ENDLESS NIGHT: Blu-ray (EMI/British Lion, 1972) Indicator/Powerhouse
Longwinded, tedious and stricken with a certain aberrant
ennui almost from the moment the main titles fade away, Sidney Gilliat’s swan
song, Endless Night (1972), take a valiant stab at one of Dame Agatha
Christie’s latter-day thrillers, but misses the mark entirely for generating
any kind of suspense. Difficult to say where the fault lies. Christie’s novel,
published in late 1968, was well-received (as were virtually all of the
authoress’ works while she lived – a very prolific and popular writer, indeed),
and the cast features, among others, a ravishing teenage Hayley Mills, sultry
Britt Ekland, aged George Sanders, and Per Oscarsson, who, in the role of the
dying architect is superb. Fair enough, the slightly spurious romantic male
lead, Hywel Bennett is a little on the dull and goony side of what then passed
for uber-masculinity. But otherwise, he holds his own in a screenplay – also by
Gilliat – that adheres rather slavishly to Christie’s proses with few artistic
embellishments. Gilliat’s career dated all the way back to the mid-1930’s;
first, as a scriptwriter, most notably with Frank Launder on Hitchcock’s classy
classic, The Lady Vanishes (1938) and then, Carol Reed’s Night Train
to Munich (1940). Launder and Gilliat made their co-directorial debut on Millions
Like Us (1943), and from 1945 on, Gilliat also assumed the role of
producer, beginning with The Rake's Progress, which he wrote and
directed. Multi-talented to say the least, Gilliat and Launder would go on to
make 40 films together, many for their own indie production house. While
Launder’s strengths favored comedy, Gilliat’s lent an air of sophistication to
comedy-thrillers and dramas.
There is precious little humor – even irony – in Endless
Night – almost as sparse in its devotion to suspense. Hence, we are left
with a drama of sorts, as Hayley Mill’s green rich girl, Ellie Thomsen steadily
begins to unravel the secrets of her newlywed hubby’s past, only to succumb to
a terrible fate for her curiosity. Mills, who engaged audiences with her enigmatic
presence as the child star of Tiger Bay (1959) before going on to become
the beloved Disney ingenue in such classics as Pollyanna (1960) and The
Parent Trap (1961) had, by 1972, blossomed into womanhood. That the rest of
us still saw her as that precocious blonde moppet of Walt’s creation did not
exactly help to advance Mills’ prospects as a movie star after she left
childhood behind. Even so, in viewing
her performance in Endless Night, it is impossible to let go of that
indelibly etched image of Mills as the precocious and wide-eyed child of yore. So,
her kittenish motivations toward the brooding and occasionally belligerent
drifter, Michael Rogers (Hywel Bennett) just seem slightly off and a tad blue.
The plot of Endless Night is fairly straight-forward.
The ambitious Rogers, a lowly chauffeur, aspires to a better life. And why not?
He’s smart, fair-haired and young - all the shining attributes that ought to
make for a great success in life. Except he is in England, where social caste
dictates position, and, men of the working class rarely, if ever, rise above
their station to become true gentlemen. But Michael’s prospects are about to
improve after a chance meeting with Ellie. She is broad-minded and instantly
smitten with the young man. Owing to her station in life – an heiress, set to
inherit a pile of money – Ellie initially keeps her wealth a secret from
Michael, whom she suspects to be a fortune hunter. Gradually, however, he
confides in her his dreams of building a magnificent estate on a particular
plot of land on the Devon coast. Love wins out. Ellie can see Michael for the
man that he is (or rather, ‘thinks’ he is) and reveals her truest self to him.
The two evolve their whirlwind romance with the aid of Ellie’s companion, Greta
(the dulcet and intoxicating, Britt Ekland) and eventually are married, despite
the strenuous objections of Ellie’s family. In short order, Ellie hires the
noted architect, Rudolf Santonix (Oscarsson) to fulfill Michael’s dreams of
owning that fashionable estate in Devon. The house built for the newlyweds is
fabulous and stately. Alas, life on these grounds will not be all cherries and
feathers.
The couple discover that the plot on which their dream
abode now sits was formerly known as ‘Gypsy Acres’ and rumored to harbor a
centuries-old curse, sure to afflict their ever-lasting happiness. At first,
things progress as they should. The young couple ingratiate themselves to the
locals, including Dr. Phillpot (Aubrey Richards).
But Ellie’s step-mama, Cora Walker Brown (Lois Maxwell), and her new husband,
Reuben (Peter Bowles) remains critical of Michael, mostly because he stands in
their way of sharing Ellie’s inheritance. Repeatedly, the young newlyweds are
forewarned their happy home is doomed.
Shortly after moving in, strange things do begin to happen. Increasingly
intimidated by these incidents, which Michael dismisses outright as ‘coincident’,
Ellie invites Greta to come and stay with them for an undisclosed period.
Michael is not pleased and does his level best to make Greta uncomfortable in
her stay. Ellie’s fears will not be assuaged, however. After a particularly nasty ‘accident’, Ellie
becomes convinced her life is in danger. As no one takes this seriously, although
suspicion lingers until Ellie is discovered dead in the woods from an apparent
fall off her horse. At the inquest, the coroner deduces the cause of death as a
combination of injuries incurred in the fall after an attack of acute heart
failure.
