Watch The Raging Moon For Free

Simply A Masterpiece

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

This was the first film I ever saw with Malcolm McDowell - my brother and sister-in-law took me to see it. It was also the movie that I fell in love with an incredible actor. The role was something I would have never thought someone like him could pull through, yet he did and brilliantly. I applaud the story writer - beautiful way to portray a disabled person - showing that just because you can't walk doesn't mean you aren't capable of love. I highly recommend this movie to those who have never seen this great actor in such an inspiring role.

I remember this film very fondly as one of first movies I was allowed to see with someone not part of my immediate family, that is a with a friend, companion, girlfriend, whatever you'd like to call them. 'The Raging Moon' stuck in my mind for a long time, it contains moments of great beauty interspersed, alas, with long scenes of boring dialogue and perplexing adult problems that I wasn't the least bit concerned about. It is ultimately a romance movie and one with a great deal of realism as well as plenty of heart.A young footballer (Malcolm McDowell in one of his early roles) has everything to live for. Suddenly at a friend's wedding he is taken ill and told that his condition, which renders him unable to walk, is permanent. He forces his family to have him put into a special home and hopefully have them forget about him. At the home he meets a young woman (Nanette Newman) who is also paralysed, but has been the same way all her life. She helps him adjust to the demands of surviving in a wheelchair and they strike up a friendship that gradually becomes something more serious. It seems obvious to the viewer that these two are just made for each other, but the makers of this film unkindly pull the rug from under the audience, when something particularly tragic happens and the lovers are kept apart. Well, I suppose it could happen in real life, but I mean, how unlucky can these two be? The makers of 'The Raging Moon', director Bryan Forbes especially, allows no compromising of his story and I guess that is what gives the film its emotional power. It's not a complicated story but it's portrayed with far less falsity than most. The characters are living and breathing human beings, and the relationship is portrayed as virtually a necessity for the survival of these two tragically challenged people. They don't dance around each other and play silly games. One comes away from 'The Raging Moon' somehow uplifted by its touching story. For those who haven't seen it, it may sound like depressing stuff but it's a deeply moving experience and one of those films that deserves more exposure on cable, video and/or DVD. I believe that Nannette Newman deserves special mention, She gives an understated but effective performance and more than holds her own when compared to the the flashier style of McDowell who seemed at the time an interesting young actor, but perhaps doomed to play the angry young man into perpetuity.

The key to understand this great movie is the poem by Dylan Thomas: "in my craft or sullen art" "In my craft or sullen art Exercised in the still night When only the moon rages And the lovers lie abed With all their griefs in their arms I labour by singing light Not for ambition or bread Or the strut and trade of charms On the ivory stages But for the common wages Of their most secret heart.Not for the proud man apart From the raging moon I write On these spindrift pages Nor for the towering dead With their nightingales and psalms But for the lovers, their arms Round the griefs of the ages, Who pay no praise or wages Nor heed my craft or art." Two works of art:the film and the poemtadzio filippini

I recently obtained this video from and envisioned that I was going to see the ubiquitous boy-meets-girl scenario. I was far wrong because what I ended up viewing was a more interesting and realistic portrayal of two people caught up in a crossfire between their feelings towards each other and the deterrents that nearly prevent them from fulfillling it. I must commend Malcolm McDowell for portraying the surly but tender male lead in a performance that is truly a step beyond his trademark stormy and negative characters. Nanette Newman,too, should be rewarded for playing the fragile and compassionate heroine.It's a shame that Long Ago Tomorrow was virtually overlooked upon its release in 1971- hopefully, if more folks other than myself will see this picture, it may get the recognition it is due, significantly, for honestly portraying paraplegics as normal human beings like everyone else.