Between the Darkness and the Dawn

The strange case of Elizabeth Montgomery as the coma case waking up after 20 years, having left the world in 1965 as 17 years old, and finding a totally bewildering new world in 1985 with a laughable Ronald Reagan as president, her old school full of weird computers and nothing at all making any sense - the first thing she says to her mother after twenty years, who tended her all this time, is, "Who are you?" She is totally alienated, and Elizabeth Montgomery makes a fabulous realisation of the case, being actually 52 when she made the film, which no one could suspect - she doesn't look a year younger than 37. It's a wonderful story, and there are many touching and delicate scenes, Dorothy McGuire playing the mother, famous from the first classical version of "The Spiral Staircase" 1946, which part Elizabeth Montgomery actually remade for television 20 years later. It's a wonderful enjoyable film, but what you will remember most is Elizabeth's eyes. She actually acts by her eyes, and they are almost disturbingly expressive, especially when all the rest of her is stiff; and although it is a fictional story, it is made very real indeed, and such cases aren't just impossible. This is a treat for anyone.