A
Midsummer Nightmare
(ITC Movie title "Appointment With A Killer")
Original UK transmission: 15th May 1976
Original US transmission: 16th September 1975
WRITTEN BY: Brian Clemens
DIRECTED BY: Don Leaver
PRODUCED BY: Ian Fordyce
MAIN CAST: Joanna Pettet (Jody Baxter), Brian Blessed (Det.
Sgt. Briggs), Freddie Jones (Arnold Tully), Norman Rodway (Peter
Ingram), Anthony Pedley (Charley Spencer), Tony Anholt (Johnny
Baxter), John Ruddock (Williams), Alison Glennie (Annabella
Tully), Thom Delaney (Detective)
Teaser
Sequence
In a stretch of woodlands, a
teenage girl is sitting on a rock admiring a copy of
Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Smiling, she
wraps the book in a clear plastic bag and begins to head
purposefully through the forest. Unbeknownst to her, an unseen
figure is busy nearby stripping away the remainder of a love
message carved in a tree trunk: "Annabella loves -". He
stops as he sees her approaching, and retreats into the bushes.
She strides up to the tree, then bends down and disappears from
sight for a few moments. When she appears again, she notices that
the message has been defaced and frowns; she then turns, and
screams as a knife plunges towards her. There is an eerie
silence, as the camera pans slowly up the length of the tree
towards the sky.
Plot
Summary
Jody Baxter is the bored wife
of private detective Johnny Baxter, and when her husband goes
abroad and a customer comes calling for "J.Baxter", she
decides to take up the case herself. The man, Arnold Tully,
mourns the murder of his young niece and ward Annabella five
years earlier, and requests Miss Baxter to compile evidence
against the man he believes to have committed the crime. Jody
proceeds to investigate the man, Peter Ingram, but is reluctantly
forced into an acquaintance when he asks her to his cottage.
Uncertain as to whether he is actually guilty, Jody uses a
woman's eye to sift through the clues afresh, despite the
insistence from the police that Ingram is guilty. She soon finds
a clue to the identity of the mystery killer in a copy of A
Midsummer Night's Dream found in Annabella's room, but by
doing so places herself in mortal danger.
Comments
This amateur-detective story is given a nice twist by having the
killer already pointed out at the start and focusing the story
instead around whether somebody may be trying to frame him.
Joanna Pettet (see also A Killer In Every Corner ) makes for an agreeable
amateur sleuth and plays the part with just the right air of
uncertainty. Brian Blessed and Norman Rodway turn in competent
performances and Freddie Jones creates an appealing character in
the tragic figure of Tully. Not a classic but worth seeing.
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