MartinHafer "Deadly Strangers" is a very poor suspense movie--mostly due to bad pacing and really bad writing. I know several of the reviewers really liked it...but I just couldn't get past many odd dangling plot points. The story begins with a maniac killing some folks at an institute for the criminally insane and disappearing. The next scene, Belle (Hayley Mills) is at a pub...trying to hitch a ride with someone. A truck driver takes her...and soon tries to molest her and she escapes. Soon, Stephen (Simon Ward) arrives and offers to take her the rest of the way. What follows is a very LONG cross country trek where OFTEN Stephen does criminal activities that simply make no sense AND Belle complains...but ultimately stays with him. By the end, you learn which of them is the psychotic murderer...and this really does NOT explain away a lot of what you'd previously seen!The other problem with the film is that BOTH Stephen AND Belle keep having flashback scenes...far too often. It's just plain sloppy and the film left me frustrated because I wanted to see a good suspense picture....and didn't!

Rainey Dawn Simon Ward and Hayley Mills are both outstanding in this one. This is one of the best movies I have seen in a while... I've seen this one years ago and forgotten about it and forgot what happens - I only remember seeing it once upon a time. I can say I am impressed and will want to watch this one again.An escapee has left the mental institution. Belle has just missed her train, wants to get back home and catches a ride with a crazy trucker but she manages to get away from him and is stranded on the road. Stephen had seen her earlier at the tavern where she left with the man, recognized her and gave her a lift. From that point on, we can see the strange behavior of Stephen. Even Belle had her strange ways that explained her stand-off behavior yet seemed to have an odd trust in Stephen. Belle seems to kinda like Stephen, she even helps him out a time or two. During flashbacks we can see Belle's past and Stephen's past... it helps to explain their behavior. They end up going more places together than where Belle wanted to go in the first place. At one point, Belle ends up with another strange man that picks her up after a mix-up with Stephen but Belle and Stephen end up back together. Belle and Stephen really seemed like a match made in Heaven until the very end.9.5/10

kapelusznik18 ****SPOILERS**** Things went downhill fast for Belle Adams, Hayley Mills, right from the start in the crazy & bizarre film. Getting a ride to the Greenwood train station at a local truck stop. Belle is attacked by the horny trucker who just couldn't keep his eyes off her shapely legs instead of keeping his eye on the road. Being picked up by the drunk, he was celebrating his birthday, Stephen Slade, Simon Ward, a few minutes later Belle soon realizes that he's no better then the horny trucker who attempted to rape her! That in just how weird as well as disconnected from reality he is. Not getting in time to Greenwood to catch her train Belle soon forgets where she's going and stays with Stephen who seems to have developed a crush on her.Endlessly driving around the English countryside and seeming to be going nowhere Belle soon leaves Stephen to buy some groceries at a local Food-Mart. It's then that she's confronted by this what looks like grizzly looking six foot five inch Lepechaun Malcolm Roberts played by, who was touted back in the 1940's as being the most handsome man in Hollywood, the unkempt and disheveled Sterling Hayden. It's Roberts who soon finds out, by looking at the days newspaper headline, that a inmate escaped from the Greenwood Mental Hospital who from the photo fits the description of Stephen Slade. In tying to warn Belle about him Roberts comes up short in not being able to keep up with them in his hopped-up looking 1930's jalopy.****MAJOR MAJOR SPOILERS**** In trying to figure out what's exactly going on in the movie we do get a major clue in a number of flashbacks involving Belle and her overly creepy and hot in the pants duck-billed looking Uncle Peter Jeffrey. It was Uncle Peter who molested Belle when she was a little girl that in fact ended up screwing up her head. And it was Belle's reaction to Uncle Peter's grouping and rape of her that in fact had her institutionalized! The trouble is that the clueless Stephen is totally unaware of that and in the end he's soon to become her next victim!

Ian Pennick Deadly Strangers is quite a basic storyline with twist, the dialogue is a little flat, Chat up lines involving ostrich eggs for example.. The story rumbles along with a watchable quality and being a road movie the pace does pick up in the chase scenes. Though towards the end the chase in the woods tends to drop the action. One thing that is well worth noticing is the use of small mount cameras, quite innovative then. In many respects this film is more a car spotters dream.. If your into 70's British cars you will be pausing the DVD more times than you can imagine!Overall Hayley ,Simon and Sterling carry this script off,but the most surprising performance comes from the Maxi!!