UK, 1971
89m
35mm film, Eastmancolor, 1.85:1
mono, English
A British horror thriller directed by Sidney Hayers.
Plot Summary
A family torn apart by the rape and murder of their daughter try to piece together their lives in the aftermath. When they learn that the man suspected of the crime has been released by the police due to lack of evidence, they decide to take the law into their own hands. But it all starts to go horribly wrong after they imprison the man in the cellar of their pub…
Credits
* = uncredited
Crew
Directed by: Sidney Hayers
© Rank Film Distributors Limited MCMLXXI [1971]
A Peter Rogers production
Executive Producer: Peter Rogers
Produced by: George H. Brown
Production Manager: Tony Wallis
Original Screenplay by: John Kruse
Assistant Director: Stuart Freeman
Continuity: Ene Watts
Director of Photography: Ken Hodges
Camera Operator: Tommy Fletcher
Editor: Anthony Palk
Music Composed and Conducted by: Eric Rogers
Sound Recordists: J.W.N. Daniel, Ken Barker
Dubbing Editor: Bill Trent
Costume Designer: Courtenay Elliott
Make-up: Bill Partleton
Hairdresser: Barbara Ritchie
Titles: G.S.E. Ltd
Art Director: Lionel Couch
Assistant Art Director: William Alexander
Set Decorator: Peter James Howitt
Made at Pinewood Studios, London, England
Cast
Joan Collins (Carol Radford)
James Booth (Jim Radford)
Ray Barrett (Harry)
Sinéad Cusack (Rose)
Kenneth Griffith (Seely)
Tom Marshall (Lee Radford)
Zuleika Robson (Jill Radford)
Donald Morley (Inspector)
Barry Andrews (Sergeant)
Artro Morris (Jacko)
Patrick McAlinney (George)
Angus MacKay (priest)
Geoffrey Hughes (brewery driver)
Nicola Critcher (Lucy)
Martin Carroll [undertaker] *
Ronald Clarke [brewery driver’s mate] *
Basil Lord [Walter] *
Alternative Titles
After Jenny Died – USA
Behind the Cellar Door – USA
Inn of the Frightened People – USA
Il passo dell’assassino – Italy
Terror From Under the House – USA
Links
See also
Revenge (1971b)
Cast Gallery
Press
1971
Evening Standard 26 August 1971
[A]n ugly thriller that exploits suburban fascism and the fears of parents that their children may be molested or murdered. […] George Brown produces, Sidney Hayers directs; and both rub the moral in with a scene where the landlord’s son (Tom Marshall), who’s been struck impotent by guilt, overcompensates by raping his step-mother (Joan Collins). That’s telling it like it is. – from a review by Alexander Walker
Daily Telegraph 27 August 1971
Sidney Hayers’ film with a screenplay by John Kruse keeps us satisfactorily curious to know what will happen next. A sense of danger, muddle, panic and desperation pervades most of the scenes. And we are not allowed long to forget the victim of a bungled crime, lying all bruised and bloodstrewn in the cellar. It hasn’t been easy, since I saw this laughably lurid thriller, to enter a pub without wondering what’s below and whether the landlord looks uneasy. But it fetches [sic] the formula altogether to far. The twists of plot to sustain the suspense are often clumsy and unconvincing. […] And although James Booth is a likeable actor he seems defeated by the emotional demands of his role as a publican perplexed. – from a review by Eric Shorter
Today’s Cinema no.9935 (27 August 1971) p.4
This is one of those stories that give the impression of having been plotted out of graph paper with the aid of a slide rule, to ensure peaks of friction or action at regular intervals, before a word of dialogue has been written. The characters are stereotypes; and all efforts by the cast to inject more than a modicum of plausibility are defeated by incongruities like Jim’s joviality in the pub on the day of his daughter’s funeral and expendable bits of argy-bargy like the antagonism between his surviving daughter and her step-mother. However the sustained busy-ness of the tale may well be just what the showman ordered to keep the more restless elements in the auditorium attentive. – from a review by Marjorie Bilbow
