Endless Night

Fragment Rock

Endless Night
Directed by Sydney Gilliat
UK 1972
Indicator Blu Ray Zone B

Warning: Endless Spoilers.

I almost didn’t bother writing a review for this one because, although I found the film entertaining, I also found it rather slight in substance. A conclusion which was obviously similar to UK audiences at the time, where it didn’t receive a great reception. Apparently it fared considerably better in Italy on its release. 

Based on a book by Agatha Christie, Endless Night is the last of three films made co-starring Hywel Bennett and Hayley Mills, two of which, including this one (and the slightly better known Twisted Nerve) were scored by the late great Bernard Herrmann. And, as I say, it’s not got a lot going for it storywise... it tells the tale of Hywel Bennett’s young chauffer Michael who makes good by accidentally falling in love with and marrying the sixth richest young lady in the world, Ellie (played by Hailey Mills). An architect friend, Santomix, played by Per Oscarsson builds Michael’s dream home for them in Wales (with a location in the Isle Of Wight standing in for it) and things go alright for a while, apart from the inlaws and the former housekeeper who kind of moves in with them... Greta, played by Britt Ekland. Then things start to go wrong and Ellie is found dead under mysterious circumstances one day.

The whole thing is made slightly more interesting than it sounds by the use of a fragmentary structure and a slightly experimental playfulness with some of the editing and stock treatment. It’s told as a kind of fragmented flashback by Bennett’s character and various false starts and other narrative stammers are fought against and overcome to get his story out into the open. For instance, foreshadowing at the start of something revealed in more crucial detail from his childhood only at the end of the picture and an odd scene of repeat edits where he comes upon a faceless woman in a forest, rapidly repeated as a smooth camera movement three times, but treated slightly different on each stammer, with a different colour on each pass having, what looks like, a single colour missing from it... so green and red on one pass, blue and red on another and so forth. It’s quite striking but only lasts a few seconds. 

It’s filed with a whole host of wonderful supporting actors too... Peter Bowles, Lois Maxwell (Miss Moneypenny herself), George Sanders (he killed himself a few months before the release of this film), Walter Gottell (who was in From Russia With Love and then as a regular reoccurring character in Roger Moore’s stint as James Bond) and even Windsor Davies. Plus, in a completely uncredited role, I spotted an auctioneer played by Nicholas Courteney (who was the long running character of the Brigadier in Doctor Who). 

Herrmann’s score is fine but it’s not what you’d be expecting for one of his thrillers, although it is appropriate to the movie. Although there are a few typical Herrmann moments of ‘fright’, using stabs of colour on a Moog synthesiser (Herrmann obviously thought the guy playing it did a good job because he let the musician share a credit on his card at the start of the movie... which I suspect he did because the producers wouldn’t give the musician his own credit and so offered space on his, like he did with the soloist on the film On Dangerous Ground... reviewed here), the score is much more in his lesser known romantic idiom, which aligns it much more closely to his scores for such films as The Ghost And Mrs. Muir than it does to any of his thriller scores. But it is good stuff, it has to be said.

The biggest problem with the film is that it telegraphs the killer from very early on. Hywel Bennett’s fragmented voice-over narrative really does point the finger very early on due as much to what is not said as much as what is initially seen. His general personality traits (and his relationship with his own mother) kind of flags his narrative as ‘not to be trusted’ and, I think without the framework that the director went with on this film, it would have been a far duller affair but with less chance of guessing the killer in the first five minutes, for sure. 

And that’s me done with Endless Night, I think... although I shall return to my CD of the score on occasion. Indicator do their usual nice job of including some extras, many of which on this Blu Ray focus on Bernard Herrmann... I haven’t explored those yet but I certainly intend to do so.