Matrixiole Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Roman Sampson One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Matylda Swan It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

SnoopyStyle Freddie Clegg (Terence Stamp) is a loner butterfly collector. He starts following art student Miranda Grey (Samantha Eggar) and kidnaps her on a quiet London street in broad daylight. He imprisons her in his windowless hidden cellar with basic amenities. She struggles at first to break out. She tries talking, negotiating, and even seducing him. One rainy night, she manages to hit him with a shovel but he locks in the cellar. As he recovers at the hospital, she gets sick from the cold damp conditions.This is stripped down movie that relies almost entirely on the two actors. Samantha Eggar is utterly beautiful both inside and out. Terence Stamp is perfectly creepy, disturbed, and fragile. His performance is masterful. This is a great two person play. It's a little long but it never loses the tension.

tomsview One theory about why people collect things is that in a world where chaos constantly threatens, and where one has little control over fate, collecting is one area where control can be retained. "The Collector" is a story about a man who desperately wants to control one thing in particular – the woman he has become obsessed with.Although "The Collector" seemed pretty shocking in 1965, William Wyler said at the time that he intended to make a modern love story, but it's hardly that. Based on John Fowles' novel, the film may actually have been quite prescient, especially in light of the number of urban abductions and imprisonment of women that have occurred over the intervening decades. However the film's rather old-fashioned, near Gothic style, plus an over-the-top performance from Terence Stamp softened the nastiness of it all. But with that said, it's still pretty creepy.Terrence Stamp's character, Freddie Clegg, is a socially inept bank teller and butterfly collector who has won a fortune on the football pools. He comes across an isolated country home for sale. He is particularly interested in its large cellar, which he thinks might help him fulfil a fantasy that has become an even bigger interest than butterfly collecting. He is obsessed with a girl, Miranda Grey played by Samantha Eggar. With his newfound wealth he buys the country home then snatches Miranda off a street after chloroforming her. He keeps her prisoner in the cellar, and although he treats her more like a pampered houseguest, Freddie has complete power over her. He desperately wants her to fall in love with him, but as is the way with such obsessions, love and hate are closely linked. Miranda tries everything to extract herself from the situation even agreeing to stay for a month without struggle. Eventually she offers herself sexually. This enrages Freddie who has issues with intimacy – especially when Miranda is conscious. The changes in Freddie's feelings spell great danger for Miranda. The film follows the ending of the novel and it's a bleak one. Terrence Stamp's mannered performance is distracting. This included squeezing himself into a suit, which was at least a size too small, no doubt in an attempt to help capture Freddie Clegg's constrained personality. The twisted nature of the character is reinforced by Stamp's twisted posturing – just in case we missed the point. Samantha Eggar on the other hand, is perfect as Miranda Grey. She is the type of unattainable beauty who might easily attract the attention of a stunted personality such as Freddie Clegg – he knows he would never be able to associate with her on an intimate level under normal circumstances. Eggar's reactions are believable as her character undergoes various mood swings during her imprisonment. The audience identifies with her and she never loses their sympathy while Freddie never gains it.Maurice Jarre's score has been criticised as a hindrance in this film. His rich, melodic style certainly wasn't right for everything. The criticism is justified in this case as the music misdirects the mood of the film at crucial moments. Wyler was a meticulous craftsman who made many famous films, but the attention to detail that made many of his films great, made this one heavy instead. Although he coaxed a very good performance from the inexperienced Samantha Eggar, in my opinion, "The Collector" remains more of an oddity than a great movie.

edwagreen Terence Stamp is fabulous in the part of a brooding etymologist who kidnaps Samantha Eggar in this 1965 weird picture. Everyone knows that he has no intention whatsoever of releasing his true love. In fact, he has been watching her for quite a while. Along the way, Eggar tries to escape to no avail. There is no sex between the two and the piece becomes one of sheer boredom. It is almost laughable in certain scenes.In fact, Eggar developing pneumonia during all this is probably a welcomed relief.Is Stamp another Scarlett? Does he actually realize that Eggar was really never for him?

Robert J. Maxwell There were a number of films produced around this time involving a woman being kept prisoner -- "Whatever Happened To Baby Jane," "Lady In A Cage" -- but this particular format itself belongs to a genus that might be called the Hostage Movie. They're too numerous to recount but examples include "The Desperate Hours" and "Dog Day Afternoon." In "The Collector," Terence Stamp is a repressed young bank teller who wins seventy thousand pounds in a lottery, buys a Tudor country home, kidnaps the luscious young art student, Samantha Eggar, and holds her captive in a reasonably comfortable cellar until (he hopes) she falls in love with him. Stamp may be sullen but he's been desperately desirous of her since he began stalking her some time ago. He has this Gothic dungeon outfitted with a rack of clothes, personal gear, a comfortable bed, an electric fireplace, and modern lamps. He brings her whatever food she asks for. Of course it doesn't work out. It doesn't work out in two senses. She doesn't fall in love with him, nor are the viewer's expectations about her escape fulfilled.The movie doesn't avoid the usual clichés of the genre: the banging on locked doors, shouting through a newly broken window, feigning illness, offering sex in exchange for release, trying to slip a secret message to someone outside, making false promises. But the novel's author, John Fowles, is a skillful and imaginative writer, and this is a LOT more thoughtful than a run-of-the-mill hostage movie.Stamp's character is unsympathetic but in a way that engages out sympathy. He's an uneducated working-class bloke. Eggar is a doctor's daughter, not rich but talented and upwardly mobile. It's not just a conflict between personalities; it's a clash between classes.One of her favorite books is Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye." Stamp has never heard of it but is determined to read and understand it. But he CAN'T. To him, Holden Caulfield, the preppy protagonist, is a phony himself because he's been pampered and has money, so he has no right to condemn others. Stamp doesn't phrase his criticism exactly this way because he's not articulate enough. And yet he has a point. How much more disturbed would Holden Caulfield been, and how much wiggle room would we give him for his disdain, if he'd been a student at a vocational high school in Pittsburgh? Eggar counters this argument at first by transparently agreeing with him -- "an interesting point of view" -- but Stamp may be unschooled but he's not stupid and sees through the condescension and recognizes the motive behind it. The motive, of course, is that Samantha Eggar will say or do anything to get the hell out of that dungeon, otherwise she'll be there until she dies. They go briefly through a similar routine with a Picasso portrait. Stamp: "It's ugly. People don't look like that." Eggar: "He's trying to show us different sides of the subject." Again, maybe my aesthetic appreciation apparatus is deteriorating but I can see Stamp's point when he argues that people say it's great only because everybody else is saying so.But this isn't a movie about art -- except to the extent that it embodies it. It's still about social class. And Stamp carries around the resentment, anger, and suppressed self-loathing of somebody with the mentality of a fifth grader who knows he'll never fit into the "posh" world of a young lady like Eggar.Terence Stamp has a limited acting range but he fits the template of the role rather well. Samantha Eggar is a beautiful woman with alarmingly auburn hair who is liable to remind a view of Mrs. Emma Peel with more generous features and more tentative vocal contours. The other contours are pretty similar.At one point, Eggar describes Stamp as a "madman" and she's not far off the mark. His butterfly collection suggests obsession. (The movie spells out the connection between the butterflies and Eggar a little too clearly, underestimating the audience.) But Stamp's character is mad in another way. He's not exactly crazy but he lacks social skills in the same way that most schizophrenics do. He simply doesn't know how to handle himself with other people. He does and says things that are odd, ungainly, and probably a little bizarre. He's not sinister. He's pathetic. And like most hostage takers, he creates a tiny world in which he is the King.