tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3413477571485423494.comments2024-03-16T11:23:44.620-07:00A Thriller a Day...John Scolerihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15830334036783163702noreply@blogger.comBlogger2014125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3413477571485423494.post-17862091527859738582024-03-16T11:23:44.620-07:002024-03-16T11:23:44.620-07:00I actually saw this episode back in 1961. I was 9 ...I actually saw this episode back in 1961. I was 9 at the time and it scared me half to death!! Never forgot the skull/hands image. Couldn't watch another episode of Thriller after that. Glad to be able to google it now and see the whole episode! Have a totally different take on it. I enjoy horror and thriller movies.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3413477571485423494.post-51292067124601590152024-03-01T02:31:28.491-08:002024-03-01T02:31:28.491-08:00Yes,--late to this feast--Markesan is top tier Thr...Yes,--late to this feast--Markesan is top tier Thriller, near perfect in every respect; and to which I feel the time of Thriller's production, long ago and far away, with black and white the norm for the vast majority of television shows, is what makes it feel "limited" in its excellence due to production values issues. But not for me. For me, this is how horror should be done. john kenrickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00710666533854296630noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3413477571485423494.post-90955025600385624362023-12-05T18:24:05.427-08:002023-12-05T18:24:05.427-08:00Robert Garrick here, as Anonymous.
We have anothe...Robert Garrick here, as Anonymous.<br /><br />We have another football connection in this episode. In "Kill My Love," a few episodes back, I pointed out that Patricia Breslin married Art Modell, the rich owner of the Cleveland Browns, who later became the most hated man in Cleveland when he moved the team to Baltimore (and renamed the team the "Ravens," no doubt as a homage to Boris Karloff and Edgar Allen Poe--who is buried in Baltimore). <br /><br />Moving on to "The Innocent Bystanders," Janet Lake was married for decades to Pepper Rogers, who was a major football player and coach in the '50s, '60s, and '70s. When I was growing up in Los Angeles he was coach of UCLA's football team. He left that job to return to his alma mater, Georgia Tech. Rogers died in 2020. Janet Lake, as far as I know, is still alive in 2023. <br /><br />This episode could have been pretty good, and there were good things about it, notably the photography by Ben Kline. But the ridiculous speech at the end reminded me of the final minutes of BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS. We also had the ridiculous fight between George Kennedy and future Christian soldier Steve Terrell, with Janet Lake watching like a spectator at the Friday Night Fights. Would it have killed you to grab something, Janet? Your husband was being killed, and George Kennedy would have been pretty easy to conk on the head. <br /><br />Lake's character was stupid in general, and her husband was a moron as well (and appeared to be about four feet tall). But don't blame the actors; that's how the show was written. <br /><br />This episode was the only Thriller directed by John English, who was . . . English. And yet, his main life's work was directing cruddy Z-grade westerns until about 1951, and after that lots of television. He directed a film called SAN FERNANDO VALLEY (1944), with Roy Rogers. The San Fernando Valley is where I grew up, and it's also where every Thriller was shot. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3413477571485423494.post-44425148550631725762023-12-05T18:03:14.450-08:002023-12-05T18:03:14.450-08:00I was thinking the same thing. It wasn't Hat...I was thinking the same thing. It wasn't Hatton, because he died in 1946. But in some of the shots it looked exactly like him. <br /><br />The would-be Rondo was probably Harry Wilson, an ugly guy who looked something like Rondo but who was a lot bigger. Wilson has been in a billion films going back to 1928, including SOME LIKE IT HOT and THE WIZARD OF OZ. He played the "female" monster in FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER (1958). (The earlier female monster in that film was played by one of Jack Nicholson's future wives, Sandra Knight.)