"Where Science and the Occult Clash!"

NOTHING BUT THE NIGHT (1973)

Here is a film starring Christopher Lee and featuring a Police investigation on a Scottish island that isn't THE WICKER MAN. The climax - where Lee is tied around the neck and arms and propelled into a bonfire by minors - mirrors Edward Woodward's demise in Robin Hardy's cult favourite, which was actually released nine months later.

AGAINST the backdrop of several Trustee murders who support an orphanage on a Scottish island, one young girl, Mary Valley (Gwyneth Strong), is taken to a London hospital after a coach crash and suffers psychological issues. Psychiatrist Dr Haynes (Keith Barron) and journalist Joan Foster (Georgia Brown) interview the girl's wayward biological mother Anna Harb (Diana Dors), a prostitute and convicted murderer. When Haynes is killed, the hospital's senior member Sir Mark Ashley (Peter Cushing) and friend Colonel Charles Bingham (Christopher Lee) take their enquiries to the orphanage, as Anna also travels to the location hoping to reunite with her child. Ashley and Bingham eventually uncover the sinister truth: personalities are being transplanted into the children.

Based on the novel by John Blackburn and directed by Peter Sasdy, NOTHING BUT THE NIGHT was the only film from independent Charlemagne, set up by Lee and former Hammer producer Anthony Nelson Keys. A commercial failure, the picture suffers from a laboured script by Brian Hayles - mostly known for his television work and creator of The Ice Warriors for DOCTOR WHO - and also wastes its outstanding cast, as no character is fully fleshed out. Cushing and Lee are almost playing themselves, and Dors is totally unhinged with her red wig. In fact the acting standout is thirteen year old Strong, and it was a shame no substantial big screen roles came her away, the actress becoming forever known as Cassandra from ONLY FOOLS AND HORSES.

Barely seen in America, NOTHING BUT THE NIGHT became THE RESURRECTION SYNDICATE, a title which unveils its premise. The picture was also released on video as THE DEVIL'S UNDEAD.

As a thematic exercise NOTHING BUT THE NIGHT is troublesome in its use of children, portraying orphans and castaways as scientific guinea pigs and exploitative commodities. Apart from Haynes, the leads are using the unfortunate youngsters for their own needs: Anna views Mary as property which has long been denied to her, Foster and Ashley see the minors as their particular professional interests, and Bingham engages in the mystery for his murdered friend but relishes the thrill of the chase. As an interesting side note, with Blackburn's novel published in 1968, a similar theme is explored in the 1971 United States offering THE BROTHERHOOD OF SATAN. Here, in an inversion of the thesis, a coven are kidnapping souls of children to transfer into their bodies.

Highgate Horror (Part II of II)

TULPA (2013)

The sigil of Tulpas, a sentient mental companion. Reported to help with depression and social anxiety, Tulpas ease pressure through detached perspective.

THIS short documentary about David Farrant takes its name from a Tibetan Buddhism concept, that a thought-form can be created through spiritual practice and intense concentration. Modern practitioners, Tulpamancers, formulate imaginary friends through hallucinations that enable them to see, hear and touch their creation. Research has shown that respondents were higher in rates of neurodivergence (including autism and ADHD), leading to speculation that such individuals use the medium to combat loneliness and ease mental tensions, a self-hypnosis to escape reality and retreat into their specifically desired fantasy world.

As described in THE MINDSCAPE OF ALAN MOORE, earliest forms of magic were referred to as "the art." Purely, magic is the science of words and images, rather than conjuring a rabbit out of a hat. The world has now degenerated into such a state of artistic banality that today's shaman are advertisers and influencers, manipulating thought through slogans, jingles and technology. As Moore states, "artists and writers have allowed themselves to be sold down the river. They have accepted the prevailing belief that art, that writing, are merely forms of entertainment. They are not seen as trans-formative forces that can change a human being, that can change a society, they are seen as simple entertainment, things with which we can fill half an hour while we're waiting to die."

David Farrant became as closely linked to Highgate as that of its "vampire." TULPA is a shallow documentary that portrays a life in fast-forward, against a backdrop of Mastrodon's instrumental track 'Joseph Merrick'.

The paranormal experiences of Farrant - particularly his association with the Highgate Vampire - exist in a netherworld of rituals, investigations, confrontations and press hyperbole. He was a man yearning for an old order, reaching out to wider abilities. With the very use of the word TULPA to pigeon hole his time on Earth, Farrant can relate to a process of willing their needs onto some kind of canvas; 1970s Britain was certainly a grim place to be, but there was still an appreciation of the arts and all its possibilities.

Unfortunately, TULPA is sparse and disappointing. Made by identical twin brothers Max and Bart Sycamore, the twenty-three minute effort is a blur of spliced footage, pulled together to form some sort of time frame. Narratives are constructed from a variety of means, often to form singular points (anything from interview segments, bookshop appearances and dramatisations). We learn that the loss of a spiritual mother at a formative age leads to David's rebellious nature against formal education, yet this is sketched over to move on to the next sub topic. Popular culture is also thrown against the wall to see what sticks, with a glacial reference to The Enfield Poltergeist, and clips from NOSFERATU and DRACULA, A.D. 1972.

Highgate Horror (Part I of II)

IN SEARCH OF THE HIGHGATE VAMPIRE (1997)

The Pond Squire Ghost Chicken

Opened in 1839, Highgate Cemetery stands on redeveloped grounds from the manor and estate of Sir William Ashurst, Lord Mayor of London and director of the Bank of England. Renowned for its Romantic-Gothic architecture and Egyptian-style catacombs, the location was utilised by Hammer (TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA, FRANKENSTEIN AND THE MONSTER FROM HELL) and Amicus (as opening credits for TALES FROM THE CRYPT and FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE).  

VAMPIRE myths are thick in Slavic lore, yet British bloodsuckers are more anaemic. The most notable homegrown example is the vampire of Highgate Cemetery in Swain's Lane, North London. Sightings of a tall, dark, leyline-loving figure in the Borough of Camden have been reported since the Victorian era, but came to prominence in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when the press proclaimed the culprit as undead, after reports of a floating, black-cloaked entity with hypnotic red eyes. And as we entered the Satanic Seventies, rumours circulated of witchcraft ceremonies within the cemetery grounds, and dead foxes drained of blood. 

