The Road Builder (1971)

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

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 As Billy starts to become more and more withdrawn from Edith, he does bond closely with Maura who once left her mother for a man when she was twenty.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

Creepy, hugely atmospheric and surprisingly little-known British pot boiler concerning the wicked travails of a rather personable, youthful handy man; a soft spoken soul who once finished with his diligent roof repairs reveals himself to be a demented sex killer (Brilliantly played by a handsome and enigmatic Nicholas Clay). The director makes especially effective use of dark splashes of humor, and Hollywood icon Patricia Neal is an absolute delight. Pamela Brown's muscular performance is little short of stupendous; playing Patricia Neal's blind, abusive, over- zealous, wholly oppressive matriarch to the hilt! (I enjoyed this ballsy melodrama almost as much as 'The Fiend' with which it shares a similarly grim narrative, albeit with far less black humor) It would be entirely remiss of me in not mentioning the fine music of maestro Bernard Herrman. (As a prurient aside I never quite realized that Bridgit Forsyth had such a killer rack, if you will excuse the appalling pun)

There might be spoilers here. Gonna try to keep from it but I have to describe the plot as I heard it verses what it really was when I saw the film. THE NIGHT DIGGER, also known as THE ROAD BUILDER, was a movie I read about that sounded interesting. It seems a spinster and her mother are in an old decaying mansion in England when a young man comes along to stay with them and work as a handy man while also working as a builder on a road being constructed. It seems this young guy is a psycho who also rapes and kills women and buries them in the road. Meanwhile the spinster is taking a shine to him. Sounded like the recipe for a pretty good thriller to me. Well, in spite of Bernard Herrmann's score and Alex Thompson's excellent, moody cinematography, this film doesn't play out anything like I thought it would have. The plot takes detours that really made me wonder if the director knew he was supposed to be making a horror film. There comes one part that has several people sitting around gossiping and although I imagined a suspenseful thriller where you wondered if the old woman and her mother are in danger, someone, maybe the director, or maybe Roald Dahl pretty much succeed in killing any degree of suspense. It's almost like they decided to shoot a scary movie and then later tried to turn it into something else altogether. It has gloomy cinematography and a fine score and even a kind of threatening title but that's where the horror/suspense elements end. The movie fizzles badly and the climax is just plain stupid. Maybe I was supposed to be moved or sympathetic or something but I just thought the movie was creepy for all the wrong reasons. BEWARE! BIG SPOILER!!!!Still with me? Okay, there is a sex scene with the young man and old Patricia Neal. Luckily, you don't see much but just the thought of the young dude having sex with that old woman was about the creepiest thing I can think of in this entire movie. If she had been the young Patricia Neal from 20 years before this film was made, then fine, a sex scene might not have been so terrible but this was disgusting. When I read the title NIGHT DIGGER, I expected a movie where Patricia Neal discovers her handyman's is the murderer and her having to fight him off and struggle to survive. I imagined a pretty interesting plot when I read the title. Be assured that there is nothing in this film that is suspenseful, scary or thrilling unless you like watching old people have sex with young people, which is shot in front of a blurry lens, presumably to keep the audience from throwing up. Given the same exact actors, crew, locations and budget, I could have made a film that would have had audiences on the edge of their seats until the end credits. Someone took a good premise, a good crew, great locations, sets and actors and made a boring film about a guy who kills good-looking women and sleeps with old women who used to be good-looking. I wasn't impressed at all and cannot recommend this film - at least not as a thriller/horror film, which it was intended to be. No blood, no gore, no action. Just old ladies, psycho road-builders and boredom.

The Road Builder is sadly not very well known, and that's a shame because this psychological thriller is a real gem and would certainly benefit from being more widely seen. The film is based on a book by Joy Cowley, although there were apparently some changes made to the story (I don't know what since I've not read the book). One of the more surprising things about this film is the fact that the screenplay was written by popular children's author Roald Dahl, although clearly he did also have a taste for the macabre if Tales of the Unexpected as well as his children's book 'The Witches' are anything to go by. The film is a strange love story at heart and we focus on a house inhabited by an old spinster and her middle aged daughter Maura. Their lives are changed one day when a young stranger on a motorbike turns up and they agree to let him stay. The young man becomes a popular figure in the house rather quickly, especially with Maura. However, there's something strange about him as evidenced by his sudden bursts of depression, apparently owing to the tragic death of his parents.Most of the plot takes place in a grandiose mansion and it makes for a really good location for the movie - it's very isolated and is nice to look at. The atmosphere is very good throughout and this excellently compliments the plot which is thoroughly dark and largely unpleasant. The plot doesn't move particularly quickly, but it's always interesting thanks to the way that the characters are built up progressively and director Alastair Reid focuses on their relationship with one another. The acting is very good and the film stars Roald Dahl's then wife Patricia Neal in the lead role. She gets on well with the other two main players, Pamela Brown and Nicholas Clay and these actors help to ensure that the film works well. There's not a great deal of shocking moments, but the way that the unpleasant happenings are handled works very well as it's nasty yet completely believable. It all boils down to a very good ending and The Road Builder is certainly a film with a 'sting in the tail'. Overall, I really hope this gets a decent release soon because it's a great thriller and well worth seeing!