Thriller Season One - Part Four

THE HUNGRY GLASS

(1961)

Dir - Douglas Heyes
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.

 

THE POISONER
(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.

 

MAN IN THE CAGE
(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.

 

CHOOSE A VICTIM
(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?

 

HAY-FORK AND BILL-HOOK
(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.

Thriller Season One - Part Three

THE FATAL IMPULSE
(1960)
Dir - Gerald Mayer
Overall: MEH

 

Prolific character actor Elijah Cook Jr. kicks things off in "The Fatal Impulse", an adaptation of a John D. MacDonald short story whose plot almost entirely consists of police detectives trying to locate a bomb.  This sounds like it may be a mundane watch, and in some respects it is since it is a lot of back and forth between potential victims who may have had an exploding device dropped into their purse or pockets when Cook's deranged terrorist panics after botching the job.  Robert Lansing shares the viewer's frustration as he spends an entire day driving all over town, frantically interviewing people, and checking their bags without any luck, that is until the final moments where on top of saving the day, he is also rewarded with a promising romance from Whitney Blake whose pushy boyfriend runs away George Costanza-style at the first threat of blowing up.

 

THE BIG BLACKOUT
(1960)
Dir - Maurice Geraghty
Overall: MEH

 

A little bit of mixed identity and recovering addiction commingle in the Thriller installment "The Big Blackout", which is not one of the more gripping crime dramas for the program.  The source material here is the Don Tracy novel of the same name which was published the same year, and it has Whitney Blake trying to stay on the wagon after spending several years in a memory haze from alcoholism, all the while mobsters are tracking down a possible former associate who conducted shady business.  Some women are thrown into the mix and roughed up, as is Tracy who has the right kind of big lug physique to engage in fisticuffs of his own in order to get to the bottom of what is going on without his loved ones being continually threatened.  Nothing exciting happens though and the performances are equally just dependable.

 

KNOCK THREE-ONE-TWO
(1960)
Dir - Herman Hoffman
Overall: GOOD

 

One of the better Thriller installments from before the show shifted focus to horror stories, "Knock Three-One-Two" begins with the common set up of a down on his luck lowlife who is sweating gallons due to his increasing gambling debts that the mob is closing in on him to collect.  Based on the Fredric Brown novel of the same name, Joe Maross portrays such an unlikable protagonist who hits up several different people for the money that he so desperately needs, all to no avail.  Minor scream queen Beverly Garland and noted character actor Warren Oates are two of these people, the latter turning in a showy performance as a simpleton who readily confesses to a string of silk stocking murders that he did not commit.  It takes a few unexpected turns as well, weaving the subplots together into a tense enough finale.

 

MAN IN THE MIDDLE
(1960)
Dir - Fletcher Markle
Overall: MEH

 

The last Thriller episode that initial producer Fletcher Markle worked on, (also directing here), "Man in the Middle" is another adaptation of a Charlotte Armstrong novel and adheres to the trope of an average schlub simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Mort Sahl plays such a schlub with a perpetual, "Oh jeez, why me?" panache, a television writer that just so happens to sit behind two criminals in a public place who loudly lay out their entire plan to kidnap a socialite for some random money.  Sahl is immediately caught minding his own business, which complicates everyone's day to say the least, setting a plot in motion where people are annoyed and frustrated throughout.  Thankfully it does not have the same egregious effect on the viewer, as Markle manages to stage a few suspenseful moments throughout, even if it is still a humdrum affair in the end.

 

THE CHEATERS
(1960)
Dir - John Brahm
Overall: GOOD
 
The same year that his novel Psycho hit the big screen, author Robert Boch got his first of ten stories adapted for the Thriller program.  "The Cheaters" was also one of the first episodes of the show to feature a definite supernatural element, this one revolving around a pair of mysterious glasses that were designed by amateur alchemist Henry Daniell, glasses which reveal the true feelings and intentions of those whom the wearer gazes upon.  Plot wise, it simply follows one owner of the spectacles after the other in a linear fashion, all of them meeting their doom yet all in unique ways from each other.  This keeps the story interesting despite its one-note trajectory, and the final moment where Harry Townes is bested by his own curiosity contains as one of the most startling images in small screen horror from the era.

