Duffer (1971)

“Duffer very quickly impresses as an individual and compelling study in obsession... On the evidence of Duffer, Despins and Dumaresq are clearly filmmakers to watch.” Nigel Andrews, Monthly Film Bulletin, February 1972 One of the most unique British films of the period, Duffer was made by director Joseph (Chuck) Despins, from a story idea by his friend William Dumaresq (who also plays the role of Louis-Jack). Duffer, a young man who spends his time either being forced into increasingly brutal sexual practices by the overbearing Louis-Jack or treated with tender love and care by the comely prostitute Your Gracie, finds himself in a most extraordinary position when it appears that he has become pregnant. Whimsical and disturbing, beautiful and unsettling, Duffer is a film that defies easy comparison, but is perhaps closest in spirit to the early work of David Lynch, which it preceded by a number of years. Despins and Dumaresq would collaborate again on The Moon over the Alley (1975), a similarly hard-hitting tale set in a Notting Hill boarding house.