Troubled young man (Nicholas Clay) named Billy is able to charm his way into the pitiable household of a blind, overbearing elderly woman named Edith Prince (Pamela Brown) and her browbeaten, tired adopted daughter, Maura (Patricia Neal). What the women are unaware of is that he's a serial killer, mostly of pretty young women around his age, with brown, short hair styles and petite builds. Gradually, as he repairs the outer structure of the decaying mansion (think Grey Gardens, as the two women are middle aged and elderly), the two become dependent on him, even as Billy starts to become consumed by the monster inside him, cultivated and unyielding due to a past trauma when he was a young teenage boy molested by hideous, hag countryside farm women. As Billy starts to become more and more withdrawn from Edith, he does bond closely with Maura who once left her mother for a man when she was twenty. When Maura was debilitated by an aneurysm, Edith helped her back to health. Then when Edith suffered an illness which blinded her, Maura returned the favor and has been under her thumb every since (for twenty years or so). As a nosy, busybody friend of Edith's named Millicent (Jean Anderson) stirs the pot, understanding that Maura is attracted to Billy, she tries to nudge Edith into realizing that her gardener/handyman is bad news. Billy might just be the wedge to force apart the two women, and this could finally be the motivation Maura needs to free herself from Edith's overwhelming control.Dark film was written by Roald Dahl (yes, *that* Roald Dahl; of the children's books), and the score by Bernard Hermmann recalls the best of Hitchcock. While the murders are carefully avoided, Billy's succumbing to the dark passenger that wants him to kill is well executed. You can see he is unable to resist his murderous impulses. The romantic angle between a middle aged woman, rotting inside due to her mother's burdensome expectations to be coddled and spoiled, with the yearning for a male companion she can love, and the young man who emerges as the possible savior needed to urge her to move on was perhaps a bit too far fetched for me to personally swallow. Particularly the ending where the two run off to the Scottish Highlands to live in a cottage only for their brief happiness to be shattered due to his inability to keep what lies within at bay; I was quite surprised the film went this route. The film has Billy needing Maura as he seems desperate to stop killing, admitting that his problem overtakes him and he can't remember committing the acts he never technically admits to killing, so Maura can only comfort him when he requests her not to leave his side while he tries to rest. The cast is top notch with notable work even from Graham Crowden as a rather oddball church choir instructor, a little bit too knowledgeable of the killing spree overtaking England and quite a gossip-spreader (as is Millicent, always up to no good, with Edith all too fascinated by what she hears). There's a bit of adult comedy involving the priest and his wife regarding "an external operation" that is shared by Edith, Millicent, and Crowden's Mr. Bolton that should amuse. MGM didn't get behind this film, and it fell into obscurity, but I think "The Night Digger" is a bonafide cult film ready for an audience to see it. Patricia Neal returned from a stroke not long before this, and her work is exemplary. It is all there on her face, and seeing her character slowly gain courage to approach leaving her mother and admitting her feelings for Billy is just a part of what makes this film a must for Neal fans. Going from a wallflower old maid resigned to her servitude to a woman reaching forward for her independence is satisfying...even if it involved a psychotic with a complex towards most women. His steadily growing defiance as Edith starts to take some of what she uses against Maura in an effort to force him into becoming another victim of her every whim is what ultimately destroys the superficial bind that tied them temporarily. The mansion setting is rich in set design and old history detail...it is as if Mama Bates had a hand in its decor and was responsible for the architectural look of the place. The space and expansive furnishings can be quite an eyeful. Not only the inside, but the outer, far-reaching exterior of the mansion is quite towering and decadent, with the garden and back yard just as elaborate. As extravagant as the demands and personality of the woman who owns it, the house could only fit Edith Prince.

I'm surprised that this particular film isn't as well known, as "The Night Digger" is an effectively expressive British psychological thriller (penned by Roald Dahl) with a touch of Gothic drama, psycho-sexual unease and sinister moods. The performances of the cast do go a long way to carrying the intrigue and ambiance, where Patricia Neal, Pamela Brown and a very brooding Nicholas Clay do an outstanding job. Neal's repressed turn really is one of great strength and emotion, while Brown authentically commands the screen as the demanding, disabled mother. Clay has a charm about him, but lurking underneath is something unsettling. The relationship that slowly builds between Neal and Clay's characters is affecting, that when she becomes suspicious of him, due to the disappearances of young woman in the area. She just doesn't want to believe he has anything to do with it, despite knowing he surely does. She yearned for something meaningful, and that was him as he brings out the confidence in her and of course she loves the man. So they run away together. The moments when she finally confronts him over it, while terse it remains powerful. Even the sequences with Neal and Brown (adopted daughter and mother) crafted out gripping exchanges. The scenes involving the murders or even the lead up to them (where he torments the victim) are truly creepy, and Bernard Herrmann's subtle, but tense score paints it nicely. This is set-up in an remote country mansion within a small rural town, so town gossip features prominently and is somewhat a driving force for some key plot progressions. So is the loneliness of Neal's frustrated character, which Clay's character takes advantage of and so does Brown's. The pacing is causal, but it helps the atmosphere build and lets the character's form shape.

The film apparently went under two titles: "The Night Digger" and "The Road Builder." I caught this film on Turner Classic Movies recently. I have always been a big Patricia Neal fan. The film was released in 1971, a tough time for actors like Neal from the "golden age of Hollywood." The times were changing fast, and film was going right with them. Middle-aged actors like Neal often had trouble finding film work, as producers and studios were catering to much younger audiences. Anyway, the story revolves around Maura (Patricia Neal) a spinster whose life revolves taking care of her domineering blind mother Edith (Pamela Brown)in a decaying England mansion. Enter a handsome handyman named Billy (Nicholas Clay) to turn their world upside down. Billy is quite a disturbed young man with a small problem: murdering women! We are given only small clues as to what turned him into such a maniac, seen in somewhat confusing flashbacks. Maura falls for Billy, despite the obvious age difference. We learn she probably eventually catches on to what he is doing, although she never really says so. The performances are good in this film. I loved Neal especially, she portrays the dowdy Maura with her usual intelligence and natural abilities. Pamela Brown as the overbearing mother is also effective. As to the young actor Nicholas Clay, he is wonderfully creepy as the the seriously disturbed murderer. The big problems with the film are the script and the obvious lack of a budget to make this film more credible. The script was written by Roald Dahl, Patricia Neal's husband of that time. Apparently the back story is Neal did not really want to do the film, but Dahl wrote it for her. The story has some confusing gaps, and the last 15 minutes or so of the film is just downright ridiculous and tough to believe. This is a case of good actors stuck in a mediocre film that could have been a more worthy one.

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.