The Lesser of Two - Episode 7, Tuesday 16th February 1971

The story... 

A man called Harry climbs through the window into a flat. However Harry is no typical intruder because the flat is his home – or was his home. Harry has just been released from prison after serving a nine-year sentence for killing a child – a crime of which he proclaims his innocence. Harry wants to return to family life but his wife Margaret definitely does not want him back. She and their adult son Terry have tried to rebuild their lives after Harry’s conviction and now she fears his return will bring them crashing back down.

Margaret urges him to go as soon as possible before Terry and the neighbours see him. However that plan is to no avail as her friend Betty does see him and soon word is round the community. Margaret’s unhappiness at Harry’s return is mild compared to Terry who is seething when he hears the news – he particularly resents his father and blames him for his lack of progress in life. The neighbourhood shares Terry’s hostility and soon there is a campaign to get Harry out and - while they try peaceful means - a brick through the window shows that violence is on the agenda as well. Harry needs to get out quickly before they go much further…

Terry and his mother at odds after his father's unexpected and unwelcome return home

Review

Shadows of Fear was not a typical “thriller” or suspense series and nowhere is this more evident than in this story. The series tried to generate suspense out of everyday situations in more realistic scenarios than usually found in the genre. The subject matter here of a man returning from prison and trying to restart his family life and return to the community – especially after being convicted of a very serious crime – could easily be the subject of a “Play for Today”, “Armchair Theatre” or some other socially realistic “kitchen-sink” drama and the episode certainly does consider those issues. Maybe this is why it has left some viewers who prefer more “traditional” thrillers underwhelmed. However there certainly is considerable menace, fear and suspense here and throughout a feeling that something terrible is going to happen – the only questions seem to be “how” and “when”. For me it is an episode that works supremely well as a thriller built around a social issue.

Harry is a convicted killer but the nature of the crime for which he was convicted is only briefly mentioned. He insists his innocence but is he telling the truth? There are plenty of genuinely guilty people who falsely protest their innocence and the bigger their crime the harder it is for them to ever admit doing it. However the justice system is not perfect and genuinely innocent individuals are sometimes wrongly convicted, finding their justified claims of innocence ignored. In this case we never know whether he committed the crime or not. Harry seems a genuine, heartfelt man who just wants a fresh start but that doesn’t mean he was innocent of the crime. He has served his sentence and is legally entitled to start again but - as he finds - that is easier said than done. The court of public opinion can be a very harsh, unforgiving one. Harry may have served nine years in prison but that is likely to be a life sentence is terms of public condemnation.

Harry checks the broken window but worse is to follow

One can understand the predicament of Harry’s dispirited wife Margaret and why she wants him out of her life. The family of a convicted criminal – especially someone convicted of a terrible, notorious crime – often find themselves considered guilty by association. While Harry was in prison there was a chance of her getting some sort of acceptance and normality but now it seems shattered. It’s never clear whether she believes her husband’s claims of innocence. If she thinks him guilty one can understand her determination not to have him back. However even if she thinks him innocent - or at least a genuinely changed man - she feels she can never have a normal life while he is with them. The same is true of their son Terry but his attitude is deeply hostile rather than crestfallen like his mother. He feels his mother will lack the resilience to make Harry leave but maybe the wider community will play its hand and get rid of him.

We see the court of public opinion most definitely move into action as the episode progresses. Margaret’s friend Betty cuts her off and she is one of many – as long as Harry is around Margaret is also condemned. Some of those rejecting her and joining the protests may themselves be in fear that they too will be condemned if they don’t conform. All this helps to bring about a change in Margaret’s attitude and she quietly rallies behind her beleaguered husband, feeling that he is being persecuted. However all this may be too late as danger moves even closer.

The final stages are powerful, poignant and ultimately moving. At the end a mournful flute piece plays and then segues into the end titles which unusually mix credits with apparently random pictures of members of the public – perhaps the sort of apparently ordinary people who might have joined the campaign against Harry. As the music fades away these images are accompanied by mumbling voices, the sounds of a siren and what seems like a prison door repeatedly slamming. These are novel and very memorable titles superbly rounding off a brutal conclusion.

For me this is an exceptional episode which lasts long in the memory. It is excellently written, directed and performed with very fine performances by Godfrey Quigley as Harry and Margery Mason as Margaret while Geoffrey Hughes brings a brooding intensity to the role of Terry. It may not be the easiest watch for some viewers and may be something that needs to be revisited to really appreciate it but it certainly does provoke the mind and show how well suspense can be generated out of such a story. 

