Time Out called this film "nasty" and,
having seen the premise, I was a little wary of watching it expecting
gratuitous violence and sexual unpleasantness but I was pleasantly surprised
both with the subtlety of the narrative and the overall restrain of Robert
Fuest’s direction. I think this film got labelled as exploitation when it has
more in common with an Agatha Christie whodunnit. There is tension for sure and
the vulnerability of both the female protagonists is amply displayed as they
cycle along in shorts but Fuest is firmly of the school where less specifics
gives more in terms of dramatic tension and atmosphere.
He’s very good at introducing an array of “suspects”
after the fact when the viewer has seemingly made their mind up who the guilty
party might be, one by one, they keep on coming and everyone manages to act
just oddly enough to persuade us that they might be the kidnapper or even
killer… Christie usually starts with a group of people anyone of which may be “the
one” but Fuest reverses this building momentum and suspicion as the film goes.
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| Michele Dotrice |
And Soon the Darkness is a film with a tremendous
sense of place and space as two young nurses, Cathy (Michele Dotrice) and Jane
(Pamela Franklin) cycle along the endless flat roads of rural France on
holiday. Events take place on a single stretch of road between small villages
either side of a small wood and as events travel up and down that road we see
the same signs, buildings as well as policemen, farm workers, and other passers
by who may or may not be involved.
Cathy is the more outgoing of the two and is starting to
get bored of the travelling as they follow a route laid out by Jane which never
seems to get to the point. Cathy makes eyes at a handsome Frenchman at a café,
Paul (Sandor Elès) who from then on appears to be following the girls on his
scooter. A few miles down the road he passes them and then they pass him
standing outside a cemetery… he goes inside and looks at the grave of a young
woman, Jan Hele who died two years earlier.
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| Pamela Franklin |
Further on, girls start to bicker and Cathy persuades
Jane to let them take a rest for some sunbathing at the edge of the wood. After
while she refuses to push on leaving Jane to make her own way towards their
next stop. Jane cycles on leaving Cathy sleeping under the sun listening to her
radio and, frankly, looking a little vulnerable. Jane begins to feel anxious as
she gets further away even as she cycles past a group of policemen outside a
station. She reaches a village to find the rather rude café owner, Madame
Lassal (Hana Maria Pravda) speaking only French and telling her to go away with
a strange concern in her eyes. Her husband Lassal (Claude Bertrand) is even
more brusque…
Meanwhile, back at the sunbathing spot, Jane is getting
spooked and as one misplaced item leads to an unexplained snap of twig, she
finds the spokes of her bike smashed and as the camera hovers over her back you
know what’s coming… but Fuest cleverly shows us nothing.
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| Sandor Elès |
Jane, unnerved, decides cycles back and finds Jane and
her bike gone although her camera is lying discarded on the floor. She hears a
motor and looks hopefully for a policeman but finds only the mysterious man on
the scooter… he gives her a lift back to the previous village, Landron, and
whilst Paul goes back to the woods in search of Cathy, Jane meets an English
woman (Clare Kelly) who teaches at a local school, who fills her in on the source
of local concern, the murder of the young woman in 1968… The teacher takes a
remarkable interest in the younger woman and looks on with concern or, more
likely longing, as she drops her off at the police station. Another suspect
added to the list… along with the strange farm hand (Jean Carmet -Renier) we
keep on seeing in the fields not far from the woods, it’s beginning to seem
like it could be anyone.
Finding the Police station closed, Jane cycles back to
the woods, where Paul says he has found something, he takes her into the dense
undergrowth on his bike and she gets increasingly suspicious of his claims to
be an inspector on leave from Paris…
especially when he unspools a roll of film from Cathy’s camera that may
incriminate him. Jane runs and gets a break when Paul’s scooter won’t
start, she heads straight to the Police Station where she finds another strange
old man, the Gendarme’s father (John Franklyn) who spooks her out before his
son (John Nettleton) arrives back.
Now, depending on your deductive reasoning your guess is
as good as anyone’s as to who, precisely, Jane can trust!
Dusty Verdict: And Soon the Darkness is
strange and compelling but doesn’t step over the mark as it could do. Written
by Brian Clemens and Terry Nation, both of whom worked with Fuest on The
Avengers, not to mention inventing the Daleks in Nation’s case and then the pandemic-precient
Survivors. There’s also an atmospheric score from Avengers theme
composer Laurie Johnson.
The leads perform well, Michele Dotrice is an actor with
solid grounding in theatre and as her recent work shows, she can do pretty much
anything whether it’s a good time girl on a bike or Frank Spencer’s wife. Here
she nails the mood perfectly and is a great foil for the more serious Franklin
to act against. As always, the latter actress is superb at nuanced, conflicted
emotional signalling!
And for all those potential suspects, Sandor Elès leads
the way in giving just enough away to make him, possibly or just maybe the
killer… you’ll have to watch it to find out.
The film has recently been getting play on the
magnificent Talking Pictures and is also available on Blu-ray and DVD, well worth catching.