Paranormal investigator and President of the British Psychic and Occult Society (BPOS), David Farrant, was a leading protagonist amongst the tombstones. IN SEARCH OF THE HIGHGATE VAMPIRE - its title clearly riffing on the pseudo-American documentaries and television series of the 1970s - was produced and directed by BPOS stalwart Dave Milner, under his Darkhouse Productions banner. This thirty-six minute video documentary is infused with a camp Goth aesthetic, and presented by Farrant himself. Seated throughout, he delivers his account laboriously and without any real insight, although there is a theory that the black magic rituals reinvigorated the legend into something much darker. Purely a BPOS puff piece, it does not mention Farrant's prison sentences for grave desecration and sending voodoo effigies to the police. A typically stilted conclusion is laughably nondescript: "as to the question of whether a vampire still exists at Highgate Cemetery, well, I can only say, yes."

David Farrant helped The Highgate Vampire to become one of London's most enigmatic urban legends, which has been exaggerated by collective hysteria, misidentification and hoax. Highgate Cemetery is also said to be haunted by a spectral cyclist, a faceless man and a floating nun.

Despite his reputation, Farrant comes across as shy, effeminate, and somewhat ethereal. Without naming names, he dismisses the involvement of another investigator, who is undoubtedly Sean Manchester. A Bishop of the Old Catholic Church, Exorcist and general defender of the faith, Manchester stated that the vampire was a Romanian nobleman, of whom he eventually banished in 1973 in another location altogether, in Crouch End. Most infamously, The Bishop declared he would hold an exorcism at Highgate on Friday 13th March 1970, which was covered on Thames television. Soon the grounds were overrun with makeshift vampire hunters, despite the best efforts of the police.

The feud between Farrant and Manchester lasted until David's death in 2019. This was not just a war of words, metaphysical confrontations were also planned (branded occult "duels to the death" or "psychic combats") though never realised. Essentially IN SEARCH OF THE HIGHGATE VAMPIRE is as shallow as the facts of the case, barely touching on the real meat of the matter: that of two individuals who were unable to accommodate the same consecrated ground.

Just when you thought Highgate has enough paranormal activity, consider the case of Sir Francis Bacon's otherworldly frozen chicken. This oddity sets up a variety of humourous tags, such as poultrygeist, chilling ghost and phantom foul. The chicken appears to run in wild circles before disappearing into the ether or, on one occasion, through a wall. The above is an illustration from The Evening News of December 10th, 1957.

The vampire flap seemed to have quashed the appearance of the area's other leading phantom, the frozen chicken of Pond Squire on Highgate Hill. In 1626, philosopher and statesman Sir Francis Bacon's notion of preserving food through freezing was indeed correct, but resulted in his premature demise and the creation of the apparition. Bacon acquired a plucked and gutted chicken then stuffed it with snow, but caught pneumonia and died soon after. Over the years there have been sightings of the distressed bird running around and maniacally flapping its wings, sometimes shrieking, sometimes silent. One of the last encounters was in 1970, when a courting couple's amorous actions were interrupted, the ghost chicken dropping from a tree branch onto their bench.

Doctor In Distress

K-9 AND COMPANY - A GIRL'S BEST FRIEND (1981)

"Black magic, witchcraft, it's very romantic, but this is 1981"; Elisabeth Sladen and K-9 do their best with a Satan meets EMMERDALE setting.

PRODUCER John Nathan-Turner was in charge of DOCTOR WHO's increasingly disastrous stint through the 1980s. In Richard Marson's 2013 book The Life and Scandalous Times of John Nathan-Turner, it is alleged that the producer and long-term partner Gary Downie prayed on young fans well below the then gay consent age of twenty-one. But the results on screen were equally alarming, not helped by Nathan-Turner's tumultuous working relationship with script editor Eric Saward. Against a backdrop of referencing - which both limited writers and confused the casual viewer - light entertainment performers also consistently appeared rather than those from the drama department. Novelty casting was evident even in the companions, with Australian air-stewardess Tegan Jovanka (Janet Fielding) for the large fan base Down Under, and American Peri Brown (Nicola Bryant) appealing to the vastly increasing United States market. Then there were The Doctors he signed themselves: Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy were all dissatisfied with quirky costume decisions, adding to the pantomime feel.

Nathan-Turner always hated K-9, but admitted the robot dog "had legs" because of its popularity with youngsters. The first DOCTOR WHO spinoff, K-9 AND COMPANY, was made to plug the (relatively long) broadcasting gap between Tom Baker and Davison's tenure (an unprecedented season of repeats under the banner THE FIVE FACES OF DOCTOR WHO additionally helped). Nathan-Turner failed to lure Elisabeth Sladen back into the main programme, resulting in her "compromise" casting here. It was also intended to be a pilot for a series, but was never commissioned; fans blamed new BBC controller Alan Hart as viewing figures were strong, but in reality K-9 AND COMPANY is a talkative bore.

John Nathan-Turner regularly threatened to mould DOCTOR WHO in his own image. This included trying to abolish the sonic screwdriver and the police box appearance of the TARDIS (briefly achieved in ATTACK OF THE CYBERMEN), and successfully driving out Tom Baker. 

The awkwardly titled A GIRL'S BEST FRIEND, with a running time of fifty minutes, was helmed by television veteran John Black, who was apparently labeled John Grey by the cast and crew because of his lifeless direction (another TV regular penned the laboured script - Terence Dudley). For the story, The Doctor gifts a Mark III K-9 (voiced by John Leeson) to former companion Sarah Jane Smith (Sladen). Now back to her roots as a rustic-costumed investigative journalist in the fictional English village of Moreton Harwood, Sarah Jane gains a companion of her own - her aunt's ward Brendan Richards (a wooden Ian Sears) - in a tale of the black arts. But before the underwhelming robed pagans and masked goddesses, we are subjected to one of the worst opening title sequences in television history; the theme was originally composed by record producer Ian Levine as an orchestral score, but was instead arranged directly from his electronic demonstration by Peter Howell without Levine's knowledge.

Séance and Sensibility

A DARK SONG (2016)

One location, two faces: Catherine Walker brings palatable turmoil to speak to the dead - forever shrouded by council estate sorcerer Steve Oram - in this Abramelin-inspired journey.

GRIEVING from the death of her son at the hands of an undisclosed ritual, Sophia Howard (Catherine Walker) rents an isolated house in Wales. Abrasive, alcoholic occultist Joseph Solomon (Steve Oram) leads her on a months-long rite based on The Book of Abramelin, to summon her guardian angel whom Sophia can then ask to speak with her son. The relationship between Sophia and Joseph becomes frayed as the grueling ceremonies unfold, and Solomon is seriously wounded when he accidentally falls on a kitchen knife. With Howard increasingly susceptible to sounds and shadows, Solomon succumbs from his injury. After breaking a seal surrounding the house, demons drag Sophia to the basement and torture her; but the deities retreat when Howard sees a white light, and an armoured angel awaits her. As it silently speaks behind aniridia eyes, Sophia’s redemption is one of forgiveness rather than revenge.

