The Walking Stick

Quiet and shy, ashamed of her leg withered by polio, Deborah Dainton takes refuge in her work as a trusted employee of a posh London auction house. Within weeks, she is a criminal, the linchpin in a jewel heist. How she got there forms the twisted heart of this psychological crime thriller. The answer, of course, is a man: Leigh Hartley, a painter whose real talent may be his ability to manipulate a lonely young woman. He courts Deborah, making her feel whole and desirable. Now he has one favor to ask and Deborah, despite claustrophobia from her time in an iron lung, hides in a closet so that she can slip out after the auction house's closing to let her lover enter and steal a fortune in gems. Blending boyish charm with a threat of danger, David Hemmings (Blow-Up) makes a magnetic Leigh. And Roger Greenspun of The New York Times praises Samantha Eggar's (The Collector) "beautifully restrained and evocative performance" as Deborah.