Notes

This was the only one of the full-length Shadows of Fear episodes to be first broadcast in a late slot after News at Ten - a documentary about the River Thames occupied its standard 9.00-10,00 pm slot. It's not certain why this occurred - it's possible the documentary was always planned for that slot - but it seems likeliest that this was considered a more sensitive episode due to the references to Harry having been in prison for killing a child, even though the story doesn't focus on that event. This may also explain why John Kershaw was billed under the pseudonym "Hugh D'Allenger" (actually his other first names) although there might be some other explanation.

TV Times listing showing the later broadcast time

Actress Margery Mason died in 2014 at the remarkable age of one hundred, the longest-lived performer in the series. Elizabeth Sellars who featured in Repent at Leisure almost matched that feat, dying at the age of ninety-eight in 2019.

Margaret speaks to a policeman at the door who is heard but not seen - he is not credited.

Return of Favours - Episode 6 (Tuesday 9th February 1971)

The story...

Young couple Roger and Judith have been enjoying passionate meetings in a smart flat. Not in itself unusual except that the flat belongs to Judith’s friend Maureen who lets them use it for that purpose. One day the couple are shocked to discover a middle-aged man in the flat – and he is shocked to see them also. The man – Gordon Marsh – is actually Maureen’s husband but she hadn’t told him about this unusual use of the flat, perhaps because their marriage is on bad terms.

Although he is annoyed at his discovery Gordon not only lets them stay but offers them tea and cake. However they find his behaviour unnerving rather than conciliatory. Oddly he has a bandaged hand which he explains rather unconvincingly as the result of scalding himself on the kettle. A room in the flat is locked which Gordon claims is due to it being redecorated. Although Roger is a painter and decorator and asks to see the room Gordon refuses to do so and seems very evasive.

Afterwards Judith tells Roger she is worried about Maureen’s welfare as she hasn’t been seen for a while. Judith fears the room is locked because Gordon has killed his wife and the body is in there but how can they find out? Is Gordon just a man who has been toying with a couple he thinks have taken liberties or is he actually dangerous? Roger’s painting and decorating book will take on an unexpected significance…

Gordon (George Cole) with his mysterious bandaged hand

Review

Another excellent episode, this time written by Jeremy Paul with Kim Mills again directing (he directed six of the last seven episodes as well as the opener). The honours very much go here to George Cole as Gordon. Although he is now best-known as a comic actor this was a period in his career in which he tended to do “straight” roles and he excels here as the disconcerting, even sinister Gordon. Gordon’s annoyance at the use of his flat is understandable, especially given that he hadn’t been told, but it is clear he has deeper reasons than this for his reactions. Jealousy seems to be playing a part. His marriage to Maureen is failing and he can see Roger and Judith enjoying a relationship that is now very distant from him. It seems he feels an attraction towards Judith and a consequent antipathy towards Roger (who he discovers is also married which intensifies the dislike). However for all these feelings he seems to be toying with them rather than telling them to leave as many others would do. What is his purpose? An excellently drawn and performed character.

Robin Ellis and Jennie Linden play the part of the nubile and confident (or maybe over-confident) young couple very well. In a pattern not unfamiliar within the genre it is Judith who particularly picks up on something being very wrong while Roger plays the role of sceptic and tries to allay her fears. There is a small but important part for ubiquitous series guest star Caroline Blakiston as Gordon’s disaffected wife Maureen. There are some surprises which lead up to a provocative and memorable ending. Overall another very satisfying instalment of the show which again demonstrated that less is often more and that a very small cast, few sets and no music can still make for a fascinating production.

Anxious times for Judith (Jennie Linden)

Notes

The following year Jennie Linden and Robin Ellis appeared as a former couple in "Night of the Stag", an episode of the London Weekend Television series The Frighteners, a show which explored some similar themes to Shadows of Fear but was shot on 16mm film and all on location in comparison to the latter's studio-bound, videotaped and more theatrical style.

Repent at Leisure - Episode 5 (Tuesday 2nd February 1971)

The story...

