Christopher Lee
Col. Charles Bingham
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When various trustees of the Van Traylen Orphanage begin dying in close order, it's at first written off as a coincidence. But, when a school bus accident very nearly takes out three more of them along with a group of orphans, Col. Bingham (Christopher Lee) and his pathologist friend, Mark (Peter Cushing), begin looking into the deaths. They come to think the answer lies with one of the girls on the bus, who has vivid memories of things she could not possibly have seen.
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| Release Date | 1973-02-16 |
|---|---|
| Runtime | 1h 30m |
| Directors | Peter Sasdy, Kenneth Talbot, Ariel Levy |
| Producers | Anthony Nelson Keys, Christopher Lee |
| Writers | Brian Hayles, John Blackburn |
Christopher Lee ("Col. Bingham") is the retired policeman who recruits the help of renowned pathologist "Sir Mark Ashton" (Peter Cushing) to help out when the trustees of a children's charity start to dying in what, he thinks, are mysterious circumstances. It all starts with a bus crash that left charred remains when there was no fire, and ends up on a remote Scottish island where perhaps even the children at at risk. There's a great deal of over-acting here - especially from Diana Dors as the mother of one of the children "Mary"; and from a young Gwyneth Strong as that very child. Fulton Mackay is really miscast as the chief constable - a man who seems to hold that rank whilst having only about twenty officers and a few dogs; and Georgia Brown's "Miss Foster" investigative journalist role seemed uncertain as to quite what her point in the story was. It is great to see Cushing and Lee together, but neither are on much form here and the whole thing really does lurch, quite absurdly at times, along for 90 minutes. Pretty mediocre television fayre, this.
— CinemaSerf