One of my all time favorites.

It is a performances centric movie

it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

An American heiress called Ellie Thomsen (Hayley Mills) marries a restless, mysterious chauffeur called Michael Rodgers (Hywel Bennett) and they move into their dream house, Gipsys Acre, on the south coast of England. However, the dream soon turns sour when a rather sinister and eccentric elderly woman called Miss Townsend (Patience Collier), who claims to be a descendent of the family who perished in a fire that destroyed the house that once stood on the same site, warns them that their home will bring them nothing but misfortune. Dismissing her as a crank they take no notice and go on about living their lives. But, things start going wrong when Ellie's beloved companion Greta (Britt Ekland) moves in. Michael becomes jealous that his wife spends more time with her than she does him. There are also Ellie's sponging relatives to contend with, Aunt Cora (Lois Maxwell) and her husband Reuben (Peter Bowels) as well since, although they live fifteen miles away, they spend a lot of time around Gipsys Acre. Then tragedy strikes when Ellie is killed whilst out horse riding. It appears that the horse was frightened by something; perhaps by the apparition of the creepy Miss Townsend, and threw her off causing her neck to be broken. The inquest returns a verdict of death by misadventure, but the distraught Michael isn't satisfied. After accompanying Ellie's solicitor Lippincott (George Sanders) to America to settle his wife's affairs, Michael returns to Gipsys Acre to find Greta still living there. Did they really despise one another as much as they appeared to and does the house have more sinister surprises in store for them?Based on one of Agatha Christie's darker and scarier murder mystery novels, this British psychological thriller suffers from a build up that is too slow and rather tedious. But, as soon as it gets into its stride, it delivers a killer twist that takes the audience completely by surprise, and if you can live with the sluggish first half, it is well worth taking the trouble to stick with it. As you watch it, and this is part of the fun, you will wonder whether the story is going to go for an out and out supernatural explanation or a more rational and earthly one. Anyhow, the genuinely shocking climax will leave you asking yourself if the perpetrator of the crime was of sound mind or did Gipsys Acre really possess some sinister ghostly power. After all there are stranger things in life and on earth that we mortals cannot understand.Performances are generally good all round. Hayley Mills is convincingly lovely and vulnerable as the good natured but rather naive Ellie; whom we can see is loaded with money and everyone around her is just trying to take advantage of her. Lois Maxwell and Peter Bowels are noteworthy as her out for what they can get relations and Britt Ekland is stand out as Greta. She offers a finely judged performance combining an air of mystery with her fondness of Ellie (or is she as devoted to her as much as she appears to be?) and her love of life. Hywel Bennett was also better than I expected him to be as the restless and somewhat unscrupulous chauffer Michael who cleverly hides a more sinister side to his personality that isn't easily detectable.Bernard Herrmann's music score sounds as if it was cobbled together from his various assignments for Alfred Hitchcock and it seemed to me if the producer-director team of Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat were having a go at outdoing the old master of suspense at his own game. They don't quite succeed, of course, but they do manage to stage some fairly scary sequences and some good suspense it has to be said.

This is a special case in Agatha Christie's canon .She reportedly wrote it in six weeks and ,coming back to "Roger Acroyd" style ,told her story in the first person by chauffeur Mike ;this is one of her most depressing books ,and the last line is unforgettable,echoing Blake's poem which is mentioned as a foreword.A character ,Ellie's friend Claudia,is ruled out.The detective plot is not unlike that of "death on the Nile",without the exoticism,but with more emotion.The writer also found inspiration in some of her old own short stories "the dream house" (1926) and mainly "the case of the caretaker" (1942 )in which the curse of an old shrew (the character of the movie resembles Christie's depiction) is included.Gilliat worked with Hitchcock as a screenwriter and it shows,not only because Herrmann wrote the score;the pictures of the seaside and the magnificent Gypsy's Acres landscape recall some early scenes in "Vertigo" .So does Mickael's museum visit.There are good ideas in the directing :the "four seasons " dream house ,very modern ,in which Ellie sings her baroque aria ;the death of the architect in the hospital;the characters on the painting,coming to life for the final trial ;it seems that -Hitchcock's influence again- the director wanted an ending à la "psycho" .The stars of "the family way" are here again:Mills and Bennett ; the cast also includes Lois Maxwell (everybody knows as Moneypenny) and George Sanders in his last part.Remade as a MTV work in which Miss Marple -who solved "the case of the caretaker" I mention above -appears .Christie reportedly did not like the hot sex scene.

