Product Details

• Actors: Terence Stamp, Samantha Eggar, Mona Washbourne, Maurice Dallimore, Allyson Ames
• Directors: William Wyler
• Writers: John Kohn, John Fowles, Stanley Mann, Terry Southern
• Producers: John Kohn, Jud Kinberg
• Format: Color, NTSC
• Language: English
• Rating: Unrated
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Sony Pictures
• VHS Release Date: January 19, 1999
• Run Time: 119 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 630279773X
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #21,308 in Video (See Bestsellers in Video)

  Popular in this category: (What's this?)

  #45 in

  Video > Mystery & Suspense > Blackmail, Murder & Mayhem > Kidnapping & Missing Persons

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com essential video

As one of the greatest directors of Hollywood's golden age, William Wyler had a long and distinguished roster of films to his credit, among them a number of classics (including Wuthering Heights and The Heiress) that rank among the finest literary adaptations to emerge from the studio system. Near the end of his career, Wyler focused his veteran skills on John Fowles's novel The Collector, and it's easy to see how Wyler would be drawn to the story's resonant psychological underpinnings. It's conceivable that the director was also fascinated by the cinematic precedents set by Alfred Hitchock's Psycho and Michael Powell's Peeping Tom; like those films, Wyler's 1965 production of The Collector focuses on the obsessions of a young man whose need for a woman's affection leads him to desperate measures at the expense of his object of desire.

Terence Stamp was a fine choice for the role of Freddie Clegg, a young, nondescript bank clerk who wins a fortune in a sports pool and is financially liberated to pursue his psychological fixation--specifically a lovely London art student named Miranda Grey (Samantha Eggar) whom Freddie captures in the comfortably furnished cellar of his remote, newly purchased Tudor farmhouse. In many respects she is just another addition to Freddie's impressive and meticulously catalogued collection of butterflies--delicate and beautiful, and kept against her will. Freddie genuinely loves her and treats her with utmost respect, but she is his prisoner. Having been subdued by Freddie's use of chloroform, she later observes that he is responsible for "so much death," and of course she could never return his affection. Or could she?

This richly psychological situation is handled by Wyler with understated grace, but the weight of Freddie's psychosis is never keenly felt; the film's subdued quality ultimately works against the thriller aspects of the story. And yet, the performances of Stamp and Eggar remain sharp and mutually sympathetic, and when Wyler brings the story full circle to yet another "butterfly" for Freddie's collection, the stalker theme leaves the viewer with a considerable chill. Where another movie like 1967's Wait Until Dark relied on more explicit and effective shocks, The Collector works on a subtler level of disturbing but undeniably human behavior. --Jeff Shannon

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

48 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant, despite the editing, February 20, 2003

By	Paul Kesler (Bridgeport, PA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Collector (DVD)

"The Collector" falls within the "Psycho" tradition in focusing on the repressed sexual longings of a quietly alienated loner, but it's closer to "Peeping Tom" in portraying the sympathetic side of the killer. This is highlighted, first, by the performances themselves, which are superficially cold but in reality display a great deal of underlying warmth. But it's also underscored by the fact that William Wyler's madman is only an accidental murderer, his intention being only to harbor his object of desire, not murder her (murder, as it happens, being simply the "collateral" result of his own perversity).

"The Collector," in fact, is probably the most humanized portrait of a sociopath ever put on film, and Terence Stamp makes us realize in every scene just how starved for affection he is. Not even "Peeping Tom" rivals it in this respect, since the analytical approach of Michael Powell toward his deranged protagonist, not to mention the peculiar fetishism involved, prevents us from really identifying with him. By contrast, Stamp's character could easily represent any otherwise "normal" human being, who is merely more estranged and sensitive than most.

The DVD transfer of the film is fine, certainly not the best conversion of a sixties film I've seen, but still doing credit to the film. The sound is also superior, and I personally love Maurice Jarre's theme music, particularly the beautifully orchestrated version played during the closing
credits.

