The Collector

Director William Wyler, whose credits include Ben-Hur, The Best Years of Our Lives, Wuthering Heights, and Funny Girl, pulls no punches in this 1965 psychological thriller based on the novel by John Fowles, featuring Terence Stamp in his star-making role as mild-mannered bank clerk Freddie Clegg--a butterfly fancier--who stalks and then abducts a lovely specimen, an art student named Miranda (Samantha Eggar). Clegg keeps Miranda imprisoned in the basement of a remote country house, but the line between captor and captive gradually begins to blur. Wyler delivers some sequences of Hitchcockian suspense--such as when Miranda, bound in an upstairs bathtub, tries to alert a downstairs visitor--that hold up very well after nearly a half century. While there are no extras on this DVD, which sports a decent transfer and solid Dolby Digital stereo sound, the movie is collectible on its own. Recommended. (K. Lee Benson)