Warped Triangle

Last time out, Mia Farrow had Rosemary's Baby. In Secret Ceremony, she is Rosemary's baby, a diminutive monstrosity named Cenci whose wide, cornflower eyes open onto a hostile, deranged mind.

The character is a promising one, and perhaps one day Farrow can play it for what it's worth. For now, she is trapped in a glossy, twittering movie that poses as a psychological horror story. Leonora, an over-the-hill prostitute (Elizabeth Taylor), is accosted by Cencion a London bus. The girl invites her home--where Leonora discovers an eerily familiar face in a photograph. Cenci's dead mum was a ringer for the prostitute. And, vice versa, Cenci reminds the prostitute of her daughter, dead lo these seven years. The two settle down symbiotically in Cenci's gloomy, Edwardian mansion. Along comes Cenci's randy stepfather

Albert (Robert Mitchum), who has always had a thing for her.

Jealously guarding her "daughter," the prostitute begins a battle with Albert for possession of the child. But Cenci is possessed already--by demonic fantasies. Playing the two adults off against each other, she speaks to a nonexistent lover, fakes a rape scene and pretends to be pregnant by stuffing security toys under her dress. In such a warped triangle, nothing can go straight, and after a lot of lallygagging around the mansion and a seaside resort, Director Joseph Losey provides the anemic story with an inappropriately gory ending.

In many of his previous films--notably Accident and The Servant--Losey has shown skill at conjuring up corruption and terror. Here he is undone by his scenarist, George Tabori, who attempts a ghostly esthetic melodrama in the style of Henry James. Tabori provides all of the mannerisms of the master, but brings none of his talent to the task. Nor is Losey much aided by his actors. Farrow continues to radiate a fragile elegance and a shrewd sense of character and timing. But she alone cannot make a movie.

Confined to a few brief scenes, the bearded Mitchum is little more than a cameo of a goat. The bloated, bejeweled Taylor seems less a depleted call girl than a prosperous madam. But alternately snooty or snarling, she does underline the message of her role: there is nothing more pretentious than swank posing as class. Unfortunately, that is the message of the film as well.

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