Nightmare
For A Nightingale
(ITC Movie title "Melody Of Hate")
Original UK transmission: 24th April 1976
Original US transmission: 30th September 1975
WRITTEN BY: Brian Clemens
DIRECTED BY: John Scholz-Conway
PRODUCED BY: Ian Fordyce
MAIN CAST: Susan Flannery (Anna Cartell), Keith Baxter (Tony
Risanti), Sydney Tafler (Sam Meadows), Ronald Leigh-Hunt (Giles
Turner), Stuart Damon (Hal Bridie), Gita Denise (Marie)
Teaser
Sequence
Waves break on harsh rocks at
night, and a magnificent mansion looms close by. Inside, an
operatic aria is playing on a turntable as a man in dinner jacket
listens intensely; a drunken, dishevelled-looking man also
listens on and applauds. The man in the dinner jacket reflects on
how he once had a good voice, then tears up the record sleeve and
puts on a different disc by his wife who he reflects is going to
be a "big star" but that he won't be around to see it.
He then jokes with his down and out friend that he is better off
than his host because he is a "nobody" and no-one is
chasing him, and that is why he must kill him. Laughing, the
little man is taken by surprise when his host does just that.
Plot
Summary
Opera singer Anna Cartell gets the shock of her life when the
husband she had thought dead for ten years suddenly turns up out
of the blue. When she accidentally kills him during an argument,
she conceals the body in the hope it will lay undiscovered and no
one will be the wiser. However, when she returns to check on the
body she finds it has mysteriously vanished - is she mad or has
Tony come back to haunt her? She turns to her manager for help,
with unexpected consequences.
Comments
A clever episode with a sure-fire hook; once the body is found
missing, the viewer is drawn inevitably into the story out of
sheer curiosity. However, there's plenty of atmosphere and
surprises along the way to boot. Recommended.
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