At Occupier's Risk - Episode 3 - Tuesday 19th January 1971

The story...

A young woman called Judith checks into a remote hotel. The hotel is run by a very intense couple called Mr and Mrs Darbon; Judith is the only guest and it’s not clear that she is entirely welcome. Judith has a mechanical problem with her car and Mr Darbon offers to get it fixed but when he returns he says he was involved in an accident and it has been damaged. However it later transpires that the car sustained damage in a more disturbing way and that the Darbons have a dark secret that they wish to keep hidden.

Review

Another very fine episode, just a little below the rank of the series’ best efforts. The Shadows of Fear style of a very small cast and with almost all the scenes set inside the same property is very much to the fore here but the mood is even more gloomy and anxious than in most of its counterparts. Three characters predominate on screen – the Darbons and Judith - and all three are very intense, preoccupied characters. Tragedy seems on the cards and Judith seems to have stepped into very dangerous territory. All three seem troubled in some way and the only character who even raises a smile is the briefly-seen, unnamed hitchhiker. A jack-the-lad type character, he is seen arriving with Judith but it is clear they have had an awkward encounter with her unreceptive to his advances and glad to be rid of him. Later on he turns out to have a more important role than anticipated,  There are typically-fine performances by Anthony Bate, Annette Crosbie and Gemma Jones as the lead characters with Tom Chadbon providing a striking contrast as the cocky hitch-hiker.

Judith (Gemma Jones) surveys her new surroundings

Again the series picks up on anxieties many have encountered such as the uncertainty when picking-up a hitch-hiker (for both parties) but much more significantly on-screen the strangeness and unease that can be felt away from home (with perhaps less obvious the concerns hoteliers may have when opening-up their property to guests they’ve never seen before). The rather spartan and not very welcoming atmosphere of the hotel is also rather different to the glamorous accommodation and cheery staff more often seen in TV and film.

Anthony Bate as Mr Darbon

The script was by Richard Harris who – like many others on the series – was a very versatile writer who had worked in many genres with great skill. This story though does offer a noted departure from many of its counterparts in providing a striking twist near the end. While “the twist” is very common in thrillers (especially Brian Clemens’s Thriller a few years later) it was rarely used in Shadows of Fear which was much more focused on suspense than surprise. The direction by the equally versatile Peter Duguid contributes to the austere and forbidding mood although there is a brief peculiar scene which attempts to depict a character just outside the hotel by a rather primitive special effect but given the theatrical atmosphere of the series it’s less jarring than it would be in other productions. Many episodes of the show had no incidental music but this has a little in the form of plaintive harpsichord pieces and it is suitably sombre.

Shadows of Fear was a show that prioritised atmosphere, mood and character over pace and this is even more prominent here. Maybe it is a little too much to the fore and perhaps the episode needed just a touch more pace, incident or livelier dialogue to raise it to higher levels but these are small points and it stands as a fine outing with even better to follow.

Notes

There are some similarities between this episode and one in 1974 of Brian Clemens’ s Thriller – Come Out, Come Out Wherever You Are. In both a young blonde woman checks into a hotel run by a married couple who have an awkward relationship and secrets to keep. The young female guest also has an uncomfortable relationship with the couple and both episodes feature a striking twist near the end. It’s not known if the Thriller episode was influenced by this and the similarities could simply be coincidence but both are certainly worth a comparison by viewers.