Coventry "Fragment of Fear" certainly isn't your average type of whodunit/mystery thriller, and whether or not you like it will entirely depend on your own personal attention span and tolerance towards screenplays that reveal very few clues and depict only a minimum amount of action. Who killed Lucy Dawson, the elderly aunt of recovering drug-addict turned novelist Tim Brett, whilst she was on vacation in Italy and seemingly visiting the ruins nearby Pompeii? More importantly, are we really supposed to care by whom Aunt Lucy got strangled and why, because the script (adapted from John Bingham's novel) remains distant and vague regarding the actual murder and clearly only wants us to worry about the deteriorating mental state of protagonist Tim Brett. Shortly after the murder, and having fallen in love with the witness who first discovered the body, Tim returns to London and decides to investigate the murder himself. Although he discovers almost nothing, he does receive a few unmistakably clear warnings to restrain from looking further. He is repeatedly visited by a peculiar old lady (who turns up dead later), gets threatening letters coming from his own typewriter and someone is laughing mysteriously on his answering machine. The police don't take him very seriously, being a former heroine junkie, and rather than killing him as well, the person (or persons) Tim Brett tries to unmask is merely attempting to bring his persona in further discredit. Yes, I do realize this brief description is rather confusing, but so is the entire film! I'm not even sure if I understood half of it! "Fragment of Fear" is definitely one of the best films ever made in terms of depicting the paranoiac state of its lead character! Throughout the entire film everybody is wondering whether or not everything that is happening is real or not; and even the denouement doesn't provide a conclusive answer. Like Tim Brett mumbles at one point during the film: "Either I am mad and all this isn't happening to me, or else I'm sane and it is…" There you go: "Fragment of Fear" accurately summarized in one single line of text. Paranoid or not, the film does contain a couple of remarkably suspenseful moments, a marvelous illustration of London society during the late 60s/early 70s, a catchy soundtrack and a number of solid acting performances. David Hemmings remains one of the most phenomenal but sadly underrated actors of his generation. He carries the entire film, which must have been quite a heavy burden, without a lot of effort. There are many truly gifted actors and actresses in the supportive cast, like Adolfo Celi, Flora Robson and Yootha Joyce, but their screen time is bizarrely limited.

Alex da Silva Ex-junkie author David Hemmings (Tim) is chilling out in Italy and agrees to meet his aunt Flora Robson (Lucy) for lunch in Pompeii. I'm afraid that's not going to happen – Robson doesn't make it. She's been strangled. Hemmings wants to find out more about her aunt's life and pursues his own investigation back in London. However, there is a network called 'The Stepping Stones' that seems hell-bent on preventing him from discovering anything. He's a marked man unless he drops his curiosity.It's a tense film if a little complicated at times as you're never quite sure who's who. Basically, suspect everyone who Hemmings comes into contact with. The cast are good and the story unravels well but the ending just didn't do it for me. I wanted something better as things don't get resolved in the manner I had wanted. And the music by Johnny Harris is laughably inappropriate. I see that some nutter has previously referred to it as a superb music score. He clearly has no knowledge of how to score a film. The film leaves unanswered questions and that was a let-down for me.

christopher-underwood I felt this could have been so much better and began to temporarily tire of it somewhere around the halfway mark and then it lifted and ran pretty well to the end. David Hemmings seemed a bit limp and Gayle Hunnicutt almost asleep but then maybe it was the erratic script. I guess there is also the problem where a film is going to have different levels of reality that not all can be made too transparently clear. There is a wonderful cameo from Wilfred Hyde-White and things certainly pick up with the appearance of Daniel Massey and Arthur Lowe. Apart from the dialogue being rather lacklustre at times and some scenes going on a tad too long, the music is completely wrong. I have seen the score by Johnny Harris highly praised and possibly outside of the film the jazzy music is fine but here it is too loud, too obvious and basically, bloody annoying. Despite all this, the film remains likable enough and certainly worth a look.

gridoon2018 For the most part, "Fragment Of Fear" is a gripping film. Although sometimes it can get too talky, it cleverly builds an atmosphere of justifiable paranoia, as we can see both why the hero feels so trapped and scared and why it is difficult for other people to believe his stories. But in the last 5 minutes or so, the film goes all vague and ambiguous on us, leaving us to interpret it all in our own way. The problem is that either way leaves too many unanswered questions. What does hold the film together is a committed central performance by David Hemmings; in what is largely an one-man-show, he creates a believable Everyman, a regular guy who gets in over his head. And an amusing credit for those who stick to the very end: "Colombus" is played by....a London pigeon. Who would have guessed? **1/2 out of 4.