The Night Digger

Patricia Neal+Bernard Herrmann + Neal's husband Dahl.Plus Pamela Brown and Nicholas Clay.It does make a decent film,it does not make the classic thriller we could have expected .

Neala nd her mother ("you could have got married when you were YOUNG" said Clay to an infuriated Neal).A spinster who lives with her over possessive mother ,Neal's character recalls Nell's past in Shirley Jackson's "the haunting" (masterfully transferred to the screen by Robert Wise,then butchered some years ago).A good thing in the last minutes :the director does not show ,he lets us imagine what terrible thing happened .Today such a quality has become rare.

But if you have read Dahl's wonderful short stories ,you may be disappointed by his script,including pointless characters such as the minister and his wife who want to become a woman and a man respectively. Besides the two women's story and Nicholas Clay's do not hang very well.

Many people will say that this film was a botch up job of Joy Cowley's novel, but they would be wrong.

While I have to admit that the type of filming they used in the 70's is not among my favourite, it worked well for this film because it gave you insight into how each character saw things.

Patricia Niel was perfect as the spinster who was stuck caring for her blind and horrid adoptive mother, and who slowly but surely becomes sexually aware of the young drifter, played by Nicholas Clay.

Some parts of the film are vaguely confusing, but one comes to grasp them after rolling the idea around in ones mind for a while.

This film was very well done for an era that produced some awful movies that completely butchered famous books, and used skin instead of actual acting to portray a film.

The Night Digger aka Road Runner is a very watchable film, that sneaks up on you rather than attacks you head on like some psychological thrillers do.

Roald Dahl has always been a good story-teller, and this movie, for which he wrote the screenplay, is no exception. It's a macabre love story with a somewhat unexpected ending. Very good acting and story-telling. I recommend this film for all Roald Dahl fans. 7/10.

I have seen this film last week on TV. I am glad that the there are English subtitles so that I can clearly enjoy the dialogue. Only it is pity that the English subtitles from TCM are kind of closed captions that cannot be taken for recording.

Different than the comment of another Dutch viewer from 2006, I find this film a rather nice good movie. The maker has put quite some different (thrilling, creeping, emotional, romantic) components to the movie, but not into deep touch by purpose. If one is specially looking for or fond of a particular type of movie from one of these components, one may not feel satisfied enough. However I am glad that the maker had made it in this way that the movie content becomes "rich" in a special way. It makes the film as a whole quiet thrilling, creeping, emotional and even bit romantic too. It is not boring at all, I enjoy every moment of the movie. Making a film to a particular type/direction of course is a heavy job but to combine different type of components in a fine way is not easy too.

The film is quite moving that I have only realized at the end that it is already a film of 110 minutes. It is not boring at all, I have enjoyed every moment of the movie. Yes, this is not a film made for award nomination, but both the director and the leading actors have done a pretty good job. If you watch the film carefully you will realize that the film is quite fine made. From their fine work, you can see and feel the style of the early 70's British films. It is a small budget production, but still leaves some compelling moonshine. I simply like this movie.

The ending indeed is quite a critical way. I have never read the novel. I don't know whether the end is the same as the movie. I wonder if the director has extended and refined the ending for about 10 minutes more, will the ending be then a bit better than a shortcut? On the other hand, I have the feeling that it seems that the director has deliberately made the ending in this stunning way that it now leaves us crossing feelings and questions that makes the movie still time to time staying on our mind.

It may not be a top A-film, but it is a little gem which absolutely is worthing to see.

I give it 7.75 out of 10.

Another one of those great forgotten movies of the 1970s. I caught this on late night TV about 20 years ago and have never forgotten it.

It was about a young man named Billy (Nicholas Clay) helping out Maura Prince (Patricia Neal) and her elderly mother (Pamela Brown) in their crumbling old house in England. Neal starts to fall for him (despite their age difference)...but she's not aware of what he does when he goes out alone every night...

Spooky little horror film. When I first saw it it was edited for TV so there were some unexplained pieces (like a bit about something that happened to him as a child which explains what he does as an adult) and, I assumed the violence was gone. I was finally able to see the entire uncut film and loved it! It wasn't a blood and guts horror movie--it's an excellent psychological horror. In fact the two violent acts in it aren't even shown! It concentrates on Billy and Maura and their feelings and thoughts. Clay and Neal are such great actors that just their expressions tell you what they're feeling. The growing romance between them was touching and believable. Also there's an excellent score and the ending was a stunner! This film has an R rating for some dialogue and a lengthy nude sequence with Clay. Well worth catching just for Clay and Neal.

This movie is available on DVD through the made to order system with the Warner Brothers Archive Collection. It's complete and the transfer is pristine. Well worth getting. It might disturb you but you'll never forget it. Avoid the cut version on TCM.