Brian Clemens' Thriller (1973 - 1976)

[Willie Oleson]

Episode 9.



Three terrorists occupy an institute for blind medical students because it's the perfect location to assassinate a Very Important Person during a parade.
Initially, the students have no idea what's going on because they're blind.
But eventually they figure it out and then the question is: will they be able to outfox and defeat the terrorists before the planned assassination?
Answer: yes they do.


I assume that the "thriller" element in this episode is about fighting the invisible enemy, but it wasn't very exciting or scary and I was just waiting for it to end.

4/10

 

[Willie Oleson]

Episode 10.



It's a basic and straightforward story without any twists and turns, and the ending is painfully underwhelming.
Tales Of The Unexpected can be a little predictable sometimes but it never insults my intelligence.

The story is about a witch who marries a wealthy businessman and then she tries to kill him with her witchcraft. He is saved by a professor and his secretary and after that they burn a laugh-out-loud amateurish drawing from the museum (!) that represents the witch in another century, and then she dies. That's it.

The only aspect that saves this episode is Sean Connery's ex-wife Diane Cilento, who chews the scenery as the flamboyant witch Clara.

Dressed and bewigged like a 1960s Hammer House vixen, she laughs and purs with a continental-European accent, and it just gives a whole new meaning to the word "camp".
The main set, the house, has a very garnish seventies look, something that's always appreciated by yours truly.

6/10

 

[Willie Oleson]

Episode 11.



Newlyweds Tom and Samantha move into their beautiful cottage style home, and the neighbour - an American - moves into his windmill house.
American neighbour Howard whistles, as if he's in a trance, and he also decorates the bedroom in his windmill house with girly stuff and dolls and whatnot.
Samantha receives a bizarre wedding gift and, well, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to connect the dots.

That's not the bizarre gift, btw.

Howard turns out to be an impostor because he's really Samantha's childhood friend Giles.
He's a psychopath and he has killed her parents (after he'd found out they were planning to move away, thus taking his precious Samantha away from him) and after that he was sent to an institute for bad boys in America.
As adult Howard, he also kills her husband Tom and the aunt who had raised her after her parents had died.

Most of the story is told from Samantha's unawareness of the danger and the person responsible for all the misery. The first 10 minutes still had a whiff of a whodunnit.
At the end of the story he lures her to his windmill house with "new information about her husband's accident. The police is here too", he locks her inside the girlie bedroom and reveals all his evil deeds. And he wants her to stay with him forever and ever.
The reveal itself, with no surprises for the viewer, goes on and on and at some point I thought, is this ever going to stop?

She manages to escape, and the chase sequence in the unusual structure of the house reveals why they had chosen a windmill house for neighbour Howard.
At least that was interesting to know.

I can't say that this is such a bad story, but the pace and running time seem to clash. It feels both rushed and drawn-out.

3/10

 

[J. R.'s Piece]

This was a great series and featured many actors who went on to bigger things, including a young Donna Mills in the episode about a Rolls Royce.

Think Donna Mills did three episodes.

 

[J. R.'s Piece]

Yeah. I had bought Sapphire & Steel, based on the raving reviews on this forum. The first story was OK-ish because it was new to me, but I zoned out when I watched the second story.
Maybe it's not a thing to binge watch.

Usually, I find those who like Sapphire & Steel prefer Adventures two (eight episodes), four (4 episodes) and six (four episodes). I love story 2 but it ran over a period of a few weeks. I’d space it out.

 

[J. R.'s Piece]

At the end of the episode they also show the intro used for the American broadcasts.

This actor and this scenery are not in the episode, actually.

The American titles, which are usually hideous, were to turn them into stand-alone tv films but also to extend the running times, which is why some of them seem to go on for ever. I mean, I have made and brewed tea while the credits have been running and they are still running. Sometimes they give away the plot and other times, they have absolutely nothing to do with the story. Just having menacing figures wasting time.

The Network set was lacking the original version of Nurse Will Make It Better. I got that from other sources.

 

[Willie Oleson]

Episode 12.



I had already watched this one on YouTube, and thoroughly enjoyed it.
An Oxford University professor has a relationship with one of his students and he knows that his religious wife would never agree to a divorce, and that's why he decides to kill her.
The professor is played by American guest star Patrick O'Neal.
To me, he usually looks like the British guest star when he's in American TV productions and movies, and there's something about Disney villain Judge Frollo that reminds me of Patrick O'Neal.

Incidentally, this episode aired the day before The Brothers Series 3 premiere.
If I were shameless enough I would totally copycat James from London's idea and versus these British classics week-by-week. Just kidding.

In this story, the professor has been secretly plotting and developing a Perfect Alibi device, something to do with pre-recordings and a pre-arranged phone call.

I adore this kind of naff technology. Even out of context there's the suspense that something could go wrong. As the viewer I want the evil professor to succeed otherwise there's no story.
But the mechanical dial process doesn't make sense to me as it's being dialed from a fixed position to the numbers, instead of, well, vice versa!
After the murder and the visit to his neighbour/colleague/best friend where the Perfect Alibi takes place, he returns home to clear things up and call the police.

