Boris Karloff's Thriller: The Cheaters

In 1960, fans of horror got their own television show with the hour-long anthology series Boris Karloff's Thriller, hosted, appropriately, by the venerable bogeyman himself and produced by classic horror empire Universal Studios. Unfortunately, the show's producers were so keen to compete with the Alfred Hitchcock Hour, featuring mostly crime stories with a dark climactic twist, that the first 14 episodes of the show were listless imitations of Hitchcock's long-running television franchise--lacking even a hint of supernatural mayhem. It soon became apparent that audiences didn't want a show hosted by Boris Karloff to be just another hour of Hitchcockian storylines, and Universal was finally pressured to retool the show to feature stories of gothic horror, starting with episode #15 The Cheaters.

A story by Psycho author Robert Bloch, The Cheaters concerns a pair of old-fashioned spectacles with very special yellow-tinted lenses that allow the wearer to see "the truth" around them, and the strange tragic circumstances that invariably ensue. The story opens as the reclusive 19-th century inventor of the titular glasses, Dirk Vann Prin (played by Thriller regular Henry Daniell) puts them on for the first time--to his immediate regret. From there, the story continues to the present-day where junk-man Joe Henshaw (Paul Newlan, another Thriller regular) finds the Cheaters while cleaning out the ancient ruins of the Vann Prin house. When he puts on the glasses he finds that they clear up his vision in more ways than one, as the grim designs of his harpy wife (Linda Watkins) and young hired hand (Ed Nelson) are laid bare. The glasses change hands three more times in The Cheaters, until finally a scoundrel intellectual (Harry Townes), thinking he's unlocked the true purpose of the Cheaters, uses the deadly specs to view his own image in the mirror. What follows is a scene regarded by some as the scariest moment in 1960's network television--a category in which the show Thriller appears prominently.

As you might have guessed, the best part of The Cheaters are the moments where it's hapless owners are gazing through it's glass. The Cheaters effect is pulled off through a simple change in lighting and a voice-over to represent the inner dialogue of the viewed subject, but this works quite effectively. The performances of all involved are excellent, as well, and the story is taut enough to sustain interest until the terrifying conclusion at the wonderfully gloomy Vann Prin house. Thriller benefitted greatly by Universal's flair for spooky sets and horror lighting, as well as the vast pool of acting and writing talent it could draw on. Few of the Thriller episodes that followed are at the level of The Cheaters in overall execution, and sadly it only ran for two seasons, but there are enough memorable episodes to testify to it's untapped potential. 9/10

Halloween Picks: Rod Serling's Night Gallery, Part 6

As I breeze through the last of my Night Gallery Halloween picks I should stress that Night Gallery isn't for everyone. Probably a third of them I won't bother to watch ever again. Like most all anthology shows, I find, the quality of production and tenor of story can vary significantly from episode to episode (or in Night Gallery's case, from segment to segment). Issues of time and budget cause many bits to fall short of the sources they are adapted from. Forty years of overlying artistic strata have rendered most of Night Gallery's scares into schlock and it's technically and stylistically quite dated. More is the charm, for some, but not for those strictly accustomed to the gore-fueled excesses of the intervening decades.

Mostly it's up to people who are interested in the place of shows like Night Gallery in horror history to carry it's cult forward. And for those, like me, who have a true nostalgia for the show--based on faded memories--and now have the luxury of being able to reevaluate them in their pristine, commercial-free digital form.

Still, there are several segments that are indisputably quite atmospheric, and others that are fun or noteworthy because of who is cast in them or because the effects were more striking than the norm. The ones that still live in my memory tell me something about my fascination with horror. Or that was my theory. Really, aside from the immortal Night Gallery intro, it was chiefly the (Hammer, and the like) horror movies I saw on Shock Theater (as well as my integral love of Halloween) that seems to have influenced my awe of the horror genre. But I can believe that some of these segments should have scared the devil out of me forty years ago, except that I apparently missed them or was too scared to watch them in the first place.

