A Safe Place (1971)

Director: Henry Jaglom
Writer: Henry Jaglom
Stars: Tuesday Weld, Orson Welles, Philip Proctor, Gwen Welles and Jack Nicholson

Index: The First Thirty.

The last time I saw Henry Jaglom was when Warren, his character in Psych-Out, freaks out on acid and tries to cut off the zombie hand on the end of his arm in place of his own. This is a film I could imagine Warren directing, even if it’s a tender portrait of a broken young woman with a distinct lack of zombie hands on show.

It was Jaglom’s first film as a director and he’s built a career for himself as an obscure but praised underground auteur, with people he trusts. He now has twenty-three films to his name as writer/director and the actors he cast are often the same ones he acted with.

Tuesday Weld, who ultimately is this film in far more ways than merely starring in it, shot in ultra-close up often, was a personal friend, as was Nicholson, who was in Psych-Out, which was Jaglom’s first film as an actor. Philip Proctor, who got an introducing credit here, was in his second, The Thousand Plane Raid.

Orson Welles wasn’t a friend at the time and Jaglom had to fly to New York to pitch him the film, the legend apparently taking the role to wear a magician’s cape on screen; few knew before F for Fake that he was also an amateur magician. They became friends after this and ate lunch together almost weekly for the final seven years of Welles’s life.

None of this hurt the budget. Nicholson was a twice Oscar-nominated actor on the heels of two incredible performances in Five Easy Pieces and Carnal Knowledge but he did this film for no salary except a colour TV. Then again, all his scenes were shot in a day. Jaglom returned the favour by appearing in Nicholson’s directorial debut the same year, Drive, He Said.

Both films were made by BBS Productions. The two Bs in that name were Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider from Raybert Productions and the S was a new partner, Stephen Blauner. Raybert had created The Monkees; Rafelson and Nicholson co-wrote Head, the Monkees movie, and Nicholson was also a key part of Raybert’s biggest hit, Easy Rider.

As BBS, they became a huge part of the New Hollywood movement in the early seventies; Nicholson starred in both Five Easy Pieces and The King of Marvin Gardens; directed Drive, He Said; and appeared in A Safe Place. BBS only made two other films: The Last Picture Show and Hearts and Minds, a Vietnam documentary shot during the conflict.

Of those groundbreaking films, this is likely the least known and the least accessible; it’s a rarely discussed movie online, so I’m unable to bounce my ideas of what it all might mean off the ideas that many other critics had. Maybe it changes over time too and much of what I got out of it simply wasn’t there when Jaglom was making it in 1971 and I was busy being born.

The only thing I think we can safely assume is real is that it’s about a young lady played by Tuesday Weld. When we meet her, she goes by Noah but she used to be Susan when she was a child. Given that she jumps around in time all the time, she spends a lot of time as both and it’s up to us to figure out what it all means.

Beyond that, I’m not convinced that anyone or anything else is real, even though we see a trio of men who are clearly important to her. Two are lovers, Fred and Mitch, but otherwise they’re a very different pair indeed.

Fred, played by Philip Proctor, is a giver. He wants to love and support and understand but finds that difficult because Noah is so different from him. That’s attraction and frustration in equal measure. She’s hard work but worth it.

Mitch, played by Jack Nicholson, is a taker. He even tells her that she’s a simple minded person but that’s OK because it’s easy to make them do what you want them to do. However, if that sounds predatory, it isn’t entirely. They merely connect on a physical level, enjoy the moment and move on. He’s like Jonathan from Carnal Knowledge but without Noah ever trying to tie him down into a relationship.

The third is a memory from childhood, the Magician, who she watched perform magic in the park and outside her window. He became her friend, perhaps also a parental substitute, given that we never see an actual parent.

For the first third of the film, I asked a lot of questions. Noah clearly operates on a different frequency. We want to know why.

Is she perpetually high, like a flower child on psychedelic drugs? Is her brain burned out because of past excesses? Is she insane? Is she ADHD or some other neurodivergent? She has a safe place, maybe the Magician in her mind or the fairground rides she’s assembled on the roof to mimic that, but what drove her to one?

Whatever the reason, is she so far gone that she’s effectively living in a fantasy world that she’s built out of her memories? And, if that’s the case, are the other characters memories or reality bleeding in as people try to reach her?

I could certainly see the Magician, who calls himself a professional chess player, as a man trying to guide her within her fantasies, like a doctor or a therapist. I could also see Fred in a similar role, given how constantly rational he is. Even Mitch could be something like that, a safe space within a safe space.

My favourite moment in the film was when Noah asks for Fred’s phone number. To him, a ruthlessly rational brain, it’s just that. To her, it has deep mystical significance, its two letter exchange close to astrological. “How can you like six four?” she asks. “You can’t!” He has no idea at all where she’s coming from and vice versa. How could this be more like a therapist and patient struggling to connect?

There’s even a part for Gwen Welles that doesn’t seem to have any place in the picture other than to suggest that she’s part of some sort of group therapy. What’s more, the end is easy to read as suicide or even death through misadventure. Noah opens her magic box to wish on its contents, but it’s empty. She then vanishes from the rooftop, making us wonder if she tried to fly again, as she thinks she did as a child, or wished for the emptiness of death. Maybe she just can’t be reached any more.

My problem with the film isn’t just that it’s uninterested in giving us any answers, though that is a good part of it. It’s that I didn’t come up with any new questions after half an hour, so it started to drag. Weld continues to fly free and Fred continues to struggle to understand her. Mitch and the Magician float in and out. Rinse and repeat.

Kudos to Jaglom for trying a new approach and creating something unique, but few seem to have grasped it and I’m not one who has.