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| Three-part British mini series Based on the novel by Nigel Slater. Made by BBC Scotland (1981) Producer Bob McIntosh Director Robert Young Music by Philip Sawyer |
CAST Richard Heffer as Michael Hilliard Barbara Kellerman as Dr. Ann Maitland Richard Morant as Johnny Dalry Ed Bishop as Tom Siegler Valerie Holliman as Norma Siegler Debbi Blythe as Jane Stoddard Vivienne Dixon as Siegler's secretary |
When a pet cat affected by rabies is smuggled into Great Britain, the spread of
the disease amongst the animal population goes undetected - until the first human,
Tom Siegler, falls victim to the terrible Mad Death.
Michael Hilliard and Ann Maitland combine forces to fight the disease : Hilliard
moves quickly to contain the rabies outbreak inside the infected area, while Ann
Maitland attempts to trace the source of the virus in order to save others the agonising
death she has seen Tom Siegler suffer.
A deliberate act of sabotage by an 'animal lover' who frees her dogs from the place
they were being contained jeopardises the containment of the rabies outbreak. Hilliard's
life is threatened as he attempts to control the new danger and Ann's human concern
leads her into danger too.
Ed Bishop plays Tom Siegler, an American business man who is a great animal lover
and a womaniser. After a phonecall to one of his lady friends from a phonebox (he's
also very much married) he sees a fox lying by the roadside and takes it home with
him as a playmate for his two dogs, thinking the fox is tame since it appears to
be friendly and quiet. What Tom doesn't know is that the fox is not friendly but
sick, infected by rabies by eating from another animal's carcass.
Tom takes the fox into his garage and goes on to pet it after having cut himself
with a knife, the foam around the fox's mouth coming into contact with this cut.
The next morning the fox is into the wild stage of the disease and Tom first attempts
to chase it away with a stick, then he tries to run it down with his car.
Just before Tom starts showing the first symptoms of the disease he manages to infect
one of the women he is having an affair with by biting her lip!
As Tom is the first person to be infected, we follow him through the various stages
of the disease, starting off with headaches, then confusion, disorientation, blurred
vision and aversion to drafts. As he displays the latter symptoms while driving his
car, he ends up having an accident and he is taken to a hospital. In hospital he
starts having hallucinations of being strangled, brought on by his sore throat, while
the doctors don't suspect anything more amiss than a concussion and shock.
Tom's next hallucinations have to do with the aversion to water usually associated
with rabies, and his behaviour and lack of response alert the doctors that there
is something very wrong with Tom. They put him in isolation to study his case and
after Tom has convulsions and more hallucinations, the doctors diagnose him as suffering
from hydrophobia, which in turn leads them to take some bloodsamples that confirm
Tom has rabies.
The Mad Death typifies the British attitude towards rabies - they fear one animal
with rabies in the country would quickly infect all wildlife and eventually spread
to humans.
The Mad Death is well made and very enjoyable to watch. Ed Bishop is terrific and
has a lot of real good scenes f.i. when running down the fox with his car and the
ones where he starts having the symptoms of the disease : the hallucinations and
convulsions seem very real indeed. Anybody who had been planning to smuggle an animal
into Great Britain would surely be dissuaded from doing so by watching Tom Siegler's
ordeal.
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This page by Lieve Peten, Belgium (email shado@gmx.net), member of the Fab-Ufo List.
