The Victim

This relatively obscure "ABC movie of the Week" perhaps doesn't have the most groundbreaking or innovative plot ever penned down, and neither does it feature the most technologically advanced special effects, but Herschel Daugherty's "The Victim" does guarantee one majorly important thing, and that is good old-fashioned nail-biting suspense pretty much from the beginning until the very end! If I browse around and read the other user comments for this little gem, it seems as if many people originally saw the film on television when they were young, during its premiere in 1972 and still vividly remember how they were petrified. I can definitely relate to that, as "The Victim" features all the right ingredients to induce fear and disturbance: raging thunderstorms, power failures, cut off phone lines, unidentified footsteps upstairs, distressed damsels in remote countryside mansions, creepy old housekeepers and brief glimpses of dead bodies hidden in the basement! At home, in her luxurious apartment in San Francisco, Kate is terribly worried about her sister Susan. She lives far off in the country and announced that she was going to divorce her husband Ben. When she can't reach Susan on the phone, Kate decides to drive to her house even though there's a storm raging through the area. When she arrives at the house, Susan is missing and not even the nosy neighbor/housekeeper Mrs. Hawkes knows where she is. Now, the viewer already knows that Susan lies dead in the basement and that Kate is in great danger because her killer is still in the house. The storyline is thin and the climax is predictable, but that doesn't matter all that much because the atmosphere is non-stop unsettling and the acting performances are great. "The Victim" is basically a one-woman-show, with a stellar role for Elizabeth Montgomery in the lead. She's simultaneously strong and vulnerable, and her performance here is definitely on par with the terrific "The Legend of Lizzie Borden". There are also interesting supportive roles for the naturally creepy Eileen Heckart and Sue Ann Langdon (even though the latter only has two sequences and only has to talk into a phone).

After learning that her sister Susan is contemplating divorce, Kate decides to travel to the distraught woman's remote country home and spend some time with her. When Kate arrives, however, Susan is nowhere in sight. That's because someone has murdered her and stuffed the body in a trunk in the basement. As a storm rages outside, Kate tries to figure out where her sister could have gone and places her own life in great danger...the killer is still on the premises! In her first post-BEWITCHED vehicle, Elizabeth Montgomery gives a solid dramatic performance. Merwin Gerard's teleplay is based on a short story by McKnight Malmar. Malmar's tale was first brought to television in 1962 as an episode of Boris Karloff's THRILLER anthology series. THRILLER stuck very closely to the story, which is kind of a pity, for it could have used a little punching up. Granted Malmar wrote a moderately creepy number, but Gerard (creator of the ONE STEP BEYOND show) adds several clever ingredients that heighten the tension and suspense.

If not, why? Rather a number of them were high class suspense pictures. This is one of them.

Elizabeth Montgomery plays a lady who's going visiting her sister in an isolated upland cottage after learning that the sister is planning to divorce her husband. The sister is already murdered when Elizabeth arrives but she doesn't know that. Instead, there's a prolonged eerie cat-and-mouse sequence when she's searching for her and unexpectedly finds the half deaf old maid entering. The meeting with the maid is quite unsatisfactory and awkward. Then the sister's husband turns up and it's quite clear that he's hiding something...

Not to spoil the story, the set up is great and one wish that today's television could conceive originality of this kind.

I saw The Victim starting Elizabeth Montgomery when I was 12 years old. I just watched it again on You Tube and really enjoyed it, 44 years later.

It's an old-fashioned woman in jeopardy suspense thriller and I wish there were more movies like this today.

Elizabeth Montgomery plays Kate, a well to do woman who is concerned about her sister Susan. Susan lives in an isolated house, sounds troubled when she talks to her sister on the phone and a terrible storm is coming. Kate calls her sister back, but the line is dead, which worries Kate. Kate decides to drive to her sister's home in the storm and arrives to find her missing. The storm is in full force, the phone's not working, the power goes out....as a 12 year old, this scared me to death. As a 56 year old, I still enjoyed it. Eileen Heckhart gives a terrific performance as the sister's creepy housekeeper and George Maharis is excellent as the missing sister's husband.

For baby boomers like myself who loved Elizabeth Montgomery on Bewitched and who adored watching The Movie of the Week (a precursor to Lifetime Movies), this one's for you. I truly wish all the old Movies of the Week would be released on DVD or at least as Amazon Prime videos. There's a real market out there among the baby boomers and most of the movies, like The Victim, are really good.

I think Liz was a little tired of comedy and chose the first script she was presented. I am a huge fan of hers, but this movie lacks in the plot department. First mistake is showing the dead body of her sister right off the bat. We know she's dead and have a pretty good idea who killed her. The only suspense is seeing the talented Liz Montgomery roam around in various stages of darkness trying to find her sister. Furthermore, she has to deal with Eileen Heckhart as a housekeeper who obviously was a "Charm School Dropout". She gives new meaning to the word "Old Bat". Sue Anne Langdon basically has a cameo role as a friend of Liz's sister who is only seen on the telephone talking to Liz. One of those movies that scared you as a kid but as an adult you see all the plot holes. Still, kinda fun to see Liz terrified.