Die Screaming, Marianne – 1971 | 99 mins | Drama, Thriller | Colour

Plot Synopsis

Lurid Hitchcockian psychological thriller that staggers along under Peter Walker’s pedestrian direction with numerous plot holes towards a dreary climax. Character actor Leo Genn is far from his civilised and eminently trustworthy self when he plays a morally corrupt individual called The Judge. Barry Evans, who subsequently graduated into British sex movies and later sit-coms, is eminently natural as Eli. It’s left to the pouting waif Susan George to light up the screen with an engaging mixture of charisma and sex appeal. The troubled production was shot in and around Walker’s holiday retreat in the Algarve.

On her twenty first birthday, former dancer Marianne (Susan George) will inherit a £70,000 fortune and some incriminating documents left by her dead mother in a Swiss bank, but her mother’s lover, the corrupt Judge (Leo Genn), and his daughter Hildegarde (Judy Huxtable) make several attempts to get the bank account number from her. She flees from Portugal with Sebastian (Christopher Sandford) after a roadside encounter, he plans to marry the beautiful waif when they arrive back in London, but Marianne has the registrar put the Best Man’s name, Eli Frome (Barry Evans), on the marriage certificate.

Jilted Sebastian returns to Portugal, where the Judge and Hildegarde separately negotiate with him for the return of Marianne. Meanwhile, two hoods posing as policemen lock Eli in a dingy Soho flat as they wait for Marianne. Eli manages to escape but Sebastian soon arrives, and persuades the couple to return with him to Portugal for a summit with the Judge. There then commences a series of murderous cat-and-mouse attempts on those present.