Thriller Season One - Part Two

THE GUILTY MEN
(1960)
Dir - Jules Bricken
Overall: MEH

 

Perhaps the story that least belongs yet perfectly fit the early crime-centered trajectory of a program called Thriller, "The Guilty Men" is nothing more than a gangster tragedy with some respectable thespians on board.  Everett Sloan, Frank Silvera, and John Marley play three men who are now successful in their fields, but all came from a rough background that has integrated two of them into the realm of organized crime.  A power grab goes down when Silvera's mob boss tries to go fully legitimate to not only clear his conscious and beat the coming FBI crackdown, but most importantly to finally win the good graces of his estranged brother Marley who is the one member of the old crew to avoid illegal activity entirely as a grown man.  There is nothing remarkable here from a narrative perspective, but the cast give it their all and the moral compass of the material is on point.

 

THE PURPLE ROOM
(1960)
Dir - Douglas Heyes
Overall: GOOD
 
It took seven episodes for NBC's Thriller to deliver anything in the horror camp, be it in a cliche ridden fashion.  "The Purple Room" features the well-trotted gag of someone inheriting and having to spend the night in a haunted house in order to reap the potential financial benefits of the place, and Rip Torn plays this someone with the standard skeptical gusto of a young man who is determined to make that money no matter how many bumps in the night he as to endure.  Alan Napier also shows up, plus the house in question is the one from the same year's Psycho, at least on the exterior.  Motifs are here that had and would continue to be mined within the genre, but writer/director Douglas Heyes loads the presentation with creepy atmosphere, staging some wonderful scenes in the process and delivering something that is less tongue-in-cheek than William Castle's brand of spookshow high-jinks, by comparison.

 

THE WATCHER
(1960)
Dir - John Brahm
Overall: MEH

 

An adaptation of Dolores Hitchens' 1959 novel of the same name, "The Watcher" pits a self-righteous school teacher against a small resort town that is not used to serial killer tomfoolery.  Martin Gabel's character is equipped with eccentricities, namely being all up in a few people's business and presenting himself as a harmless if nosy man who wants to make sure that his fellow neighbors are all on the moral up and up.  This of course is a ruse in order for him to select the most "deserving" victims, which in typical deranged male killer mold are mostly helpless women, though a young Richard Chamberlain feels the brunt of Gabel's wrath as well during one particularly grisly scene.  Most of the story revolves around Chamberlain and Olive Sturgess secretive romance though, the drama of which comes off as dated and uninteresting.

 

GIRL WITH A SECRET
(1960)
Dir - Mitchell Leisen
Overall: MEH

 

Another Charlotte Armstrong novel gets the Thriller treatment in "Girl with a Secret", said girl in question discovering that her new husband is an undercover agent who has some shady fellows close on his trail that are prone to selling government secrets to the highest bidder.  A small detail emerges that forces Myrna Fahey to have such a secret, and things unravel quickly from there with suspicious enquirers being made, the bad guys getting the upper hand, and some blind luck saving the day.  Charles Beaumont's teleplay has enough forward momentum, Rex Holman makes for a creepy henchman that likes to grin menacingly, and Cloris Leachman even shows up in a small part.  Still, this is another filler episode until the program got to its more memorable ones; adequately done, yet lacking in pizazz or enough differentiating qualities to make it stand out amongst any other non-Western or comedy TV from the day.

 

THE PREDICTION
(1960)
Dir - John Brahm
Overall: MEH

 

The first of five Thriller episodes to feature Boris Karloff in a lead role besides that of the host, "The Prediction" answers  the question of what would happen to a phony psychic if they all of a sudden were granted legit premonition powers.  Karloff of course is excellent, portraying a doomed man without any villainous tendencies besides his smoke and mirror act that he performs with his daughter Audrey Dalton.  Donald S. Sanford's plot gets overwrought after awhile as Karloff continues to have visions of more and more deaths, with subplots involving romance, gambling, and scandals thrown in.  Some of it ties together cleverly, some predictably, but it is mostly just a treat for Karloff fans to see the seventy-three year-old actor still giving it his all.

