FILMS… Remembering Sylvia Syms in a BAFTA Award Nominated Role in The Tamarind Seed

#1970s #AllPosts

 

A John Barry score is added to this (Tamarind) Seed crammed full of doubts…

 

Sylvia Syms and her on-screen husband stole the movie in those scenes in this Blake Edwards directed Cold War movie.

 

Fergus and Margaret

Judith and Feodor

The Tamarind Seed (1974) ORIGINAL TRAILER [HD 1080p], HD Retro Trailers and photos © Avco Embassy Pictures

 

I was sad to hear about the passing of Sylvia Syms, the British actress and mother of the Highlander (1986) actress, Beatie Edney. Syms had taken on roles of all kinds from the mid-1950s to the near present. Her performances included the British soap, EastEnders (1985-), starring along with Sylvester McCoy as the titular, Doctor Who (1963-) in the episode, Ghost Light and in the cult film, Ice Cold in Alex (1958). Syms also starred alongside acting names such as Orson Welles, Helen Mirren, Michael Caine, Joan Sims and William Holden.

In film and TV biopics, you might also remember her starring as the Queen Mother – in The Queen (2006) – or as Margaret Thatcher in 2001’s Thatcher: The Final Days. Or in loose remakes in the Agatha Christie adaptation, in the role of Lavinia Pinkerton in a 2008, Miss Marple themed whodunnit in 2008’s Murder is Easy (Helen Hayes starred as this character in the 1982 TV Movie HERE). Syms also starred as Belle Rosen – Shelley Winters had the role in the feature film HERE – in an American TV Movie take of The Poseidon Adventure (2005) – with Rutger Hauer, Steve Guttenberg and Bryan Brown.

Reading more about Sylvia Syms, I immediately remembered her presence in a 1970s Amicus portmanteau as a controlling on-screen wife, Ruth in Frozen Fear, a segment in the horror movie, Asylum / House of Crazies (1972). It seems in our delicious introduction to her character, that Ruth believes in voodoo. However, shortly after this, Ruth’s husband, Walter (Richard Todd) murders her, in the hope he can run off with his young lover Bonnie (Barbara Parkins).

The murder was carried out by chopping Ruth up into wee bits which were then wrapped in brown paper and string. Walter hid this evidence in their chest freezer, and then you’ll find things go a wee bit spooky. This chilling story was one of four eerie tales told – in the framing story – to an idealistic young psychiatrist (Robert Powell) at a job interview with one of the hospital’s employees (Patrick Magee). This young psychiatrist hears the back stories from Walter’s lover and those of 3 other inpatients and has to identify the doctor in return for the job.

However, my favourite role from Sylvia Syms has been on and off my review radar since I first saw this movie with my Darlin Husband, a few years ago. Syms plays another wife with a husband with secrets and not just of the British Intelligence classified kind, in the Cold War romance thriller, The Tamarind Seed (1974).

In this sadly supporting role, as Margaret Stephenson, she and her on-screen husband, Fergus (Dan O’Herlihy) unintentionally stole the limelight and chemistry from the leading on-screen lovers. Both my Darlin Husband and I revelled in the Stephensons’ part of this espionage filled plot. I am sure you will too after hearing about the often dreary leads. But then to be fair after reading about the book it seems Julie Andrews’ character was meant to be this.

The Tamarind Seed hints at the upcoming storyline with credits with coloured filter scenes of these leads. With both in silhouettes and Julie Andrews with (British) blue and Omar Sharif with red (Soviet Union) filtered shots it plays like a really dull Bond movie opening credits with a chaste Julie Andrews as Bond girl.

Then the film looks more at the should have been “framing” story with these two dullards, rather than the much more interesting and dramatic story which surrounds the married Stephensons. The soon to be (eventual) lovers, Andrews as Judith Farrow and Sharif as Colonel Feodor Sverdlov, are pure Cold War bonkbuster romance fodder. This couple, despite Sharif acting his charismatic sex symbol socks off, pales into the background as the Stephensons’ story, which is more compelling. It’s such a shame that their spin-off story was never told in a film with this same cast.

The film begins with flashbacks explaining that Judith Farrow (Andrews) is a British foreign office worker working for a very important British person, only known as Sam. She requests time off work to mend her broken heart after her romance with Richard (David Baron) went sour. And in flashback, we see her dump this diplomat and married lover. Again by flashback, we discover his wife, Rachel is pregnant. After Judith asks him to leave, he toddles back to wifey and his impending child, and his work for British Intelligence in Paris.

In the present day, Judith headed for the Caribbean, on the suggestion of her unseen (and red herring-ed name boss, Sam. Judith was a widow before she started to date Richard. She is still haunted by flashbacks of the death of her husband after he (somewhat clumsily) drove over a cliff as seen with an eerie red filter (the red in the filter sadly not relevant) and we never meet in flashback or otherwise.

