efffigie I am writing this review as I finally managed to find this movie and watch it; and really, because I admit that, even though I knew at the time (late 1970s) that Mills was much older in real life than in the Disney movies I saw her in, I had the biggest boy crush on her. Embarrassing I know, but I doubt I was alone.This movie is quite good; it manages to make the green, lustrous English countryside seem genuinely menacing and eerie. It's one of those 'road movies' where a stranger is picked up, that may or may not be who or what they say they are. It reminds me a bit of movies like THE HITCHER and such like.And yes, a VERY adult Hayley Mills turns out to be not at all what one may think, and also gets naked in this movie, and I am deeply glad I didn't see it back when I was a young teen: I think it would have ruined my life!

Theo Robertson A violent psychiatric patient escapes from a mental hospital . Nearby the next day Belle Adams is stuck in a roadside café . Accepting a life from a trucker she finds herself victim from unwanted attention by the trucker . Escapiing his clutches she staggers in to the road and his nearly hit by a car driven by Stephen Slade . Accepting a life from him she quickly becomes aware that he is doing all he can to avoid the police roadblocks searching for the patient !!!!!! MASSIVE SPOILERS!!!!!! Sometimes someone comes up with a great idea that confounds all expectations . Reading the synopsis to this relatively unknown British thriller you'll be asking yourself why anyone wants to go out of their way to watch it because it has predictable written all over it . Innocent young woman accepts a lift from a stranger who is psychotic . The way the story is told is equally predictable . The producers don't have faith in the premise and therefore it gets padded out by having flashback scenes as if there's an agenda of employing as many actors as possible in a minimalist story . The cynicism extends to having Sterling Hayden appear wearing a comedy beard in order to appeal to American distributors and one constantly finds oneself asking why instead of melodrama we couldn't have had film confined to a slow burning tale involving two talking roles where the tension is slowly but surely cranked up until the shocking end This has a relatively high average user rating . It's easy to see why because the ending is totally surprising and one that I didn't see coming . The problem is when you recall the rest of the story proceeding it then it doesn't make the slightest bit of sense whatsoever . When the patient escapes at the beginning they overpower a female nurse in an unpleasant scene that alludes to rape so we jump to the conclusion that Stephen is the escaped patient . When the cops arrive at the final scene they arrest Belle and it's rather obvious that by their reaction it is she who is the escaped patient who the authorities are hunting in a blaze of publicity . This was made in the mid 1970s when we didn't have 24 hour TV news broadcasting but yet every single character in the film knows there's an escaped maniac on the loose but unaware that she's female . The internal logic and continuity of the scenario doesn't hold up the slightest piece of scrutiny when given any thought . There's also another unpleasant scene where Stephen leaves Belle sleeping in the car , goes in to a shop and the young female counter assistant is murdered . We see the murder entirely take place through the murderer's POV then it cuts to Stephen going back to he car . You might think there might be a bit of ambiguity to this scene but it's almost certain Stephen carried out the murder , so we have a story about an escaped psychopath on the run from the police getting a lift from a serial killer . So what's the chances of anything like that remotely happening in real life ?

a_baron From a personal perspective, this film has much in common with "Schizo". I watched them both on the big screen shortly after they were released, and watched them again recently. Both are low budget efforts with somewhat improbable plots; both have dashes of nudity from the damsel – this with somewhat less; both have endings decidedly at odds with their respective narratives. And both deliver."Deadly Strangers" is part road movie, part mystery, and part psychological thriller. Clearly the road movie element is a tall order in a country a fraction of a size of the United States, but every work of honest fiction is entitled to some poetic licence.Herein, former child star Hayley Mills plays a young woman who clearly has issues, and just as clearly has more on her plate than missing the last train home. The big question: Is her enigmatic companion the escaped lunatic, and if so, will the police arrive in time? To find out for certain you must wait until the very end.

lazarillo A young woman (Hayley Mills) misses her train and is forced to hitchhike. After a misadventure with a horny truck driver who wants her to pay a "fare", she is picked up by a handsome but mysterious stranger (Simon Ward) who may just have escaped from an asylum for the criminally insane. This is a familiar role for Hayley Mills that she had basically performed several times before: the pretty dolly bird who meets a slimy creep that she is nevertheless somewhat sexually attracted to (except that her usual co-star Hywel Bennet is replaced here by Simon Ward). When she played this role back in "Twisted Nerve", however, she was still coming off her wholesome Disney image, and was appealing, but also pretty two-dimensional. In "Endless Night" she played a troubled heiress and had little more of a rounded character and performance. In this movie the back-story of her character, revealed in flashbacks where she is orphaned in a car accident and sent to live with a lecherous uncle, might make her even more troubled than the sinister young man who picks her up. (There is in fact a great twist at the end here that I don't want to reveal).Ironically, Mills first played this "endangered innocent" role as a child actress way back even before Disney in 1959's "Tiger Bay" (where she plays a pre-pubescent girl who steals a gun and befriends a murderer). It took her this long, in what was basically to be her last film, to get back to the acting and fully developed roles in which she first started. It was revealed years later that Mills had been offered, and nearly accepted, the title role in Stanley Kubrick's "Lolita". And while that notorious role ruined the career (and perhaps life) of the actress who eventually took it (Sue Lyon), it might have actually been better for Mills than all the saccharine, cloying Disney movies she got typecast in.This is pretty much Mills show all the way. Ward is good but pretty functional. It's generally well directed by journeyman director Sid Hayers ("Assault", "Circus of Horror", "Revenge"). Sterling Hayden shows up in a cameo as an eccentric old coot (and his character's harmless flirtations with Mills have some unintentional sexual tension given that in real life she had recently married a man about Hayden's age). And, oh yes, and for those of you whose minds are in the gutter (along with mine), Mills also has some nice nude scenes. Good luck finding this as it is undeservedly very obscure today, but it's definitely recommended.