There's nothing to inspire much terror in episode 2.9, though. The first story is a comedic offing called House--with Ghost (2.9.1), that is only creepy if you consider the fact that the lurid secret life of it's star, Bob Crane (Hogan's Heroes), would come to light when he was bludgeoned to death seven years later. That, and the fact that his wife in House--with Ghost was Joanne Worley, who made a career typed as an uncommonly unappealing woman, a la Phyllis Diller and Ruth Buzzi. Crane's character plans to bump off his wealthy spouse but dithers on the treacherous act until a ghost in their ritzy London flat (Bernard Fox) intervenes in a most unexpected way. (3.5/10)

In another silly tale, Hells Bells (2.9.4), John Astin (Gomez on the original The Addams Family) plays a reckless hippie who, after a fatal car-accident, finds himself plunging into hell while anticipating the infernally groovy sights that await him--only to find that he will there be punished with eternal boredom. Cute, but unfortunately a story about how boring hell is is destined to quickly become...boring. (4.5/10)

2.11.1, Pickman's Model, is based on a short H.P. Lovecraft story of the same name. In this adaptation, Pickman is the name of an ill-reputed painting instructor at an exclusive school who attracts the admiration of a lovely female student. When the wealthy female suitor boldly seeks out the source of his ghastly inspiration she finds more than she bargained for. One curious aspect of this version of the story is that it surrounds a female protagonist, wheras Lovecraft rarely had sympathetic female characters in his stories. The original story was mostly eerie speculations surrounding an artist's paintings, which are populated with loathsome humanoid creatures too uncanny to come from a human imagination. The inclusion of a romantic interest adds dimension to the story and broadens it's appeal. And the monstrous conclusion makes this one of the most memorable episodes of Night Gallery. Regrettably, I don't seem to remember actually seeing it before. (7/10)

 Segment 2.12.1, Cool Air, is also a Lovecraft story and also introduces a love interest to flesh it out a little--though, in my view, to less successful ends. Cool Air concerns a scientist who seeks the secret of eternal life, yet depends on a forbiddingly frigid environment to maintain his own. (5/10)

In Camera Obscura, Rene Ouberjonois plays a cold-hearted debt-collector who is subjected to the gnarly nether-worldly torments of the diabolical optical device by it's designer, mad-scientist Ross Martin (The Wild Wild West). The rather perfunctory set-up is, at least, redeemed by a suitably atmospheric climax. (6.5/10)

Interestingly, one of the best-remembered (for me) episodes, The Painted Mirror (2.13.2), is a little lacking in horror, although it does involve Zsa Zsa Gabor chasing a her toy dog into a mirror-universe, where she is presumably gobbled up by prehistoric stop-motion creatures. Pretty cool as a kid. Not so cool now, though. Zsa Zsa is scarier than the dinosaurs. (5.5/10)

In Episode 15 we come to another segment I remember very well--and which fans of the show seem to remember to a remarkable degree--Green Fingers. This slightly warped moral tale involves an eccentric old lady with a particular talent for growing things (Elsa Lanchester, most famous as the Bride of Frankenstein), who stubbornly refuses to sell her lushly gardened cottage to ruthless industrialist Mitchell Cameron. After finally bumping the old biddy off, the triumphant villain finds that vengeance from the grave is his only harvest. Hooboy this one has a loopy ending. That's probably why I remember it so well. Not as scary now as it must have been then, though. (6.5/10)

Speaking of Bob Crane, the next segment, The Funeral (2.15.2), stars his captor in Hogan's Heroes, Werner Klemperer (Colonel Klink) as a vampire who, with help of funeral director Joe Flynn (McCale's Navy), arranges to have a late funeral, with all of his monster-buddies in attendance. Hilarity ensues. This is technically a "comedy blackout", but it's got enough of a fun, Groovy Goolies vibe to be mildly diverting. (5.5/10)

Halloween Picks: Rod Serling's Night Gallery, Part 5

In all fairness, there isn't much of anything about the 4th episode of Night Gallery's superior Second Season, Fear of Spiders/Junior/Marmalade Wine/The Academy. for me to recommend it for Halloween viewing, so I'll be brief.