Isabel – a wealthy, glamorous, middle-aged widow – is on a cruise to the Caribbean and strikes up a romantic relationship with Harry, a ship steward. They marry soon after returning home but their relationship soon runs into difficulties because of their very different backgrounds and outlooks on life. Isabel notes his warm relationship with an apparently single woman called Jenny and is particularly worried when she finds a picture of them kissing at an event. However what Harry hasn’t told her is that Jenny is actually his sister and she is married to a Jamaican man, a fact not revealed because they fear isabel will be prejudiced.

Isabel has deeper worries about Harry. She wonders about whether he has simply married her for her money, concerns that her businessman brother Peter helps to fuel. She is angry when Harry takes sleeping pills from her medicine cabinet and tells her he has flushed them away because she doesn’t need them. However she then searches Harry’s suitcase and finds pills there. He doesn’t need them and she becomes scared that he is planning to kill her, either by poison or some other means…

Isabel and Harry in happier times on the Caribbean cruise

Review

Another very fine story. Once again it shows how the series could take a story about tensions in a relationship and infuse it with suspense and fear, although the suspense here is more in terms of trepidation about what will happen rather than generated by tropes such as sinister characters, darkness and gloom, threats, creaking doors, odd noises and spooky music (all which occurred to some degree in the other stories). The characters and places on show are all essentially “normal” but normal people have their weaknesses, flaws, insecurities - and temptations – which can lead them to fear or exploit each other. Even an apparently normal, safe – even luxurious - place can be a place of fear in the wrong circumstances. Indeed it is Isabel's wealth and affluent lifestyle which causes her to distrust her husband. Harry and Isabel are a newly married couple who are free of money worries, have a lovely home and are free of responsibilities – and yet they still end up not just frustrated and unhappy but heading for danger. Fear can emerge from any environment when circumstances conspire towards it.

The core story by Roger Marshall could have been good material for a play in a very different genre or series. The class tensions and suspicions that develop between the couple are very well delineated but it also raises broader issues. The couple met on holiday but making such a relationship work when back to everyday life can be a different matter. Couplings where the partners are from very different backgrounds are at particular risk of conflict and distrust. The wealthier or more advantaged person can suspect the motives of their partner while the latter can resent such suspicions and wonder exactly why they have been sought out. As the story shows it’s not just the couple who help to make a relationship succeed or fail but also their families and friends. Isabel and Harry have very different social circles. Peter helps to unsettle Isabel about her new husband while Harry’s embarrassment about his sister leads him into deceiving his wife.

Isabel feels that Harry hasn’t really left the ship and sea-life behind. She tires of him talking about it and there is a telling little scene when she shows unease when noticing the tattoo on his arm – tattoos in those days were much less common and with much more of a deviant image than now. She and Peter wonder if Harry is just content to take things easy and live off her wealth. They would like him to get a job but, as Harry states, the only things he is qualified to do are things they would consider to be too lowly. Jenny perceptively realises that they are right that Harry needs a job but chiefly because it would mean he and Isabel wouldn’t be spending so much time together, needling each other. Many couples (or indeed friends) will have experienced how familiarity can breed contempt and sometimes it’s better to ration time together to keep the relationship fresh.

However Isabel perceives something much worse than a clash of cultures or boredom setting in from Harry. She starts to fear for her life. As she becomes increasingly scared simple acts take on a sinister meaning. Is this paranoia or is Harry really out to kill her? It isn’t unknown for husbands or wives to kill their spouse for money – or even sometimes just out of boredom or malice. All this leads up to a harrowing and moving climax and some striking end titles.

Isabel's suspicions of Harry grow while he becomes increasing frustrated by her treatment of him

The cast is typically small with only four characters with Isabel and Harry the central figures on screen. George Sewell and Elizabeth Sellars give excellent performances in these roles and are very well supported by Alethea Charlton and Peter Cellier as Jenny and Peter. The episode isn’t as (literally) dark and suspenseful as many of its counterparts but the mood of foreboding is still present throughout. Kim Mills had directed many episodes by Roger Marshall as well as being the central director on this series and he does a typically good job, particularly in the deeply unsettling final few minutes. Music is sparingly heard but a Ravel piece is used and plays over the poignant end titles. It’s testimony to the strength of Shadows of Fear that such a strong story is topped by many others in the series.   

Notes

The piece of classical music briefly heard in the episode and which then plays over the end titles is "Lever Du Jour" from the start of the third part of Maurice Ravel's ballet Daphnis et Chloe.

