"Room Without a View" begins with the sudden reappearance of physicist Dr. John Wadkin (Peter Madden, "One for the Mortuary," "Pandora"), surprising his wife Anna (an unbilled Jeanne Roland, from Hammer's "The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb") in her own home, but barely a shadow of his former self. He's just one of seven scientists that have gone missing over the previous two years, with the one common thread linking them all being that each checked in and out of the Chessman Hotel, and were never seen again. Peter Jeffrey, later seen in both "The Joker" and "Game," plays Varnals, who deduces by Wadkin's negative reaction to his wife's Chinese heritage that he was held captive in a Manchurian prison camp. Paul Whitsun-Jones, previously seen in "Man with Two Shadows" and "The Wringer" (and later appearing in "Fog"), plays the dieting hotel owner, Max Chessman, whose thin blood requires him to live in higher temperatures, and Vernon Dobtcheff, later seen in "The Living Dead" and "Thingumajig," plays a Russian spy. Acting honors go to two veteran villains from episodes past, Philip Latham (from "The White Dwarf") as the sinister hotel manager, led to believe that Steed is an accomplished gourmet, and Peter Arne (from "Death on the Slipway," "Warlock," and "The Golden Eggs"), whose suspicions about a certain hotel room are well founded. A captive Mrs. Peel is interrogated by a Manchurian guard (an unbilled Anthony Chinn) who laments that no woman has ever been held prisoner, outlining the contours of her body with lascivious intent. The best moment comes when Steed assures Varnals that he's already checked Emma for "deadly weapons!"
Review of Room Without a View