Fear of Spiders involves an aging gourmet food critic (Patrick O'Neal) who finds himself plagued by phantom spiders, as well as an old, one-night stand. (2.5/10)  The very short Junior wastes Wally Cox (Mister Peepers!) as a weary father who has to get out of bed to bring his familiar-looking offspring a glass of water. Completely worthless. (0/10)  Marmalade Wine has Robert Morse (The Loved One) as a lost wanderer who finds shelter in a castle and boasts to his surgeon host--a little too persuasively--that he has psychic powers. The most remarkable thing about this segment is the strangely ornate minimalist set. (4/10) The Academy presents crooner Pat Boone as a wealthy and ruthless businessman who visits an exclusive military school to determine if it's the right one for his troublesome progeny. Not scary, just kind of sad. (2.5/10)

The next episode, The Phantom Farmhouse/Silent Snow, Secret Snow is another story. The famous Silent Snow, Secret Snow, I can say without reservation, is not a Halloween segment. It is recommended, though, for the story and the narration by Orson Welles. It describes the private thoughts of a boy as he progressively shuts out the reality around him in favor of an imagined world of freshly fallen snow. (8.5/10)

 In The Phantom Farmhouse, the investigation of a mental patient's grisly murder at an exclusive sanitarium leads a psychiatrist (David McCallum of The Man from UNCLE) to a mysterious farmhouse that seems to belong to another time. David Carradine plays a patient that knows the secret of the farmhouse and it's strange denizens. Regrettably, many of the stylistic choices by director Gene R. Kearney ground the segment visually in the 70's, detracting somewhat from the Gothic atmosphere intended by the classic source. Still, it delivers a suitable climax. (7/10)

Next, in The Question of Fear (2.6.1), Leslie Nielsen (Airplane!) plays a pompous adventurer who accepts an adversary's wager to spend the night in an extremely haunted house, apparently inhabited by a Nazi ghost! This segment is a better than average spend-the-night-in-a-haunted-house story up until a little after the midpoint when it begins to lurch toward a screamingly idiotic, wasted, non-supernatural twist-ending. Nazis are the protagonists in this one, it turns out. (4/10)

Interestingly, the next segment of the same episode, The Devil is not Mocked (2.6.2), also involves Nazis, though in this case they aren't meant to be the *ahem* good guys.  Let me just say that this is a good segment for Halloween, that features Francis Lederer as a character quite familiar to lovers of the holiday--and not spoil what is a very simple plot. (7/10)

Skipping ahead a bit, Brenda (2.7.2), involves an unruly young girl who befriends a bizarre, hulking, rather mossy monster while on vacation on a tropical island with her parents. I initially thought the squeaky-voiced actress who played the weird little girl several years younger than her true age (Laurie Prange) was going to grate on my nerves, but she really ended up selling the role well and the story is oddly touching. (6.5/10)

Skipping ahead, again, A Matter of Semantics (2.8.2) is another pointless "comedy blackout" with a wasted Cesar Romero as Dracula, trying to make a withdrawal from a blood bank. (3/10)

John Carradine makes a welcome appearance in Big Surprise (2.8.3) as a creepy old codger who promises some local boys that a big surprise awaits them if they have to courage to excavate a box buried under a certain local oak tree. (7/10)

In Professor Peabody's Last Lecture (2.8.4), Carl Reiner plays an intrepid anthropology teacher who dares to read from the dreaded Necronomicon for his aghast class. It goes on a bit long toward a predictable conclusion, but it's nice to see some Lovecraft appreciation in the mix. (6.5/10)

Halloween Picks: Rod Serling's Night Gallery, Part 4

 While it may not be the absolute summit of Night Gallery, the opening segment of Episode 3 of Season 2 certainly satisfies the premise of the show. It was really a pleasure to be re-introduced to it after all these years. It's one of those episodes I don't have a solid recollection of, yet is tantalizingly familiar. In terms of good old-fashioned horror, it's hard to beat Since Aunt Ada Came to Stay.