There was something surprisingly sad, surprisingly funny and surprisingly eerie about the image of his dead wife still lying there, eventhough she's been dead for no more than 15 minutes.

And then he starts to receive threatening letters saying "I Know What You've Done!", but without a hint of extortion, which makes sense at the end of the episode.
He suspects and kills two of his students, including the girl he's in love with, but the letters keep coming.
A delightfully misplaced clue "confirms" that it was indeed his best friend/colleague who had sent all those many poison-pen letters.

But in the final twist we learn that the police officer who's investigating the murders has received exactly the same letters - from the professor himself!
A subconscious need to confess, as it were, and the very last moment neatly ties in with the religious vs. agnostic aspect that was only briefly mentioned at the beginning of the episode.

At long last I can rate an excellent Thriller episode.

9/10

 

[James from London]

If I were shameless enough I would totally copycat James from London's idea and versus these British classics week-by-week.

Do it! Do it! Do it! Join the madness!

 

[Willie Oleson]

Do it! Do it! Do it!

Now I almost feel obliged to post that ghastly translated version of A Far L'amore…

 

[Willie Oleson]

Episode 13.

At long last I can rate an excellent Thriller episode

I had hoped this would be the new trend in my Thriller viewing but, alas, Kiss Me And Die is yet another flop.

The main problem is that the pre-into scene explains everything as soon as the protagonist arrives in a, you guessed it, picturesque little town.
Then it's just waiting for him to discover just enough to get himself in trouble i.e. close to the villain and inside the house where his brother disappeared.
And indeed, he almost ends up dead, like his brother in that pre-intro scene.

The history of the family who owns the town seems terribly convoluted, something with peculiar marriages and Germans and nieces and, well eventually I lost the plot.
Sort of a Dark Shadows family, but in the "big" reveal it feels like much ado about nothing.
Funnily enough, the evil German/English Lord is an Edgar Allan Poe fan, so, not only do they try to give this episode an Edgar Allan Poe vibe, they also discuss Edgar Allan Poe.
And then they also have an Edgar Allan Poe party.

The sets look very good and I appreciated the special effects.

4/10

 

[Willie Oleson]

Episode 14.


This story combines a murder mystery (well, sort of) with the supernatural - in this case, a possessed Rolls Royce.
Possession stories can be hit-or-miss, I find. For non-human entities such as houses and cars and dolls I prefer them to be linked to or influenced by sorrow, pain, madness and fear, rather than simply been taken over by the spirit of an evil human or demon.

The Rolls Royce in One Deadly Owner does a bit of both. It has absorbed the fear and pain of the crime scene but it's also controlled by the spirit of the victim.
The car "acts" spooky but it's not a serious threat to the new owner because all it wants to do is to reveal the crime, although that will put the new owner in a dangerous situation.


Abby Fairgate, a popular fashion model, thinks the car will be a good investment but later she explains that the car wanted her.
Overall, I think this was a decent episode. There were enough spooky things going on (including a hilarious jump scare), the final twist was satisfactory and the eerie score was excellent (now I'm not sure if they always use the same one).

I'm still undecided about the spoiler-ish intro scene. Not that it ruined the story like it did in episode 13, but I wish I could have had the same questions as Donna Mills.
On the other hand, short tv movies like these don't always have the luxury to slowly unravel the mystery.


7/10

 

[Willie Oleson]

Episode 15.



A crime story this time, similar to Spell Of Evil but without the hocus-pocus.
A wealthy English lady, previously residing in Washington, US, returns to England to escape the buzz and attention after her husband had died.
She hires a butler, the same butler who killed his wealthy employer (for money or inheritance) in the intro scene.
So we already get the idea how this story's going to play out.

He starts to drug her, with the help of his henchmen - a former doctor with an alcohol problem, and his girlfriend who replaces the previous maid who has been framed for theft.

He also isolates his employer from her Washington friends who also happen to be in England for whatever reason (because there had to be American guest stars, I guess), using her illness as an excuse.

The best part of watching this episode is that it had me constantly rooting for the victim, I really wanted her to survive.
There were some altercations between Evil Butler and his henchmen and I wondered if this was going to influence the course of the story, but it didn't. Or maybe there wasn't enough time to do it.

6/10

 

[J. R.'s Piece]

I have been considering buying this series for a long time now. Is it an anthology series where the same actors crop up again and again as different characters

65 minutes running time, enforced by ABC in America, who gave it a budget of $100,000 per episode. Some actors appear in more than one. Gary Collins is in three. Bradford Dillman is in two, Donna Mills (rings a bell...) is in three. Joanna Pettet is in two. Ian Hendry appears as identical twins with Donna Mills. Dinsdale Landen plays Matthew Earp in two episodes and is the only actor to play the same character in more than one episode. ABC forced ATV to

I’ve met Norman Eshley who was a serial killer in The Colour of Blood. He played George and Mildred’s neighbour, having done episodes of Man About the House. I’ve seen him in films and tv series. He was paired with Dudley Sutton as a psycho gangsters double act in both Department S and Randall and Hopkirk Deceased. He was telling me about working with Orson Welles.

 

[J. R.'s Piece]

Episode 14.