This confident British/Irish independent - the debut feature by writer-director Liam Gavin - contains such a detailed and methodical approach to occult ritual that it can only be a slow-burner (which is pretty unique in cinema, summoning is usually successful within minutes). But it is much more than a building psychological horror, its as if Ben Wheatley and Mike Leigh wrote a script after watching REPULSION and THE EXORCIST (the other prime example of systematic terror). When Solomon completes his salt circle around the retreat, not only are the duo cutting themselves from society, but from conventional reality. There is also a stripped-down enchantment here, a supernatural veneer that gives us hope against technological progress and the scientific march into an abyss. 

"Science describes the least of things;" the third act sees payoff from the Abramelin ritual, as Sophia confronts her warrior guardian angel, as if lifted from a Renaissance painting. 

Walker is magnificent as the tortured soul, blending steely determination with inquisitive desperation. Oram's gruff pie and chips mystic is no Stephen Strange, and sits uncomfortably with the seriousness of the narrative, but he is also uncomfortable in his skin. Before the terror takes hold, the audience is never sure of Howard's legitimacy (in a brief tea room scene with her sister, there are hints of mental illness), or if Solomon is just a pervert with a robe and ginger beard.

Abramelin and its demand for intricate, long-term preparation is credited to 14th-century Egyptian magician Abra-Melin, and plays out like a binding contract. In 1897, The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage was translated into English by British occultist Samuel L. MacGregor Mathers, and was highly influential in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Aleister Crowley - at the time a young member - started preparations for seeking the angel in Boleskine House, but abandoned this plan during the Hermetic Order division of 1901. The one thing that Mathers, Crowley and, indeed, most occultists, take from Abramelin is the existence of a benevolent demigod; consequently, a master or supreme magus can feed any number of charismatic and egotistical myth-makers.

"No flesh shall be spared"

HARDWARE (1990)
DUST DEVIL (1992)

HARDWARE exists in a future shock world of killer robots and MAD MAX decor, surrounded by a pounding soundtrack. 

SOUTH African filmmaking auteur Richard Stanley made two British cult films in the early 1990s - one plagiaristic, one pretentious - but both surreally beguiling. HARDWARE opens with a scavenger nomad (Fields of the Nephilim frontman Carl McCoy) finding the remains of a robot in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. While visiting junk dealer Alvy (Mark Northover), zone trooper Mo (Dylan McDermott) and friend Shades (John Lynch) are also in residence; Mo buys the parts from the nomad and sells them on to Alvy, but retains a headpiece which he gives to artist girlfriend Jill (Stacey Travis) as a Christmas gift. While Jill works the robot skull into a new piece, she is unknowingly watched by salivating voyeuristic neighbour Lincoln (William Hootkins); it transpires that the robot is actually a M.A.R.K 13 - part of a government initiative for human sterilisation - which goes on a re-animated, poison-taloned rampage. 

With Iggy Pop as DJ Angry Bob and Lemmy as a river taxi driver (in a role intended for Sinead O'Connor), HARDWARE has a carefree aesthetic and is a triumph of enthusiasm over budget. A trippy, violent movie inspired by Harry Harrison's Make Room! Make Room! and Roger Zelazny's Damnation Alley, Fleetway brought a successful lawsuit that the film copied one of its comic strips. A notice was added to later releases giving credit to the publisher and creators Steve MacManus and Kevin O'Neill; the work in question was SHOK!, which first appeared as part of the 1981 Judge Dredd Annual. Here, the action plays out in the Andy Warhol block of Mega City One, where the head of a S.H.O.K. Trooper is rejuvenated by the power supply of a talking upright hoover. 

DUST DEVIL merges horror and occultist mysticism.

Shot entirely in Namibia, DUST DEVIL is a meandering, darkly sensual serial killer movie which has more interest in desert landscapes than slayings. Wendy Robinson (Chelsea Field) - on the run from a disintegrating marriage - encounters a mysterious hitch-hiker who is actually a shape-shifting 'Dust Devil' (Robert Burke). This creature - which collects human fingers - preys on broken and suicidal individuals, and it is left to troubled police officer Ben Mukurob (Zakes Mokae) to track it down with the aid of a shaman. The murders are the work of the naghtloper, a demon who gains power over the material world through ritual murder. This entity must keep moving to work such ceremonies; if it is tricked to step over a kierie stick, it will be bound to one spot and its power can be taken.

DUST DEVIL: THE FINAL CUT of 1993 is the only version which shows any coherency. An extensive cut was screened for only a week in Britain due to the financial problems of Palace Pictures, and a similar release was put out by American distributor Miramax, who had pressured Stanley to make it "more like THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS." Initial audiences were bemused, particularly by a final act where most of the editing had occurred. Yet whatever version, the 'Dust Devil' is too abstract to form any new, lasting horror mythos ("there is no good or evil, only spirit and matter. Only movement toward the light - and away from it").

A metaphysical stylist, Richard Stanley is never too far away from supernatural ancient rites.

Stanley himself is a fascinating individual. Raised by a mother who he claims was a witch, the writer and director is fittingly descended from famous journalist and explorer of Africa Sir Henry Morton Stanley. After moving to London in 1987, Stanley directed music videos for the likes of Fields of the Nephilim and Public Image Limited, and it was while he was documenting the Soviet-Afghan War that HARDWARE was given the go-ahead. Making a slew of interesting documentaries and short films - including The Secret Glory of SS officer Otto Rahn's search for The Holy Grail - his most infamous claim to fame was being sacked from his own version of H. G. Wells' The Island of Doctor Moreau. Replaced by John Frankenheimer, the true story of this catastrophic New Line production is expertly detailed in David Gregory's amazing LOST SOUL: THE DOOMED JOURNEY OF RICHARD STANLEY'S ISLAND OF DR MOREAU. 

Skeletons in the Closet

NIGHT OF THE EAGLE (1962)
GHOST STORIES (2017)

"Don't see this picture unless you can withstand the emotional shock of a lifetime!;" fresh from THE INNOCENTS, Peter Wyngarde experiences the NIGHT OF THE EAGLE (or in America, BURN, WITCH, BURN!).