A seemingly distraught Michael endures the skepticism
of Ellie’s most trusted adviser, Andrew Lippincott (the marvelous George
Sanders), but endeavors to claim the inheritance as his own. The inference that
something far more sinister is afoot is compounded when Michael visits Santonix
in hospital; the architect, expiring with more questions than answers. Of
course, we eventually learn of Michael’s darker intent – having met the
penniless Greta long ago in Italy, and fallen madly in love, ushering her into
Ellie’s confidences and plotting to ingratiate himself into the fold, all the
while, scheming with his mistress to murder his wife and take over her fortune.
Predictably, greed won out; Michael, poisoning Ellie’s allergy medication - the
slow-acting cyanide killing her during her ride. And while it appears – at
least, on the surface, that Michael and Greta have everything they always
wanted, Michael is plagued by visions of Ellie on the open road leading to
Gypsy Acres. His imagination runs wild, and soon he fears he is losing his
mind. Greta insidiously challenges this notion, admonishing Michael for his
sudden attack of conscience. Her humiliation is more than Michael can bear. He
snaps, strangling Greta and thereafter, awaiting the inevitable - to be found
out for the murder of his wife.
Endless Night is a fairly ponderous and not terribly prepossessing
mystery/thriller. It lacks in any sort of impetus to generate the necessary
sparks of suspense. While Dame Christie’s reputation as a mystery writer has
endured, despite changing times and tastes, her verve for the traditional
‘locked room’ thriller is decidedly at odds with director, Gilliat’s pacing
herein. Gilliat is utterly incapable of creating the sort of hairpin twists and
turns that help an audience piece together the mystery for themselves, while
taking everyone on an emotional roller coaster ride. Instead of instilling a
sense of mounting dread, Gilliat gives us a fairly competent set-up in the
first 20 minutes or so, but then bungles the situation with a lot of gushing
soap opera clichés. His screenplay is a wordy mess, too heavily veiled in
inferences to actually raise the eyebrow, at least as much as the hemline of
John Furniss’ costuming. Shot mostly on location, in Christie's Auction House,
London, the West Country, and, Il San Pietro di Positano, Positano, Italy, the
picture has the necessary glamour. The estate at Grim’s Dyke, as example, is
lavishly appointed, with a lot of atmosphere, utterly squandered as Gilliat stages
some talkie scenes before these elegant trappings, hoping the audience will not
notice how much exposition is merely dealt with in a pedestrian fashion. Christie’s
novel, although adhering to her time-honored principles as a writer, was hardly
a connect-the-dots affair. Gilliat’s handling of the first and second act make
it all seem matter-of-fact and boring at best. He pussyfoots around the story, never
drawing his audience nearer to the clarity in Christie’s original tale. But his
bunching together of all the more pertinent plot devices in the last act,
provides neither the big build-up nor dénouement one expects. Add to this
Bernard Hermann’s Vertigo knock-off underscore, and Endless Night
becomes an interminable experience to wade through. Dame Christie, who was
initially excited by the prospect of seeing one of her masterworks brought to
the screen, was to have her elation deflated upon seeing the finished movie. A
box office bomb in Britain, Endless Night’s American premiere was
cancelled as a result, although curiously, the picture was eventually screened
in Denmark and Finland, two years later.
Endless Night will arrive on Blu-ray state’s side via Kino Lorber.
There is already a region-B locked disc available through Indicator/Powerhouse
in the U.K. The 1080p transfers will likely be identical. Described as a ‘new restoration from a 4K scan’,
Endless Night sports a rather pleasing, if marginally thick image,
likely in keeping with Harry Waxman’s original cinematography. For the most
part, colors are robust and pleasing. Flesh tones look especially solid, and
greens, yellows and reddish browns are favored with gorgeous layers and
texturing. There are some visible age-related artifacts, but on the whole, the
image is exceptionally clean and free from their distractions. A lot of
Waxman’s efforts here are shot through a slightly diffused filter. The Blu-ray
reproduces this effect. The Indicator disc has a PCM encoded 1.0 audio. The
Indicator is also chocked full of extras, including an extensive audio-only
BEHP Interview with Sidney Gilliat from 1990, and another, almost as compelling
with composer, Bernard Herrmann. Indicator also produced three new – if very
brief – interview pieces: the first, featuring the always gracious and winsome,
Hayley Mills, another, favoring composer, Howard Blake, a disciple of Herrmann,
and finally, an appreciation of Herrmann’s work by author/historian, Neil
Sinyard. All this is lost on the Kino
release – presumably, owing to rights issues. In their stead we will get a new
audio commentary from film historians, Howard S. Berger and Nathaniel Thompson.
Bottom line: Endless Night is a fairly pointless thriller with a few
bright spots peppered in. A sincere pity some sort of agreement could not have
been reached with Kino to distribute this disc with all of Indicator’s extras ported
over. Bottom line: pass, and be glad that you did.
FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)
1.5
VIDEO/AUDIO
4
EXTRAS
4
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