The World Ten Times Over (1963)
The World Ten Times Over // dir. Wolf Rilla // United Kingdom
“People like us do what we want to do, not what people tell us to do.”
Queer ladies living it up, loving each other, and surviving to the end of the film–IN 1963 BRITISH CINEMA? Wolf Rilla’s film, The World Ten Times Over, is an unexpected and underseen delight. Shot on location on the streets of Soho in London, and anchored by beautifully tender and fun performances from Sylvia Syms and June Ritchie, this is a film that deserves to be seen and known.
Billa (Syms) and Ginnie (Ritchie) are long-time companions who share a flat and a bed, and both work as escorts in a local nightclub. The film follows a few days in their lives as Billa’s country-mouse father (William Hartnell) comes to town for a weekend visit and Ginnie navigates a sexual relationship with a wealthy businessman (Edward Judd).
Sylvia Syms, in particular, is extraordinary here. Two years after playing Dirk Bogarde’s wife in Victim--the first English-language film to use the word “homosexual”--she starred in this film, which the BFI considers to be the first implicitly lesbian relationship depicted in British cinema. (Syms remained a legend with her final role being in the 2019 queer television drama Gentleman Jack.) Syms has a screen presence full of that elusive star energy. When she is lively, she can be very lively. There is an organic joy to her work that is potent. And, when she is vulnerable, she can be very vulnerable. In this film, she plays the longing cynic Billa impossibly entangled with the effervescent and somewhat unreliable Ginnie.
They push and pull throughout the film, one or the other taking the lead in their relationship; both expressing a sense of fatalism, but Billa’s version is quietly resigned and Ginnie’s version is hedonistic. Ginnie wants to forget fate, and Billa can only remember it.
They are gentle with each other, and also cruel. There is a constant sense of external pressure looming and crushing. In their tiny studio flat, the shared bed prominently displayed throughout, they are free to exist without pretense or lies–except the ones they are telling each other to avoid vulnerability and rejection.
The film opens as it ends, and as much the film is spent: in their flat. Billa is returning from work late at night and calls out for Ginnie only to see their bed is empty and still made. The camera tracks around the apartment as she gets ready to sleep, catching all the little knick-knacks and photos, depicting a cozy shared home. The first shot post-credits is Billa gazing at a photo of Ginnie.
The film cuts to Ginnie in bed with the wealthy businessman. She jumps out impulsively refusing sex, because she doesn’t “feel sexy” tonight. They argue about his wife, she hops about playing piano and talking about his wealth. She smashes the piano keys with frustration and the film cuts to the next morning and Billa’s and Ginnie’s morning routine in the flat. Ginnie is in the bath reading newspapers and taking calls, and Billa is the housewife bringing her tea.
Their home is the location for many scenes of quiet intimacy throughout the film, and establishes their often-shifting relationship dynamics. Both characters have separate emotional breakdowns in their apartment, but in those moments the other rises to the moment to bolster and support and comfort. They are equals, sharing burdens and secrets and jokes and purpose.
They have lived and worked together for some time, but, as the film begins, the twin burdens of finances and their unsanctioned relationship are beginning to wedge them apart. As they argue over money and their relationship that first morning, Ginnie shouts impulsively, “I want out! OUT!” Billa, ever practical and resigned, replies firmly, “Out where?” There is no getting out or being out.
The film follows Ginnie as she flits in and out of considering a long-term relationship with the wealthy businessman. She extols her desire for wealth and the ability to have fun all the time–to run away and make a life a party–to run away and forget being trapped in a harsh society.
In a parallel track, we see Billa meet with her visiting father. She becomes increasingly frustrated that he refuses to see her for who she is in any way. His benign neglect and disinterest in her life pushes her to try to shock him with her work and her relationship with Ginnie. She blurts out, “She is going to leave. She’s going to, how do you say, live in sin.” His uncomfortable reply, “Of course, moral standards are changing–greatly. He follows this by asking his daughter, “I’ve always wondered if there was someone in your life, a nice boy?” The conversation and their relationship deteriorates quickly from there.
