Dir - Douglas Heyes
Overall: GOOD
Overall: GOOD
Two Thriller stories in a row to adapt one from Robert Boch, "The Hungry Glass" was also the first to air in 1961 and featured William Shatner in the lead. Standard haunted house motifs are at play, (a couple moves into a spacious abode with a murderous past that was not divulged to them, characters see things which are brushed off by other characters as mere impressionable tricks of the eye, and the whole ordeal becomes exponentially more stressful as it goes on), but it leads to a grisly finish. Plus, these particular malevolent specters make competitively quick work of their prey instead of leading them around for weeks on end before making their presence undeniable. A macabre backstory and fitting cinematography from Lionel Lindon, (who also shot many Night Gallery episodes), also helps.
(1961)
Dir - Herschel Daugherty
Overall: MEH
When two gold diggers marry each other, (each thinking that the other is loaded to the gills yet actually neither of them are), frustrations are bound to arise. Thus is the starting point to Thriller's "The Poisoner" where Murray Matheson's answer to every problem is just to drop deadly powder into some brandy for his undesirables to drink. Surprising to no one, (least of all him), this haphazard scheme is easily found out, yet because all evidence is circumstantial, Matheson correctly guesses that his wife will not be able to testify against him, he will walk away a free man, and that he will not be able to be tried again due to a double jeopardy clause in English law. Matheson's performance is appropriately arrogant and sleazy, plus the means of his comeuppance is satisfactory, with the episode standing as one of its earlier period-set ones that was working outside the confines of the horror genre that it would later lean into.
(1961)
Dir - Gerald Mayer
Overall: MEH
A noir excursion on foreign soil, "Man in the Cage" boasts a misleading title since there is a man and there is a cage, but the two only meet for a single set piece hangup midway through that is easily resolved. Guy Stockwell and Philip Carey play a set of square-jawed brothers, neither sharing screen time, as the former goes missing after the opening scene and the latter travels to Tangier to investigate his disappearance. The John Holbrook Vance source material has enough going on in it as we meet some shady characters, an enticing dame, future-Donatello Barry Gordon playing a shifty tyke who plays whatever side that he can to make some money, and everybody wondering who they can trust along the way. It never gets that suspenseful though, despite the classy production and swell performances.
(1961)
Dir - Richard Carlson
Overall: MEH
The Thriller episode "Choose a Victim" explores the idea of two people pulling a con on each other, except that neither of them knows that they are being conned. It is melodramatic, far-fetched, and cliche-ridden, yet some enjoyment can be had within the details of how exactly Larry Blyden and Susan Oliver are out for their own means. George Bellak's teleplay hinges on the frequented idea of star-crossed lovers who have to sneak away to be together, which always means that the only way out of their predicament is to murder whoever is in their way. To get away with this of course requires a herculean amount of good luck, as well as none of the several other characters noticing the two lovebirds together for the weeks before such murdering is committed as not to cast suspicion on them. When will these kids ever learn?
(1961)
Dir - Herschel Daugherty
Overall: MEH
Though it is brooding with fog-laden occult atmosphere and deals explicitly with witch paranoia, the Thriller installment "Hay-Fork and Bill-Hook" boasts a subpar story that fails to do anything unique within its trope-heavy framework. We have a Scotland Yard detective arriving in a remote Wales village that is overrun with superstition and may as well be the same town of Whitewood from John Llewellyn Moxey's The City of the Dead, or home to the Slaughtered Lamb from John Landis' An American Werewolf in London. The villagers immediately act fishy and suspicious towards these out of towners, (Kenneth Haigh and Audrey Dalton, respectively), and any viewer can predict that such scaredey cat locals with a proud penchant for burning witches at the stake will attempt just such a thing by episode's end. It gets by to a point with is heavy scenery and persistently macabre mood, but it is also low on action, predictable, and generic in execution.
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