A Killer in Every Corner - Series 4 Episode 5, Saturday 1st February 1975

The story...

Sylvia, Helga and Tim are students thrilled to be invited to the home of renowned psychologist Professor Carnaby to learn about the experiments he is conducting into how conditioning techniques can be used to prevent violent behaviour. At the home they find two men - Boz and George Kesselheim - whose violent outbursts can be controlled simply by the Professor playing them a specific piece of music. However both Tim and Helga later go missing and Sylvia starts to fear that the Professor is not all he seems. She fears she is in great danger with Slattery - a journalist also staying at the house - her only ally...

Review

Another popular outing among fans. While I wouldn't place it in the show's top rank - testimony to the exceptional quality of many of its counterparts - it is certainly highly impressive and creates tension skilfully leading to an excellent final ten minutes or so. 

This was the closest Thriller ever came to science fiction. Carnaby is a rare scientist highlighted in the show. His experiments take the powers of conditioning to remarkable levels. On the surface he is an extremely courteous and supportive man but in reality he is prepared to conduct the most shocking experiments on unknowing subjects. Cleverly the exact motivations and morality of Carnaby are never stated. Is he a villain? Probably, but not of a conventional sort. He does not seem prepared to use violence himself but is happy to use his "staff" in such a way. He claims to be conducting these experiments in order to cure those with homicidal tendencies and that may be his sincere intention. Carnaby is best described as amoral. He experiments on people with the same lack of feeling as a scientist would test on chemicals or maybe animals. He is more committed to science than to human life. He is quite prepared to deceive people and play with their lives. Good may ultimately have emerged from his experiments but at what price? Patrick Magee seemed to specialise in villainous or sinister roles and gives a typically good account on this occasion.

Professor Carnaby is witness to Boz's destructive tendencies - but believes he can control them

Boz and Kesselheim are making progress thanks to the Professor but they remain deeply unstable and insecure. The scene in which Kesselheim taunts Boz who then cuts him down is very strong. Boz in particular has great loyalty to Carnaby, and maybe with good reason, but Carnaby still treats him almost as a plaything. These parts are well-performed with Max Wall especially notable in a straight role. Fellow comic actors / comedians Arthur English and Ken Jones had appeared in the previous series in small but memorable parts. Max had a much darker role to play but showed it was well within his compass.

The students are all very likeable. They are enthusiastic and feel tremendously privileged to spend time with the Professor. It seems too good to be true - and so it proves. Joanna Pettet as Sylvia fills the American blonde heroine role with aplomb. She conveys skilfully the traditional heroine qualities - warmth tempered by perceptiveness to danger. There was a tendency towards blonde heroines in the later series of which she is a very good example and this may be why she was one of the few American guests to return for a second appearance in the rather less heralded AMidsummer Nightmare in Series 6.

The final ten minutes or so as Sylvia comprehends the deadly events in the house are very strong. There is an excellent mixture of chasing, stalking and struggling as Sylvia tries to save herself from Carnaby and latterly one of his "staff". This is not unlike the events of I'm the Girl He Wants To Kill, albeit neatly compressed into a few minutes. The climax is also unusual and probably rather more realistic (though still dramatic) than most in Thriller. 

All considered a very accomplished effort and one can see why it has made such a strong general impression.

Notes: 

Four of the seven featured characters are killed. This proportion of over half is the highest of any episode.

For the fourth episode out of five in Series 4, characters are seen travelling on a train.

For the second consecutive episode it's revealed that a character has to carry papers to prove he is not a murderous lookalike and a character is left unsure whether the man she is with is being truthful about his identity and whether he is safe or dangerous.

For the second time in three episodes a character finds that their sighting of a dead body is confounded when it goes missing.

The end credits of the movie version are one of the few to scroll over a freeze-frame of the final shot - less "creative" but more effective and less distracting than the bizarre and commonly inaccurate artistic montages that were usually used.