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Endless Night More at IMDbPro »

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31 out of 36 people found the following review useful:

Gripping, unusual Agatha Christie mystery. Splendid on all counts.

Author: sdiner82 (sdiner82@aol.com) from New York City, USA
8 August 2003

One of the rare, gratifying occasions when a mediocre book is transformed by experts into a first-rate, memorable movie. "Endless Night" was one of Agatha Christie's last novels--also one of her least satisfying. A macabre romance about a wealthy young American heiress (the glorious Hayley Mills in a mesmerizing, haunting performance) who falls in love with and impulsively marries her sexy albeit mysterious chauffeur (the wonderfully versatile Hywell Bennett who teamed with Ms. Mills in two previous films, the tender comedic drama "The Family Way" and the still-shocking psychosexual thriller "The Twisted Nerve").

The happy lovebirds build their dreamhouse (still an architectural wonder) in England's remote Lake District (lusciously photographed in stunning Technicolor), away from the prying eyes of her avaricious relatives, and their tenderly rendered love story seems headed for a deserved happy ending--until the final reel suddenly reveals a totally unexpected twist that I guarantee will astound even the most astute mystery buff, and leave the hapless viewer in a state of shaken anxiety and sadness. Such an unusual denoument didn't work on the printed page; on film it's a bona fide shocker, thanks to the mastery of its two leads, a knockout turn by the stunning Britt Ekland (as one of Ms. Mills' parasitic relatives), the expert direction by Sidney Gilliatt, and the magificently eerie soundtrack by Bernard Herrmann, no less. "Endless Night" was never released theatrically in the U.S. Properly promoted, it would have made a boxoffice killing. I caught its American premiere on a pay-cable station, expecting nothing (the book was hopeless) and, much to my amazement, finding myself enthralled by this classy artistic treat. Psychological thrillers don't come any better than "Endless Night," which lulls the viewer into a state of bliss not unlike its romantic leads--until the startlingly savage twist ends the film with a disturbing (and heartbreaking) resonance. Hywell Bennett and the grown-up Hayley Mills were two of the finest (not to mention comeliest) young British actors of the late '60s and early '70s, and "Endless Night" might well be their most memorable hour-and-a-half. A must-see for mystery buffs; highly recommended for everyone else.

21 out of 23 people found the following review useful:

Too slow to really be a thriller, but oddly interesting with terrific twist

Author: DrLenera
28 July 2004

Endless Night is one of those movies that is hugely flawed, and yet it sticks in the mind unlike many more polished movies. Extremely slow paced for much of it's length and with several sequences that feel almost unnecessary, and even a few which just seem wierd, the film than delivers a true knock out of a twist which makes one realise how well the story has been constructed. For this reason, in some respect it's more satisfying to watch the second time even if one is no longer surprised, because one can notice all the little clues that have been put in ,and many of the previously mentioned unnecessary or wierd bits seem more essential. There is, though, one huge red herring that seems rather pointless.

This was the last of the Hywell Bennett/Hayley Mills collaborations for the Boulting Brothers and it is possibly their most interesting. Cast are all excellent ,including George Sanders in one of his final roles, and this is just as well since the film is indeed extremely talky. The alternately eerie and romantic Bernard Herrmann score is very memorable, although they could have made sure Mills' singing voice [obviously dubbed] sounded like her normal voice.

Many will be unsatisfied with this film ,but try it if you fancy a somewhat different kind of thriller, even it's only really a thriller in the final half hour!

15 out of 17 people found the following review useful:

Very entertaining

Author: halfcolombian from Sweden
5 August 2002

I don't agree at all with the poor reviews of this movie. I first saw this movie years ago and it stayed in my mind and finally I had the pleasure of finding it on dvd so I ordered it. It's probably my favourite dvd I have so far. It's a low-budget movie but yet it's a movie with a lot of class. The actors give great performances, above all Hayley Mills, and Bernard Herrmans score is sensational. It's a beautiful production and at times it made me think of "vertigo", and not only because herrman wrote the theme to that movie too. I love this movie! Sure they could make a billion dollar remake of it with a lot of stars but it still wouldn't beat this. It's a piece of art.

16 out of 23 people found the following review useful:

Not so great if you're an Agatha Christie fan

Author: Beady-El from Cleveland, Ohio USA
2 January 2003

I won't say it's a bad film, but I have to believe the liberties taken with the adaptation of the story go well beyond the nudity and modern setting. (I will say that the house with the remote-controlled indoor swimming pool in the living room was a bit over the top.)

I will confess that I did not guess the direction the plot would take, but what was so disappointing was the profusion of loose ends and entirely pointless characters. Agatha didn't usually write them that way - everyone ended up with a role in the outcome of the story. Here we are presented with in-laws, neighbors, family friends, and a mysterious old woman --- all of whom have nothing at all to do with the resolution of the story. Most of them could have been omitted entirely and the story would have been essentially unchanged.