The Spectator 28 August 1971
The family yowl and fight one another; the father drinks himself stupid; the son has sex with his stepmother and elopes with her, while the father paddles after them; and we quickly decide the small daughter would have been better off strangled at birth. Unusually, in my experience of recent British films, the acting is noticeably poor. Joan Collins and James Booth are unconvincing even on this low level; and the best talent, Sinead Cusack, is thrown away in a minor part. – from a review by Christopher Hudson
The Sunday Express 29 August 1971
[A] shoddy, tawdry drama which reduces a serious subject to the level of a Hammer horror yarn. […] I will not reveal – just in case you are masochistic enough to want to find out for yourself – whether Seely is guilty or not. All I will say is that if Revenge is any indication of the quality of contemporary British filmmaking, we are in pretty poor shape. Sidney Hayer’s direction is so insensitive to mood, nuance and atmosphere that the performances – notably Joan Collins as the publican’s wife – suffer. – from a review by Paul Errol
The Sunday Telegraph 29 August 1971
A substantial drama lies at the heart of Revenge […]: how fairly upright people can be inexorably led on from thought to words to deeds of violence […] But the film makes the mistake of wanting to be a bit of everything: tense, shocking, sexy, funny, old-fashioned, modern and morally correct. The screenplay by John Kruse has a worrying number of risible lines, but the treatment is as polished as you might expect from such businesslike hands as producer George H. Brown|George Brown and director Sidney Hayers. Joan Collins is decoratively in evidence and Kenneth Griffith achieves an authentically chilling moment as the victim. – from a review by Margaret Hinxman
The Sunday Times 29 August 1971
[A]lternately risble and nauseating. – from a review by Dilys Powell
Monthly Film Bulletin no.453 (October 1971)
Peter Rogers owes his fame to the Carry On… series, and his reputation for making people laugh will doubtless be consolidated by this abortive melodrama. Its crude lighting and the high-gloss ugliness of the sets seem a fitting match for the crude psychology of its unappealing characters. […] The grotesque improbability of the relationships (Atreus’ house was no match for this) is further highlighted by the matter-of-fact suburban dialogue, with characters seriously suggesting nice cups of tea as antidotes to every excess of grief, lust and violence, and Joan Collins’ put-upon housewife declaring “I don’t know what’s come over us”, as she eagerly submits to her stepson’s rape. – from a review by Jan Dawson
All text in this section © the relevant copyright holders
References
Periodicals
- Castle of Frankenstein no.24 p.55
- Monthly Film Bulletin no.453 (October 1971) – credits, synopsis, review (by Jan Dawson)
- Today’s Cinema no.9934 (24 August 1971) p.3 – advert
- Today’s Cinema no.9935 (27 August 1971) p.4 – review (by Marjorie Bilbow)
- Today’s Cinema no.9940 (17 September 1971) p.15 – note (General releases)
Newspapers
- Daily Telegraph 27 August 1971 – review (by Eric Shorter)
- Evening Standard 26 August 1971 – review (by Alexander Walker)
- The Spectator 28 August 1971 – review (by Christopher Hudson)
- The Sunday Express 29 August 1971 – review (by Paul Errol)
- The Sunday Telegraph 29 August 1971 – review (by Margaret Hinxman)
- The Sunday Times 29 August 1971 – review (by Dilys Powell)
Books
- 1971: 100 Films from Cinema’s Greatest Year by Robert Sellers pp.290-291 – review
- English Gothic: A Century of Horror Cinema by Jonathan Rigby p.217
- Film Review 1972-73 by F. Maurice Speed (ed) p.230
- Fright Night on Channel 9 by James Arena p.94
- House of Psychotic Women by Kier-La Janisse p.423
- Uneasy Dreams: The Golden Age of British Horror Films, 1956-1976 by Gary A. Smith pp.185-186