<br /><br />I had another Rondo-related thought while I was watching this episode, which was that the George Kennedy character was playing a Rondo Hatton-style role. It's similar, for example, to what Hatton did in HOUSE OF HORRORS (1946), where he grunted and murdered people for Martin Kosleck. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3413477571485423494.post-7451709584831277332023-11-29T04:39:51.946-08:002023-11-29T04:39:51.946-08:00Nobody has mentioned that Patricia Breslin, the cu...Nobody has mentioned that Patricia Breslin, the cute piano player who has a crush on our retarded alcoholic homicidal maniac, was coming off of her biggest professional success--William Castle's "Homicidal" (1961). She played Miriam, and was one of the two top-billed "stars" of the film. She also appears on the film's poster in a negligee, sprawled out on a bed. (I'll pause for a moment so you can do an image search.) <br /><br />But that's not all. In 1969, she married Art Modell, a very rich guy who owned the Cleveland Browns. Breslin and Modell were married until her death in 2011; Modell died the next year. They're buried together in a giant crypt in a fancy cemetery near Baltimore. It's said that Dick York sometimes prowls around it at night, leaving his wife to be menaced by a retired professor with theories about immortal life. <br /><br />"Kill My Love" was awful, and the blame has to go to Donald Sanford, the writer. With a few inspired tweaks, this could have been a top episode. It wouldn't have taken much. But it was too much for Donald Sanford. <br /><br />A further word about Kasey Rogers. She was incredibly hot in "Strangers on a Train." She had a little something in this episode too, but alas she was gone in the first five minutes. The opening scene between her and Carlson reminded me of the opening sequence in "Psycho," where John Gavin and Janet Leigh are cavorting in a cheap room, post-illicit tryst, and talking about the vagaries of the divorce laws. Leigh and Rogers both have that helmet hair, and they're both good-looking enough to pass as mistresses. And in short order, they're both dead. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3413477571485423494.post-6685441814953439302023-11-19T11:28:36.142-08:002023-11-19T11:28:36.142-08:00Alan Warren's book is excellent, and he's ...Alan Warren's book is excellent, and he's particularly good on "Pigeons From Hell." It's recommended. But he's totally out to lunch on Audrey Dalton. She's lovely, and she's fine as an actress. She has been given some ridiculous things to do on "Thriller" (holding a doll, being terrified of an adorable cute dog, carrying a dead body up a hill and sewing it into a scarecrow in a few hours). She's never less than credible. And . . . <br /><br />Maybe it's because she's not the typical blonde cutie-pie, but the first time I saw her on the show, strumming the harp on "The Prediction," I thought: "Who is that???!!!" I thought she was gorgeous. Yes, there's some Jean Simmons there, but nobody else looks quite like her. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3413477571485423494.post-72947933769105563022023-11-13T21:18:51.779-08:002023-11-13T21:18:51.779-08:00Robert Garrick here.
This is my favorite Thrill...Robert Garrick here. <br /><br />This is my favorite Thriller, though there are two or three others that are just as good. It's not perfect, and again (again!) the problems are all in the writing. But "The Storm" features relentless suspense, with beautiful direction and photography, particularly in the pre-Karloff murder sequence, and a great acting performance. <br /><br />Regarding the acting: Nancy Kelly has to carry the show, because she's all we've got to look at, for most of the running time. She's the only person on screen, so she's not talking. She doesn't scream, either, when she sees a dead body, and it's a lot harder to act in that situation when you aren't allowed to scream. For most of the show, Kelly is simply fussing in the house, puttering around, tending to this and that concern. She's not hysterical, and she doesn't panic, but she becomes increasingly unglued and she conveys her growing fear in a subtle way that's unnerving. <br /><br />This is how film acting should be. Everything is underplayed. For me it's the best performance, male or female, in any episode of Thriller.