Film's two plot threads never really mesh

Read the User Comment on this site -- it summarizes the problem with this film, and its overall quality, very well.

The basic story line -- of efforts to contain an outbreak of smallpox in the English city of Bath -- is a good one and fairly well told. Unfortunately it becomes hopelessly enmeshed in, and eventually overshadowed by, writer-director Val Guest's parallel plot, of the marital ups and downs of the principle characters. This second story isn't interesting to begin with, and serves only to detract from the main thrust of the movie. (The finale, attempting to draw these two threads together in an absurdly melodramatic climax, is ridiculous.) What could (and should) have been a taut thriller instead disintegrates into a mishmash of events cluttered with too much uninteresting plot and not enough tension or relevance. There are several good scenes in the film and it's worth viewing once, but overall it falls flat. Generally good performances from an excellent cast, though none outstanding (even Claire Bloom, who's best), and the usually compelling Cyril Cusack, playing a basically contrived and wholly irrelevant role as a Catholic priest, is exceptionally boring, if not downright off-putting.

Val Guest could be a very solid writer and director but comes up way short here. Too bad. Not a terrible film, but a shame when one thinks of what it might have been.