SPOILERS!!! I recommend watching this movie BEFORE reading spoilers or the book, due to unexpected twists & surprise events.The story and plot were quite exceptional which caught me completely by surprise, twice. There is a haunting quality to this story. An unusual role for Hayley Mills which draws you in, despite the negatives.The Director did not do justice to this story. Hayley Mills, playing the role of a young, wealthy "American" girl in Britain (with her British accent) was absurd. A simple change of lines in the script would have fixed the problem by altering nationality and her point of origin without negatively impacting the film.I adore Hayley Mills so it was quite an unexpected shock when she suddenly met with her demise in the film. Hayley was indeed anorexic but this was the "Twiggy" era where "thin was in." However, wardrobe shouldn't have selected open-chest dresses where her ribs were so prominent.The "Dream house" was oddly inappropriate for the setting and the feel of the film. It was like one of those "ultra modern" Frank Lloyd Wright designs. This big, white, modern art house was a blotch against the backdrop of the quaint, beautiful English country setting. Even with the fun and exorbitant features of automated walls, floors, hidden pools… the house (for this setting) was gaudy and tastelessly offensive to most of the viewers.The continuity was hard to follow. It jumps around between flashback narration, different time-lines, visual hallucinations, audio hallucinations, dream states, things that made no sense and various events and scenes where you have trouble following which part goes with what scenario. The ending of the movie seemed to be cut off in mid sentence and left unfinished. You definitely have to watch it more than once to track the nuances of this storyline.Hywell (Michael) was quite complex in this role. The behavior of his character seemed to run hot and cold for no apparent reason. Thus, his character was quite puzzling until the very end of the movie when the sinister secrets of his past deeds were revealed. It was certainly a shock to learn what his character had done to his new wife and his dark affiliation with their houseguest.The nude scenes with Ekland were completely unnecessary. They cheapened an otherwise classy suspense story. It seemed rude and disrespectful in a Hayley Mills movie. I don't blame Agatha for her reaction. It was a trashy thing for the director to do and didn't fit with the film any more than the gaudy house. Agatha should have retained more control over the movie adaptation.The film editor did a terrible cutting job as the scenes jumped suddenly from one event to the other without transition. The worst case was when the glass door was shattered and the scene instantly cut from the shattering glass to a neighbor on the edge of the porch attacking the new owner. As it was cut, the neighbor was directly outside when the glass was shattered so he would have seen or heard what smashed the glass. His reactions made no sense. There needed to be some kind of transition of time, events and occurrence to separate the flow of the scenes.Santonix, the dying architect character had terrible dialogue written for his lines, which were confusing to say the least. Most of his lines made no sense, even after watching the film more than once. Lines such as: "You should have gone the other way" "You let her take possession" "Have you any idea where you are going" and "I can't reach you" were in drastic need of improvement. They didn't make sense and were crammed together without context or flow. It also implies his character knew about the fiendish murder plot and did nothing to stop it... other than his few odd lines of dialogue. The actor genuinely appeared sickly in real life. I was surprised to find he is 83 years old.Dubbing the singing voice for Hayley was a terrible choice. The singers voice was too mature for the very young Hayley and did not come close to matching her distinctive voice. They could have had the singing in the background of the film without depicting Hayley as the singer. It is very disturbing hearing this heavy voice coming out of Hayley.It was sad to learn George Sanders killed himself 5 months before this movie was released. He was quite excellent in his role, as usual. It is a shame he didn't appreciate the talent and popularity he had. It was reported that the costly effects of a minor stroke had affected his speech, stamina and certain abilities like playing the piano. Some of the effects were said to have been noticeable in his final film, Psychomania. The stroke effects, depression, drinking and loss of properties were mentioned as reasons for his final decision.I was also surprised to learn this movie had not been released in the US. It explains why I had never heard about this Hayley Mills movie. Apparently, it received a poor response in the UK. I'm not surprised. Hayley was a Disney star and a household name. I doubt the audience was ready to see her character murdered in a dark role like this and likely would not have been received well. Most problems were due to the director, dialogue and editing... Certainly no fault of the actors or Agatha's story which were all excellent.It is still a great story with a marvelous cast and well worth watching... more than once. It is a surprising storyline with unexpected twists and turns.

Well, this definitely wasn't what I initially expected, but nonetheless "Endless Night" is a respectable and slow-brooding mystery thriller from the pen of the legendary Agatha Christie. This is actually one of those films of which the impact mainly comes afterwards, when the subject matter had its time to sink in. It probably won't ever become one of my personal favorite thrillers because the pacing is too slow, the screenplay is overly talkative and there aren't any memorable shock sequences, but you have got to admire director Sidney Gilliat's skills of suspense-building and generating an ominous atmosphere. I primarily wanted to watch "Endless Night" because it reunites the two lead players of the marvelous British shock-picture "Twisted Nerve" (Hywel Bennett and the indescribably ravishing Hayley Mills) and then additionally features no less than Britt Ekland ("The Wicker Man") and George Sanders ("Village of the Damned"). Great British cast, to say the least.Michael Rogers is a poor chauffeur with great ambitions and nearly unrealizable dreams. The building of his dream house on a fantastic piece of landscape suddenly becomes possible when he starts dating the sixth richest girl in the world … without even being aware of it! Obviously Ellie's family and financial counselors heavily protest against her relationship with the undoubtedly greedy young lad, but the couple conquers all relationship tests and stick together. Still, once they are settled on their dreamy hillside, mysterious events begin to occur. Ellie receives visits from an uncanny and crazy cat-lady (who very well may have been the inspiration for the character in "The Simpsons" with the same name) and offers shelter to her childhood nanny Greta even though she clearly doesn't get along with Michael. For a very long time – approximately two thirds of the whole film – you will wonder where Agatha Christie is going with the plot. "Endless Night" only turns into a mystery thriller during the last fifteen minutes. All the foregoing is actually just relationship drama and moody psychological studies. The remotely infamous twist near the end is indeed quasi unpredictable, but also highly implausible in my humble opinion. Obviously I can't write too much without revealing essential key information, but if a man is put to the choice between a beautiful rich girl and a beautiful poor girl … it isn't such a tough decision.