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The gothic horror of Hammer Films gets a mod update in this interesting curio, directed by the erratic Peter Collinson (
The Italian Job). Rita Tushingham is a Liverpool girl, slightly soft in the head, who travels to London determined to get pregnant. Unfortunately (or perhaps not), she meets a blond psycho (Shane Briant), who installs her in his mod '60s pad--he calls himself "Peter" and her "Wendy," sustaining the Peter Pan theme of the title. The ideas here seem borrowed from those key British thrillers
Peeping Tom and
The Collector, and the editing style is clearly influenced by the disorientation of
Performance. And yet there's something out of control about this picture, something authentically weird. In one scene Tushingham pretties herself up in what may be the ugliest make-over in screen history. Jazz singer Annie Ross, who also contributes a wispy song, appears in a small role.
--Robert Horton
From the Back Cover
An ugly duckling (Rita Tushingham of A TASTE OF HONEY and SMASHING TIME) yearns to leave her drab Liverpool life and move to swinging London to find her "Prince Charming." But the big city holds some nasty surprises for the naïve young woman when she becomes obsessed with a handsome gigolo (Shane Briant of DEMONS OF THE MIND) who may be a depraved serial killer. Will this bizarre relationship have the storybook ending she's always dreamed of, or can even the most beautiful of fairy tales lead to cruelty, madness and brutal murder?
Marketed as "A Love Story from Hammer," STRAIGHT ON TIL MORNING was indeed a strange and unique departure for the studio known mainly for its horror hits. Legendary jazz vocalist Annie Ross co-stars in this 1972 psycho-sexual thriller directed by Peter Collinson (FRIGHT, THE ITALIAN JOB) that remains one of the most disturbing and adult films in Hammer history.
