Desire Avenue

At last a film that you won't have seen in the cinema in recent years.

I've just been watching The Man Who Haunted Himself on dvd, a film from 1970 which stars Roger Moore,who was half way between from being The Saint to being James Bond.

Briefly Roger plays Pelham,who almost dies (actually he dies but is revived) on the operating table following a traffic accident. Ignoring the lapse in logic and various plot holes, the revival of Pelham creates two of them who then lead seperate lives whilst increasingly become connected.

As the film evolves, the 'good' Pelham becomes more and more aware of the 'bad' Pelham, whom he initially thinks as either part of his imagination or the result of a prank.

Interesting if rather dated film,its worth getting the dvd to see all the old sixties cars on the streets of London.

RobB wrote: ...its worth getting the dvd to see all the old sixties cars on the streets of London.

Hmm,maybe I'll go and watch some paint drying instead.

sound world wrote:

RobB wrote: ...its worth getting the dvd to see all the old sixties cars on the streets of London.

Hmm,maybe I'll go and watch some paint drying instead.

Any particular colour in mind?

Well,I'm quite partial to a bit of red.
It's a bit like me sitting all the way through 'Aberdeen' waiting for Stina to sing a song I don't particularly rate over the end titles.Was it worth it? Probably not. [b)]

This film seriously creeped me out when I saw it as a teenager. Yes, it's dated of course, but also unnerving and memorable. I hadn't seen Roger Moore in anything except the Bond films at that point, so it was a real surprise to me. If I recall rightly, around the same time I saw this film I'd been reading about something called autoscopic hallucinations, which is where you see your own image projected outside yourself, and the two things combined to give me nightmares. [:xx]

blue wrote: around the same time I saw this film I'd been reading about something called autoscopic hallucinations, which is where you see your own image projected outside yourself,

autoscopic hallucinations? Is that the same thing as 'looking in the mirror'?

I bought the dvd from www.hmv.co.uk for £2.99 (including p&p) and you even get a 'Roger Moore' commentry thrown in on the special features.

RobB wrote: autoscopic hallucinations? Is that the same thing as 'looking in the mirror'?

No Rob, the scary thing is that it doesn't involve mirrors at all.

I just did a little searching about it online, apparently there are different kinds of autoscopy - some are psychological and some neurological. Interestingly this strange and scary experience is sometimes reported by people who have had a stroke - one man knew something weird was happening when, at a company social event, he watched 'himself' walk into the room, sit down at a table and proceed to chat away to people. He suffered a stroke minutes later.

RobB wrote:I bought the dvd from http://www.hmv.co.uk for £2.99 (including p&p) and you even get a 'Roger Moore' commentry thrown in on the special features.

I'm not surprised it's been released on DVD actually, I think it's one of those odd little films that stays in the mind, although not very well known by a lot of people.