WasAnnon Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Spoonatects Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Cooktopi The acting in this movie is really good.

moonspinner55 Patricia Neal always brings two attributes to her film performances: honesty and integrity--both of which work wonders for this derivative, somewhat moldy tale of a spinster, living under the thumb of her half-blind adoptive mother, who blossoms in love and independence with a 20-year-old handyman in rural England. The film, sort of a character study-cum-suspense melodrama, isn't an attractive showcase for Neal, yet she gives the scenario a hearty touch and her unmistakable stamp of dry wit. Neal's then-husband Roald Dahl adapted his screenplay from Joy Cowley's novel "Nest in a Falling Tree", pushing some of the kinkier aspects of the plot a bit far for a blue-haired thriller. Nevertheless, a visually perceptive and intriguing little movie that almost stays the course until the final act, which comes completely apart. Released under two different titles (also "The Road Builder"), though barely seen by anybody until the advent of cable movie channels. ** from ****

Scarecrow-88 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 As Billy starts to become more and more withdrawn from Edith, he does bond closely with Maura who once left her mother for a man when she was twenty.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.

James Hitchcock In Britain "The Night Digger" is shown from time to time on TCM, normally late at night, under the alternative title "The Road Builder". It is not, however, a particularly well-known film, even though the script is by one of Britain's best-known writers (Roald Dahl) and it stars an Oscar-winning actress (Dahl's wife Patricia Neal).Neal plays Maura Prince, a middle-aged spinster living in the English town of Windsor with her mother Edith. Several years earlier Maura suffered a serious stroke, which left her temporarily paralysed, although she has now recovered and works as a therapist helping other stroke victims. (Dahl inserted this as an obvious reference to the fact that Neal had herself suffered such a stroke in 1965). Maura is finding it difficult to cope with the demands of looking after her elderly mother and maintaining their large Victorian Gothic house, obviously once luxurious but now run down and dilapidated.Their lives are changed when they hire a young man named Billy as a handyman. Billy is a road-builder working on a new motorway which is being built in the area. (The motorway runs from Liverpool to London via Manchester, Birmingham, Oxford, Reading and Windsor. In reality no single motorway has ever been built along this route, although the southern part of the route corresponds roughly to the M40, which did not exist in 1971, not being completed until 1988).Billy claims that his surname is Jarvis and that he is originally from Cheshire (in north-west England), which causes Edith to claim him as a long-lost relative as she has family with that surname in that county. (Billy's accent, however, is a south-eastern one, which must cast some doubt on his claim; he may have discovered Edith's family background and invented a story to deceive her). At first he seems to be a godsend to Edith and Maura; he is polite, friendly, helpful and a competent worker whose efforts soon have the dilapidated house and overgrown garden looking smarter. Billy, however, may be hiding a dreadful secret. A young woman from the area is found murdered, and the police attribute the crime to a serial killer who has taken the lives of several other women in different parts of the country. Ominously, the other killings took place in Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Oxford and Reading- the cities close to which Billy was previously working on the new motorway. There is, however, a further complication in that Maura- previously a dutiful daughter obedient to every whim of her domineering mother- finds herself becoming attracted to the handsome young man.The plot is not always satisfactory, and the ending, after Maura and Billy have run away to the Scottish Highlands together, is particularly enigmatic. (This is surprising given that Dahl was a gifted short story writer whose stories normally ended with a satisfying twist). Although it is clear to the audience that Billy is indeed a killer (and there is an attempt to explain psychologically why he became one), we are never sure how much Maura knows or suspects about his guilt. Is she convinced of his innocence, or is she closing her eyes to the obvious. Or does she know all along that he is guilty? Our view of Maura depends very much upon the answers to these questions, so it is surprising that they are never definitely answered. Perhaps Dahl felt it made for a more satisfactory film to keep us guessing. (The title "The Night Digger" refers to Billy's habit of disposing of his victims at night, by burying them under the motorway workings. The plot has many similarities to that of another British film from a few years earlier, "Night Must Fall", which also regularly appears on TCM, and which also features a mother and daughter living together and a psychopathic handyman. "Night Must Fall" (a remake of a 1937 American film with the same title, which I have never seen) is a rather dull film with one of Albert Finney's weakest performances at its centre. "The Night Digger", although it has its weaknesses, is an altogether better film.Rather surprisingly for a winner of the "Best Actress" award, Neal never really became a household name, certainly not when compared to other "Best Actress" winners from the sixties such as Elizabeth Taylor, Sophia Loren and Katharine Hepburn. Her performance here, however, shows just how good she can be as the sexually repressed spinster dominated and emotionally manipulated by her mother. Although we may suspect that she is knowingly covering up for a murderer, we always retain some sympathy for her. Pamela Brown is also good as the terrifying Edith, even though she was really too young for the role, being only nine years older than Neal.Besides the acting, "The Night Digger" is also notable for its brooding, mysterious feel. Even without the macabre nature of the story, the photography of the damp, autumnal English countryside and the decaying, Gothic mansion, aided by the score from Hitchcock's favourite composer Bernard Herrman, would be enough to conjure up a sense of nameless dread. Director Alastair Reid was no Hitchcock (he worked mainly in television, and only made a few feature films) but he brings a few atmospheric touches to this film. His use of unusual, oblique camera angles and his technique of concentrating on only a part of a speaker's face (normally the eyes or mouth) add to the general strange and unsettling atmosphere of this film. Despite the obscurity into which it has fallen, "The Night Digger" is a tense thriller and character-study which it is worth staying up late to see. 6/10

preppy-3 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.