<br /><br />The commentary to this one, from Schow and Blamire, is excellent. <br /><br />Several people have mentioned "An Unlocked Window." That Alfred Hitchcock Hour was based on a story by Ethel Lina White, who also wrote "Some Must Watch," which was the basis for the film "The Spiral Staircase." The Thriller version of "The Storm" (also based on a story by a woman) appeared three years before Hitchcock's "An Unlocked Window," and it seems obvious that the Hitchcock show was influenced by the Thriller episode. <br /><br />First, there was . . . the unlocked window. It's a clanking cellar window, somehow left open in a storm. In both shows it wasn't supposed to be open. There's a cat. In both shows the cat is put out, but then it turns up inside again. How did it get inside? Obviously, somebody let it in--and who was that person? There are muddy footprints. There are the women in peril, in a big deserted house in the country on a stormy night with a murderer in the vicinity. There are the problems with the telephone and with the electricity. There's even an owl in "The Storm," and an owl was part of the credits to The Alfred Hitchcock Hour.<br /><br />Suspense and fear happen when you don't know what's coming, when you're apprehensive about something that might be hiding in the shadows. That's the case for the entirety of "The Storm." It's not the case in "La Strega" or in most of the Thriller episodes. "The Storm" would have been a frightening episode to watch cold.<br /><br />But there are big problems with the story. The murderer has got to be one of the characters, right? And there are only two men in the show--the cab driver and the husband. It's the husband and that's no surprise.<br /><br />And then there's the show's resolution, which is handled poorly. There should have been a big scary payoff at the end, with another attempted murder, or with the husband revealing himself in a frightening way. Neither one happens. Yeah, the murderer is the husband, and the wife just runs out of the house. Stupid. The last five minutes of this one are a dud. Part of the blame has to go to the root story, and part of the blame goes to the Thriller writers. <br /><br />Overall, though--this is how it's done. There were only a few four-star episodes of Thriller, and this is one of them.<br /><br /> Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3413477571485423494.post-68408445577483929372023-11-12T08:17:15.359-08:002023-11-12T08:17:15.359-08:00Yes, Bob Lindstrom is correct. This should have ...Yes, Bob Lindstrom is correct. This should have been much better. Nolan is spectacular as the witch, but again Lupino blows it by stripping the horror and suspense out of every scene. The one great shot is the sequence where Andress screams, and then we see Nolan limping down the street. <br /><br />If only the rest of the episode were like that. The story is pointless, meandering, slow, and boring. We never have a sense that there's anything lurking that we need to be worried about. Either the witch is there, or she isn't. And she isn't even a good enough witch to know that Andress is hiding in that trunk.<br /><br />The ending seems pointless and abrupt. There's a lot of excitement but no dread, no suspense. It's just there. Just think of what Val Lewton could have done with this story, in the same amount of time. <br /><br />Nobody has mentioned Ramon Novarro, who played Maestro Giuliano and who was killed during the dance-around-the-campfire scene. Novarro was from Mexico, and like Rudolph Valentino he became a huge silent star and sex symbol. His stardom did not survive the transition to sound, though, and Novarro fell into obscurity, though he occasionally found work (as in this Thriller). <br /><br />Novarro was, like many other male sex symbols over whom women swooned, a homosexual. In 1968, a couple of young male hustlers heard that Novarro had money or jewels or something in his North Hollywood apartment, in the San Fernando Valley. They beat him and tortured him in an effort to find the loot. But there was no loot. Novarro died a horrible death, and another chapter was written in "Hollywood Babylon." Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3413477571485423494.post-27626521550142170472023-11-09T14:42:24.607-08:002023-11-09T14:42:24.607-08:00Robert Garrick here.