THESE two films focus on academics who have to question their sceptic beliefs towards the paranormal. Adapted from Fritz Leiber's 1943 novel Conjure Wife, Sidney Hayer's NIGHT OF THE EAGLE has sociology Professor Norman Taylor (Peter Wyngarde) discovering that his perfect wife Tansy (big-band singer Janet Blair) is actually a Witch, and has been practising her craft since their honeymoon. Tansy has manipulated Taylor's rising career at Hempnell Medical College, and discovering this, the Professor destroys all of her inventory of magical paraphernalia. Thereafter Taylor suffers a number of sinister situations, one of which is an accusation of "violating" one of his students. It transpires that his path is now being orchestrated by the hostile intent of another faculty wife, Flora Carr (Margaret Johnston), driven by both educational and sexual jealousy.

Fittingly shot in moody monochrome by Reginald Wyer, the movie is underplayed in the tradition of Val Lewton, and possesses a tangible chill. NIGHT OF THE EAGLE is comparable to NIGHT OF THE DEMON in its more adult approach to the uncanny, and Hayers cut large portions of occult and voodoo material from the original script - by Richard Matheson, Charles Beaumont and George Baxt - to concentrate on the plight of the Taylors. The Eagle itself - a stone embodiment that rests at the entrance of the school - comes to life with risible results, but it can't take away the fact that Hayer's film is a beautifully played classic of British horror; Wyngarde and Blair convince at every level of their descent, but Johnston steals the show with her permanently off-kilter performance.

"Everything is exactly as it seems;" for GHOST STORIES, horror fans Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman liberally draw from the genre - especially Hideo Nataka's DARK WATER - and even had the set blessed by a Rabbi.

Based on their own Olivier Award-nominated stage show, Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman's GHOST STORIES arrived on a wave of glowing reviews and hype that no film could fully justify. This three-part anthology mashes together Amicus and the BBC GHOST STORY FOR CHRISTMAS strand for old school scares and J-Horror that builds to a hokey finale that undermines its own building premise. Professor Goodman (Nyman) is given a trio of unsolved mysteries by his assumed-deceased idol Charles Cameron: Tony Matthews (Paul Whitehouse) is a night watchman of a disused female correctional facility, haunted by the spirit of a young girl; jittery teenager Simon Rifkind (Alex Lawther) encounters a Satyr in the woods; and country-based stockbroker Mike Preddle (Martin Freeman) is plagued by a poltergeist while awaiting his IVF-induced child.

The performances embrace its emotional tropes of family resentment, belief systems and childhood traumas. Simon's story is the most effective - underpinned by some wonderful black humour (Sooty and Sweep anyone?) - but these powerfully-played themes grate somewhat with its peripheral ghosts and jump scares, and the atmospherically barren landscapes of concrete halls, a daytime pub and an out-of-season caravan park. It's worth a second watch to pick up the easter eggs, but they are not so much Ghost stories as Ghost settings. In conclusion, it contains too odd a mix even for a horror movie, and reeks heavily of Nyman's misdirection and overblown showmanship evident in his association with Derren Brown.

Margaret Johnston in NIGHT OF THE EAGLE. Australia-born to English parentage, the stage and screen actress - also memorable in Amicus' THE PSYCHOPATH - latterly managed an agency with American director husband Albert Parker, whose clients included James Mason, Helen Mirren and Frank Finlay.

The most grounded argument from supernatural skeptics is not so much if ghosts exist, but why the human psyche actually needs them; ultimately it is a longing for comfort, away from the harsh and bleak reality of death. More specifically, the biggest difference in NIGHT OF THE EAGLE and GHOST STORIES handling of their respective Professor's is that Taylor's professional life is manipulated by the constant indignation of females, whether in the name of love - Tandy is even willing to die for him as he has much more to offer the world - or bitterness. Conversely, everything in Goodman's journey is devoid of women; partnerless and childless, he exists in a closed, work-dominated world. Though when Flora Carr sets fire to a pyramid of Tarot cards - the otherworldly equivalent of the character's beloved Bridge evenings - and spits "burn, Witch, burn," Goodman has certainly opted for a less suffocating existence. 

Paranormal Activity

THE OMEGA FACTOR (1979)

Burning ambition: this fondly remembered supernatural series 
ignited the wrath of moral crusader Mary Whitehouse.

BBC Scotland's THE OMEGA FACTOR is a forerunner to THE X-FILES, but without the budget or pretention. Born from the ashes of the cancelled second series of journalist drama THE STANDARD, here the lead protagonist is occult writer Tom Crane (James Hazeldine). Crane's latent psychic abilities lead him into Department 7, a government agency which investigates the paranormal, where he is partnered with family acquaintance Dr Anne Reynolds (Louise Jameson, a recently resigned Leela from DOCTOR WHO). Crane joins the organisation as a means of finding rogue psychic Edward Drexel (Cyril Luckham) and assistant Morag (Natasha Gerson), both involved in the death of his wife; yet, after Drexel is killed, Tom becomes increasingly aware of another shadow enterprise, one which strives to assemble the cream of extrasensory perceptive individuals.

For a programme steeped in otherworldly abilities, THE OMEGA FACTOR feels strangely grounded because of its lack of money and threadbare effects. This enhances Hazeldine's already standout performance, mixing his drive to avenge his wife's death, to come to terms with his own powers, and the vain attempt to assimilate within Department 7 with a secretive superior, namely psychiatrist Dr Roy Martindale (John Carlisle). Like any anthology shows - here with a wide range of writers and directors over ten episodes - there is an inherent unevenness in style and quality, encompassing a heady and diverse set of topics: spectral analogue technology (VISITATIONS), sonic weaponry (NIGHT GAMES), sleep deprivation (AFTER-IMAGE), poltergeists (CHILD'S PLAY), and even astral projection to political means (OUT OF BODY, OUT OF MIND). 

James Hazeldine and Louise Jameson are the Mulder and Scully 
of BBC paranormal drama, with added intimacy. 

POWERS OF DARKNESS is the episode the show is most remembered for, infamously labelled "thoroughly evil [and] one of the most disturbing things I have seen on television" by Mary Whitehouse. History student Jenny (Maggie James) is possessed by a witch, culminating in an altar ritual involving a dead blackbird and a Demon. Mixing a seance, drug use, knife violence and human combustion, this fed into Whitehouse's disgust at any portrayal of Eucharist abstraction, and general distrust of popular entertainment. Two weeks later BBC Scotland Head of Drama Roderick Graham admitted that the BBC's own standards of decency had been breached during ST ANTHONY'S FIRE, where a woman kills her husband with a bread knife. The BBC's Guidance Notes on Violence, which dictated permissible levels, specifically mentioned that dramas were to avoid violent acts that could be easily copied. Graham stated that "the point has been forcibly made to those who were responsible for the programme".

