pulls up and offers her a ride. Ginny is hesitant at first, being she about to hitchhike into a guy's car. And even after Mike delivers an awkward rape joke, Ginny still gets in the car. Come to find out, Mike is a songwriter for the popular rock band Bad Accident and is pushing 30 years of age.

Mike and Ginny hit it off fairly quickly. The two become attracted to each other and sex soon follows. As their relationship grows, so does their sex life and every part of each other's bodies are explored. But Mike finds out that Ginny is actually only 14 years old. He's disgusted and horrified of this realization, but he is not ready to leave the relationship, and instead he and Ginny keep it going. But Ginny's parents find out about it and they try to convince Ginny to confess to rape charges. And not only that, they try to brainwash her into telling the press and court that this was one- sided with tons of violence, which is not the case here.

Well soon enough, the press picks up on the story and Mike's life is turned upside down. His friends and band mates turn their back on him, not for doing the deed, but because it could hurt their own careers. As this story gets into the courtroom, Walker makes Mike look like the good guy here, while making Ginny look like a villain, as her parents have coerced her into saying untrue things about their relationship.

It seems that Walker abandoned some good story lines in order to focus more on a punishment fit for Mike. He could have dove in head first and explored what made Ginny and Mike make these decisions, and why Mike continued to pursue Ginny, but that plot point goes nowhere. Instead, Walker centers his attention on the consequences of his actions and less on the whole love and sexuality of the story, which is kind of a let down.

Gutsy little change of pace drama from Pete Walker

[Woodyanders · 8/10 · 19 September 2019]

Successful pop songwriter Mike (a sound and likeable performance by James Aubrey) meets and falls in love with underage hitchhiker Ginny (a fine and appealing portrayal by lovely brunette Alison Elliot). Complications ensue after Mike finds out that Ginny is only fourteen, but decides to continue being romantically involved with her.

Director Pete Walker, who's best known for his gruesome horror shockers, here makes a radical departure from his usual fright fare and does it very well by relating the daring and compelling story at a steady pace, maintaining a bittersweet tone throughout, grounding the premise in a believable workaday reality, and refusing to offer any simple pat answers for the tough questions the difficult subject matter brings up. Murray Smith's bold script does a commendable job of presenting the main characters as sympathetic, but flawed people who make bad choices that they must deal with the consequences of. Moreover, this film doesn't shy away from showing how societal pressure and a biased legal system only serve to compound the severity of an already thorny issue.

Aubrey and Elliot display a strong chemistry as the doomed couple, which in turn makes their forbidden romance that much more tragic and poignant. Moreover, there are rock-solid supporting contributions from Mark Burns as Ginny's disapproving dad Harry, Juliet Harmer as Ginny's more understanding mother Susan, Richard Todd as hard-nosed defense attorney Geoffrey Steele, Debbie Lindon as Ginny's saucy gal pal Carol, Andy Forray as Michael's easygoing partner Vince, and Chris Jagger as dashing singer Nick. Peter Jessop's pretty cinematography provides an attractive bright look. Catchy soft-rock soundtrack by Jigsaw, too. The downbeat ending packs a devastating punch. A praiseworthy and provocative film.