The Orchard End Murder

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The Orchard End Murder
The Orchard End Murder (1981) DVD Cover.jpg
DVD cover
Directed by Christian Marnham
Written byChristian Marnham
Produced byJulian Harvey
Starring
CinematographyPeter Jessop
Edited byPeter Goddard
Music bySam Sklair
Production
company
Marnham & Harvey Productions
Distributed byG.T.O. Films Ltd.
Release date
  • 11 January 1981 (1981-01-11)
Running time
48 minutes
Country England
Language English

The Orchard End Murder (also known as The Bunnyhole Murder) is a 1981 British short thriller film directed and written by Christian Marnham, and starring Tracy Hyde, Bill Wallis, Clive Mantle, and Raymond Adamson. [1] It marked the film debut of Clive Mantle. [2] [3]

Contents

Plot

In Charthurst Green, Kent in 1966, Pauline Cox accompanies her boyfriend Mike Robins to a village cricket match in which he is playing, but becomes bored and wanders away. She fetches up at the local railway halt, where she meets and is entertained to tea by an eccentric railway gatekeeper. She later meets his half-witted assistant Ewen who was seen earlier watching Pauline with Mike and upsets her when he proceeds to kill a rabbit in her presence. Making her way back to the match, Pauline is waylaid by the simple-minded Ewen as she crosses an apple orchard; when his advances become violent, she tries to fight him off while he sexually assaults and strangles her which ultimately leads to her death. That evening, the gatekeeper discovers Ewen with Pauline's body in the shack where he lives, and later helps him bury the corpse in the orchard. The next day, however, Ewen inadvertently betrays himself: the body is disinterred by the police and Ewen breaks down hysterically. Years later, the gatekeeper, who has disavowed Ewen, encourages the friendship of another village youth.

Cast

Release

The film was theatrically released in the United Kingdom on 1 November 1981 as a support to Dead & Buried (1981).

Reception

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "Peter Jessop's carefully textured camerawork initially lends this mini-feature an edge of the picturesquely sinister. But the resolution of the anecdote is rather forced and anti-climactic, and some of the details (like the police searching the orchard at the dead of night) ring distractingly false. All the same, it represents a début of some promise." [4]

Home media

BFI Flipside released a dual format Blu-ray/DVD edition on 24 July 2017.

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References

  1. "The Orchard End Murder". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 14 April 2024.
  2. Group, Gale; Kondek, Joshua; Angela, Yvonne Jones (3 December 1999). Contemporary Theatre, Film and Television. Gale. p. 272. ISBN   978-0-7876-3185-7 . Retrieved 26 March 2013.{{cite book}}: |last1= has generic name (help)
  3. Speed, F. Maurice (1983). Film Review. ISBN   9780491030120 . Retrieved 26 March 2013.
  4. "The Orchard End Murder". The Monthly Film Bulletin . 49 (576): 31. 1 January 1982 via ProQuest.