Endless Night (1972)

A young man (Hywel Bennett) working as a chauffeur has aspirations beyond his status. When he meets and falls in love with a young heiress (Hayley Mills), the future looks bright but when they move into their dream house in the country, a series of mysterious incidents threaten to turn their idyllic life into a nightmare. Based on the best seller by Agatha Christie, this isn't one of Christie's better novels. It's not so much a whodunit as a psychological thriller. The director Sidney Gilliat is mainly a writer (Hitchcock's THE LADY VANISHES) but he's directed a decent film or two (GREEN FOR DANGER). Here, both the screenplay and direction are lackluster though most of that can be traced to the Christie source material. The "twist" is so obvious it can be unraveled long before we get to the end. Even the Bernard Herrmann score sounds like a tired rehash of his more notable scores. With Britt Ekland, George Sanders, Per Oscarsson, Lois Maxwell, Patience Collier and Helen Horton.