Image of Death

This is my favorite One Step Beyond episode.Doris Dowling could play ruthless, calculating, and sarcastic women perfectly and she was possessed of a cool and even cruel beauty that made her a natural for film noir roles.She portrays Charlotte, the nurse who poisons the first marquise for whom she was hired to care for. She desires the position of marquise and all the privilege that goes with it for herself but she holds her new husband in contempt and has no affection for him at all. Classically trained Max Adrian plays the weak willed marquis who is so dominated by Charlotte that he becomes her accomplice in the murder of his first wife.A police detective suspicious of the first wife's death, starts dogging the couple. The village priest who presided at the funeral and then married the pair is also convinced of their guilt.

Charlotte has a a portrait of the first wife removed from a prominent spot but a stain appears on the wall where it hung and seems to be growing into something much more eerie and vengeful. Could it be a physical manifestation of the marquis's guilt? Charlotte watches her husband become more and more unstable and erratic. When the marquis claims that the stain on the wall is actually becoming his dead wife's haunting image appearing to accuse and torment him, she believes him to have become insane and she decides to take action that keep him from making a public confession of the crime and will save her from imprisonment and perhaps even the guillotine.She doesn't reckon with meeting a justice from beyond the grave.

As with many of the One Step Beyond episode's, The Image of Death is a morality play condemning greed, betrayal, and murder. Whether or not this story actually happened in the way it was portrayed is not as important as the ideas that it expresses. In the end it is a very taught thirty minute ghost story that makes it's point with a few delightful chills.

In all the episodes of this series, you will find no more inspired performances than Max Adrian as the French Marquis and Doris Dowling as the servant-girl at the chateau, who has helped him murder his first wife, so that she can become his second.

By contrast, the plot is even weaker than usual, resting on a dubious device about the blank space where the dead wife's portrait used to hang, and a mysterious stain that keeps appearing and reappearing, to haunt the conscience of the Marquis, but apparently not his new bride.

This brisk operator carries total conviction as the determined social climber, no longer just Charlotte, but Madame la Marquise if you don't mind, making changes to the house in line with her new status. "Some of this furniture is rather old" - "Not old, my dear. Antique." We immediately detect an uncomfortable culture-clash, as well as a personality-clash between the odd couple.

As for Max Adrian, he brings a lifetime of classical training to the role, as well as something of his native Kilkenny, in Ireland's deep south, where the ghosts and the goblins have not quite disappeared. His emotive speech, confessing all to the priest, is thoroughly Irish, despite the French-accented English in which the lines are meant to be spoken.

At the mid-point of the episode, there is a formal party, where the Marquise is playing the grand hostess for the first time, but this is only referenced, not shown, which upsets the flow. Two other weaknesses in the production seem to be perennials, recognisable from several other episodes. Both characters are seen at the piano, clearly faking it, when this is a standard piece of theatrical business: conceal the hands and move the arms in rhythm. And your host John Newland talks about strange things happening on the anniversary of the murder, which spoils the effect of his usually quite plausible commentary.

Doris Dowling plays an ambitious young woman named Charlotte, who has recently married a rich older aristocrat(played by Max Adrian) after they conspired to murder his wife. Strange things start happening when the wall space where the first wife's portrait once hanged now shows a growing stain that no amount of scrubbing can wash out. Soon, this stain becomes the face of the dead woman, which distorts into a sinister looking skull, which threatens to expose their crime, if they aren't driven mad first... Eerie entry has a surefire premise, though the cast of characters don't really grab the viewer like they should. Still, this is memorable.

What a fabulous episode, an ambitious maid Charlotte poisoned her own Marquise whose supposedly should be care, actually she has been Marquis's lover for a long time, after Marquise's death, four months were enough for Charlotte's marriage, aftermath The Marquis wasn't too comfy with the fast happenings, the jealous Charlotte order removes of the large portrait painting of the hall of the late Marquise, after few days a strange picture appears on the wall, they tried removed by any means, however it' will increase every day becoming in a human face, more precisely the Marquise's face, the hosted John Newland suggest to the audience if someone are passing through, feel free to a take a look at this fancy Chateau to see this remarkable wall's picture which is just visible at brief period of time!!

Resume:

First watch: 2019 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 7

After conspiring to murder his wife, with the help of his his lover, Marquis Jacques De La Roget marries and moves Charlotte in, a woman with a rough and ready personality. Charlotte orders a portrait or her predecessor to be removed, and a strange stain appears.

What a terrific storyline, very well written, superbly acted. A grey story of guilt and remorse, with that age old problem, be careful what you wish for.

I like the relative vagueness of this one, the patch on the wall is left totally unexplained.

It surprises me a little the way that The Marquis and his wife openly discuss their act in front of the staff, especially Ernest.

Doris Dowling steals the show as Charlotte, she's a big personality, loud and brash, totally at odds with Jeanette it seems, she truly is a formidable femme fatale.

8/10.