Escape Into Night
(1972)

TV Mini-Series

Country: UK

Genre: Drama, Family, Fantasy, Horror

Synopsis

Compelled to find her own amusement whilst confined to bed after a riding accident, Marianne fills her sketchpad with drawings, including one of a house - which she further embellishes with a drawing of a boy staring out from an upper storey window. When she sleeps, Marianne dreams she is outside a physical manifestation of her drawing, looking up at the forlorn-looking boy (Steven Jones) who is trying to tell her to go away for her own safety. The boy, whose name is Mark, is, in real life, another bed-ridden pupil being taught by Marianne’s peripatetic teacher Miss Chesterfield - a boy who, it turns out, has been seriously ill, and who might not recover the use of his legs unless he exercises more. When Marianne, in a fit of pique, draws some monstrous one-eyed rocks surrounding the house to trap the boy within, she finds that they appear in her dream. Realising by now that her dreams are more than just fantasies, and that Mark is as real as herself and trapped in this nightmare, Marianne must find a way of escaping from the monsters she has created if she is to save both herself and the boy.

Notes

• Based on the 1958 children's fantasy novel "Marianne Dreams" by English author Catherine Storr (1913-2001)
• Comprising 6 episodes of approximately 24 minutes each
• The series was produced in colour, but only a black and white telerecording of the series survived into the 21st century. This was released in the UK on (Region 2) DVD in 2009 by Network DVD (Amazon link at top right of this page).

Gallery

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