Sunday, May 3, 2020
The Orchard End Murder (1981)
Synopsis
Synopsis
Charthurst Green, Kent, 1966. Pauline Cox
accompanies Mike Robins to a village cricket match in which he is
playing, but becomes bored and wanders away. She fetches up at the local
railway halt, where she is first entertained to tea by the garrulous,
hunchbacked station keeper, then upset by the intrusion of the latter's
assistant Ewen, who proceeds to kill a rabbit in her presence. Making
her way back to the match, Pauline is waylaid by the simple-minded Ewen
as she crosses an apple orchard; when his advances become violent, she
tries to fight him off and he strangles her. That evening, the hunchback
discovers Ewen with Pauline's body in the shack where he lives, and
helps him to bury the corpse in the orchard. Later, however, Ewen
inadvertently betrays himself: the body is disinterred by the police and
Ewen breaks down hysterically. Years later, the hunchback, who has
disavowed Ewen, encourages the friendship of another village youth.
Peter Jessop's carefully textured camera work ...