Ellen Willard stars as Emily McDougall, who is a shy young woman in 1939 England who is staying overnight with a friend when she is awakened by a vivid dream/vision of a handsome dying soldier named Harry(played by Alex Davion) whose last words are her name! Both disturbed yet excited by this tragic(yet romantic) scene, Emily later on in a library will literally faint with shock when she meets Harry in real life, and they fall in love and get married! However, this fairy-tale like romance still has the foreshadowed dark ending, as Harry becomes involved with World War II with the expected results...Sweet little romantic fable is both well acted and presented with care, nicely recreating its time and place while pondering the inevitability of fate.
5 Reviews
The Past Is the Future
wes-connors5 July 2011
In England during the summer of 1943, attractive Elen Willard (as Emily) assures a military officer she is neither hysterical nor mentally insane. After host John Newland walks on the set to agree, Ms. Willard explains an unusual event, in flashback
We move to France in May of 1939 where Willard has rented a house. On a stormy night, a handsome stranger is brought into the house, wounded in a battle with Nazis. He calls out "Emily, I love you!" then dies. The whole scene disappears and visiting American friend Sally Fraser (as Ann) assures Willard it was only a dream...
As you might guess, the man from the "hallucination" appears, and then he and our troubled heroine fall in love. You'll have to see if they can cheat fate This is a fine little Gothic story. Willard makes it seem more like "Dark Shadows" than usual by resembling a combination of young Kate Jackson and Jean Simmons. She is very good, and has terrific chemistry with leading man Alex Davion (as Harry MacDougall). Odd (not), he does not have the cockeyed eye or weak chin mentioned in the script. More work from these two performers would certainly have been welcome.
****** To Know the End (11/1/60) John Newland ~ Elen Willard, Alexander Davion, Sally Fraser, Noel Drayton
As you might guess, the man from the "hallucination" appears, and then he and our troubled heroine fall in love. You'll have to see if they can cheat fate This is a fine little Gothic story. Willard makes it seem more like "Dark Shadows" than usual by resembling a combination of young Kate Jackson and Jean Simmons. She is very good, and has terrific chemistry with leading man Alex Davion (as Harry MacDougall). Odd (not), he does not have the cockeyed eye or weak chin mentioned in the script. More work from these two performers would certainly have been welcome.
****** To Know the End (11/1/60) John Newland ~ Elen Willard, Alexander Davion, Sally Fraser, Noel Drayton
Nightmare come True
sol121815 June 2011
Warning: Spoilers
***SPOILERS*** It was in the summer of 1938 that British librarian Emily MacDougall, Elen Willard, experienced a nightmare that had haunted her for years! That's until four years later in the summer of 1942 that it came true with shocking clarity. Waking up to the sounds of thunder and lighting in what seemed to be some kind of futuristic vision Emily saw her future husband Harry MacDougall, Alex Davlon, a captain in the British Army dying after being hit by gunfire on a raid on the little French seaside town that she and her American friend Ann, Sally Fraser, were vacationing at.
Back in England on her job as a librarian Emily runs into Harry and the nightmare that she was trying to forget becomes the real deal! Like a moth flying into an open flame Emily despite knowing Harry's as well as her fate married him and then waits in horror for the fateful day, August 12th, that in her nightmare was to be the day that Harry was to be killed in a British/Candaian cross-channel raid in France! That's even before the war that Harry was to be killed in, WWII, even began!
***SPOILERS*** We already know that this event,Harry's tragic death, happened since it was all told to us in a long flashback by Emily, who was recovering from a car accident, at the very start of the "One Step Beond" episode! The fact that was to happened to Harry was pre-ordained, in Emily's nightmare, had her accept what happened to him and in a way soften the blow when it finally did come. What was not exactly explained is where it happened other then in a town on the German occupied French coast! The town in question was very obviously in the information that British officer Noel Drayton, who was interviewing Emily, provided us with the French town of Dieppe! It's at Dieppe that a major British/Canadian raid took place in the summer of 1942 where the British & Canadian troops suffered more the 60% casualties in being driven back into the sea by the German Army! The only thing that seemed to be a bit off was the date of that disastrous raid! It took place on August 19,1942 not August 12! The date that Emily feared and was so obsessed by!