My DVD even featured an editing error: about 10 seconds of the film repeat precisely (when the girl's parents are observed getting back into their car to leave.)

There is also a broken window that is never explained, a ghostly appearance that is never accounted for or revisited, a car is observed to take an unusually long to get somewhere - but we are never given the significance. An architect seems to know things the audience does not -- yet no explanation is offered of how he knows them.

Like Agatha's best writing, characters and clues and complications pile up... but then they are inexplicably thrown away in favor of an unexpected, yet rather anticlimactic resolution.

8 out of 8 people found the following review useful:

Most Odd

Author: chuffnobbler from United Kingdom
28 May 2007

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

British Lion made some great films: Don't Look Now and The Wicker Man leap to mind immediately. Great cult films that pack a real punch, dealing with weird subject matter and huge twisting plots.

Endless Night was made by British Lion at around the same time as these better-known films; accordingly, it's the least Agatha Christie-ish Agatha Christie you'll ever see.

A definite tinge of Hitchcock in some sequences, and Bernard Hermann's weird, eerie music helps. There are some nice, eerie, disjointed flashbacks and some strange and sinister dreamy sequences.

Hayley Mills gives life to a bland character, lumbered with an iffy accent and someone else's singing voice. Britt Ekland is luminous and lusty as ever. Hywel Bennett is really rather suave, in his own way. The house, Gypsy's Acre, is a real Bond Villain's Lair: a monstrosity of hidden swimming pools and groovy furniture. The foul creation of a seedy Swedish architect. Despite this, Hywel and Hayley seem happy ... until Britt moves in with them.

The storytelling gets a bit unclear at the end, where it is clearly stated that one character did not exist and is merely specifically employed to scare and unsettle people. Poison is the cause of death of a character, but not mentioned by the coroner. As a result of this, I found the last ten minutes of the film rather baffling. It seemed that the film's desperation to be strange and creepy led it to contradict itself. Or maybe I missed the point?

Guaranteed 100% Miss Marple Free, there's glamour and sinister overtones, taking the film into totally new territory for Agatha Christie.

6 out of 6 people found the following review useful:

worth seeking out

Author: jdaniels-4 from Sydney, Australia
26 February 2003

The is a film that has always stuck in my mind. I've just watched it again (after picking it up on video for $1.95!) It has a Hitchcock flavour about it so anyone expecting a "Murder on the Orient Express" type mystery might be disappointed. It's not a horror movie either (as the picture on the DVD seems to suggest) but a brooding (& fairly low-key) thriller which has an underlying feel of unease about it. You know something is going to happen but are left in the dark as to what. It gives away nothing until the very end (which is is well worth waiting for). It's enjoyable to watch a second time too because there are clues (and red herrings) thrown in along the way which you may not have noticed first time round. Your perceptions will have also shifted (like the floor at Gypsy's Acre) and characters and events start appearing in a new light, taking on new meanings.

9 out of 12 people found the following review useful:

Anomalous dark Christie romance/mystery

Author: Robert J. Maxwell (rmax304823@yahoo.com) from Deming, New Mexico, USA
3 October 2005

How old was Agatha Christie when she wrote this? Pushing 70? She was pretty old, about my age, and that might account for the tragic emotional tonus of this story.

You wouldn't know this was a Christie story if it weren't so advertised. True, there are some of the usual themes -- British class distinctions, extreme wealth, jealousy, poison -- but they are submerged by a love story that seems at first to be going nowhere fast. The story lacks any of the novelist's usual subtle wit.

No point in spelling out the plot in any detail. A poor chauffeur-for-hire meets a blond sylph and they fall for each other. He discovers that she is the sixth richest girl in the world, her coming-of-age party having been covered in the newspapers, and he rejects her because, as he says, "I have my pride." (The audience may be forgiven for a few muffled chuckles at this point.) She dies under mysterious circumstances while riding. In these circles, "riding" is taken to mean horseback riding. He inherits the money. And things thereafter go a little berserk without there being a hell of a lot in the way of motivation.

The film is narrated by the young man, Michael (Bennett). At first his story seems perfectly reasonable and he is presented as a fellow of principle if not money. Hayley Mills is introduced in a filmy white dress, her long blonde hair wafted by the breeze as she capers alone in a meadow, slender limbs, radiantly healthy, and -- well, you know the type. Eminently edible. But Michael's story, though it begins normally enough, describing the approach-avoidance conflict from which he suffers, being in love with Mills and yet resenting her wealth, gradually changes.

He becomes less and less reasonable, and less nice. He's impolite to Greta (Eklund), Mills' tutor and possessive friend. Greta is often described as "bossy" but frankly her supposed obsession with power isn't well shown. There is just one argument -- a slightly bitchy one -- between Greta and Michael over the placement of a more than usually ugly statue of a cat. What evidence we see of her bossiness is rather weak tea. If they're going to have a domineering German nurse, couldn't the nurse and Hayley Mills have had a little consensual flagellation or something? The climax seems to come out of thin air. A sudden unmotivated reversal of the character of Michael.

