Pit of Darkness

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Pit of Darkness
Pitofdarkness.jpg
Directed by Lance Comfort
Written byLance Comfort
Based onTo Dusty Death
by Hugh McCutcheon
Produced byLance Comfort
Starring William Franklyn
Moira Redmond
Cinematography Basil Emmott
Edited byJohn Trumper
Music by Martin Slavin
Production
company
Distributed by Butcher's Film Service
Release date
  • October 1961 (1961-10)
Running time
80 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

Pit of Darkness is a 1961 British thriller second feature ('B') [1] film, directed and written by Lance Comfort and starring William Franklyn and Moira Redmond. [2] It is based on the 1960 novel To Dusty Death by Hugh McCutcheon.The film is an amnesia thriller dealing with a man's attempts to piece together a sequence of strange events in which he seems to have been involved during the time of which he has no memory,

Contents

Plot

Safe-designer Richard Logan awakens late one evening on a patch of suburban waste ground. He has no idea how he got there. He returns home to wife Julie to apologise for being late from work. He is astonished to learn that he has been missing not for a few hours, but for three weeks. Furthermore, a troubling series of events has occurred during his absence. A supposedly foolproof safe which he installed in a customer's home has been cracked open with apparent ease. Items taken include cash and a world-famous diamond from East Africa. Alarmed by Richard's disappearance, Julie had hired a private detective to find him, but the detective was later found dead. Richard must now find a way to penetrate the amnesia that prevents him from recalling recent events.

After investigating, he becomes aware that he is trailed by a group of mysterious men who patronize a local nightclub called the Blue Baboon, which he and Julie decide to visit one evening. While there, in his confused mental state, Richard is plagued by random and trivial occurrences – a snatch of a popular song or a conversational nuance – which inexplicably strike a chord within him. He experiences mental flashbacks so fleeting they are over as quickly as they begin. These and other events lead him to wonder if he may have been involved in criminal activity with some of the nightclub's regulars. Later, Richard is lured to a cottage in the countryside. He enters and hears the tick-tick-ticking of a bomb about to go off. He runs from the house, a split-second ahead of the shock waves that result from the explosion. It is this episode that appears finally to jolt his memory, and he believes he has discovered what has transpired during the past three weeks.

Cast

Release

The film was paired with What a Whopper for its release in the United Kingdom. [3]

Critical reception

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "Complex, fanciful plot made plausible by effective writing and direction. The pace is brisk, there are some spirited fisticuffs, and there is the personality of William Franklyn – unbeatable in suggesting solid virtues behind a rakish, smooth exterior. Sets, editing, sound, all competent." [4]

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References

  1. ↑ Chibnall, Steve; McFarlane, Brian (2009). The British 'B' Film. London: BFI/Bloomsbury. p. 142. ISBN   978-1-8445-7319-6.
  2. ↑ "Pit of Darkness". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 15 September 2024.
  3. ↑ Billings, Josh (23 November 1961). "Your Films". Kinematograph Weekly . p. 11.
  4. ↑ "Pit of Darkness". The Monthly Film Bulletin . 28 (324): 171. 1 January 1961 – via ProQuest.
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