Killer
With Two Faces
(ITC Movie title "Killer With Two Faces")
Original UK transmission: 25th January 1975
Original US transmission: 3rd December 1974
WRITTEN BY: Brian Clemens
DIRECTED BY: John Scholz-Conway
PRODUCED BY: John Cooper
MAIN CAST: Donna Mills (Patty Heron), Ian Hendry (Spelling),
Roddy McMillan (Inspector Fillory), David Lodge (Bradley), Robin
Parkinson (Mr Holland)
Teaser
Sequence
In what looks like a prison
cell, a man is receiving a medical check up. He reflects that he
is in perfect physical shape, whereas his doctor clearly is not
despite being of the same age and build. When he also points out
that the physician's clothes would fit him perfectly, he lunges
forward and renders his opponent unconscious. In the guise of the
doctor, he then tricks the guard into opening the door and
quickly incapacitates him too. Donning a stethoscope, he then
marches confidently from the premises, which can now be seen to
bear the sign "Institution For The Criminally Insane".
Plot
Summary
Serial killer Terry Spelling
escapes from a mental institution and apparently meets up with an
attractive young woman, Patty, on a train. When he tells her that
he is an architect, she asks him to join her the next day and
visit the run down old house she has bought with a view to
renovating. Spelling agrees, but when Patty meets up with her
architect she finds him curiously quiet and changed, as if he
were a completely different man. What she doesn't realise is that
perhaps there are in fact two Spellings.
Comments
A clever "doppelganger" story that plays on the
schizophrenic nature of Spelling, with a fine lead performance by
Hendry. Donna Mills makes her third appearance in the series (see
also Someone At The Top Of The Stairs and One
Deadly Owner), playing much the same character as ever but
providing a good foil for Hendry. The central premise is held
back initially to confuse the viewer, though most will probably
have guessed it by the time it is revealed. Recommended.
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