Rent Zee and Co (1972)

ET and MC in Alphabet Soup - Zee and Co review by LN

1972 film from an Edna O'Brien story.

3 out of 5.

Filmed at Shepperton.

Actually called X, Y and Zee. As Brits pronounce "Z" as Zed it's also been entitled Zee and Co.

I endured this film by letting it run all the way through as it was actually a well filmed, polished in production, had nice backgrounds and was true to the early 70s.

Elizabeth Taylor is pretty good but her character "Zee" is a total harridan, something she often specialises in. Michael Caine is the errant husband and as wooden as always but gets to yell some pretty vile oaths at her numerous times. Why his surly and at times expressionless character attracts the pretty Susannah York across the room, then conducts an entirely obvious affair in front of his wife, heaven knows. If he's that feckless why would she want to keep him ??

The very young Michael Cashman (now a career politician & before his stint in The Sandbaggers) appears as ST's employee in the shop and John Standing is a gay man and confidante.

Margaret Leighton, almost unrecognisable in a strange beige/gold curly wig right at the beginning in the first drinking party has a delicious short & slightly catty role as the introducer of MC to SY.

Nice production I suppose if you like watching jealous and mismatched couples constantly yelling at, and belittling each other, It's just one of those films I knew about from 50 (yikes!) years ago and thought I ought to catch up. Not decided whether I'd have liked it at the time, possibly the star quality of Taylor in the day would have swung it.

No horrendous sex scenes, a tiny bit of nudity (not that it matters these days with full exposure daily

on our TV screens!), and interesting slightly hippy fashions.

Maybe worth a watch - once.