kelly77

I just saw this on TCM (as The Road Builder); a middle-aged spinster (Maura) falls in love with a serial killer (Billy) and moves with him to live in a house on the coast. Everything made sense up to that point.

Final sequence - a woman from a nearby farm tells Maura that she can't find her dog (that's the first and last time that woman appears in the movie). Then Maura walks to her house and hears Billy playing a hamonica inside. Then Billy appears outside the house on his motorbike, Maura cries, Billy rides off the cliff Evel Knievel style and dies. The End - WTF?

My only theory is that Maura suddenly realised Billy is a serial killer, so Billy commits suicide out of guilt... but that makes no sense. There was no reason for Maura to suddenly make that assumption; the dog's missing... so he killed it... so he's a serial killer? (There's also a strong possibilty that she knew all along he was a murderer, which would make the ending even more confusing).

DB7

Imho Mrs Dahl knew he was a serial killer and moved to the Highlands to lessen the opportunity for Billy to continue his spree and curb his homicidal tendencies. Billy meanwhile fears his next victim will be his lover and commits suicide.

Steve Crook

That's fairly much how I saw it. The missing dog being the indication that Billy's gone out night-riding again. Although I usually concentrate on Pamela Brown playing the mother. One of the last roles for a great actress.

Steve

DocRobertPepper

Maura knows he has done something bad because he tells her that he has and then she sees that the nurse that visits has gone missing
so she takes out all of her money and dolls herself up and tells him she has done this because she loves him and she doesnt care what he has done
The thing about the dog isnt because he has killed it its the fact that a very pretty women has knocked on his door putting tempation back in his path
she tells Maura that her husband wont be home till late and has probebly told Billy the same
Maura knows what Billy is going to do so blocks his path to the women's house which is just across some fields
Billy then sees that she knows and that she cannot cure him so ends his life

Well that how i see it anyway

a very good British film IMHO

duffy moon

I also saw this on TCM Europe for the second time the other night and I must admit I liked it a little more than the first time. Terrible print though, very pale and worn.
I agree, Pamela Brown is excelent, looking strangely like a cross between Denholm Elliot & Dennis Price, she just adds a lot gravitas and tension to this film, which is quite slow and methodical, which is probably why didn't enjoy it so much first time around having seen it billed as a horror film, expectations of other things an all that...
That's quite a good reading of the end pepper, I had started to nod off towards the end 10 mins or so, so that pretty much covers base.
I didn't realise Patricia Kneale was Mrs Dahl. That must have been a long drive all the way up to the highlands on the back of that chopper, what with her dodgy leg n'all!

Steve Crook

Not only that Patricia Neal (no 'K', no 'e' at the end) was Mrs Dahl, but that she had a debilitating stroke in the mid-1960s which was chronicled in the film, The Patricia Neal Story (1981), starring Glenda Jackson.

The Night Digger was only Patricia's 2nd film after her return to work and she was still suffering the effects of the stroke a bit. So Roald worked it into the story

Steve

DocRobertPepper

Did you notice Thelma (Brigit Forsyth) as the district nurse
a nasty nudie bit
what on earth would Bob (Rodney Bewes) say

duffy moon

An quite a fine pair of norkins they were too! '

Terry, Terry, did you see that Terry?' '
Aye kidder, smashin they were. Cut above like.'

DocRobertPepper

Love the uniform too

duffy moon

I can feel a thread coming on.. least expected cases of actress remembered for other, having 'got them out' in a film where you wouldn't have expected them to have been 'gotten out', as it were.

Perhaps not on second thoughts...