Noutions Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

Claysaba Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Konterr Brilliant and touching

Kinley This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

ShadeGrenade I was saddened at the death in January of one of my favourite actresses - Susannah York. 'Sebastian' was one of many films she made in the '60's. It came out just as Bondmania peaked. It is about spies but strictly speaking is not a thriller, more a romantic comedy. The late Dirk Bogarde plays the titular character, a professor of mathematics so brilliant he can work out complex sums in his head in a flash. He has his very own department within the British Secret Service, devoted to code breaking. All the people under him are women, and attractive ones at that ( no fool he ). As the film opens, we see Sebastian running through the streets of Oxford for a meeting with the Prime Minister. A young woman called Rebecca Howard ( York ) almost runs him down in her Mini Moke. Once she has finished insulting him, he asks her to spell her name backwards. She does so. Then he asks how many words she can make from 'thorough'. Impressed, he offers her a job in his Department. Sebastian is a cold fish, almost like a code himself, and she is determined to crack him. He has other problems - General Phillips ( Nigel Davenport ) believes him to be a security risk, especially as he has known Communist sympathiser Elsa Shahn ( Lilli Palmer ) working in his department. Phillips decides to put Sebastian under surveillance...Directed by the underrated ( and alas deceased ) David Greene, whose other movie credits include 'The Shuttered Room', 'Godspell', and 'The Strange Affair', 'Sebastian' is a delight from start to finish. One of the producers was the great Michael Powell. The cast are wonderful, alongside Bogarde and York there's Sir John Gielgud as the 'Head Of Intelligence', Janet Munro as 'Carol Fancy', the washed-up pop singer Sebastian is having an affair with, and Ronald Fraser as 'Toby', who forces Carol into becoming the bait of a trap involving champagne laced with L.S.D. A pre-'M.A.S.H.' Donald Sutherland appears briefly. Gerald Vaughan-Hughes's witty script came from a story by Leo Marks, himself a code breaker in World War 2. Some lush sets on view courtesy of Wilfrid Shingleton, who also worked on 'The Avengers' television series. Sebastian's department is a big open-plan room in which his girls work tirelessly to break enemy codes while their boss watches over them from the panoramic window ( with louvre shutters ) in his office. James Bond would be proud of it.The wonderful soundtrack is by Jerry Goldsmith. I bought a C.D. of it a year or so back and was disappointed to find that at least half the film's score is not on it, such as the strident theme that accompanies Sebastian's visit to a radio telescope.Like a lot of '60's films, it used to get shown a lot on television but has not been screened anywhere recently. I think it was last on B.B.C.-2 back in 1988 ( I know because I taped it ). Its non-appearance on D.V.D. is itself a baffling mystery worthy of investigation by Sebastian himself.

blanche-2 "Sebastian" is a film from 1968 that is the ultimate swinging London '60s flick, starring Dirk Bogarde, Susannah York, Lili Palmer, and John Gielgud. Bogarde plays a tough, cold on the outside British mathematician who heads a code decryption department during the Cold War. He has many women in his employ, and one of them (Susannah York) falls for him and pursues him, and he reciprocates.Fun music and atmosphere of the '60s permeates. York is lovely as a smart, pretty woman who knows what she wants, isn't afraid to try for it, and cracks the hardest code in the bunch - Dirk Bogarde. Bogarde is excellent as a man of deep feeling who likes to keep his work life separate from his private life and doesn't quite succeed.Not much of a plot, but the acting is good - you can't really go wrong with Lili Palmer and John Gielgud in the supporting roles. Palmer plays a codebreaker of long-standing who is nevertheless under suspicion for some of her views, and Gielgud is one of the big bosses over Bogarde.Enjoyable.

tichsuch Sebastian is one of those movies you see once and remember for a long time. I saw it back in the seventies, and didn't get to enjoy it again until I caught it on TV in the nineties. Still, I remembered its groovy sixties-London atmosphere, its intellectually stimulating plot about codebreaking, Susannah York's breezy, mini-skirted, somewhat flighty Rebecca who is actually quite smart, Bogarde's coldly academic Sebastian with passion seething underneath, and Jerry Goldsmith's right-on soundtrack.Like a lighter LeCarre story, you get Cold War tension, but with a post-war British self-deprecating viewpoint. They may not be the Empire they once were, but they do have a bit of expertise in cryptography that the Yanks would be willing to compensate them for. Donald Sutherland plays an NSA type at Fylingdale Moor who turns Sebastian on (literally) to the latest intercepts from a Russian satellite. He's immediately impressed when Sebastian hears the embedded signal that carries classified data piggy-back with the normal Sputnik beeps. Mixed in with this main West versus East plot is the late-sixties go-go scene, with Sebastian's former paramour a pop singer a little past her prime, with his right-hand girl a bit of a leftist sympathizer, and with his new girlfriend, Rebecca, a pre-hippy free spirit determined to pry him out of his Oxford Don shell. Susannah York's Rebecca is fun-loving but has a flame-hot temper that reacts explosively to Sebastian's unemotional pomposity. Her true depth is shone later when she quietly removes herself to care for her baby, without the assistance of its father, Sebastian, who has dropped out of her life. I feel it's the best role of York's uneven career.What really takes the movie a step above, is Jerry Goldsmith's score. His instrumental "First Day at Work" catches just the right combination of urban excitement and spritly spirit that accompanies Rebecca and a bevy of beautiful and brainy girls as they make their way in to begin their work as cryptanalysts working in Sebastian's high-tech sweatshop. While the rest of the soundtrack is not up to his Blue Max or Wind and the Lion standards, this one tune alone puts Goldsmith's soundtrack above most movie music.I would put this one in my list of top 100 movies for its cast, its atmosphere, its music, and its re-watchability. I hope it comes out on DVD soon.

occupant-1 A light story about cryptographers... not an easy sell as a script, but afforded a platform for the talents of John Gielgud, Dirk Bogarde, Lilli Palmer, the spunky Susannah York and others. The tiny message about being careful when working for a classified department is more and more relevant, as Microsoft just discovered when their source code was stolen via the hijacking of an employee's computer on the air from home. When in doubt, lengthen the password...