The penultimate entry, DOUBLE VISION, is unnerving because it is so understated. Tom keeps seeing his dead wife Julia (Joanne Tope) in and around Edinburgh; in DON'T LOOK NOW fashion, when running after her, the red-coated figure darts around corners and remains constantly out of touching distance, like the dream sensation of a goal forever out of reach. For the husband to discover this was an elaborate ploy leaves an unsavory taste, as the show leads to its THE PRISONER-like conclusion. The final episode - called ILLUSIONS - ends fittingly on a closed door, leaving further adventures to be picked up in a series of Big Finish audio dramas, where Jameson returns as Reynolds, now head of the department.

True Blue (Part II of II)

THE PLAYBIRDS (1978)
CONFESSIONS FROM THE DAVID GALAXY AFFAIR (1979)

"A Murder Thriller with Thrilling Bodies!" THE PLAYBIRDS provided Britain's premier 70s sexpot Mary Millington with her most substantial part.

BECAUSE of the unfathomable financial success of COME PLAY WITH ME, executive producer David Sullivan quickly announced his next venture, with lover Mary Millington taking on a more sizable role. Proclaiming the follow-up would be the "hottest film ever to be screened in Britain," THE PLAYBIRDS is actually an overblown exercise in self-promotion, but does capture the tawdry aspects of 70s Soho amongst its car chases and bombastic theme tune. Belonging to a genre of British film that rejoice in the psychopathic killing of models (COVER GIRL KILLER, PEEPING TOM et al), Harry Dougan (Alan Lake, as an on-screen persona of Sullivan) is a racehorse-owning millionaire glamour publisher, who starts a series of supernatural-themed spreads that has attracted a deranged killer (who the press term "The Chopper.") After dispatching two ladies of sexploitation royalty (Pat Astley and Suzy Mandel), the murderer becomes involved in a cat-and-mouse game against Scotland Yard's finest (Glynn Edwards and Gavin Campbell, with Millington as undercover WPC Lucy Sheridan).

The in joke of pouring a 4'11" porn non-actress into a Police uniform - especially one as harassed by the law as Millington - is quickly forgotten as Sheridan is more at home to her new assignment than somnambulantly delivering dialogue at cop shop meetings. Developing her talents as a sauna prostitute, Lucy soon has a lesbian fling and sleeps with Dougan to achieve her goal to become a Playbirds centrefold. Regardless of the film being moulded as a Mary vehicle, the real actress with sex appeal here is Mandel: it was no mistake that she shared equal space on Tom Chantrell's eye-popping posters of COME PLAY WITH ME and THE PLAYBIRDS alongside her more illustrious colleague. The cherubic Mandel could actually deliver her lines with a knowing twinkle, and was a mainstay of 70s smut in this country until she emigrated to the United States. If you actually care about the murder investigation you have a variety of suspects beyond Dougan, but the final "shock ending" will leave no one satisfied.

The start of a stormy union: Diana Dors and third husband Alan Lake on their Wedding Day, November 1968. In 1972 after his release from prison, Lake broke his back during a horse riding accident, starting a descent into alcoholic violence and eventual gunshot suicide.

The following year Sullivan attempted to cash-in on the CONFESSIONS name with CONFESSIONS FROM THE DAVID GALAXY AFFAIR, another Roldvale production distributed by Tigon. Lake gives one of the most self-indulgent lead performances in British film history as the titular super stud astrologer, who may - or may not - have been involved in a Securicor robbery five years previous. Behind his sparkling medallion, large lapels and annoyingly knowing swagger, Lake regularly breaks into a series of excruciating impressions (embracing anyone from Basil Rathbone to Bruce Forsyth, and anything from racism to homophobia), and also breaks wind in one jaw-dropping love-making scene. Despite this goggle-eyed eccentricity, Galaxy is still irresistible to women, refers to his penis as Fido, and sleeps with the entire female cast except for real-life wife Diana Dors, who plays the new owner of his apartment block.

In new levels of cinematic tedium, there is endless offering and pouring of drinks (often involving the police, tokenly fronted again by Glynn Edwards) but the film is saved from total disposability by the appearances of Rosemary England (Miss Beauty Bust) and - in a subplot incidental to the main narrative - Mary Millington (high society heiress Millicent Cumming). Never having experienced orgasm, Cumming hooks up with Galaxy in a multi-positional sequence played out against the astrologer's mirrored headboard. Despite this lengthy scene being one of the most explicit in a British sex comedy - one press release even insinuated that Lake and Millington actually had intercourse, much to Dors' disgust - the picture was a box office and critical disaster.

Neither Blood Nor Legacy

NEITHER THE SEA NOR THE SAND (1972)

BLUE BLOOD (1973)
THE LEGACY (1978)

Mills and Boon meets George A. Romero as Michael Petrovitch shifts from misty-eyed romance to the annals of the undead.

IN July 2017, Screenbound collected these three pictures in a handily disposable budget DVD. Adapted from his own novel by ITN newsreader Gordon Honeycombe, NEITHER THE SEA NOR THE SAND sees Anna Robinson (Susan Hampshire) taking a winter break in Jersey from a lifeless marriage, where she falls in love with introverted Hugh Dabernon (Michael Petrovitch). Hugh has a strange affinity with the rugged coastline, and his antiques dealer brother George (Frank Finlay) takes a disliking to Anna, who threatens the insular Dabernon lifestyle. While the inseparable couple are in the North of Scotland, Hugh suddenly has a fatal heart attack, and is issued a death certificate. Through the strength of love he is reanimated; now without conventional speech (conversations are limited to what may well be Anna's imagination), Hugh physically deteriorates, leading the lovers to a watery grave.

Originally optioned by Hammer, director Fred Burnley attempted to ensure that the film would not be known as "another Tigon horror movie" (Tigon would be rebranded LMG by the time of release), but regardless of genre expectations, it was labelled by Time Out as "one of the worst films of the decade." NEITHER THE SEA NOR THE SAND - nor entertainment - is a ponderous love story without charisma, and a supernatural tale with little Fortean interest (reincarnation within Dabernon history is briefly hinted, as is Robinson being a witch). With no connection on screen, Hampshire and Petrovitch are doomed from the onset, Hampshire's theatrics grating with Petrovitch's distant portrayal; when Hugh's rigor mortis starts to set in, there is no difference to our male lead's performance. What remains is ninety minutes of meaningful stares and glances.