Thriller Season One - Part One

THE TWISTED IMAGE

(1960)

Dir - Arthur Hiller

Overall: MEH

 

Fitting for the title which initially focused more on melodramatic thriller material as opposed to supernatural horror, NBC's Thriller kicks off with the William O'Farrell adaptation "The Twisted Image".  Small screen heavyweight Leslie Nielsen plays an upper class business man who gets targeted by two mentally unstable peons who work for the same company as he does, though both of these unfortunate individuals have their own singular agenda against Nielsen and do not meet until the final, tragic act.  While Nielsen is his usual level-headed straight man and Natalie Trundy gets the less sympathetic role as the bright-eyed woman who becomes cluelessly and dangerously infatuated with him, George Grizzard steals the show as a disturbed and traumatized young man who perpetually lies, steals, and covets what he seems unable to earn on his own, laying on a type of villainous charm that is simultaneously pathetic

 

CHILD'S PLAY

(1960)

Dir - Arthur Hiller

Overall: MEH

 

It is often difficult in fiction to have a child protagonist that is up to no good and make them not annoying.  "Child's Play" opens with youngster Tom Nolan pointing a loaded riffle at a confused stranger out by a pond, insisting that the man is Black Bart and that he needs to think good and hard about what he is going to do with him.  Interestingly though, the proceeding story does not merely sink into some kind of Dennis the Menace/The Bad Seed hybrid and instead respectfully explores how an outward dysfunctional marriage can have severe effects on the children who are stuck being raised in such an environment.  Most of the episode involves Frank Overton and Bethel Leslie engaged in detailed and nuanced conversation about how their marriage went wrong and what if anything can be done about it, all the while we continue to cut back to Nolan during his mentally unstable hold-up.  Director Arthur Hill pulls off an intense finale, but as sincere as the material is presented, it still leans on simple-minded melodrama as television programs from the era often did.

WORSE THAN MURDER

(1960)

Dir - Mitchell Leisen

Overall: MEH

 

Based off of an Evelyn Berckman story, "Worse Than Murder" is one of the more forgettable early Thriller installments, despite it being well-performed and adequately scripted by Mel Goldberg.  It has more to do with noir than any other genre, focusing on a bitter woman who feels gypped out of a family inheritance that should have went to her dead husband, meaning her.  Constance Ford is well-cast in such a thankless role, being a determined villainess who smirks her way through a calculated blackmail attempt that of course goes awry in the end, mostly due to her own arrogance and unlikeability which both her enemies and fate manage to bypass.  There are some nuances to the plotting and the loose ends are tidied up, but it never gains enough momentum with its multitude of characters and a premise that is more serviceable instead of intriguing.

THE MARK OF THE HAND

(1960)

Dir - Paul Henreid

Overall: MEH

 

A whodunit where the person left holding the smoking gun refuses to utter a word, "The Mark of the Hand" has a sufficient crime premise to work with, even if the melodramatic details do not deliver much on the "thriller" promise of the show's title.  Based on the novel of the same name by Charlotte Armstrong, (a novel that in fact did not come out until three years later), Terry Burnham is the pistol-toting child in question who is shown holding the murder weapon as her family stands around looking aghast.  What follows are several false explanations of what happened, none of which satisfy Judson Pratt's police inspector who shows up Agatha Christie style to interview and lead-on all of the suspects until he gets his woman or man.  Naturally, the finger points to several possible culprits until the list is narrowed down and also naturally, it involves a poorly though-out scheme to get some hands on some dead relative money.  One of the more pulpy and sensationalized episodes of the program, it suffices as means of killing some couch potato time.