One night in balmy Barbados, she is chatted up by a smooth-talking – and persistent – Russian attache, Colonel Feodor Sverdlov (Omar Sharif). Sverdlov invites her to dinner and then spends more time with her. But is Sverdlov a honeytrap, wanting to find out state secrets or trying to recruit her?? As this pair spend more and more time together, this naturally leads to the concerns of British Intelligence  – headed by the much hated, Jack Loder (Anthony Quayle) and his co-worker, George MacLeod (Bryan Marshall) – that Judith and Sverdlov are now lovers. This also worries the Soviets.

Despite this concern, Judith talks to Sverdlov about her life and loves – and all this info he knows anyway. She is more chaste than Maria in The Sound of Music (1965), and this is despite Sverlov’s best efforts as a smooth talking (but egoistical) Omar Sharif lookalike and soundalike. He confesses to Judith that he’s married, and she’s still as keen due to his honesty.

The relevance of the Tamarind Seed is also Julie-splained after the two discover such a seed, as an exhibit in a Barbados museum, and this is all explained in Wikipedia HERE as,

Judith is enchanted by a story that the seeds of a tamarind tree on a certain plantation take the form of the head of a slave hanged from a tamarind, a tale mocked by Sverdlov.

This pair also talk politics and Marxism and he asks about her thoughts about him constantly about everything he does or says.  Sverlov convinces his Soviet colleagues, that he’s trying to recruit Judith as a Soviet spy. The two continue seeing each other after she returns to the UK, and she seems happy after Sverdlov gives her a tamarind seed.

Then after his wife asks for his divorce, Sverlov believes his new secretary (Kate O’Mara) at the Soviet Embassy is reporting to his boss about his daily doings. Sverdlov is suspicious about the disappearance of his old – and trusted – secretary and now wants to defect to the West… and Judith calls on her old lover, Richard for help (and his wife “overhears”  their call). Sverlov promises he will tell them more about the identity of a mole in British Intelligence known as Blue…

The more interesting story that overlaps with this is secondary, to this love story. With British Intelligence superconcern see about the Soviets were getting information from a mole, known as Blue, everyone is a suspect. This person’s alter ego’s name as nattily explained by Julie (and thankfully not in song) in this film, is someone who is British and believes in the Queen and will do anything for their country.

The Diplomat Fergus Stephenson and his wife Margaret come with more chemistry, drama and intrigue than these leads. We meet them as Syms as this diplomat’s wife, Margaret is clearly bored at one of those dos that would probably involve a pyramid of chocolates. She gives us a wee back story for some of those present in her damning character assassinations, and it’s clear she hates this life.

Margaret is also sleeping with Loder’s right-hand man – and therefore toyboy – George MacLeod in a more passionate and sexual relationship. George tells her all the comings and goings at work – which immediately arouses suspicion for both of them as a possible “Blue” – after she bleats these to her husband. Fergus’ suspicions are aroused as these include classified information. But it seems George is one of Loder’s honeytraps as part of his assistant role.

Margaret hates her husband with a venomous passion, and it’s revealed he is secretly gay, and they have children. But it seems they are married in name only and sleep in separate rooms, giving the facade of a happily married couple to all and sundry.

After one of their many spats at home, she discovers a lighter is in fact a lighter housing a camera. It seems this was a present that she supposedly gave her husband as suggested by a loving engraved message. She confronts Fergus and tells him she knows this isn’t true. This as she knows that she never gave him this present and she doesn’t love him. She’s totally mortified at the possibilities of this camera and I will let you discover more scenes of this couple for yourself…

Sylvia’s character shows a wide range of emotions and characteristics, be it with her toyboy who calls their relationship off, her catty comments about her husband’s colleagues and those scenes with her husband who she detests. This woman also shows her support for Richard’s wife, who confides in her telling her that believes her husband hooked up with Judith again. And so she is privy to all that goes on in British Intelligence,  and with Judith and Sverdlov which she speaks about with her husband…

But now it’s up to you to decide if this mismatched married pair deserved a spin-off movie… They reminded me of supporting characters like Pete (Paul Rudd) and Debbie (Leslie Mann) in Knocked Up (2007) and Carrie Fisher – as Marie –  and Bruno Kirby – as Jess – who supported the titular characters in When Harry Met Sally (1989). Sadly only one of these three married couples got their own spin-off movie, I wish those others had at the time.

After you watch Syms in her magnetic performance, and after more intrigue and revelations and this character’s credible responses. I believe that Syms in this portrayal definitely should have won the BAFTA award for Best Supporting Actress in 1975. Others nominated for the award were Cindy Williams in American Graffiti, Ingrid Bergman in Murder On The Orient Express and Sylvia Sidney in Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams.

After Bergman won the award and having seen both these films, am I alone in this train of thought… that Syms should have won for this role, as she added a supportive performance to the seedy goings on in British Intelligence?

 

Related