Cinema: The Strange Affair

Nymphomania, voyeurism, sadism, torture, drug addiction and police corruption. It might seem hard to make an unendurably dull movie out of such ingredients, but The Strange Affair is more than ample proof that it can be done.

The film’s hapless hero is a brand-new bobby named Peter Strange (Michael York), who has flunked out of the University of London and joined the London police force to assuage his social conscience. After a few days on the beat, Peter meets a carefree pusher named Quince (Jack Watson), his two sadistic sons, a detective with a badge for a heart (Jeremy Kemp), and a libidinous bird named Fred (Susan George). Soon he’s up to his jug ears in trouble. Quince wants to fix him, the detective wants to corrupt him, and Fred just plain wants him.

Poor Strange falters in the line of duty and gets sent up for a couple of years. Bum rap, that, but the audience is treated worse: sitting through The Strange Affair is as bad as a stretch of solitary.