The Peasants are revolting: Oliver Reed not so much chews the scenery than spits it out in BLUE BLOOD.

Directed by Andrew Sinclair, BLUE BLOOD is a delirious story of Devil worship set and filmed at Wiltshire's Longleat House. Gregory (Derek Jacobi) is a young aristocrat who complains of modern England while maintaining a servant lifestyle, which includes new German Nanny Beate (Meg Wynne Owen). Entrusting control of the house to butler Tom (Oliver Reed), and in a complicated relationship with his estranged singer wife Lily (an icy Fiona Lewis), the Lord succumbs to the unholy practises of the under classes, governed by his leading manservant. Adapted from Alexander Thynn's novel The Carry-Cot by Sinclair, Thynn is the 7th Marquess of Bath and grew up in his family's seat at Longleat (and to further the in-house connections, BLUE BLOOD features Thynn's wife Anna Grael as Gregory's mistress Carlotta). UPSTAIRS DOWNSTAIRS on acid, Reed's ham performance is either extraordinary inept or one that plays to the general foolishness; moving like an automaton, Tom's Satanic control is built up by a series of almost freeze-framed red-hued images of black masses and sacrifice, usually depicting Owen, Grael and Lewis draped around him while holding a bloodied knife.

THE LEGACY is another tale of Mansion-based Satanic shenanigans. Designers Maggie Walsh (Katharine Ross) and Pete Danner (Sam Elliott) leave California to work for an anonymous British client. On reaching their destination they are involved in an accident with a limousine, which is actually owned by their benefactor, Jason Mountolive (John Standing). Inviting them to his estate, Mountolive introduces Walsh and Danner to five guests, who die in a variety of ways: Maria (Marianne Broome) drowns; Clive (Roger Daltrey) chokes to death; Karl (Charles Gray) is burned alive; Barbara (Hildegard Neill) is pierced by a splintered mirror; and Jacques (Lee Montague) falls from a roof. All had chequered pasts, and were spared punishment due to Jason's unorthodox interventions: his mother being Lady Margaret Walsingham, a practitioner of witchcraft. It transpires that Walsh is actually Mountolive's great-granddaughter, and Jason's last acts were to kill the other heirs so Katharine can continue Satan's work.

British character actor John Standing is under the emaciated

makeup of a dying Occultist in THE LEGACY.

Although graced with exquisite cinematography both externally (the lush country setting) and internally (white cats on marble staircases), this tepid Anglo-American production suffers from an inappropriate upbeat soundtrack and lengthy dull patches between the body count. Directed by Richard Marquand, THE LEGACY is all too twee to adhere effectively to the twin 70s fixations of black magic and haunted houses (to further amplify the Seventies feel, we have an opening credits "love-in" with a song from Kiki Dee). The original treatment was written by Jimmy Sangster and "polished" by British SF author Patrick Tilley and Paul Wheeler; Sangster unsurprisingly disowned the film as the "tinkering" involved moving the setting wholesale from a rundown Detroit hospital to the grounds of Mountolive's Ravenhurst.

Short-Lived Revival

A GHOST STORY FOR CHRISTMAS - A VIEW FROM A HILL (2005)
A GHOST STORY FOR CHRISTMAS - NUMBER 13 (2006)

Mark Letheren is haunted by unearthly vistas in A VIEW FROM A HILL.

THE BBC GHOST STORY FOR CHRISTMAS strand from the 1970s returned with these two entries. Both add a layer of weird science to their ghostly goings-on, as the laws of physics are played with fancifully. A VIEW FROM A HILL - adapted from M. R. James by Peter Harness and directed by Luke Watson - sees young Fitzwilliam Museum curator Dr Fanshawe (Mark Letheren) discovering some homemade binoculars while cataloguing the archaeological collection of the late father of debt-laden Squire Richards (Pip Torrens). The field glasses - created by deceased local watchmaker and amateur necromancer Baxter (Simon Linnell) - give Fanshawe visions of Fulnaker Abbey in all its splendour and a gibbet on Gallows Hill, in reality locations now dissolved. It transpires that Baxter's "very peculiar ... 'abits" of boiling the bones of condemned men resulted in a noxious fluid, some of which has remained sealed inside the binoculars. 

Never previously adapted on film or television, A View from a Hill was first published in the May 1925 edition of the London Mercury, and in the same year formed part of the A Warning to the Curious and Other Ghost Stories anthology. Harness and Watson successfully evoke the washed-out landscapes and corner-of-the-eye creepiness of the best 70s output and it is also beautifully played; moving James' Edwardian setting to the post-WWII decline of country estates, social status is reflected as weary condemnation. When Fanshawe makes clear to Richards that he is an archaeologist and a doctor, the Squire caustically responds "have to get you to take a look at my feet."

Greg Wise is more Indiana Jones than M.R. James in NUMBER 13.

NUMBER 13 - adapted from James by Justin Hopper and directed by Pier Wilkie - had been brought to the screen on two, presumed lost, occasions: as part of NBC's GREAT GHOST TALES of 1961, and as a second season episode of MYSTERY AND IMAGINATION in 1966. Originally appearing in the 1904 Ghost Stories of an Antiquary, the location of the story is moved from Viborg, Denmark, to Winchester Cathedral, where Oxford academic Professor Anderson (Greg Wise) is sucked into a spatial-distorting hotel room occupied by a sixteenth-century diabolist. It seems somewhat out of place that Anderson is a handsome adventurer, and the Phantom's hand is black-gloved like a Dario Argento serial killer. NUMBER 13's other frissons are similarly abstract: the English hotelier using the centre panel of Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights, and a mention for Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins.

Downe and Out

SON OF DRACULA (1974)

CRAZE (1974)

"I can't live, if living is without you"; chums Harry Nilsson and Ringo Starr in SON OF DRACULA, cinema's greatest musical travesty. Attempting to cash in on the success of Mel Brooks' YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, the film is also known as YOUNG DRACULA.