Interwoven are these scenes of Billa and Ginnie pursuing their relief from external pressures, and how they believe they will find relief: Billa through being known and loved unconditionally by her father, and Ginnie with wealth and the freedom from all societal constraints that it promises.
They keep returning to each other, shedding personas, and becoming vulnerable. Ginnie is unable to commit to a decision whether to join the man and his wealth or to stay. Billa is unable to bring herself to ask Ginnie to stay with her, but in Sylvia Syms’ hands, the open longing is tangible and ever-present. She is half agony, half hope (to borrow from Austen).
I am going to discuss the ending of this film, and specifically how it subverts tropes. If you do not want to have narrative plot points spoiled, I suggest we bid adieu for now. You can watch the film in its entirety for free here on Vimeo.
I also want to note content warning for a mention of attempted suicide.
Billa confesses to Ginnie that she is pregnant by one of her clients. Ginnie promises she won’t leave her, saying, “I may be a bitch, but not that kind of bitch.” Billa gleefully helps her evade the wealthy businessman who shows up planning to take Ginnie away to a tropical island. He is suspicious and antagonistic toward Billa, she responds breezily and they sneak out off to work and Billa stops to blow a kiss goodbye in his direction.
At their work, we see them at dinner with clients. They are playful and manic–in a scene reminiscent of Vera Chytilová’s Daisies (1966). Billa’s father shows up, but Ginnie gallantly defends her by trying to outrage and shock him.
While cackling on their way to the restroom, Billa suggests they raise the baby together. As she goes on happily, the camera follows a suddenly serious and terrified Ginnie. She abandons Billa to the clients and her father and goes to the wealthy businessman. Billa’s father ultimately leaves, but not before calling her “trash” in seeming final note to their relationship.
Ginnie finally makes her choice, and leaves the wealthy businessman, but returns home to Billa’s absence. She screams Billa’s name again and again. The film cuts and returns to Billa.
Billa stays at the club until the very end of the night, and brings another worker home with her. This woman has nowhere to sleep that night, and Billa offers her Ginnie’s side of the bed, because she believes Ginnie has left her forever. The woman goes into the bathroom, and discovers Ginnie bleeding from a suicide attempt. As the audience, we only see a limp hand, and the presumption is that Ginnie has died.
This outcome seems pre-ordained. Cinema is full of dead queer characters. The phenomena is perhaps best known as the trope Bury Your Gays. Even films sympathetic to queer people see a tragic death as the most logical or realistic conclusion due to “society.” Additionally, in films of this era, still somewhat bound by censorship boards and codes, any woman acting outside of true womanhood must either be returned to those constraints or be deeply punished. A tragic death is a fitting punishment.
Yet.
Ginnie has not died. Her attempt was unsuccessful. She has survived with minor injuries. The doctor bandages her hands, dismisses it as attention-seeking, and leaves. Ginnie is lying in their bed without expression or words. Billa freaks out, hurling her anguish at Ginnie, and screaming. The forgotten woman from the club breaks the tension, yelling, “She’s alright!” She then says that trains are probably running now and peaces out of being the unwanted third wheel.
What follows is a finale of incredible tenderness, as they both finally open their vulnerabilities completely. Ginnie wanted to die at that moment, she explains, because she came back to the empty flat and thought that Billa had left her. She had finally made her choice–life with Billa–but she thought it was too late. Billa holds her hand, touches her arm, finally they embrace fully. They face a life with obstacles no less surmountable than they had been days before, but they repeat together a single refrain directed at society, “Damn them all.”
Two promiscuous women, one pregnant and other shown having sex with a married man, well, they must be punished. The censor boards and the codes demand it. So, in a breathtakingly perfect punishment, the film delivers and subverts the most classic of cinematic punishments: the woman ending up alone and unmarried and unwanted by any man. The film says, here they are, fully punished. They have no man. They only have each other.
And, in a touch of grace and hope and fervent expectation of a future, the film ends with the sun rising, the neighborhood going about its daily routine, and one final shot: Ginnie stirring in their bed and turning to embrace Billa as they sleep on peacefully together.
The sun rises, they love each other, all will be well.
-Meg
originally published on The Classic Film Collective on 06/05/2022.