A decent little British thriller with some interesting credits. It was directed by Robert Fuest, who went on to make the Dr Phibes movies, starring Vincent Price; it was scripted by Brian Clemens, chief writer on The Avengers; and the two girls are played by, respectively, Pamela Franklin, who was the little girl,
Flora, in The Innocents, and Michele Dotrice, most famously Betty Spencer, long-suffering wife of Michael Crawford's accident prone Frank in the BBC sitcom Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em. Though the script tries far too hard to make a suspect of Sandor Elès (which, as we know, can mean only one thing) and Franklin's character acts like an idiot throughout, the movie is technically very proficient and contains some excellent suspense. Unfortunately, instead of cutting straight to the credits and compensating for the Big Twist's obviousness by leaving us to mull over its devastatingly bleak ramifications, the movie outstays its welcome by a couple of minutes and gives way to gratuitous unpleasantness and, horror of horrors, a happy ending of sorts.
September 19, 2010
