Enigma Fatal

The horror team of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee team up again in Nothing But The Night produced by Lee himself in his only venture into producing. Lee is a police inspector and Cushing a forensic pathologist who successfully dabbles in hypnotism.

Cushing will need all his skills as he teams up with Lee to solve a group of serial murders involving some truly horrific deaths at an orphanage. The mother of one of the kids there Diana Dors was a prostitute and just came back from serving a prison term for murder. She's demanding answers and doesn't want to wait for Lee and Cushing to work their case.

Of course it involves the kids at the orphanage including Dors's little girl. More I will not say.

Not as good as those old Hammer productions.

With an overall rating of just a bit over 3, I sure didn't expect much from this Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing collaboration. However, I was surprised to find this film was a lot better than I'd come to believe. Perhaps some of the reason the film has a lower score than the usual fare from these actors is that although the film has the usual supernatural angle, you don't learn about this until the end. Up until then, it just seems like a detective film about some nasty ex-con who is being sought be Scotland Yard. I could say more, but it would spoil the suspense.

Strengths of the film include a very novel script, generally good acting (though the ex-con is about as unsubtle a character as you can find), and nice location shooting. The biggest minus is that the thing just takes a long time to get going, though by the end of the film the whole thing is steaming full speed ahead.

This is one of the lesser talked about films starring the superb duo Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. It's pretty good film but it is a bit slow - this one could have done with a little quicker pace.

3 prison deaths that appear as suicides on the surface stirred some questions but once 3 more trustees and 30 orphan children are in a bus accident and most die then police colonel Bingham (Christopher Lee) starts seriously investigating. Sir Ashley (Peter Cushing) agrees to help investigate the mysterious happenings. It's a supernatural mystery.

6/10

I don't think this film is as bad as it's been suggested. If you go in viewing it more as a mystery than expecting faced paced horror from the start, I think it's enjoyable...it just requires some patience. The ending rewards you if you allow yourself to stick with it.

Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing do their best with a less than great script, but it's important to keep in mind that most novel-to-screen adaptations do suffer badly, and I think this is more the case here. Gwyneth Strong does an amazing job as Mary Valley, and it makes me curious to see what other work she's done.

If you find a bargain DVD of this one, or see it on late night cable, give it a shot. And if you're a fan of British horror like I am, it is always great to have a visit with Lee and Cushing once again!

The pairing of Hammer horror stalwarts Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee doesn't always guarantee a good time -- see Night of the Big Heat (1967) for proof of that. This film - the one and only from Lee's own Charlemagne Productions - isn't the pair's best work together, but it is far from the disaster that some would have us believe.

Lee plays Colonel Bingham, who teams up with eminent pathologist Sir Mark Ashley (Cushing) to investigate the suspicious deaths of several elderly members of the Van Traylen Trust, who fund the Inver House orphanage, home to Mary Valley (Gwyneth Strong), survivor of a mysterious bus crash that claimed the lives of three of the trustees. Prime suspect is Anna Harb (Diana Dors), Mary's estranged mother, ex-prostitute and triple murderess, who is so desperate to be reunited with her daughter that she would kill again if necessary. Mary is sent to back to the orphanage in Scotland for her own safety, but Harb follows, with Bingham and Ashley not far behind; what they discover at Inver House is far more terrible than they could have imagined.

Lee and Cushing put in commendable performances, attacking their roles with gusto and gravitas; in contrast, Dors overacts with ham to spare, her eccentric turn providing the film with a sense of fun. Director Peter Sasdy (Taste The Blood Of Dracula, Hands Of The Ripper) keeps the pace snappy and the mystery intriguing, delivering a surprising Psycho-style death of a major character a third of the way through, a terrific explosion to jolt the viewer out of their seat, the grisly discovery of a mutilated seven year old, and a shocking conclusion that has more than a touch of The Wicker Man about it (beyond Lee's presence and the remote Scottish location).