In the commentary, Gary Gera...Robert Garrick here.<br /><br />In the commentary, Gary Gerani and Ron Borst did a lot of reading from the IMDB (less of that, please) but they failed to note that Oscar Homolka, when he made this, was married to Joan Tetzel--who had been the star of "An Attractive Family," the Thriller that came just before this one. How much do you want to bet they came as a pair? Homolka said: "You want me, you've got to put my wife in one too."<br /><br />Tetzel, as a matter of fact, was fine in "An Attractive Family," and yes she was attractive, unlike her leech-applying husband from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. She was also about a quarter-century younger than Oscar. The marriage ended when Tetzel died of cancer at 56 years of age, in 1977. Homolka died a year later, age 80. <br /><br />"Waxworks" was one of the best-looking Thrillers, courtesy of Benjamin H. Kline. It really is extraordinary how good-looking the black-and-white photography is in Thriller. Very few black-and-white feature films were of comparable quality, photographically. The cameramen were all considered journeymen, but they got to stretch out on this show and demonstrate their considerable talent.<br /><br />Gary Gerani mentioned that Robert Bloch loved "Jack the Ripper" as a character and as a concept, but he didn't mention that "Waxworks," for a while, looked like it was going to be a clone of "Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper." Both shows featured a foreign gentleman who had trailed the killer all over the world for decades, and who was convinced that the killer reappeared, in different places, on a regular basis, murdering anew. In both cases, the pursuer's story seemed ridiculous to modern sensibilities. And in both stories, the pursuer met his match in the killer. <br /><br />"Waxworks" was always watchable for the settings and situations, but the story overall was a dud. It didn't matter. If I had seen this as a kid, I would have been scared and enthralled. Like so many of the Thriller episodes, it fails in the writing, but it's way above average in every other way. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3413477571485423494.post-84392081082294999122023-11-04T10:59:46.542-07:002023-11-04T10:59:46.542-07:00The star of this Thriller episode was Jane Greer, ...The star of this Thriller episode was Jane Greer, who was astonishingly only 36 years old when it was shot. <br /><br />Greer is famous for playing the most gorgeous, the most ruthless, and the most memorable femme fatale ever in a film noir. The film was Jacques Tourneur's great OUT OF THE PAST (1947), and Greer was paired with Robert Mitchum. Her name in the film was Kathie Moffat.<br /><br />Did I say Moffat? Greer's name in "Portrait Without a Face" was Ann Moffat. She had the same name, and it was spelled the same way. Now ask yourself: How many people named "Moffat" can you think of? Have you ever known a person named "Moffat?"<br /><br />No, you haven't. So this was some kind of in-joke. Maybe that's what Katherine Squire was laughing about.<br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3413477571485423494.post-49607304066338689052023-11-03T01:36:05.821-07:002023-11-03T01:36:05.821-07:00If you're bored while watching this story, you...If you're bored while watching this story, you can busy yourself with keeping track of how many times the main character is called "Mrs. Hawks" instead of her actual name, which is "Mrs. Hawk." Karloff gets it right in the intro, but the sign outside her farm says "Hawks," and so does the big sign at the carnival where she displays Lassos, her prize hog. <br /><br />There's a sexual aspect here, for sure. This isn't just ISLAND OF LOST SOULS with pigs. There's a bit of ILSA SHE WOLF OF THE S.S., too. Jo Van Fleet isn't the most attractive woman in the world, but she's real flirty in "The Remarkable Mrs. Hawk," and there are hints that maybe she's using her mostly young "hands" for her own entertainment before dispatching them to the pig-pen, and then the slaughterhouse. <br /><br />Jo Van Fleet was a recent Oscar winner when she starred in this episode. Thriller has featured other Oscar-winning actors (Mary Astor and George Kennedy come to mind) but not many. <br /><br />Bruce Dern began his career the year before, working with Jo Van Fleet on Elia Kazan's great film "Wild River" (1960). He's still working like crazy today, in 2023. Is there another actor in any of the Thrillers who is still active in the business, over 60 years later? Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3413477571485423494.post-72753109843594623252023-10-30T04:32:47.360-07:002023-10-30T04:32:47.360-07:00People on this site are awfully kind to Ida Lupino...People on this site are awfully kind to Ida Lupino, who directed nine Thrillers (I think) and whose episodes are smooth and elegant, with decent performances.<br /><br />They are that--and they are BORING. "Thriller" is supposed to be a show with suspense, and horror, and chills. Lupino had no clue when it came to those things. If she had directed PSYCHO, she would have shown Janet Leigh getting into the shower, then she would have cut to Anthony Perkins carefully dressing up as mother, and then she would have followed him down the hallway for thirty seconds. By the time he got to the shower, we would have been bored.<br /><br />This should have been a classic episode, and a scary one. It could have been like THE HAUNTING, or at least THE UNINVITED. But instead, we get a heroine who has no fear, who doesn't care when she sees a ghost, who treats a mysteriously and suddenly available dungeon as a walk into a grocery store. She's cute, but she doesn't have a brain in her head. Then, we get a ghost who is so far away when she shows up, and so unthreatening, that she might as well be the cleaning lady.<br /><br />It's not the script that's to blame, though the script could have been better. It's Ida. She's never been considered a great director. And in particular, she's not a good director of this kind of material, though apparently she enjoyed doing it. <br /><br />"The Closed Cabinet" is certainly beautiful to look at. That was more than enough to keep me watching. The cameraman was Benjamin H. Kline, who shot twenty-nine "Thrillers." Fifteen years before, he shot the B-noir classic DETOUR (1945) for Edgar G. Ulmer. His work on Thriller looks much better than his work for Ulmer. <br /><br />The writing and directing on "Thriller" was uneven, but the music and the cinematography were first-rate all the way through. The acting was generally good too. It's just too bad that great camerawork, good music, and good acting were wasted in episodes like "The Closed Cabinet."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3413477571485423494.post-24050113729271802272023-10-21T21:37:32.878-07:002023-10-21T21:37:32.878-07:00Robert Garrick here.