Back in England on her job as a librarian Emily runs into Harry and the nightmare that she was trying to forget becomes the real deal! Like a moth flying into an open flame Emily despite knowing Harry's as well as her fate married him and then waits in horror for the fateful day, August 12th, that in her nightmare was to be the day that Harry was to be killed in a British/Candaian cross-channel raid in France! That's even before the war that Harry was to be killed in, WWII, even began!
***SPOILERS*** We already know that this event,Harry's tragic death, happened since it was all told to us in a long flashback by Emily, who was recovering from a car accident, at the very start of the "One Step Beond" episode! The fact that was to happened to Harry was pre-ordained, in Emily's nightmare, had her accept what happened to him and in a way soften the blow when it finally did come. What was not exactly explained is where it happened other then in a town on the German occupied French coast! The town in question was very obviously in the information that British officer Noel Drayton, who was interviewing Emily, provided us with the French town of Dieppe! It's at Dieppe that a major British/Canadian raid took place in the summer of 1942 where the British & Canadian troops suffered more the 60% casualties in being driven back into the sea by the German Army! The only thing that seemed to be a bit off was the date of that disastrous raid! It took place on August 19,1942 not August 12! The date that Emily feared and was so obsessed by!
"For the future, I wish you nothing but pleasant dreams."
classicsoncall13 February 2015
Warning: Spoilers
This story unfolds somewhat like the second season episode 'I Saw You Tomorrow'. A woman (Elen Willard) has a very realistic vision of a young soldier dying at the bottom of her stairs and then he suddenly vanishes. The haunting memory stays with her for a span of four years when the young man (Alexander Davion) she saw suddenly shows up at the library she works at to check out some books. Following a brief courtship they marry, even as Emily is racked by the torment of wondering whether her vision was a premonition of something tragic that would befall her husband Harry.
Being a One Step Beyond story you'll know where this is going. Contributing to the shock and horror of Harry's death, Emily is additionally faced with questioning by a military officer concerning her apparent foreknowledge of Harry's death, who assumes she might have been part of an enemy conspiracy.
Seeing this episode when I did, I was struck by a particular scene in the picture where an English citizen wears a sandwich board proclaiming 'Peace in our Time/Chamberlain Returns From Munich'. One hopes that this story from 1960 about events that occurred in 1943 are not a harbinger of another world war as we confront global terrorists bent on our destruction.
Being a One Step Beyond story you'll know where this is going. Contributing to the shock and horror of Harry's death, Emily is additionally faced with questioning by a military officer concerning her apparent foreknowledge of Harry's death, who assumes she might have been part of an enemy conspiracy.
Seeing this episode when I did, I was struck by a particular scene in the picture where an English citizen wears a sandwich board proclaiming 'Peace in our Time/Chamberlain Returns From Munich'. One hopes that this story from 1960 about events that occurred in 1943 are not a harbinger of another world war as we confront global terrorists bent on our destruction.
To Know the End
Prismark1018 February 2023
Librarian Emily MacDougall (Elen Willard) experienced a nightmare. A soldier wounded in battle comes to her home and calls out her name.
That was before the second world war started. Now in the summer of 1942. Emily meets Harry MacDougall (Alex Davlon) in the library. He looks like the wounded soldier in her dreams.
Harry is a captain in the British Army, both he and Emily fall in love and marry. It is a case of whether they can cheat fate.
As the story is framed with Emily being interrogated by military officers. It is certain that Harry did die.
Neither Emily nor Harry could alter the future.
To Know the End is a decent love story but it held no surprises.
That was before the second world war started. Now in the summer of 1942. Emily meets Harry MacDougall (Alex Davlon) in the library. He looks like the wounded soldier in her dreams.
Harry is a captain in the British Army, both he and Emily fall in love and marry. It is a case of whether they can cheat fate.
As the story is framed with Emily being interrogated by military officers. It is certain that Harry did die.
Neither Emily nor Harry could alter the future.
To Know the End is a decent love story but it held no surprises.
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