User Reviews

Louisa loves classic music, listening to and playing. One day, she and her husband Edward discover a stray cat in their Garden, the Feline finds its way into their home. The elderly couple disagree over the cat, Louisa loves him, Edward positively hates it. When Louisa begins playing the cat seems to react differently to the various composers, she starts to think the cat is the re-incarnation of composer Liszt.

A very unusual episode, how something so small can result in such absolute rage. I especially love the performance of Wendy Hiller, an amazing actress. Joseph Cotton was great too as her misery of her husband, and that was one lovely cat too.

The craziest episode to date, rather insane matter, but it all works rather wonderful, the best bit is the 'snap,' we all have a breaking point, even the most mild mannered people.

Clever, 7/10

A series of unlikely coincidences convinces elderly wife Louisa (Wendy Hiller) that a stray cat is the reincarnation of music composer Franz Liszt. It reactsc favorably to Liszt pieces performed by the woman on her piano, and runs away from Schumann and Bach. A neat kicker was when the cat knocked over and broke a handful of statuettes of famous composers, leaving only the Liszt bust unharmed. Her husband Edward (Joseph Cotten) can't be convinced however, and in fact, hates the cat so much he's willing to do it bodily harm to remove it from the premises. This has one of those jump to conclusion finales in which Louisa acts to enact her raging revenge on Edward, only to have the cat saunter it's way back into the house after it's too late. I didn't stick around to see if the Tabby got a screen credit for it's appearance, which would have been well deserved. Did you ever try to get a cat to do even one thing that this feline had to do over the course of the episode?

Tales of the Unexpected: Edward the Conqueror starts as an elderly couple living in rural England named Edward (Joseph Cotten) & Louisa (Wendy Hiller) notice a cat in their garden, Edward wants nothing to do with it although Louisa takes a fancy to it. Inside the house Lousia settles down to her favourite pass time playing classical music on the piano when the cat pops up, not knowing how it got into the house Louisa decides to keep it & after some strange coincidence's like seeming to recognise certain pieces of music Louisa becomes convinced that the cat is in fact a reincarnation of the famed Hungarian composer Franz Listz...

This Tales of the Unexpected story was episode 7 from season 1 that originally aired here in the UK during May 1979, the first of three Tales of the Unexpected episodes to be directed by Rodney Bennett this is a fairly quaint & watchable story. The story by Roald Dahl was dramatised by Ronald Harwood & in his filmed introduction Dahl states that he would often play a piece of classical music before he would start to write in the hope that the creative genius behind the music would rub off on him which he admits it never did, well I wouldn't be so sure because the guy was undoubtedly a wonderful storyteller & this tale of the unexpected was inspired by & came about from his fondness of classical music. Anyway, this is a decent enough story that entertains for 25 odd minutes that has a gentle feel to it until the twist ending which I didn't see coming & was a nice dark way to round this particular story off. It moves along at a fair pace although I wouldn't be as convinced as Louisa that the cat was the reincarnation of Listz, I mean just recognising & reacting to a piece of his music isn't really concrete proof is it? It's a bit of stretch to go from that to be absolutely certain that the cat was the reincarnation of Listz, personally I'd have put it down to a coincidence & would have liked a bit more solid evidence but then again what do I know?

This one looks pretty good considering it's vintage & hasn't dated that badly. There's no horror or scares but it's an effective little tale which will keep you watching until at the end so in that regard it must be doing something right. The acting is alright from another strong British TV cast.

Edward the Conqueror, a title I don't get by the way, is a decent enough time waster that's worth a watch if you can catch a repeat on TV.