Horror Double Feature: See No Evil & Endless Night

In today’s Shocktober Double Feature, we will be stunned by a blind Mia Farrow, a butchering maniac, lovely Hayley Mills, and the always-wonderful music of Bernard Herrmann. It’s See No Evil and Endless Night!

SEE NO EVIL (1971)

The appearance of Brian Clemens’ name in the credits of any film or television production is, for me, kind of like a Seal of Approval. From the hit ’60s TV show The Avengers to such marvelous horror films as Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde (’72) and Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter (’74), the man has never let me down. And, I’m happy to report, his See No Evil (’71) is no exception. In this one, the recently blinded Sarah, superbly played by Mia Farrow, comes to live with her aunt’s family … a family that is soon butchered by a “maniac on the loose.” All we know for sure is that this wacko sports a pair of gold-starred cowboy boots, which knowledge has us glancing suspiciously at the footwear of every male character in the film, natch! It is almost agonizingly suspenseful watching poor Sarah putter around her aunt’s home, unaware of the bodies lying so close to her, and that suspense is only ratcheted up several notches when she finally does learn what has happened, and that the killer is on his way back to the house. I don’t think the Master of Suspense himself, Alfred Hitchcock, could have squeezed any more tension out of this scenario than writer Clemens and director Richard Fleischer have done. Besides this wonderful setup, which may have viewers recalling such other “handicapped women vs. psycho killer” films as The Spiral Staircase (’46) and Wait Until Dark (’67), the film gives us some beautiful views of the autumnal Berkshire countryside and another fine score by the great Elmer Bernstein. But this is Farrow’s show all the way, and she is utterly convincing as the blind and fragile, yet spunky and surprisingly resourceful Sarah. My stomach was in knots by the end of this British wringer, and I would have to say that See No Evil is one that you absolutely must see…

ENDLESS NIGHT (1972)

Many decades ago, when I was just a young lad, Hayley Mills was my favorite actress, and her 1962 film In Search of the Castaways was my favorite film, but between this and that, I don’t think I’ve seen Hayley in anything since 1965’s That Darn Cat. How nice, then, to see her, the other night, at age 26 in the 1972 British film Endless Night, and to realize what a nubile nymph my old flame had turned into later in life! In this adaptation of a 1967 Agatha Christie novel, Hayley plays Ellie Thomsen, the 6th richest girl in the world, who, after one date with pretty-boy chauffeur Michael (excellently portrayed by Welsh actor Hywel Bennett), elopes with him and builds his dream house in the Herts countryside. It is hard to figure out what words best describe Endless Night. It is not really a horror movie, or a love story, or a thriller, but certainly does have elements of all these types. The picture IS remarkably atmospheric, in no small measure due to yet another wonderfully evocative score by the great Bernard Herrmann, and should manage to baffle most viewers who are trying to figure out just where the story line is going. Besides the fine work by its two leads, veterans George Sanders (here in one of his last roles, and playing what his character self-describes as a “desiccated old poop”) and Lois Maxwell add sterling support, and even Britt Ekland turns in a convincing performance as Ellie’s tutor/companion. Throw in some gorgeous scenery in the Herts and Positano countrysides, a surprise final quarter hour that manages to subvert everything we thought we knew, and two or three mild scares and you’ve got yourself one very interesting entertainment. Kudos, indeed, to writer/director Sidney Gilliat! I just hope that I’m not foolish enough to wait another 40 years before watching Hayley Mills in another picture. Perhaps it’s time for me to finally check out Hayley and Hywel in 1968’s Twisted Nerve!

COMING ATTRACTIONS: Nasty dinosaurs! Hillary Brooke! Disintegrating gravity plates! A pre-Jaws Richard Kiel! It’s Lost Continent and The Phantom Planet, in the Shocktober Double Feature #11…