by Frank Calvillo
Its truly a one-of-a-kind experience when a motion picture can contain so much palpable electricity throughout its entire runtime between acting, dialogue, music, editing and camera movements. Even more powerful is when said film can tap into some part of history and/or society in a manner which doesn’t shy away or sugar coat any part of the subject its presenting. However, it’s also nothing short of heartbreaking when a film such as the one described remains all but unknown by the general movie-loving public. Without question, Pressure Point is one such exemplary case.
Pressure Point opens in the 1960s as the head psychiatrist of a mental hospital (Sidney Poitier) is dealing with one of his doctors on staff (Peter Falk) complaining about how after months of work, he is simply unable to break through to the racist patient he has been treating. After hearing him beg to be taken off the case, the head psychiatrist proceeds to tell him a story of when he was a young doctor working in a prison and was forced to treat an inmate (Bobby Darin) obsessed with Nazism in the early 1940s.
While most films of the 60s with similar hot-button social issues treated their subjects in a more subtle manner, Pressure Point takes great delight in being as daring as possible with regards to its content. Most of the shocking visual instances are found in the flashback sequences which depict the patient’s childhood through harsh moments, such as his drunken, abusive father kissing his mistress in front of his wife and son. Great pains are taken to show how such an upbringing formed his sadistic nature. In a later flashback scene, the patient and a group of his hoodlums are shown terrorizing a local bar. When the patient decides to play tic-tac-toe by carving it into the wooden bar, the owner gets mad, causing the patient to threaten him and have his hoodlums to take over the bar, playing tic-tac-toe on walls and table tops with white paint. Things get even more shocking when, after one of the thugs proclaim there’s nowhere left to play, the patient has the bar owner’s wife undress and proceed to play the game on her, using her face and back for what is Pressure Point’s most unsettling and memorable moment.
Its the film’s social content during the patient/doctor sessions which is more shocking than any of the visual actions could ever be however. Statements on behalf of the patient, such as “Now that Jews put that cripple in the White House, you people have it made, don’t you?,” and how Jews are more dangerous because “they pass for white…and they’re smart,” show just how brazen and frank the screenplay allows him to be. Meanwhile, his analysis of how quickly Nazism spreads is chilling, but true and is echoed most effectively in the sequences where young Nazi followers are seen destroying a synagogue and delicatessen, and attending a gathering where a traditional Nazi salute is followed by a rendition of America’s National Anthem.
In an effort to make the film visually stimulating as well as dramatically compelling, the filmmakers have included a number of surrealist elements right out of Rod Serling. Insight into the patient’s head is done in clever ways as we watch him react to moments of imagined lunacy, such as his leaning over a sink and seeing a miniature version of himself trying to crawl out of the drain, or telling his childhood, rendered imaginatively on screen with unusual blocking for the actors, sparse props, interesting angles and a mostly dark set.
Although it features a number of engaging side characters (such as Falk doing great work and Barry Gordon simply nailing it as the younger version of the patient), Pressure Point is essentially a two-man show that plays out like a powerful tennis match. In any other year, which didn’t include the likes of To Kill a Mockingbird’s Gregory Peck and Lawrence of Arabia’s Peter O’Toole, Darin would have gotten an Oscar nomination for his work here. The way the actor projects evil and hate so casually is unforgettable, while his eventual breaking down is such a beautiful and real moment in the film.
It would be so easy for any actor to get pushed to the side in the company of such a character and performance, but Poitier holds his own beautifully, specifically in the final two scenes shared by the actors. “More than I wanted to kill you, I wanted to help you,” the doctor furiously exclaims. Its a great scene where he is finally unleashing all of the feelings he was professionally forced to keep bottled up for so long.
Plenty of the flashbacks featuring many of the emotional violence inflicted on and by the patient are perhaps some of the most intense and gut-wrenching among all of the film’s shocking content and might have been the ultimate reason Pressure Point never caught on, despite having two such well-known stars at its center. Another reason for the film’s lack of success was the swift and harsh outcome of the character’s fate and the lack of redemption attached to it. This is certainly fair enough in a way. However, redemption was never the point of the film.
Pressure Point is now available on Blu-Ray from Olive Films.
