The Triple Echo

An adaptation of an HE Bates story, set in an isolated Wiltshire farm in 1942. With her husband a prisoner-of-war, lonely wife (Jackson) strikes up an intimate relationship with a young soldier (Deacon), a farmer's boy who hates the army. When he impulsively deserts, she hides him, disguised in drag as her sister. The inevitable tensions of their life are increased when two soldiers from the nearby camp discover 'the girls', and the lecherous sergeant (Reed) takes a fancy to the one in drag. The relationship between the wife and the deserter is built carefully and convincingly, but in going for laughs as the bullish sergeant, Oliver Reed lets some of the potential tension slip away. As with many of Bates' stories, the plot is in any case resolved suddenly and melodramatically.