I'm more with John than ...Robert Garrick here.<br /><br />I'm more with John than Peter on this one. It's not a great episode, but I would have been fully engaged as a kid. It was a "lite" (very lite) version of THE EXORCIST, with a bedridden young woman possessed by Satan ( if Henry Daniell is to be believed). She was not just a witch, but also a vampire, and she bit the heads off of animals and drank their blood. <br /><br />The medical profession was portrayed accurately in this episode--as worthless. In one scene we watched two doctors smoking away, spouting total irrelevance about what was going on, and proposing solutions that would only make things worse. The doctors in these shows are always handing out sleeping pills and prescribing bed rest, which generally means they don't know what the hell is going on. ("Take two aspirin and call me in the morning.") It's a fact that until about a century ago, doctors did more harm than good. <br /><br />And finally, there's the witch angle. The hunting and execution of women in Europe, and later in America, was no joke. It was a holocaust. There were villages in Switzerland, and Germany that had almost no women in them, because they'd all been tortured and killed. Between 50,000 and 80,000 women met horrible, painful deaths after being found guilty of witchcraft, because people were nuts back then--as they still are.<br /><br />So when a poor young girl is burned alive in the opening shot, it was jarring to see it treated as something that was all right and proper. Imagine watching a bunch of Jews being paraded to the ovens in Auschwitz, and then being told that their deaths were justified. <br /><br />Time heals all holocausts, I guess.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3413477571485423494.post-84301998979866322882023-10-08T03:22:04.838-07:002023-10-08T03:22:04.838-07:00This is Robert Garrick, a dozen years down the roa...This is Robert Garrick, a dozen years down the road. <br /><br />I always enjoy what Larry Rapchak has to say about the episodes. His comments are a highlight. It's an extra treat when Gary Gerani does the on-air commentary. Gerani's remarks here were stellar--personal, engaging, well-informed. <br /><br />A few people here have talked about the "awful," "annoying," "performances." The acting is usually pretty good on Thriller--it's the writing that's often lousy. Here, the writing was terrific, and so was the acting. De Wilde was fine, certainly more than adequate. Ken Renard and Crahan Denton couldn't possibly have been better, or better cast. Renard was used to provide exposition, and you couldn't take your eyes off his lined face, with every wrinkle accented by Lionel Lindon's lighting. Denton was a tough-as-nails, dead-serious, no-nonsense guy, and he gave the story absolute credibility. He was obviously scared, so we were too. <br /><br />Lindon's work was something. The camerawork on Thriller, even on the bad episodes, has never flagged. It's funny because Lindon did not have a particularly distinguished career. Mostly, he shot crappy, forgettable movies, and he did lots of television. Yes, he won an Oscar for AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS, but that film was something of a freak and for years it was considered the worst film ever to win the Best Picture Oscar. I can't imagine he ever did anything better than "Pigeons From Hell." Ted Post said that Lindon was a genius and after seeing this and some of his other work on this show, I'm inclined to agree. <br /><br />Great score by Morton Stevens too. Everybody brought their A game to this one. <br /><br />It was Alan Warren, in his excellent book "This is a Thriller" (MacFarland Press, 2004) who said that "Pigeons From Hell" was not only the best episode of "Thriller," but probably the most frightening hour in television history. I don't have his book handy, but as I recall he said the other candidate was the Alfred Hitchcock Hour episode "An Unlocked Window."<br /><br />I agree. I saw the Hitchcock when it was first broadcast and I've never fully recovered. It holds up. <br /> Luckily, I was a lot older when I watched "Pigeons" for the first time. <br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3413477571485423494.post-53159243735493179792023-10-06T03:12:18.508-07:002023-10-06T03:12:18.508-07:00Robert Garrick commenting here.
