Thriller-
Series 1 (episodes 1-10)
(Grenada Ventures Region 2 PAL 
4 -Disc Setl)
(1973)
review by Blackgloves

Writer Brian Clemens was involved in crafting some of the most memorable British TV series of the 60s -- including shows such as "Danger Man" and "The Avengers" -- and went on to provide Hammer with two of their most highly regarded 70s offerings in the form of the wickedly mischievous "Dr. Jekyll And Sister Hyde" and an imaginative vampire Western called "Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter", which he also directed. Clemens' abiding passion though, was always the thriller genre, and in particular the works of the great Alfred Hitchcock. Two of the writer's most interesting projects paid homage to the "Master Of Suspense" while hitting on a rich seam of morbid British nastiness in the process: the little-talked-of minor classic "And Soon The Darkness" saw Pamela Franklin as an isolated British tourist searching for her missing friend Michele Dotrice in rural France. While "See No Evil" gave us a blind Mia Farrow desperately trying to escape a maniac killer who's just slain her entire family! The two films benefited from tight and imaginative direction by Robert Fuest ("The Abominable Dr. Phibes") and Richard Fleischer ("Soylent Green") respectively, both of whom were able to take Clemens' simple but effective suspense scenarios and craft two very evocative and chilling thrillers from his material.

In the early 70s, Clemens brought a similar Hitchcock-ian brew of horror and suspense to Britain's television screens in the form of his successful anthology series "Thriller". Screened by independent channel ATV (each episode in the DVD set is proceeded by the original ATV jingle -- sure to bring a twinge of nostalgia to those of us who grew-up in the 70s!) the series was commissioned by Lew Grade at Clemens' behest and financed by the ABC network in America who paid $10.000 per episode (about what it cost to make the entire first series)! This is how Grade got many British TV series off the ground back then, and it explains the persistent presence of minor American actors in just about every episode -- this being the only stipulation made by the US buyers -- and the series' rather odd running time, which fell between sixty-five and seventy minutes ... about the right length to fill a ninety minute slot in the US when commercial breaks were factored in!

Other than having to fulfil these requirements, Clemens was given a free hand to do pretty much what he wanted and the series quickly became a reliable Saturday evening dispensary for the macabre and psychology-based thrills. Although Clemens never directed any episodes of the series ("Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter" is the one-and-only film he ever helmed) it is definitely best viewed as his series. Most of the stories were written by him and the few that weren't were still based on his ideas; also, all the scripts were edited by Clemens before they went into production. In addition, the writer was heavily involved in post-production on the series, and oversaw the editing of each episode. This, and the fact that there is little to noticeably distinguish one director's contribution from another (despite there being many different ones involved), leads to the conclusion that Clemens was the creative force behind the series, perhaps more so than even the full-length feature-film thrillers he wrote -- which both benefited from very strong direction.

Each episode was prefaced by a memorable title sequence which saw Laurie Johnson's distinctive and eerie theme music (Johnson wrote the music for "The Avengers" and carried on working with Clemens -- contributing scores for "And Soon The Darkness" and "Captain Kronos") accompanying shots of the locations from that week's episode, shot through a distorting fisheye lens bordered in red. The first series featured ten episodes which, as a whole, covered quite a wide range of thriller sub-genres. Not all of them are equally successful but there are no real turkeys included and several of the episodes are first class! The whole of the first series is included on a new four disc set from Granada. The episodes are:

LADY KILLER
A charming con-man (Robert Powell) marries a young American girl after contriving a "whirlwind" courtship. But he has diabolical plans for his new bride!

POSSESSION
A middle-aged couple move into a house where a gruesome murder once took place. Soon the wife is convinced that the murderer has returned ... in the form of a spirit who is seeking to take possession of her husband!

SOMEONE AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRS
Two college girls rent a room in a london boarding-house but begin to suspect that the other occupants are in the thrall of a mysterious old man who lives in the attic-room but is never seen by anyone.

AN ECHO OF THERESA
An American businessman on a trip to London begins experiencing vivid memories of someone called Theresa ... much to his wife's distress! When the strange experiences begin to disrupt his life, an eccentric private detective (Dinsdale Landen) takes it upon himself to make sense of it all!

THE COLOUR OF BLOOD
A psychotic murderer nicknamed "The Carnation Killer" escapes from police custody and accosts a pretty young estate agent at the train station. She mistakes him for a client she has been assigned to view a remote property with!

MURDER IN MIND
The wife of a thriller writer walks into her local police station and reports a murder, claiming she is the murderer! The only problem is there is no body and no crime scene! It begins to look like the whole thing was a figment of her imagination but a young inspector senses there is something more to the story...

A PLACE TO DIE
A doctor and his new American bride move to a small English village to take over the local surgery. But the over-friendly locals are hiding a dark secret and the young woman soon finds herself the focus of a macabre, Wicker man-style, Satanic plot.

FILE IT UNDER FEAR
A serial killer is on the loose in a small English town. When one of her employees is found to be the latest victim, a repressed, spinster library manager (Maureen Lipman) becomes convinced the killer is much closer to home than she would like to imagine!

