Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

THE NIGHT DIGGER (Alastair Reid, 1971)

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • THE NIGHT DIGGER (Alastair Reid, 1971)

    Having only realised a week or two ago that this obscure-ish British Gothic psychothriller had been released via Warner's Archive Collection, I ordered a copy; it arrived on Monday and I watched it today.



    I hadn't seen the film in 20 years or so, so it was almost completely fresh to me. (I remembered the final sequence vividly, however.) Patricia Neal, the wife of Roald Dahl (who wrote the film), excels as a stroke survivor living a sheltered, repressed life as the carer for her blind adoptive mother (Pamela Brown). They take in a wandering drifter (Nicholas Clay) who turns out to be an impulsive murderer, and who claims (we are never sure whether he is telling the truth about his past) to be travelling south to London after the death of his mother. Nightmarish flashbacks (shown through a sepia tint which is very effective) show two incidents from Clay's youth: as a schoolboy he was sexually accosted (raped) by a group of gypsy women as he wandered home from school, and was further humiliated when one of the women noted 'he can't get it to work'; and as an adolescent, he was also humiliated by a young woman who mocked his sexual inexperience and impotence. This, it is suggested, is the root of Clay's violence: his crimes are committed against young, beautiful women (Brigit Forsyth play's one of his victims, a nurse) - but it's not clear precisely what Clay does with them or how he murders them (we are led to presume he strangles them). Falling in love with Clay despite a big age gap between them (Clay is said to be 20, whilst Neal's character is in her 40s or possibly early 50s), Neal gradually becomes aware of his dark secret.

    Dahl's screenplay contains some vicious black humour, as you would expect from Dahl, which plays on the theme of sexual repression and hidden identities: Neal's mother, a devout churchgoer, and her friend become wrongly convinced that the local vicar (Peter Sallis) has been considering a sex change operation. A scene in which another character tells Pamela Brown that Sallis is going to hospital for a very different type of operation in which the doctors hope to simply 'snip it off' becomes comic because Brown thinks the doctors are going to remove Sallis' penis. On the other hand, this underscores Clay's character's impotence (or his inability to function sexually due to the humiliation he suffered as a child). The sexually repressed Neal recognises a kindred spirit: at a younger age, she left her mother for a young man, was engaged to be married and was left in the lurch when he ran away. (Dialogue hints that she was pregnant and had an abortion.) Since then, she has devoted her life to caring for her invalid mother in the derelict Victorian house they share. As in many Gothic narratives, the dilapidated house symbolises the stagnant, repressed lives of these two women.

    The two murders that take place in the film are presented in an elliptical manner: we see the before and the after, but not the during. Reid directs with an almost semi-documentary approach in these sequences which, combined with the elliptical approach to the murders, strikes me as quite similar to McNaughton's handling of the murders early in HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER. Clay's crimes are clearly sexual in nature (he assaults one woman whilst she is lying in her bed, and Brigit Forstyth's nurse is shown after her death, naked and bound as the camera zooms out from her body - again, I wonder if McNaughton had this in mind whilst composing the murder tableaux at the start of HENRY.) Dialogue suggests that Clay is unable to control himself. We are also shown that Clay plays a harmonica prior to his crimes. (He's got something to do with death, dont'cha know?) The harmonica-playing is deftly woven into Bernard Herrman's score.

    The photography is very good, making effective use of the autumnal environment in which the narrative takes place.

    Apparently 13 minutes were removed from the film before its official release. It would be interesting to know what was covered in those missing minutes - some of the narrative events, and the alternate title (THE ROAD BUILDER), suggest Clay has worked as a labourer during the building of a new motorway (he buries one of his victims under the new road), but this is never made particularly clear.

    Any thoughts on this one?
    'You know, I'd almost forgotten what your eyes looked like. Still the same. Pissholes in the snow'

    http://www.paul-a-j-lewis.com (my photography website)
    'All explaining in movies can be thrown out, I think': Elmore Leonard

  • #2
    I've never seen this but I have to say Paul that you do a pretty good job of selling it.
    Rock! Shock! Pop!

    Comment


    • #3
      The trailer is also pretty cool.

      Rock! Shock! Pop!

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by Ian Jane View Post
        I've never seen this but I have to say Paul that you do a pretty good job of selling it.
        I reckon you'd like it, Ian :) It's definitely worth checking out.
        'You know, I'd almost forgotten what your eyes looked like. Still the same. Pissholes in the snow'

        http://www.paul-a-j-lewis.com (my photography website)
        'All explaining in movies can be thrown out, I think': Elmore Leonard

        Comment


        • #5
          I'm a huge fan of Dahl and will be thrilled to see this.

          Comment


          • #6
            Sounds great Paul, thanks for the heads up.
            "When I die, I hope to go to Accra"

            Comment

            Working...
            X