WRITTEN by TALES THAT WITNESS MADNESS scribe Jennifer Jayne in the failed hope of casting David Bowie, Freddie Francis' rarely seen SON OF DRACULA - made by Apple Films and produced by Ringo Starr - begins in 1800's Transylvania, where Baron Frankenstein's dwarf assistant (Skip Martin) stakes The Prince of Darkness (Dan Meaden). Merlin the Magician (Starr) discovers that one of The Count's brides is pregnant and will give birth to a son in a hundred years. The offspring Count Downe (Harry Nilsson) is due to be crowned King of the Underworld in 70's London, but in the seventy-two hours beforehand he is vulnerable in deciding his future. Eventually he wants to become human in the name of love - especially that of Amber (Suzanna Leigh) - thanks to the help of the wheelchair-bound Van Helsing (Dennis Price), and despite the plotting of the immortal Baron (a barnstorming Freddie Jones).

Actually completed in 1972, Starr's excruciatingly dull vanity project failed to pick up any distribution. Realising that this comedy actually had no jokes - and hid behind Nilsson's musical numbers and message of love - the ex-Beatle turned to Graham Chapman to re-write and re-dub. However this version allegedly made even less sense, and has never been made public (SON OF DRACULA eventually was shown on a limited run in the States). The film is a pedestrian pantomime at best, with generous amounts of padding (Count Downe foils a completely random attack by a werewolf, for instance). Francis further laces the production with classic interpretations of monsters (Meaden's Dracula actually takes Nosferatu as a blueprint, and there are also appearances by Frankenstein's creature, the Mummy and even a Medusa and a Fu Manchu). In fact the only point of interest are the musicians on show, which includes John Bonham and Keith Moon exchanging drumming duties in Downe's band.

Jack Palance offers Julie Ege to Chuku in the delirious CRAZE.

Coming off this catastrophe, Francis' increasing distain of horror films and its fans made the director/cinematographer admit that his reliance on the zoom lens for CRAZE was due to a "lack of interest." But this Herman Cohen production is far from uninteresting, an exploitation fever-dream ripe with idol-driven mayhem and possibly the greatest array of starlets and seasoned character actors ever to grace a single British horror. Neal Mottram (a potent Jack Palance) is a psychotic antiques dealer who owns Chuku, a googly-eyed African fetish object he keeps in his basement. Mottram believes that by sacrifice to Chuku, the "love God" will reward him with wealth, and his victims include Helena (Julie Ege) who ends up in a furnace, and sex toy-loving Sally (Suzy Kendall in a horrendous curly black wig). As part of his unhinged quest Mottram even hatches an alibi plot, using ex-girlfriend Dolly (Diana Dors) to enable him to murder rich Aunt Nash (Dame Edith Evans); but with the police honing in (and a nod to PEEPING TOM), Neal is impaled on Chuku's trident.

CRAZE has a pathological hatred of women, a stance it shares with source novel Infernal Idol, a brisk 1967 Helmut Henry Hartmann pulp written as Henry Seymour ("she was that slightly seedy suburban housewife type who carried too much weight around the hips and spent too much of the housekeeping money on unsuccessful attempts to look glamorous.") But Francis' movie really goes for the throat, illustrated by Detective Sergeant Wall (Michael Jayston)'s comment on ditzy Dolly ("one would have to be pretty desperate to sail into that port.") Despite Mottram's literal lady-killing, there is a distinct homosexual yearning between the dealer and his younger live-in colleague Ronnie (Martin Potter). Mottram has apparently saved him from "sleeping in Hyde Park hustling old queens," but their domestic arrangement seems characteristically bitchy.

The Love of Darkness

CAT GIRL (1957)
RASPUTIN THE MAD MONK (1966)

"The love of darkness, the craving for warm flesh and blood … it is my legacy to you ... passed on from generation to generation of our family …  for 700 years!" Ernest Milton and Barbara Shelley provide the only sparks to this pedestrian programmer.

PRODUCED by Val Lewton and directed by Jacques Tourneur, RKO's 1942 CAT PEOPLE divided critics at the time, but is now considered a sophisticated classic. Telling the story of young Serbian Irena (Simone Simon), who believes herself to be a descendant of a race of people who turn into cats when sexually aroused, the style of the film concentrates on the theory that unseen terrors are more effective than visual ones (what Lewton referred to as "patches of prepared darkness"). This use of suggestive shadow, and the genre-defining shock Lewton Bus moment, was in contrast to the Universal trend of the time, who would make FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN a year later.

CAT GIRL - a British CAT PEOPLE from Insignia directed by Alfred Shaughnessy - barely registers as horror, its stagy and stilted execution making it hard to believe it was released in the wake of Hammer's game-changer, CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN. Leonora (Barbara Shelley) is summoned to her ancestral estate by uncle Edmund Brandt (Shakespearean actor Ernest Milton, doing his best Ernest Thesiger impression). Recently married to Richard (Jack May), Leonora also brings friends Cathy and Allan (Patricia Webster and John Lee) to the house. Brandt's niece discovers that she is to be united with the soul of Edmund's pet leopard, continuing a family curse which enables mental control of the big cat to "kill ... kill." Under Leonora's control, the leopard savages her husband for having an affair with Cathy, then turns its attentions to Dorothy (Kay Callard), the wife of Leonora's true love Dr Marlowe (Robert Ayres).

Barbara Shelley - the "first leading lady of British horror" - is haunted Leonora. Shelley's looks and stature command the screen, with Barbara playing it commandingly straight.

Aside from Shelley and Milton, the performances are self-conscious (even leopard Chiefy, a performing cat from Southport Zoo, surprisingly lacks menace), and Ayres makes for a particularly characterless 'hero'. Shaughnessy - directing his only fantastic film before creating UPSTAIRS DOWNSTAIRS and planting the seed that would become Pete Walker's HOUSE OF WHIPCORD - couldn't remain positive about the release's own main legacy, lamenting in his autobiography "by using [Barbara Shelley] I fear we condemned a very beautiful and talented actress to a long career in horror films."

Similar to Shelley's Helen in DRACULA PRINCE OF DARNESS, when a hex kicks in, Leonora's sexual repression is unshackled. Now infused with feline aggression, things get weird when she briefly imagines herself turning into a leopard, and eats a budgie (off screen); Leonora's eyebrows also suggest a sudden predatory look (critic David Pirie argues that it is with CAT GIRL that British film heroines started to distort from their emotional norm, even if they are portrayed as mental patients and die violently). In her first starring role Shelley atypically shows off areas of flesh; yet any real charge is smothered by the picture's mundaneness, as a lingering shot of Leonora's naked back sees the camera pan away, leaving the maid to comment on her beauty.

"Everything else is darkness"; the hypnotic stare of Christopher Lee as RASPUTIN THE MAD MONK.