This story combines a murder mystery (well, sort of) with the supernatural - in this case, a possessed Rolls Royce.
Possession stories can be hit-or-miss, I find. For non-human entities such as houses and cars and dolls I prefer them to be linked to or influenced by sorrow, pain, madness and fear, rather than simply been taken over by the spirit of an evil human or demon.

Abby Fairgate, a popular fashion model, thinks the car will be a good investment but later she explains that the car wanted her.

On the other hand, short tv movies like these don't always have the luxury to slowly unravel the mystery.


7/10

Well, it’s a suspense anthology television series. Plays, rather than TV movies. Brian Clemens used to be heavily involved in the production and wrote most of the episodes, all of the story premises and supervised editing. Thanks to Talking Pictures Television, I’ve seen several other examples of other anthology series from around the same time. I’ve got two early 79s Brian Clemens’s movies, which erm...seem to inspire some of his Thriller plots. Brian Clemens used to write shows for the Danziger brothers and also for ITC shows like Sir Francis Drake, Interpol Calling, Danger Man, Ghost Squad, Man of the World, The Sentimental Agent, The Baron, The Champions, The Persuaders!, The Adventurer and The Protectors. Some of his stuff for The Avengers influenced his work on a Thriller too. One Deadly Owner was one of the first episodes I saw. Along with Lady Killer, A Coffin for the Bride (with Helen Mirren and Michael Jayston), Possession (Which had the US titles on it), Nurse Will Make it Better, Killer with Two Faces, An Echo of Theresa, Someone At the Top of the Stairs and another ten episodes.

Actually some of my favourite possession stories involve non-human entities. Robert Shearman wrote some hugely entertaining, emotionally brutal and delightfully insane dramas those.

Still, Abby will be back when original Avenger Ian Hendry is twins.

 

[J. R.'s Piece]

Episode 5.

There is no blood, and I don't think they do blood in any of the Thriller episodes.
But there's a nice, Hitchcockian twist when it turns out that the damsell in distress - the result of a mistaken identity situation - has theft and murder in mind.
View attachment 20034

7/10

Clemens pitched the idea of a Thriller to Michael Grade as being a suspense thriller with Hitchcockian twists.

 

[J. R.'s Piece]

Then I guess it hasn't aged very well. There were some scenes in "Someone At The Top Of The Stairs" that totally would have freaked me out as a child. But I can't pretend to be 9 years old.

Based on the last episodes I think I should have the rated the first one 8/10 because of the clever twist.
I still hope there are going to be some winners!

I don’t have that difficulty with it. I’ve always found it easy to watch. Except for... Although I’m probably not a grown-up yet. Thankfully. Mind you, I’m in some Thriller groups. As for music, Laurie Johnson used to score them individually. He scored the later series of The Avengers, although Howard Blake was brought in to assist on some Tara King episodes. Laurie Johnson is still going too. I’ve never quite forgiven him for his scores for Jason King.

 

[Willie Oleson]

Episode 16.



Thriller Goes Comedy.
I was determined to finish it, but...30 minutes was the best I could do. And that's not what I had expected from Ben Carrington and Vanessa Beaumont.

Shame, shame, shame!

0/10

 

[J. R.'s Piece]

Episode 16.

View attachment 20475

Oh, Peter Dyneley is in that. He was in lots of things but is probably best remembered as being the voice of Jeff Tracy in ITC’s Thunderbirds. He died not too long after in the 1970s, as did his widow, Jane Hylton, who had played Queen Guinevere in ITC’s The Adventures of Sir Lancelot. Jean Kent did lots of films and played Queen Elizabeth I in ITC’s Sir Francis Drake. And David Jason’s brother, Arthur White, is in it.

 

[J. R.'s Piece]

Episode 16.

View attachment 20475

Thriller Goes Comedy.
I was determined to finish it, but...30 minutes was the best I could do. And that's not what I had expected from Ben Carrington and Vanessa Beaumont.
View attachment 20476
Shame, shame, shame!

0/10

Yeah. It is a weak entry. At least Ben was trying to murder his father. Gayle Hunnicutt and Stephen Rea’s performances and interaction don’t really seem right for it. The next story has Francesca Annis and Patrick Allen in it though. And Moira Redmond, who Brian Clemens wanted to be a lead in The Avengers.

 

[Willie Oleson]

Episode 17.



A cheesy but sparkly story about a murderous psycho-bitch, played by the lovely Francesca Annis, in the style of Play Misty For Me.

The loony villain is inspired by sappy love stories about women who marry their bosses.

As always, the victims just play "being attacked" in front of the camera, it looks very cheap and hilarious.

In the opening scene, there are 3 actors doing this. No-one tries to run away or fight back, they just wait to get stabbed with a pair of scissors when she appears from behind the curtains (although her shoes were already visible!)
Laugh-out-loud funny.

It's a classic trope that these villains are accidentally/unintentionally saved from self-defeat, and there are a few scenes in which she's being interrupted by some character just when she's about to reveal her lunacy.

And Moira Redmond

Yes, I found her very noticeable as the tycoon's wife. And a very pleasant voice, too.

8/10