The Victim: Soggy Suspense with Elizabeth Montgomery

“When something’s dead, the only decent thing to do is bury it,” Elizabeth Montgomery’s younger sister tells her in the made-for-TV thriller The Victim (1972). Susan Chappel (Jess Walton) is referring to her marriage to Ben (George Maharis); she recently retained a divorce lawyer. But in a macabre twist, she’s soon dead herself—and certainly not buried.

As Kate Wainwright (Montgomery) inches closer to that horrifying discovery, we’re treated to 75 minutes of thunder and lightning and close calls with a corpse. Hitchcock’s Rope it ain’t, but The Victim (adapted by Merwin Gerard from a story by McKnight Malmar) derives its more twisted suspense from a body in a trunk. And this time it’s wicker and not entirely closed, allowing viewers to notice what escapes Kate’s attention in Ben and Susan’s dark basement.

Kate has traveled through a dangerous downpour in support of Susan, alone in a magnificent ramshackle house with Ben out-of-town for work. Except Susan, who wasn’t expecting her, is nowhere to be found when Kate arrives. As the storm worsens, resulting in mudslides and road closures, Kate’s anxiety intensifies. Strange noises emanate from the basement and windows don’t seem to stay closed. And where is Susan’s beloved dog?

Every movie like this needs a spooky neighbor or suspicious outsider to ratchet up the tension. The Victim supplies the leering Mrs. Hawkes (Eileen Heckart, always superb), Ben’s longtime housekeeper who lives just up the road. “I don’t keep tabs on your sister. She’s always gallivantin’ somewhere,” she grouses to Kate about Susan, a chic, wealthy heiress she plainly resents.

Susan’s gossipy friend Edith (Sue Ane Langdon, our only comic relief) tells Kate that Susan recently fired the older woman: “Susan gave her two weeks’ pay and a boot in the rear. If it had been me, she could go whistle for her two weeks.” Informed that Mrs. Hawkes hasn’t taken her leave, Edith warns, “She obviously won’t take no for an answer, until she’s thrown out bodily. But I wouldn’t advise you to try it. I’m sure her bite is poisonous.”

Heckart’s narrowed eyes and forbidding stare say more than most of her dialogue, but Hawkes eventually cuts to the chase. “Do you realize that Mr. Chappel is likely to lose this house if she goes through with the divorce now?” she asks Kate, who doesn’t think that’s any of her business. “Oh, ain’t it?” Hawkes sneers. “This house has been my affair for the past 10 years. Every day, from breakfast till the dinner dishes was washed and put away. This house and Mr. Chappel—mine! Until she came along.”

Ben, charmless and oozing insincerity, finally arrives in the film’s final 15 minutes, returning home early to patch things up with Susan. (That someone with a bullshit detector as finely honed as Mrs. Hawkes adores him is purely a function of the plot.) By then Kate has spent much of the evening sopping wet, calmly investigating bumps in the night. She’s observed enough evidence that Susan never left the house to form an idea of what happened, but stops short of involving the sheriff’s deputies who check on her during the storm.

If you’re a Montgomery fan, as I am, The Victim is worth checking out for her carefully calibrated performance. Others might find it a little too soggy. Director Herschel Daugherty keeps the eerie atmosphere so static that its denouement lacks oomph. Kate finally gets a couple of Big Scary Moments, yielding some magnificent screams from Montgomery (whose Sins of the Mother we reviewed earlier this year). But none of those developments were as frightening to me as Mrs. Hawkes using the washer and dryer during heavy lightning.

Additional screen caps are here, on Instagram.

You can search for Elizabeth Montgomery at Amazon, where some of her films stream for free (with ads).

Streaming and DVD availability

The Victim is available on both DVD and Blu-ray from KL Studio Classics. It isn’t currently streaming anywhere but unauthorized copies circulate on YouTube.

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