THE EYES HAVE IT
A trio of assassins led by Peter Vaughn ("Porridge") prepare to kill a visiting statesman by taking over a college for the blind which they plan to use as a vantage point from which to launch a rocket attack on the public parade he will be appearing in. It's up to a small group of blind medical students (including Sinead Cusack and Dennis Waterman) to stop them!

SPELL OF EVIL
After the inexplicable death of his wife, businessman Tony Marsell joins a marriage bureau ("Modernmates") and finds himself strangely drawn to a beautiful woman applicant (Diane Cilena). However, after their over-hasty marriage, his lovelorn secretary discovers that the new Mrs Marsell is actually a 16th Century succubus!

Among these wide-ranging episodes are several imaginative supernatural-based horror stories, all of which would have slotted perfectly into the Hammer/Amicus house style. "Someone At The Top Of The Stairs" is a kind of low-rent, Polanski-type, apartment-based tale of paranoia which ends with a thoroughly amicus-style reveal involving a Dorian Grey-ish Warlock! Along the way we get many enjoyable details of grubby boarding-house life which take on a sinister appeal: highlights include a hole in the wall of the shared bathroom through-which the two young female lodgers are spied-on by what turns out to be the off-puttingly cherubic eight-year-old from next door! Also, the discovery of the words "help me!" scratched into the wooden door frame of a wardrobe is just one instance among the minutia that helps elevate this somewhat over-the-top tale of modern-day macabre! Another memorable episode is the Amityville-style "Possession" which builds up suspense and mystery incredibly well and also manages to inject a surprising level of atmosphere and dread into the rather flat, shot-on-video look that all the episodes sport. Clemens was always the master of finding interesting kinks and twists in rather familiar scenarios and this episode is the perfect example of this knack. The other supernatural tale in the collection is a particularly enjoyable slice of sexual bewitchment which involves Diana Cilenla ("The Wicker Man") as Clara -- a 16th century witch who moves from rich businessman to rich businessman, draining them of their life-force and their wealth. Although all the episodes in the series are very much of their time, this one in particular comes across like a camp collision of Italian Gothic melodrama and 70s suburban sitcom with Diana Cilenla perfect as a weird blend of Barbara Steele and Joan Greenwood running riot through the cosy, "Terry and June" world of her outrageously coiffured businessman husband!

An episode which starts out as though its going to be a supernatural caper is the intriguing "An Echo Of Theresa" but it quickly develops into a great Hitchcock-ian spy thriller which recalls the master's early-thirties British films like "Secret Agent" and "The 39 Steps" with the action updated to the 70s. The episode is also a showcase for Dinsdale Landen's star-turn as the gentleman-detective Matthew Earp. The extended running time of the episodes allowed for considerably more time to be spent on character development than is usually the case, and Landen makes full use of it with his amusingly pompous but good-spirited sleuth. So popular was the character that he returned in a later episode of the series and there was even talk of giving him his own series, but unfortunately it never transpired.

At the heart of the series though are Clemens' murder mystery-based episodes, of-which there are several excellent examples in this first collection. "Lady Killer" provides a tour-de-force for actor Robert Powell who plays an icy-hearted killer intent on murder. The story progresses with lots of twists and builds up nicely to a tense climax. "The Colour of Blood" is another example of Clemens' taught and complex story construction: once again there is a massive twist which completely alters the viewer's perspective on what initially seems like a straightforward woman-terrorised-by-psychopath pot-boiler.

By far the best episode of the series though, is the tense and claustrophobic "File It Under Fear". The episode sketches a convincing, downbeat portrait of small-town provincial England in the Seventies with its grotty corner-shops, chipped paving stone and dusty little-used local libraries, one of which is the main location for this study in clipped English neurosis and urban loneliness. Clemens paints a rather unflattering portrait of his home country -- for it seems that just about any of the repressed and downtrodden occupants of this story could be the misogynistic killer who is busy strangling young woman in the dead of night! There is John Le Mesurier ("Dad's Army"), the widower who frequents the library only because he has no one else to talk to; the pushy co-manager with an anger management problem; the policeman boyfriend of one of the victims who is always hanging around after-hours; and there are many other dubious characters for the harassed police force to investigate! Maureen Lipman's spinster library manager finds herself at the centre of the intrigue but is barely psychologically equipped to deal with the trauma -- as soon becomes apparent!

The drawback for Clemens' stories in this series is really down to its low production values. Like many series from this period, its largely shot on video with exteriors shot on 16 mm film. Consequently, all the episodes have a rather flat and cheap look to them. The one episode where this is not a problem is "Spell Of Evil" which actually benefits from its bizarre mix of Gothic supernatural horror and flimsy 70s sitcom sets; although, I doubt this was intended at the time! However, the scripts are mostly strong enough to survive their down market realisations with only a couple of the weaker episodes ("The Eyes Have It"; "Murder In Mind") struggling to keep the viewer's attention.

The presentation of the episodes on this 4 disc set is strictly routine. The filmed segments of the episodes are very grainy and washed out and there are no extras at all included as supplements. Nevertheless, fans of British horror/thrillers will enjoy this nostalgic trip back to the sinister Seventies.