Directed by Don Sharp and scripted by Anthony Hinds, Hammer's RASPUTIN THE MAD MONK casts Shelley again under the spell of Christopher Lee in redressed sets from DRACULA PRINCE OF DARKNESS. After healing an innkeeper's wife and cutting off the hand of the keeper's daughter's suitor, Grigori Rasputin (Lee) is hauled before an Orthodox bishop on grounds of sexual immorality and violence. Preferring to give God "sins worth forgiving", Rasputin is unperturbed by the bishop's claims of Satanism. Heading for St Petersburg, the exiled Monk befriends struck-off Dr Zargo (Richard Pasco) and begins his campaign to infiltrate highest Russian society. This includes gaining influence over the Tsarina's ladies-in-waiting Sonia (Shelley) and Vanessa (Suzan Farmer), but his relentless sexual appetite and pursuit of wealth eventually leads to his death at the hands of Zargo and Ivan (Francis Matthews).

Initially announced in 1961 as THE SINS OF RASPUTIN, Hammer's brisk pseudo-exploration of "History's Man of Mystery" is dominated by Lee's extraordinary performance. Unlike his appearances as Dracula - often off-screen and reduced to set pieces - Rasputin is overpowering from his appearance at the Inn door. Passionately researching the role, the actor even sought advice on how to play a medically accurate death by cyanide poisoning. But the film was hampered by overspends on DRACULA PRINCE OF DARKNESS, foreshortening the script and scope; the production was also under the threat of legal action from Prince Felix and Princess Irina Yousoupoff, Felix being one of Rasputin's real-life assassins. Having successfully sued MGM over their 1932 release RASPUTIN AND THE EMPRESS, pressure from the Yousoupoff's is the reason that Hammer's surrogate assassin Ivan is Vanessa's brother rather than husband, and why Vanessa and Rasputin do not meet in the film's climax.

Bridal Torment

WESSEX TALES - THE WITHERED ARM (1973)
WESSEX TALES - BARBARA OF THE HOUSE OF GREBE (1973)

Thomas Hardy reflected a concern for the poor in society, and particularly the lack of opportunities offered to women. For The Withered Arm and Barbara of the House of Grebe, there is nothing but torment for young brides.

IN his 1888 collection Wessex Tales, Thomas Hardy writes of the true nature of nineteenth century marriage and its inherent restrictions, the stance of women, and a society which could not cope with even minor diseases. Hardy did not explore the sensibility of Jane Austen or the vivid caricatures of Charles Dickens; rather, his poems and novels are filled with characters that are as functional and rustic as their clothes; his dramatis personae follow the hardened edge of nature, the intractable working of fate, and the inevitability of a relentless decline. There is also a sense of enigma, that something beyond our physical appearance is guiding our hand. For many people of a certain age, one such story - The Withered Arm - is remembered as an oddity of their school experience. Often included on English Literature syllabuses, it sits awkwardly between ambiguous morality tale and surreal horror.

Wessex Tales was made into a BBC anthology; the first broadcast was THE WITHERED ARM, and is a masterpiece of the form. In a Southern England rural community, wealthy farmer John Lodge (Edward Hardwicke) returns home with his new young bride Gertrude (Yvonne Antrobus). Gertrude awakes one morning to find four painful welts on her arm, and consults Conjuror Trendle (Esmond Knight) with the reluctant help from weathered milkmaid Rhoda Brook (Billie Whitelaw). Trendle prescribes a ghoulish cure: “you must touch with a limb the neck of a man who’d just been hanged.” It transpires that Rhoda’s son Jamie (William Relton) is the illegitimate spawn of Lodge, and it is he who is the man hanged for a frivolous reason.

In an illustration of Hardy's "magnificent gloominess", Yvonne Antrobus appears as a horrific vision in THE WITHERED ARM.

Rhoda’s dream sequence of a grotesquely grinning Gertrude taunting her with her wedding ring - only to have Rhoda angrily grabbing the bride’s arm before awakening - is eerily effective, and in the programme’s standout image Whitelaw holds the distinction of the only actress to ever make milking a cow look ethereally sinister. A mix of jealousy and body horror, Gertrude is the Gothic Outsider not just existing in an unfamiliar world, but an ultimately unwanted one: she cannot bear children.

Directed by Desmond Davis - who would go on to direct the Ray Harryhausen opus CLASH OF THE TITANS - THE WITHERED ARM was dramatised by Rhys Adrian greatly indebted to THE BLOOD ON SATAN'S CLAW. Wandering wearily through the bracken and ploughed earth, Gertrude’s physical affliction makes for close relation to SATAN'S CLAW's yearning for devil skin. The programme is also enveloped by the hanging ethic, unsurprising as Hardy himself was an enthusiastic spectator of such public punishment. This is illustrated by scenes of locals jostling for position to see the noose being made, and an old man selling wooden hanging figures. There is also a cinematic shot of a silhouette of the gallows against the day-for-night sky.

Ben Kingsley and Joanna McCallum play the heights of Hardy's married anguish in BARBARA OF THE HOUSE OF GREBE.  

The sixth and final WESSEX TALE was BARBARA OF THE HOUSE OF GREBE. Lord Uplandtowers (Ben Kingsley) wants to marry Barbara (Joanna McCallum); however, this daughter of Sir John Grebe (Leslie Sands) elopes with handsome Edmond Willowes (Nick Brimble). Marrying "beneath her," Barbara can only gain her parents consent by having Edmond "educated" in Italy for a year, while their lodge house is readied. During his stay in Europe, Edmond is facially disfigured in an opera house fire while saving others; on his return to England, Barbara is repelled, forcing him to leave a farewell letter. After leaning of his death several years later whilst in a loveless marriage with Uplandtowers, Barbara receives delivery of a commissioned statue of a pre-accident Edmond from Pisa. Worshipping this as a shrine, Uplandtowers learns of the original disfigurements and has the statue amended accordingly, at last receiving Barbara's affections.

Dramatised by David Mercer, this unnatural tale of social status was described by T. S. Eliot as "to have been written to provide a satisfaction for some morbid emotion." Barbara experiences love and loss at every extreme level, from its initial blooming to isolation and despair. Edmond's burned reveal is starling: what seems to be a simple mask turns into a full unveiling of face and wig, as if the forced exile is peeling an orange. While captured in their matrimonial hell, Kingsley and McCallum excel, Barbara caressing her model as Uplandtowers simmers to his ultimate victory.