 

ROSE'S LAST SUMMER

(1960)

Dir - Arthur Hiller

Overall: MEH

 

A more convoluted variation on Billy Wilder's seminal Sunset Boulevard, "Rose's Last Summer" ends up having a midway plot reveal that borders on implausible nonsense, but viewers may nevertheless be bamboozled as was intended.  Like Gloria Swanson who was a silent era star, Mary Astor also began her career in the pre-talkie days, and she makes for an ideal member of Hollywood's now washed-up former elite who has fallen on hard times here.  Astor's title character is a lush with three ex husbands on her resume who has not worked in her craft in years, prompting her to take a mysterious caretaker job when offered.  An adaptation of Margaret Millar's 1952 novel of the same name, it has some unintended camp appeal despite Astor's mostly straight performance, but once the rug-pull occurs, the story merely lumbers towards its humdrum conclusion.

13 Demon Street Part Three

A GIFT OF MURDER
(1959)
Dir - Curt Siodmak
Overall: MEH

 

A nifty premise with a sub-par execution, 13 Demon Street's "A Gift for Murder" features a common motif of people casually and recklessly dabbling in black magic with of course disastrous results.  When a married couple receives a voodoo doll as an anniversary present, (as odd of a gift as that is), they decide to use it on Charles Nolte's co-worker as a goof since he was too touchy feely with his misses at the party, as well as being the boss's son who is getting promotions which Nolte feels he deserves.  Things go the way that the audience will predict and the characters do not, and because Nolte is a hypocritical scumbag who also cannot keep his hands off his secretary, he gets too comfortable with the doll's powers and starts using them more frequently.  Comeuppance is delivered in a flimsy enough manner, but Ib Melchior and Kenneth Hartford's script offers up few surprises, plus the performances leave something to be desired.

 

THE SECRET OF THE TELESCOPE
(1959)
Dir - Curt Siodmak
Overall: MEH

 

An odd choice was made to air the 13 Demon Street episodes "A Gift of Murder" and "The Secrete of the Telescope" back-to-back, since they not only contain similar premises, but they also both feature Charles Nolte in the lead, who was one of a handful of actors to show up in three different stories for the program.  Nolte basically plays the same unlikable character, which is to say that he is an asshole who wants a divorce from his innocent wife, recently acquires an antique of sorts with supernatural powers, and said antique in a roundabout way seals his doom.  Nolte also once again delivers a subpar performance, clumsily melodramatic in some instances and stiff in others.  As far as the otherworldly rules are concerned, they are as haphazardly delivered as they are in any other installment for the program, plus the simple premise of a telescope that can see the future is more odd than interesting.

 

NEVER STEAL A WARLOCK'S WIFE
(1959)
Dir - Curt Siodmak
Overall: MEH

 

Some more black magic meddling is afoot in 13 Demon Street's "Never Steal a Warlock's Wife", which opens with Alan Blair purchasing a feline "familiar" at a pet shop.  Apparently that is something that can be done in this universe.  Blair portrays a nebbish man with an openly gold-digging wife, (Lori Scott), except the only problem being that he is not rolling in enough dough for her liking.  Even when he does procure an obscene amount of cash through dubious means, Scott acts appalled and runs off with her lover anyway, somewhat understandably since Blair has the personality of a pathetic and timid wiener, which begs the question of why these two were ever wed in the first place.  Both actors appeared in three episodes of the series and neither are given likeable characters to work with here, but Scott Flohr's script hardly does anything interesting with its mystical premise anyway, plus the whole thing ends just as it gets going.

 

MURDER IN THE MIRROR
(1959)
Dir - Curt Siodmak
Overall: MEH

 

One of the poorest realized installments in the 13 Demon Street program was its penultimate one "Murder in the Mirror".  The show had hooked its supernatural angle on various objects depending on the episode, (a telescope, a book, a voodoo doll, etc), and mirrors have long held an unsettling pull in horror tales since it is always creepy to see something in them besides one's own undoctored reflection.  Here though, the script from director Curt Siodmak is half-baked and leads to an underwhelming conclusion, as Vernon Young hires Ben Breen to find a specific mirror regardless of the fact that Breen is hardly an expert in such matters.  This makes no difference since his antique dealer friend, (who Young should have went to in the first place), just so happens to have the exact wall decoration in question.  The hoopla surrounded said mirror is relatively interesting, but the plot hits a brick wall as far as what to do with it, and the finale is more unintentionally funny and abrupt than anything.

