The story...
Cathy and Jane are young English nurses on a cycling holiday in France. The holiday is going well but they start to disagree when Cathy finds a place she likes and wants to stay there for a while but Jane wants to continue cycling. Cathy may have been influenced by spotting a young Frenchman there that she liked but she reluctantly goes along with Jane's wishes.
As they carry on cycling the disagreements build-up. Cathy feels bored by what she sees as miles of featureless countryside but Jane is happy to soak up the scenery. They stop again for a rest and argue. Matters come to a head when Cathy refuses to start cycling again and Jane rides off in annoyance. Later she decides she wants to find Cathy. She meets the young Frenchman (known as Paul) again and he agrees to help her but after returning to the spot there is no sign. Worse still they find some of Cathy's belongings and her abandoned bicycle - which has been vandalised. Jane hopes that Cathy may have gone in a different direction and maybe is playing a trick on her as payback for their arguments but even after involving some local residents and a gendarme they cannot find her. Jane becomes increasingly worried - even more so when she learns that a Dutch tourist of similar appearance to Cathy was murdered in the area two years earlier, a crime of which Paul knows a lot about...
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| Jane and Cathy cycling but who is in the distance - and why? |
Review
This exceptional film is tremendous viewing in its own right but it is only hugely important as a key influence upon Thriller. It was written by Brian Clemens and Terry Nation but the contribution of composer Laurie Johnson on the musical front provides another vital link. For me the combination of Brian Clemens and Laurie Johnson was central to the success of Thriller and it is also central to the quality and special feel of this film. The excellent direction of Robert Fuest meant that the three key elements of writer, director and composer were all in harmony.
There are certainly some key production differences from Thriller. Most obviously this is shot on film rather than videotape but the predominant use of location work in the French countryside gives it a very different feel from other films in a similar genre which were largely studio-bound. The use of countryside rather than an urban setting also provides a special ambience and character to the suspense and thrills. Urban suspense and thrillers - and those set inside buildings - will often focus on feelings of claustrophobia or being trapped while this one set in a largely deserted countryside emphasises much more the fear that comes from isolation, loneliness and feeling exposed to danger. The countryside provides much more space in which to run and more spaces to hide - but that also applies to the killer. Those under threat such as Cathy and Jane have fewer people they can run to and in the open there are few if any places to lock oneself away or of total safety. These feelings of fear and of suspense were integral to And Soon the Darkness and later to Thriller despite the very different production aspects. The same themes of women in peril, a killer on the loose and doubts about whom to trust were present. In both this film and Thriller the emphasis was very much on suspense, fear, shocks and surprises with the avoidance of overt violence and sexual content which were left as per Brian Clemens's preferences very much in the viewer's imagination,
A small cast for a feature film contributes to the intensity of the piece. Cathy and Jane could be almost any young women and many viewers (especially young women) could empathise with their feelings of initial excitement and later trepidation when travelling abroad in a foreign land. The fact that they know very little French and the people they meet mostly have little or no English creates a language barrier that intensifies their predicament, especially Jane when she tries to get help after Cathy's disappearance. Again these fears of feeling adrift in a place where one does not know the language are ones that many viewers will have had - or worried could happen, Jane can sense from the awkward conversations in broken English or French that something bad has happened here before but she struggles to work out what that is and there is the frustration for both her and the locals in struggling to be understood. The language barrier was a fascinating theme to explore and it greatly amplifies Jane's feelings of isolation and fear.
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| Jane finds that being inside presents its own challenges for someone trying to escape danger |
There are two people that Jane can more readily communicate with but they don't offer her much reassurance. The schoolmistress - a middle-aged Englishwoman - offers some practical support but her talk about the murder two years earlier only heightens Jane's anxiety. especially given that she emphasises the sexual aspect of the killing and seems to blame the victim by saying she was "asking for trouble" by being a female tourist alone in the area. However it is Paul who most provokes Jane's fears. Paul speaks English very well and does seem to be helping her in the search but his demeanour and conduct fill her with deep unease. He claims to be a detective with the Surete who worked on the previous investigation but later admits he had no such role although he still claims he can crack the case. He finds Cathy's camera but when asked to hand it over - which could include vital evidence - he pulls out the film and ruins it. He leaves her in doubt about whether he is a genuine good Samaritan, a crank getting some twisted pleasure from pretending to help her - or a murderer who is leading her on before eventually going for the kill. Jane has a profound dilemma - is she safe with Paul? She may feel she is not and want to escape but that could leave her alone and exposed to danger from elsewhere.
Paul is certainly not the only suspect. An obvious candidate is Lassal whose wife runs a cafe. Lassal was interviewed about the murder two years earlier but never charged - did he get away with it and still poses danger or is he an innocent man? Other characters raise Jane's concerns, including whether they know the killer and are not revealing the fact. There doesn't seem anyone Jane can really trust.
Sexual themes are certainly much to the fore than in any episode of Thriller. It is clear that the murder in 1968 also involved a sexual assault and the fear is the same has occurred again. Remarks by the schoolmistress suggest that she may have a lesbian interest in Jane, at odds with her otherwise puritanical comments on that crime. Certainly her victim-blaming remarks make uncomfortable listening but it must be remembered that in that era such attitudes were far from uncommon and have certainly not disappeared today. Cathy and Jane share a light-hearted discussion about "bottom-pinching" and on being told it was more common in Italy Cathy jokes that they should have gone there. These days many women would regard such behaviour as unacceptable but back then it was often treated lightly in this way.
Performances are excellent in the film with particular commendation to Pamela Franklin. She may still have been in her late teens when filming took place and she appears in almost every scene but handles such an arduous and high-profile role with immense skill. Michele Dotrice as Cathy wasn't much older and also gives a fine display. It would have been tempting for the producers to hire British actors to play all the roles but astutely they used French or European actors for most of them and this aided the authenticity of the film. Hungarian actor Sandor Eles is excellent as the deeply-unsettling Paul while Czech actress Hana-Maria Pravda provides a fine account as the intense cafe owner Madame Lassal. Clare Kelly and John Nettleton give suitably enigmatic portrayals as the schoolmistress and gendarme in a film where it's not really clear whom Jane and Cathy can trust. There is also a striking role for John Franklyn as an elderly former soldier who is either a disconcerting but ultimately harmless man or one who hasn't put the violence of the war behind him. The old man also has a hearing impairment and coupled with the language issue it creates a double barrier between him and Jane.
Climaxes are hugely important in thrillers and this one is certainly a powerful one with a particularly horrifying image and ordeal and some remarkable revelations. The film ends perhaps appropriately with rain and gloom dispelling the sunshine that had dominated the weather throughout the rest of the film, adding to the poignancy of events. A huge triumph of a film for those involved and Brian Clemens (coupled with Laurie Johnson) proved he had much more to offer in the realm of the thriller and suspense.
Notes
Aspects of this film in storyline and characters reappeared in various episodes of Thriller such as Someone at the Top of the Stairs, Come Out, Come Out Wherever You Are, If It's a Man - Hang Up! and The Next Victim with looser references / similarities in Screamer, The Next Voice You See and A Midsummer Nightmare.
Very unusually there is also a vocal version of the theme music sung by James Royal and arranged by Keith Mansfield.
A year earlier John Nettleton had also appeared as a policeman in a very different production - an episode of the ITV sitcom Please Sir.
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