It's not a bad movie though. Romance, yes, but a romance filled somehow with uneasiness and a gradually growing sense of dread. And when I first watched this and heard the first few notes of the score, I thought, "OMG, the composer is ripping off Bernard Hermann note for note." It turned out to BE Hermann, and a very effective Hermann at that, full of an eerie melancholy.

Maybe the reason it leaves a viewer feeling sad is that Christie seems to be stretching her talent so much trying to achieve "significance." And for the first time I'm aware of, we actually care about the character who dies, whereas in previous stories the victim was nothing more than a stereotype who, once gone, was forgotten. The death was only a pivot on which the remainder of the story could turn. Here, it's really too bad.

11 out of 16 people found the following review useful:

Would-be Hitchcock

Author: heedarmy from United Kingdom
28 June 2006

The last film made by the illustrious Launder & Gilliat team is a psycho-thriller that desperately wants to be praised as "Hitchcockian" and even recruits Bernard Herrmann, Hitch's favourite composer, to write the score. Perhaps the Hitchcock film it most resembles, however, is "Frenzy" – both seem to be the work of ageing filmmakers trying to get "with it".

"Endless Night" is extremely faithful to Agatha Christie's source novel (it may be the closest-ever filming of one of her novels) but neither of the two protagonists seem to come across with the same conviction that they do in the book. Hayley Mills struggles with a difficult part (Ellie is a fairly insipid character) while Hywel Bennett somehow never convinces as the enigmatic Michael.

There's lots of fun spotting familiar faces in the supporting cast, including an uncredited Nicholas Courtney (the Brigadier from "Doctor Who") as the auctioneer. Per Oscarsson is good as the insightful architect Santonix, who guesses something of what is going on, although our admiration for him is lessened by the hideously vulgar house he builds (which all the characters acclaim as a masterpiece!) I can't help wondering what Dame Agatha's loyal fans made of this film; the setting in an idyllic corner of rural England is traditional enough but the atmosphere is a great deal darker than usual. The novel, written in 1967, represented quite a bold departure for the writer (and a successful one) but the film at times descends into banality. Having said that, the twee nature of Ellie and Michael's romance gives the conclusion much more impact and the final images are startling.

5 out of 6 people found the following review useful:

Excellent psychological thriller

Author: scott-palmer2 from United States
5 September 2009

Endless Night is a very fine, interesting, and unusual film-just like the novel on which it was based. It seems amazing that this under-appreciated film, which follows Christie's novel closely, was never released theatrically in the U.S.

Acting is very good for the most part; Hayley Mills is good in a somewhat difficult role, as is Hywel Bennett. These two had starred together in several films over the previous five or six years, and work well together. As always, George Sanders is great, as is Leo Genn in a comparatively small role as a psychiatrist-one wishes both of them had more screen time. Britt Ekland also turns in one of her better performances as Greta.

Other actors in the film of note are Peter Bowles, Lois Maxwell, Aubrey Richards, Ann Way, Helen Horton, Walter Gotell and David Bauer. Allso good are Patience Collier as Miss Townsend, and Madge Ryan as Hywel Bennett's mother. Per Oscarsson as architect Santonix is the only weak spot in the cast; he often mumbles his lines and is difficult to understand.

Endless Night is a very good film that deserves a lot more attention and recognition than it received at the time of its somewhat limited release. Fortunately it has been released on video and later DVD and is not difficult to find. Fans of Agatha Christie will enjoy it and also anyone who likes a well-made psychological thriller.

6 out of 8 people found the following review useful:

A surprising sleeper

Author: bfromberkeley from Berkeley, California
3 January 2004

I just watched this movie, I think for the first time, because I seem to remember seeing the "house" from an excerpt in another context. I really enjoyed it and watched it twice. Sure it's dated. It was done in the heyday of the seventies complete with crocheted dresses, orange furnishings, and moog synthesizers. Perhaps you have to be an older viewer, or an enthusiast about different movie eras and traditions to appreciate this one. I consider it to be one of the better Hitchcock knock-offs that I have seen. Certainly an easy conclusion to draw when the screenwriter-director Sydney Gilliat was also the screenwriter for Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes, and Bernard Herman, composer for many of Hitchcock's best known movies, was used here too. There appear to be many subtle layers of storytelling at work here: Agatha's story (Much more Daphne Du Maurier-like than her usual stories), use of the camera, use of color, and use of time (an essential clue to guessing the ending). In fact, this would be a good double feature with `Don't Look Now'. The only serious flaw that I see in this film is the choice of the voice-over singer for Haley Mills.

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