The Cry of the Owl by Patricia Highsmith

Adapted by Shaun McKenna.

Intriguing psychological thriller, a tale of obsession based on the novel by Patricia Highsmith.

Divorced, depressed Robert Forester moves to a small community and starts lurking outside the home of Jenny. She has a boyfriend, Greg - but after a confrontation with Robert the man goes missing, and Robert is suspected of foul play.

Part 1 00:00
Recently divorced Robert Forester is attracted to a stranger in Langley Pennsylvania. He has escaped his oppressive wife and has no need to see a psychiatrist again. So why is he outside Jennv Theirolf's house, watching her every move?

Robert Forester:………John Sharian
Greg:………..Adrian Lester
Jenny:………Joanne McQuinn
Nickie:……..Briony Glassco
Jack:……..Matt Rippy
Susie:………Laurel Lefkow

Part 2 28:10
Jenny has fallen for Robert Forester, though he is not certain of his feelings for her. Jenny's love for Robert Forester is creating unforeseen dangers. Her ex-fiance, Greg, is very certain. He wants Jenny back - and Robert is in the way.

Robert Forester:………..John Sharlan
Greg:……….Adrian Lester
Jenny:……..Joanne McQuinn
Nickie:………Brlony Glassco
Detective Lippenholtz:………Peter Marinker

Part 3 55:05
After Robert and Greg fight over Jenny, it seems that ex-fiance Greg will stop at nothing to get her back. As each day passes and Greg is still missing, Detective Lippenholtz is finding Robert's story harderto believe.

Robert Forester:………John Sharian
Greg:………Adrian Lester
Jenny:………Joanne McQuinn
Nickie:……..Briony Glassco
Detective Lippenholtz:……….Peter Marinker
Ralph:………Jeff Harding
Jack:……….Matt Rippy

Part 4 1:24:10
Jenny's tragic death has left Robert broken, but her ex-fiance Greg is bent on revenge. Robert has been shot. Could Greg Wyncoop - who's not been seen since they fought by the river-really have done it, or is his body lying in the morgue?

Robert Forester:………John Sharlan
Greg:……..Adrian Lester
Detective Lippenholtz:……….Peter Martnker
Nickie:………Briony Glassco
Jack:………Matt Rippy
Dr Knott:……..Garrick Hagon

Music composed and performed by David Chitton
Director Marion Nancarrow

The Cry of the Owl: Four Episodes
First broadcast: From - Thu 20th Jun 2002, 23:00 on BBC Radio 4 FM

The Cry of the Owl is a psychological thriller novel by Patricia Highsmith, the eighth of her 22 novels. It was first published in the US in 1962 by Harper & Row and in the UK by Heinemann the following year. It explores, in the phrase of critic Brigid Brophy, "the psychology of the self-selected victim”.

Highsmith wrote The Cry of the Owl between April 1961 and February 1962. She considered it to be one of her weaker efforts, calling its principal character "rather square ... a polite sitting duck for more evil characters, and a passive bore”

This "extraordinary story" (Julian Symons) begins with an act of naive voy­eurism. Robert Forester, a depressed but fundamentally decent man, liked to watch Jenny through her kitchen window, a harmless palliative, as he saw it, to his lonely life and failed marriage. As he is drawn into her life, however, the recriminations of his simple pleasure shatter the deceptive calm of this small Pennsylvania town. With striking clarity and horrible inevitability, Forester is caught up in a series of deaths in which he is the innocent bystander, presumed guilty.

Highsmith has once again, as Graham Greene wrote "created a world of her own, a world claustrophobic and irrational which we enter each time with a sense of personal danger". And that sense of danger grows from the first page to the sinister and chilling conclusion. [goodreads]

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