Follow Me is based on a short play by English playwright and screenwriter Peter Shaffer (Equus, Amadeus) called The Public Eye. This one-act comedy about a jealous chartered accountant, his wife and a private detective, had its premiere in London in 1962. It was part of a double bill with The Private Ear, another play in one act written by Shaffer. Both opened on Broadway the following year and raised the interest of Hollywood mogul Ross Hunter. For Universal, he produced the Douglas Sirk melodramas Magnificent Obsession (1954) and Imitation of Life (1959) and the Rock Hudson-Doris Day comedies Pillow Talk (1959), Lover Come Back (1961) and Send Me No Flowers (1964).
Hunter bought the rights of The Public Eye in 1964 but it took years to turn the play into a film. Hired to direct, Mike Nichols was too busy finishing Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966). Julie Andrews was to star but had to withdraw because of the delay, though she worked with Ross Hunter on Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967). Later, the producer made a deal with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton but the couple couldn't agree upon a director. At least he managed to adapt The Private Ear as The Pad (and How to Use It) (1966). In 1970, Ross Hunter announced that American actress Mia Farrow (Rosemary's Baby) would play the young wife in The Public Eye but he left Universal. Hal Wallis, the Hollywood titan behind Casablanca (1942) for Warner Bros and the Elvis Presley movies at Paramount, brought the project to fruition.
Associated with Universal since 1969, Hal Wallis produced Anne of the Thousand Days (1969) and Mary, Queen of Scots (1971) in England for the company. He stayed in the country, where Mia Farrow lived with her then husband conductor André Previn, to make The Public Eye (titled Follow Me in the United Kingdom) at Shepperton Studios. Peter Shaffer adapted his own play and the producer asked Carol Reed, the director of The Third Man (1949) and Oliver! (1968), to helm. Israeli actor and singer Chaim Topol, known as Topol, was cast as the private detective. Topol became globally famous thanks to the role of Tevye the milkman in the 1967 West End production of the stage musical Fieddler on the Roof and its 1971 film version. English actor Michael Jayston, a familiar face to British TV viewers (The Power Game) who starred as Nicholas II in Nicholas and Alexandra (1971), was chosen to play the husband.
Charles Sidley (Jayston) is an uptight London-based chartered accountant who married Belinda (Mia Farrow), a free-spirited Californian waitress. He thinks Belinda is having an affair because she's never at home during the day. He talks to a private investigation agency, which sends him an eccentric Greek detective named Julian Cristoforou (Topol). Follow Me/The Public Eye is blessed with Peter Shaffer's finely chiselled dialogues and the wonderful performances from its perfect trio of stars. Carol Reed and director of photography Christopher Challis (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang) take us on a both comical and sentimental tour of the British capital and various locations, including the Windsor Safari Park and Sutton Place. Belinda spends her afternoons watching some Hammer films in a cinema until Julian shows her Franco Zefirelli's Romeo and Juliet (1968).
The music by John Barry is sublime. Thelma Keating sings Follow Follow, the beautiful song composed by Barry with lyricist Don Black. Follow Me was edited by Anne V. Coates (Lawrence of Arabia). Mia Farrow continued to shine in The Great Gatsby (1974), Death on the Nile (1978) or The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985). Topol pursued a long career on stage, mostly in his signature role, and played in the films Flash Gordon (1980) and For Your Eyes Only (1981) and in the miniseries The Winds of War (1983). After Follow Me, Michael Jayston went on working on stage, for the cinema (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, The Internecine Project...) and for television: The Merchant of Venice, Jane Eyre, Thriller, Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy, Doctor Who, etc. Follow Me was Carol Reed's final movie.
The Sentimentalement vôtre combo Blu-Ray/DVD from Elephant Films contains Follow Me in English and in French (with French and English subtitles), an interview with movie critic and American cinema specialist Samuel Blumenfeld, a trailer of the film and the trailers of other titles from Elephant Films in the same collection: Isadora (1968) and the recently released Mary, Queen of Scots and Thoroughly Modern Millie.
https://fr.shopping.rakuten.com/offer/buy/10079839267/sentimentalement-votre-combo-blu-ray-dvd.html
http://www.elephantfilms.com/
https://fr.shopping.rakuten.com/boutique/ElephantFilm
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2023/mar/09/topol-obituary
See also:
https://tattard2.blogspot.com/2023/03/thoroughly-modern-millie-combo-blu-ray.html
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