A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin 1971

In this taut and atmospheric thriller set in London, a wealthy, politically connected family becomes the center of a mystery that blurs memory, motive, and truth. At its heart is the glamorous but troubled Carol Hammond, the wife of Frank Hammond and the daughter of the powerful Edmund Brighton, a respected lawyer and politician. They share a grand apartment with Joan Hammond, Frank’s teenage daughter from a previous marriage, creating a tightly knit household where secrets fester just beneath the surface. As the story unfolds, the line between dream and reality grows perilously thin, and the household’s delicate balance begins to tilt toward catastrophe.

Carol has been seeing a psychoanalyst, Dr. Kerr, who listens as she recounts disturbing dreams about their libertine neighbor, Julia Durer. In these visions, Carol, wrapped in a fur coat, moves through a long hallway filled with naked partiers and ends up engaging in intimate acts with Julia. The dreams feel more like premonitions than fantasies, and they cast a shadow over the entire household. The tensions inside the building are matched by tensions outside: Edmund Brighton receives an anonymous phone call offering damaging information about his family, triggering concern about loyalty and the possibility that someone within the inner circle might be betraying them. In a private moment, Edmund hesitates but presses Frank to confirm if there is infidelity, a fear that Carol’s own sense of safety is tied to the status of their relationships. Frank denies any wrongdoing, yet the camera lingers on the truth that Frank is indeed involved with his personal secretary, Deborah.

The plot accelerates when a shocking coincidence ties Carol’s dream world to the real one. Julia Durer is found murdered in her apartment, in precisely the same manner Carol described—down to the fur coat and a distinctive paper knife lying at the scene. The calm surface of London life begins to fracture as Inspector Corvin of Scotland Yard, played by [Stanley Baker], takes charge of the investigation. The case deepens as a new thread emerges: the detective suspects that Carol could be a killer, especially after a troubling encounter with a hippie couple who appeared in Carol’s dream and who seem to know far more than they admit.

During a shopping trip with Joan, Carol spots the two hippies—Hubert and Jenny—and the mystery grows more tangled. The police quietly collect Carol’s fingerprints, which match the prints found on Julia’s fur coat and the paper knife. The evidence points toward Carol, and she is placed under arrest. Yet Inspector Corvin remains unsettled; the dreamlike specifics Carol shared with Dr. Kerr beforehand make him question whether she could have conjured the murder in advance, or if a more complex truth lies beneath the surface of the crime.

As Carol awaits trial in a ômaximum-security sanatoriumö, danger intrudes again when the male hippie breaches security and pursues her through the grounds. She escapes into a locked room where four live dogs are being vivisected, causing a stunning collapse of fear and perception; when she regains consciousness, the intruder has vanished. Meanwhile, Edmund, determined to salvage his daughter’s life, discovers that Julia had been blackmailing Frank to protect their affair with Deborah, a revelation that shifts the moral weight of the entire investigation. Edmund secures Carol’s release on bail, moving the focus from punishment to truth.

The narrative then shifts to Edmund’s country estate, where Carol is drawn into a tense encounter at Alexandra Palace with the hippie couple. The pursuit resumes as the male hippie corners Carol on the roof after a suspenseful chase through the building, and she is stabbed in the struggle before the police arrive to restore order. The aftermath leaves more questions than answers: Joan is found murdered in a field, and Corvin continues to probe the shifting alliances and hidden motives that might exonerate or condemn Carol.

Corvin’s interrogation deepens as new details emerge about the phone call from Julia and the web of blackmail surrounding Frank. Carol admits she learned of the call from Edmund, but she remains uncertain whether Frank is aware of the full extent of Julia’s tactics. The clues eventually lead to the hippie couple, Hubert and Jenny, whose admission of stalking Carol is undercut by their insistence that they cannot recall the night of Julia’s murder beyond a cryptic line about “a lizard in a woman’s skin.” The case takes a staggering turn when Edmund is found dead at his estate, a suicide note confessing to Julia’s murder. The mystery widens into a question of who knew what and when.

In the final, quietly devastating confrontation at Edmund’s grave, Inspector Corvin reveals a troubling possibility: that Edmund would have told Carol that Frank was with him when Julia called, and that Carol’s supposed alibi collapses under the weight of this revelation. Corvin argues that Carol must have killed Julia in order to shield herself from exposure, weaving together memory, fear, and the pressure of a dangerous social circle. The evidence, the testimonies, and the dream-prophesied nightmare converge as Corvin escorts Carol to a waiting police car, leaving the viewer with a chilling sense of unresolved guilt and the fragility of truth.

This film blends psychological tension with a grim procedural, anchored by a stellar ensemble that navigates desire, loyalty, and the danger of getting trapped inside one’s own imagination. The characters’ intertwined fates—Carol’s fear and potential culpability, Deborah’s complicity, Edmund’s ambition and despair, and Corvin’s determined pursuit of justice—create a narrative that remains immersive, unsettling, and ultimately thought-provoking.