John Moulder-Brown makes adolescent longing awkward enough to be troubling. His vulnerability gives Deep End much of its interest; he is less persuasive when a part needs a reassuring hero.
Fi1m perspective
In the swimming-pool setting of Deep End (1971), John Moulder-Brown's Mike gives us someone to watch without making him easy to read. His adolescent awkwardness keeps the attraction from becoming a comfortable romance. We felt uneasy watching him alongside Jane Asher's Susan: he seems vulnerable, but that does not make his interest in her innocent. The performance works because he does not ask us to find every clumsy feeling charming.
The move from child parts to European features put him in roles suited to that awkwardness. The House That Screamed (1969) marked his transition towards young-adult roles, while Maximilian Schell's First Love (1970) cast him as Alexander in an adaptation of Turgenev. Horror and literary adaptations alike made room for his sensitive, troubled young men. The heroic role in Vampire Circus (1972) is less rewarding: here, uncertainty can look like blandness. The troubled parts make better use of him.
Jerzy Skolimowski gives that discomfort room in Deep End. His improvisatory approach suits Moulder-Brown's raw teenage energy, and Asher gives him a fellow performer who does not make attraction easy to explain. Their performances keep us interested when the film's dreamlike atmosphere puts the people at a distance. There are stretches when we want less strangeness and more ordinary contact between them; the film would lose nothing by allowing it. Skolimowski worked with him again in King, Queen, Knave (1972), alongside David Niven and Gina Lollobrigida.
Luchino Visconti's Ludwig (1973) gave him Prince Otto; the later career moved largely towards supporting television parts in programmes such as Howards' Way and Casualty. That makes Deep End a useful place to begin, with enough time to see how much his apparent vulnerability complicates our response to Mike. Allow for a film that sometimes holds him at a distance just when we want to understand him better.
Biography
John Moulder-Brown is an English actor. Born on 3 June 1953 in London, he began his career as a child actor with uncredited roles in films such as A Night to Remember (1958) and Room at the Top (1959).
He is known for his performances in The House That Screamed (1969) as Luis, Deep End (1970) as Mike, First Love (1970) as Alexander and Ludwig (1973) as Prince Otto. He has also appeared in television series including Howards' Way and Casualty.
In 1997, Moulder-Brown founded The Academy of Creative Training, a drama school in Brighton, Sussex. He has appeared in stage productions, including Man and Superman at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in 1982.