One caution, however: this DVD has been edited slightly, and those used to seeing the brief frontal nudity of Ms. Eggar during the "seduction" sequence in the final quarter of the film will search in vain for it here. This seems to have resulted from some absurd prudery on the part of the company, but it also hurts the film, since the nudity, far from being "pornographic," highlights the intimacy of the scene, and, in addition, serves to emphasize Stamp's reaction to Eggar's slow and delicate offering of herself. Just one more example, in other words, of how the bowdlerizing of a film against the director's wishes is always a perilous exercise.

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars BAD BAD Video Transfer - Shame on you Sony/Columbia, February 23, 2007

By	Chris Rau (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Collector (DVD)

One STAR is too many, but there was no goose egg!

I really hate to slam this beautiful movie, but after buying it, I felt betrayed and wanted to try to prevent others from having the same problem.

Wyler's work is always fabulous, which makes it especially hurtful to see his film butchered in this fashion - yes I said BUTCHERED.

I just purchased "The Collector" on DVD (Columbia 07893 - ISBN 0-7678-8288-1) after already owning the same title on LaserDisk.

I have criticisms of both the TRANSFER, and the CONTENT.

Transfer:

IMDB Lists the original film as "Spherical 1.78:1 aspect ratio" - If this is true, then the DVD has been way over-masked because the LaserDisk version has a mask that shows about 30% more picture content on the top and bottom of the field. It appears that the studio simply took a 4:3 version of the film and transferred it to DVD by cutting off the top and bottom to make it 16x9, rather than finding an original widescreen print to transfer. Compare it with anything... even video tape to see what I mean. Horrible. They have a lot of nerve advertising "Preserves the original theatrical aspect ratio" on the DVD package.

The print they started with is not in very good condition. It exhibits signs of sprocket wear (side to side picture shifting) as well as specks of dirt on the film and splice jumps.

In short, the film was given the "quick and dirty" transfer, not the "lovingly carefull" one it deserves.

Content:

As others on this forum have noted, the seduction scene is highly mutilated. Gone is the tender moment of frontal nudity, as well as side angles - thus stripping the scene of it's innocence and impact almost completely. All have been cunningly "panned and scanned" away. The DVD box claims the film is "not rated" - it should really say "Why Bother".

I cannot recommend this version at all, I am sorry to say.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Belongs In Your Collection, June 7, 2006

By	El Lagarto (Sandown, NH) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

This review is from: The Collector (DVD)

This 40-year-old specimen by legendary director William Wyler will enhance any collection of fine film. You may have trouble recognizing a very young Terence Stamp, whose performance as a painfully shy office clerk who hits the lottery will give you chills. Samantha Eggar, lovely as the focus of his attention, gives a compelling performance and is in many ways the film's centerpiece. Based on the novel by truly gifted author John Fowles, The Collector chronicles a subtle, incremental descent into madness and cruelty with such skill that viewers are engaged throughout, indeed, it is the ability of the film to penetrate the viewer's own psychology that gives it its real power.

Stamp's Freddie Clegg, newly rich, is free to indulge his eccentricities fully, without fear of repercussion. While his passion has always been butterfly collecting, Freddie, socially inept and pathologically lonely, slips into another level; he "collects" Eggar's Miranda Grey and keeps her captive in his remote estate. With pathetic innocence he lavishes care on her, imaging that she will be won over and come to love him in her time. She cringes through this process, and we cringe with her. The entire situation is unbearably creepy, made all the creepier because of the nuance and exceptional acting.

Hoping all the while that Miranda will find salvation, we know in our heart of hearts that such situations rarely end well. Miranda's response to imprisonment evolves, we see her trying new tactics, we root for her. Because we're involved, everything that happens has meaning. This film contains virtually no physical violence, (certainly no hideous language, stacks of corpses, or nail gun brain surgery), indeed, it may be the most sympathetic portrayal of a stalker ever made.

By not reducing Freddie to a symbol, but showing him instead as a person, however disturbed, Fowles and Wyler have given us something much more upsetting - a picture of our own worst self. The hacks that practice the craft of filmmaking today, gleefully spraying blood onto the first 20 rows of theatres nationwide, would do well to watch The Collector. This movie succeeds the old-fashioned way; it earns the undivided attention of its audience.