Sat 5 Mar 2016
An Archived TV Movie Review by Dan Stumpf: YOU’LL NEVER SEE ME AGAIN (1959).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , TV mysteries[7] Comments
YOU’LL NEVER SEE ME AGAIN. An episode of Armchair Theatre, ABC/ITV, UK, 16 August 1959 (Season 3, Episode 49). Ben Gazzara, Leo Genn, Brenda de Banzie, James Hayter, Derek Aylward, Jacqueline Ellis. Based on the story by Cornell Woolrich (Detective Story Magazine, November 1939; reprinted as by William Irish, Dell 10 Cent series #26, paperback, 1951). Director: Ted Post.
A real oddity turned up on Cable in the middle of the night last week: You’ll Never See Me Again was made for Britain’s Armchair Theatre back in 1959, and to my knowledge has never aired before on American Television. At least Mike Nevins hadn’t seen it as of 1988, when he wrote his exhaustive Woolrich bio-bibliography, First You Dream, Then You Die.
And it’s not bad at all. Somewhat on the level of a really good episode of The Avengers or Secret Agent. Ben Gazzara stars, playing the lead as a rather cold, unlikable sort, in the Laurence Harvey mode. He’s had a spat with his wife, it seems, and she ran home to Mother. Only she never got there. And no one saw her go.
So when days pass, and she doesn’t show up (she is, in fact, never seen in the hour-long film) Ben finds himself haunted by a lackadaisical but persistent Police Inspector, intelligently played by Leo Genn. Their escalating cat-and-mouse game builds up very nicely to heights of Woolrichian paranoia (he imagined the Police to be literally everywhere) as the bereft husband tries with increasing desperation to find some shred of proof that he didn’t kill his wife, and at the same time come to terms with his feelings about her.
And all the while, Genn keeps turning up in the oddest places, generally supine on a sofa, asking languidly if he’d care to confess to something.
It’s all directed very competently by Ted Post, a filmmaker I’ve never cared much for, and despite the truncated late-night presentation, I enjoyed it quite a lot. Look for it.
March 5th, 2016 at 6:33 pm
Because of the lack of time I’ve had (or haven’t had) so far this weekend, I’ve been remiss in not running this old review past either Dan or Mike Nevins before posting it.
I have found next to no reference to this TV production online. The IMDb page has only the cast and no more. The BFI page adds a one and a half line synopsis.
But it exists. Dan, can you say anything more? I’ll also make sure Mike sees this post.
March 5th, 2016 at 11:35 pm
I’m fond of a 1973 tv movie of this with David Hartman and Jess Walton as the newlyweds. Of course it’s been forever since I’ve seen it and it might not be so impressive after all these years.
March 6th, 2016 at 12:06 am
I remember that one, too. I came across it on IMDb when I was trying to find the credits for this earlier one, and the story came back to me right away. You’re not the only one who likes the 1973 version, David. It has a 7.5 rating out of 10 on IMDb, which is much higher than usual.
March 6th, 2016 at 2:07 am
Have to look this up. I’ll watch Leo Genn in almost anything, and love discovering Woolrich adaptations I didn’t know about.
March 6th, 2016 at 8:23 am
If you or anyone finds a copy of this one on DVD, David, be sure to let us all know. I’ve had no luck so far.
March 6th, 2016 at 10:24 am
Dear Friends:
I’m afraid Dan Stumpf didn’t check the index to First You Dream, Then You Die carefully enough. The British version of ‘You’ll Never See Me Again” is covered on pages 518-519. May I quote myself?
“The picture was directed by Ted Post, who had earlier made ‘The Blue Ribbon’ [another Woolrich-based telefilm] for Ford Theater, and was broadcast in 1959 on England’s ITV (independent commercial television) network as part of the Armchair Summer Theater series. Ben Gazzara was imported from the U.S. to star as the young man who, accused of murder after his wife vanishes following a quarrel, desperately tries to prove she’s still alive. The rest of the cast was British, including Leo Genn as the skeptical police inspector, Brenda de Banzie as the missing woman’s mother (or is she?) and James Hayter as de Banzie’s husband.
Tony Williams, a British-born professor now teaching in the United States, happened to watch the telefilm and shared his recollection with me. “A pre-credits sequence,” he says, “opens with a man (seen from the waist down) walking towards a woman washing her hair in a basin. We don’t see her face so ambiguity is created about who the characters are from the very beginning. He proceeds to drown her in the basin.”
Then after the credits Gazzara reports his wife’s disappearance to Genn and the two of them visit the home of de Banzie and Hayter where doubt is cast on Gazzara’s story and he escapes from the police. Eventually, more or less as in Woolrich’s story, Gazzara persuades Genn to return with him to the supposed in-laws’ house and tear down the bricked-up wall.
“The opening of the wall was very chillingly filmed. When the bricks are removed, a female corpse falls erect, face toward the camera” and they discover that the body is not Gazzara’s wife—who in this version is never seen. “All I remeber of the climax,” Williams says, “is a long shot of Gazzara walking towards a trunk and kneeling down to view his wife’s drugged body….I vaguely remember the ending to be Gazzara and Genn parting amicably back at police headquarters with the news that Gazzara’s wife is recovering.”
Thank you, Tony Williams! Would you believe Tony was in St. Louis yesterday and had lunch with me? I did see the Ted Post version many years ago but it was missing some of the scenes Tony described so vividly.
If I may pat myself on the shoulder for a moment, the U.S. TV movie came about as a result of my including Woolrich’s story in my Nightwebs collection and is discussed on page 522 of First You Dream. “The picture [first aired on ABC February 28, 1973] updated but in most respects followed Woolrich’s account of a man’s desperate search for the missing wife he’s accused of having murdered.
David Hartman starred as Ned Bliss, with Jess Walton as Vickie, the vanished woman, and Jane Wyatt and Ralph Meeker as her mother and stepfather. It was a solid professional job, not on the level of Hitchcock’s ‘Four O’Clock’ or Ida Lupino’s ‘Guillotine’ [for my money the finest Woolrich-based telefilms] but eminently watchable.” Jeannot Szwarc directed from a script by William Wood and Gerald DiPego.
I distinctly remember the problems I had getting to watch this picture. Every damn night it was broadcast, I had an evening class to teach! Eventually I bought a Betamax VCR and recorded it, but I’m afraid that tape got lost five years ago when I moved to the condo I presently call home. Drat! Double drat!
March 6th, 2016 at 11:08 am
Thanks for the update and additional information, Mike. Greatly appreciated!