 

BLACK NEMESIS
(1959)
Dir - Jason Lindsay
Overall: MEH

 

The only 13 Demon Street episode not to have any involvement from Curt Siodmak who either directed or authored every other installment, "Black Nemesis" ends the series on a subpar note.  That is not to say that it is any worse or better than the bulk of the program, which started off strong yet quickly settled into a mediocre-at-best assortment of humdrum supernatural tales.  Here, a many runs into gambling debts, is given two weeks to come up with the money from the gangsters that he owes it too, and somehow phony seances and a disembodied ghost head play into things.  Screenwriter Ib Melchior penned two of these episodes, ("A Gift of Murder" being the other and comparatively better one), but his work here seems aimless and desperate, as if he had a deadline to catch and just threw something together on the fly.  In any event, it is immediately forgettable and void of spooky atmosphere, unless one counts the frequented horn blares on the soundtrack to signify when something extraordinary is happening.

13 Demon Street Part Two

THE GIRL IN THE GLACIER
(1959)
Dir - Curt Siodmak
Overall: MEH

 

An archaeologist falling in love with a frozen cave woman is the premise at hand in 13 Demon Street's fittingly titled "The Girl in the Glacier".  This one steers farther away from horror elements than usual for the program, almost exclusively presenting itself as a psychological musing on whatever spell said glacier lady seems to cast on the red-blooded men who unearth her.  It comes closer to sci-fi than anything as we eventually get more than just Frank Taylor spewing sweet nothings to the centuries-old frozen woman, raving about how he should have complete control of the operation, dismissing his wife and demanding a divorce, and even murdering those who get in his way.  In other words, a nice fella.  We can guess what is likely to happen from numerous shots of Sara Harts closed eyelids, leaving little sense of mystery to go along with the merely serviceable starting point.

 

THE BOOK OF GHOULS
(1959)
Dir - Curt Siodmak
Overall: MEH

 

Taking some bare-bones inspiration from the often-frequented W. W. Jacobs' short story "The Monkey's Paw", "The Book of Ghouls" fails to do anything interesting within such a framework.  Screenwriter Fred De Gorter would go on to write four episodes of the Batman series which is something that any author should be proud of, but his work here lacks both flare and imagination.  The book of the title is one that holds the power to bestow wealth upon those who follow its instructions, but of course these things always come at a detrimental price and this is no exception.  Things proceed in a formulaic fashion, (blood is shed, money comes in, the participants are both confused and troubled by such supernatural forces actually working, and a happy ending is nowhere to be found), and this renders the episode as merely a forgettable spending of twenty-three minutes.

 

THE PHOTOGRAPH

(1959)

Dir - Curt Siodmak

Overall: MEH

 

13 Demon Street's take on M.R. James' short story "The Mezzotint", "The Photograph" presents yet another tale of a heinous crime for us to judge in comparison to the one committed by host Lon Chaney Jr's, the latter's atrocity never divulged to the audience.  While John Crawford, (making his second of two appearances on the program), may not be the world's most despicable criminal, he is a relentless asshole who makes one illogical decision after the next that stretches plausibility in producer/director/screenwriter Curt Siodmak's James homage.  The outcome is preordained since we know that Crawford shall be doomed for his actions and that the seemingly haunted photograph of the title will somehow seal the deal, but the only surprises are in how moronic he acts at every opportunity until then.