George Sewell played another man (again called Harry!) in a relationship with an older, wealthy woman in an episode of Public Eye called Come into the Garden, Rose and which aired only a few months after this one (although it was produced before Repent at Leisure was broadcast). Although both were Thames shows, writers and directors on the two episodes were different and the Public Eye story generally has a lighter tone. George was a prolific actor and the story similarities are probably coincidence although it's possible him playing such a part in Shadows of Fear encouraged his casting in the later episode.

Peter Cellier and Alethea Charlton both appeared in unquestionably sinister roles in one of the first Thriller episodes - Someone at the Top of the Stairs.

The Death Watcher - Episode 4 (Tuesday 26th January 1971)

The story...

Scientist Pickering is conducting experiments to test his belief that it is possible for there to be communication between the dead and the living. Another researcher - Emmy Erikson - rejects such paranormal ideas but she has accepted an invitation from him to discuss them; her husband thinks this isn't a good idea but she goes ahead anyway.

They meet on a train and Pickering takes her to a remote large house where he conducts his experiments. After some initial discussions she feels their perspectives are too far removed and decides to leave but she is told it isn't possible, Pickering at first claiming that transport is unavailable but later insisting she must stay "in the interests of science". She finds that her bedroom is locked at night, the windows are barred and she  is prevented from leaving by his aide Dawson. She is prevented from contacting her family, Pickering sending them a fabricated message that she is at a conference abroad. Emmy becomes increasingly distressed but to no avail - visitors to the house are told it is a nursing home and that she is mentally ill with delusions that she is being held prisoner 

Pickering tells her that for there to be communication by the dead the deceased person must have died a violent death and must have a trained, scientific mind. At first Emmy thinks this means he is contemplating suicide to test his theory but then she realises he has a different person in mind...

Pickering has a special purpose for this giant image of his face

Review

One of the best-known and most acclaimed episodes of Shadows of Fear, this is certainly a superb offering. it is also one of the closest to mainstream thriller and horror tales, even down to it being the only one in the series with a typical genre title whereas the show generally had more oblique, enigmatic episode names. A "mad" (or at least deluded or amoral scientist) treating unwitting or unwilling human beings as disposable research subjects has long been a staple of the genre. It is also the only episode with a supernatural theme although it appears Pickering's ideas are nonsense - or are they?

Given that this is Shadows of Fear though rather than a more conventional thriller / horror production this take a more subdued, pared-down and generally less dramatic approach. There is no macabre violence, frequent attacks or high body-count. The emphasis is very much on psychological suspense and fear. At first there is mystery about Pickering - he seems a crank who will ultimately prove harmless. Later though it becomes evident that he is in fact dangerous. What though makes him such a magnetic figure on-screen is his genuine charm and geniality. He is unfailingly polite but his ideas are no less threatening behind that appearance. His aide Dawson is a more subdued figure - and one who can use force if required - but he also is exceptionally polite and considerate towards Emmy and seems genuinely concerned for her welfare. It is clear that he believes that she is ill and that they are helping her by preventing her leaving while Pickering engages in his "treatment".

Emmy is in effect a prisoner, a hostage, although Pickering and Dawson try to insist that she is not. Pickering is able to convince others that she is mentally disturbed and it does show how it is a possible to successfully label a perfectly sane person in that way if those doing the labelling seem sufficiently expert and "respectable", especially when it occurs in an apparent medical institution. It is striking to see the way that her pleas for help are ignored without demur by visitors and passers-by. It becomes clear that she is not the only "patient" who has stayed at the home as Pickering has previously tested out his ideas.

Pickering and Emmy are the dominant characters on-screen. Both are superbly written by Jacques Gillies and exceptionally performed by John Neville and Judy Parfitt but the splendid support by Victor Maddern as the thoughtful and considerate Dawson should not be overlooked. Comments from Emmy's husband to her at the start of the episode are skilfully "flashed-back" into later scenes. This is also the only episode to feature any location footage including Pickering and Emmy arriving at the house and - more extensively - Dawson taking a bus journey out into the Suffolk countryside later on. Peter Duguid had directed the preceding episode - At Occupier's Risk - and again does a fine job again here. The use of some genuine outdoor scenes works well and contrasts with those in the home which is in effect Emmy's prison.

The climax is a great one but it is the chilling, final scene that is is one of the very best and lives long in the memory. Even the closing titles are distinctively-done with unnerving images of the three central characters rounding-off a tremendous episode.   

Emmy Erikson (Judy Parfitt)