In this first of three segments, James Farentino plays a professor of the scientific method who is forced to grapple with implications of the supernatural when his wife's weird old Aunt Ada comes to their happy home, presumably to live out her final years. The teacher quickly becomes wary of the old biddy, who seems to have a penchant for vanishing into thin air, killing off vegetation and pushing her special brand of tea on the Mrs, to "calm her nerves". After bringing a sample of the suspect tea to the university for chemical analysis, he is told that it's a seaweed and is referred to a colleague, the Professor of Metaphysics (Jonathan Harris, best known as Dr. Smith on Lost in Space) for information about the alleged medicinal uses of the plant. The eccentric old metaphysician informs him that the substance is known as "witches' weed" and is used to prepare a chosen victim to be possessed by the witch's spirit. And the coming midnight of the full moon, as it turns out, is the optimum time for the ritual possession to take place. Somewhere in here he finds out that Aunt Ada is an imposter, yadda, yadda, yadda, some other spooky stuff happens and let me just conclude by saying that green carnations figure prominently into the plot. (8/10)

Inspired directing from Jerrold Freedman keeps things interesting on the visual front, and best of all veteran actress Jeanette Nolan plays the role she seems ideally suited for: the old witch posing as Aunt Ada. Nolan was so good at playing witches she played them in two great episodes of Boris Karloff's Thriller, Parasite Mansion ( which also stars my good friend Beverly Washburn of Spider Baby) and, a title I'll be looking at later, La Strega. As to the strangely abrupt way in which this episode ends, if anyone knows what the story behind that is, I'd be interested in finding out. It seems like this segment could have been extended if only they'd thought better of including the next one, the mostly worthless "comedy blackout" With Apologies to Mr. Hyde.

There seems to be the potential of something happening in this stale little misfire--it stars Batman's Adam West as Jekyll and Hyde and Executive Producer Jack Laird as his hunchback assistant, and the laboratory setpiece is pretty cool--but it's all for a Laugh-In- quality pun that only wastes a couple of minutes, regardless. (3/10)

Speaking of Laugh-In, the final segment, The Flip Side of Satan stars a regular face on the 1970's variety show, Arte Johnson, as a disreputable disc-jockey who finds his misdeeds rewarded with a graveyard gig at a radio station of the damned. A classic story, this segment isn't bad at all, allowing the actor to exhibit his talents in an exclusively one-man show. On the down side, the shoe-string budget of the short is all too apparent in the rather unspectacular climax. (6.5/10)

Halloween Picks: Rod Serling's Night Gallery, Part 2

 Aside from The Cemetery, and a few other segments (The Eyes, The Dead Man, The Doll), the short season one (only six episodes) of Night Gallery did little to arouse my vague sense of nostalgia for the show. The more celebrated season 2 fared better, though I don't seem to clearly recollect most of them, either. Indeed, The Painted Mirror and Green Fingers are the only two segments of the second season that I have unshakeable memories of. Still, the difference in quality between the two seasons was already apparent to me with this episode, The Boy Who Predicted Earthquakes/Miss Lovecraft Sent Me/The Hand of Borgus Weems/Phantom of What Opera?--even if this was the first episode to feature the infamous "comedy blackout" segments so hated by Rod Serling and derided by fans and critics alike.

The Boy Who Predicted Earthquakes was probably a good choice to launch the first true season of the anthology series. It was one of a handful of Night Gallery segments actually written by Rod Serling (whose actual creative contribution to the show was contractually limited by Universal) and it was similar in tone and plot--more than most of Night Gallery--to Serling's legendary Twilight Zone. The segment involves a boy (Clint Howard, brother of Ron) who seems gifted with extraordinary prophetic powers. When his prediction of a Los Angeles earthquake proves exactly accurate, he is given his own television show with an audience that grows with each amazing prognostication--until a final, dire prediction leaves him with a difficult choice.