 

THE VINE OF DEATH

(1959)

Dir - Curt Siodmak

Overall: MEH

 

Another scumbag gets his comeuppance in a 13 Demon Street installment with "The Vine of Death".  This time it is a ridiculously pushy handyman neighbor who appears to have cement in his ears as far as "no means no" is concerned, and his hair-brained scheme when a murder transpires is to bury the body in a patch of dirt that the victim had imported some ancient calcified bulbs from.  Besides the corpse being remarkably easy to find for anyone who comes investigating which they of course do, Lauritz Falk and Pat Clavin continue to behave irrationally which only raises more suspicions.  People on screen are generally terrible liars so this is nothing new, but Leo Guild's teleplay only offers a lone memorable set piece where the sprouting plants do their grisly business.  This leaves the rest of the presentation to merely linger on unlikable people doing idiotic things until they are busted.

13 Demon Street Part One

THE BLACK HAND

(1959)

Dir - Curt Siodmak

Overall: MEH

 

For episode one, the Lon Chaney Jr. hosted, English-langue, Swedish horror television anthology series 13 Demon Street kicks off with a variation of Maurice Renard's 1920 novel Les Mains d'Orlac, which had been adapted to the big screen numerous times.  As the title would allude to, it concerns an amputated appendage with a sinister mind of its own, one that a renowned surgeon decides to give himself after a car accident.  It becomes readily apparent that the story from screenwriter Richard Jairus Castle and director Curt Siodmak is not concerned with iron-clad logic as things rush along with glaring inconsistencies.  This would set the tone for the series though which would deal with otherworldly scenarios condensed to twenty-odd minutes for melodramatic consumption.  In this respect, it is a serviceable if still fragile under a microscope.

 

FEVER

(1959)

Dir - Curt Siodmak

Overall: GOOD

 

Writer/director Curt Siodmak concocts a unique tale for the second 13 Demon Street episode "Fever" where a demented painter becomes obsessed with a neighbor across the street that may or may not exist in a consistently corporeal sense.  The actual protagonist is not said artist but instead a doctor who visits him due to complaints of a fever, a fever which he too succumbs to after likewise becoming infatuated with the beautiful woman the smiles from a castle window on the other side of the road where there is no such castle to be found.  Specifics are kept vague, more due to the brisk running time that each of the program's installments dictated than any weak writing on Sidmak's part, and this gives the tale a fittingly eerie tone that is well-maintained.

 

CONDEMNED IN THE CRYSTAL

(1959)

Dir - Curt Siodmak

Overall: GOOD

 

The excellent and chilling "Condemned in the Crystal" was the only 13 Demon Street screenwriting contribution from Dory Previn, who works wonders within the framework of a stoic gypsy woman foretelling an unavoidable and tragic fate.  Director Curt Siodmak certainly favored such terrain as his most famous credit amongst several is for being the author of Universal's The Wolf Man, and while there are no lycanthropian elements to be found, the episode is a consistently tense musing on the inevitability of fate, if one is to believe in such a thing.  Of course our lead protagonist, (portrayed by usual Western man Michael Hinn, who looks like he could have been a close relative to René Auberjonois), does not believe in such supernatural mumbo jumbo, or at least persistently tells himself that as his analyst suggest that he visits a place from his childhood that has been giving him vivid nightmares.  Why do TV and movie therapists always suggest that their patients revisit a place of trauma in order to "conquer" it?  Does that ever work?

GREEN ARE THE LEAVES

(1959)

Dir - Curt Siodmak

Overall: MEH

 

Though it gets off to a fine start as an atmospheric if still bog-standard haunted house yarn, "Green Are the Leaves" goes through some clunky motions in its closing moments.  It immediately recalls the second season Tales from the Crypt episode "Television Terror" where a film crew sets up in a haunted abode in order to broadcast their otherworldly findings for some rating boosts.  Other stories have come down the pike with similar premises, and this one has less sleazy characters than usual, focusing on a small handful of them who seem generally if still cynically curious to uncover any supernatural mystery.  The spacious mansion setting is ideal, as is some brooding cinematography and a stark sound design that emphasizes a still tension until one particular room in the place makes good on its nasty reputation when midnight strikes.  Unfortunately, it hits a peak when it still has several minutes left in the running time, ending in a clumsy and melodramatic fashion that dilutes the previously established spooky mood.