[1] The screenplay was by Ephraim Kogan and John Tully film is based on the 1952 novel Les Visages de l'ombre by Boileau-Narcejac.

His wife is a devious woman and is plotting, with her lover, in an attempt to make her husband think he's going insane, in the hope that he will take his own life and leave them free to pursue their illicit affair in peace.

Instead of using all the resources of the cinema to stress and elaborate the tension, he settles for a prosaic, television style of presentation.

The photography is suitably harsh but the camerawork lacks fluidity; the characterisation is properly flat, but so is most of the acting.

Sadly, ex-documentary director David Eady simply doesn't have the thriller instinct and throws away countless opportunities to make the tension unbearable.