One could be forgiven for not seeing this as much of a Halloween episode, per se, but there is an appropriately gloomy sci-fi atmosphere during the conclusion. I don't seem to remember seeing this one as a kid, though, so I can't say if it lived up to my expectations. (7/10)

 

 Miss Lovecraft Sent Me is a bit of fluff about a bubble-headed babysitter, played by Sue Lyon (Lolita!), who arrives at the creepy abode of her new client (a decidedly Lugosi-esque Joe Campanella), but begins to have second thoughts when the perilous nature of the assignment is made all too obvious.

Not much thought was spared for this lame one-liner of an episode but I kind of like it. I like to think it fits in better when you consider the fact that this was 1971, the same year The Groovie Goolies was on Saturday morning television. Anyway, it's too short to be very objectionable. (5.5/10)

 The third segment, The Hand of Borgus Weems, is a bit more substantive. A sort of reverse variation of The Hands of Orlac, it concerns a seemingly sane man who goes to a surgeon (Ray Milland) with the request that his right hand be surgically removed, it having fallen under the control of a mysterious--and murderous--power.

Of course any story about a person losing control of a limb to supernatural forces has the potential to descend into parody, and this one skirts the line of camp, certainly. But I think it works on kind of a light-weight 70s acid-trip level. (6.5/10)

Comedy Black-out #2, Phantom of What Opera?, comes off as kind of an homage to the famous unmasking scene in Lon Chaney's 1925 Phantom of the Opera with a screwball twist at the climax. But who is that under the phantom make-up? None other than Leslie "don't call me Shirley"/Frank Drebbin Nielsen in an early comic role! (4.5/10)

Halloween Picks: Rod Serling's Night Gallery, Part 1

 While catching up recently on episodes of Night Gallery, unseen since the early 1970's, I was surprised how few of the them I actually remember watching.  I think as a kid I was completely captivated by the familiar opening blurb--the short, ominous Night Gallery theme accompanied by overlapping images of horrible distorted faces and creepy works of art--but by the time Rod Serling's eerie exposition gave way to the subject of that week's morbid masterpiece, my youthful disinclination to follow storylines more complex than Scooby Doo must have generally driven me to whatever else was competing for my attention that evening. Or maybe I was just too terrified to go on watching those less familiar episodes. Actually, that might have been the case with some of the episodes, seeing them today. All I can be sure of is that the original pilot episode's first segment, The Cemetery, is one episode that was burned into my memory exactly because it was so freaky.

 

The Cemetery (1.1.1) involves a scheming wastrel, played with a wonderful villainous zeal by Roddy McDowell, who bumps off his ailing millionaire uncle for the inheritance, only to find his sanity threatened by his uncle's seemingly haunted painting of the nearby family cemetery--a changing canvas which promises a hideous retribution from the grave. (7/10)

 

 Frantic with terror, the evil nephew rips the phantom painting from the wall and stumbles down the staircase, breaking his neck. It turns out that the rich uncle's faithful butler Portifoy (played by Ossie Davis) arranged for an artist to make several copies of the painting which progressively showed the uncle emerging from his grave and coming to the front door. No sooner than Portifoy--who is the old man's alternate heir in case of the nephew's untimely demise, naturally--can drink to his ill-gotten fortune than the painting begins to change for him, this time for real. This strange turn--that the nephews undead vengeance should be genuine while the uncle's had to be fabricated-- deepens the the absurdity of the plot, but I don't suppose I gave that much thought as a kid.

 

The second and third segments of the Night Gallery pilot are memorable, too, but a little depressing for Halloween viewing, in my opinion. In fact, I'm going to skip ahead to the far superior season 2 for my next pick, which happens to be the four-part first episode: The Boy Who Predicted Earthquakes/Miss Lovecraft Sent Me/The Hand of Borgus Weems/Phantom of What Opera?