WHITE ZOMBIE (1...Robert Garrick commenting here. <br /><br />WHITE ZOMBIE (1932) is the "floating eyes" film that comes to mind, with Bela Lugosi's evil eyes superimposed on the voodoo plantation near the start of the film. Nothing much happens in WHITE ZOMBIE, but it's supersaturated with mood, dread, and atmosphere. If only we could say the same about "Dark Legacy." I'm with Larry Rapchak and several others in saying that--as sure as his name was not really Boris Karloff--this was not a Thriller. The story goes nowhere; it stalls early on and sort of coasts lazily to the finish. I wasn't crazy about the opening scene either. It was stupid, not scary. To me, Radan Asparos evoked not Nolte, not Lloyd, but Dr. Irwin Corey. <br /><br />I thought Ilka Windish was fine, and had a great back in that bullet-catching outfit. I would be happy to buy her a drink. I thought the special effects were fine too, especially given that it was television and 1961. 'Twas the writing that killed this beast of an episode, and in general, writing was Thriller's weak link. The music, the photography, the acting, the Karloff intros--they were generally superb. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3413477571485423494.post-23667021319826485192023-10-05T01:30:22.306-07:002023-10-05T01:30:22.306-07:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3413477571485423494.post-82861699679521532023-09-29T22:45:38.158-07:002023-09-29T22:45:38.158-07:00Robert Garrick here.
Everybody seems to love this...Robert Garrick here.<br /><br />Everybody seems to love this episode. I'm sure I would have loved it--when I was nine years old. That's about how old I was when I watched THRILLER for the first time, on KTTV Channel 11 in Los Angeles (in syndication, back in the early '60s).<br /><br />As a grown-up, watching this episode on DVD, I was bored. The entire plot was obvious from the start. Mr. George told Priscilla she had nothing to worry about, and I believed him. End of show! The cinematography was dull, not up to the usual "Thriller" standard. Hey Ida Lupino--enough with the close-ups already. (Though I found Virginia Gregg kinda hot, especially when she was standing there braiding her long black hair, like Claude Rains's mother in "Notorious.") There was no suspense, there were no shocks, there were no frightening sequences.<br /><br />There could have been. We could have seen the girl in peril, and we could have been scared along with her. The cameraman could have turned the lights down. But no. We knew the ghostly friend would give his gentle instructions, and then we knew that the bad grown-ups would die, in predictable ways.<br /><br />The acting was fine. With a little more suspense and fear, it could have been a great episode. It could have been a little closer to "Curse of the Cat People," which was extraordinary. <br /><br />A note on the cinematography. It's generally extraordinary on THRILLER. But on this episode, it was ordinary. Lucy Chase Williams observed that John F. Warren, who was the Director of Photography, had been Oscar-nominated for THE COUNTRY GIRL, but then quickly found himself shooting DAUGHTER OF DR. JEKYLL a few years later.<br /><br />I submit that DAUGHTER OF DR. JEKYLL is beautifully photographed, and THE COUNTRY GIRL is blah! DAUGHTER OF DR. JEKYLL was directed by cult-hero Edgar G. Ulmer (DETOUR, THE BLACK CAT), and THE COUNTRY GIRL was one of those Oscar-bait snoozes that nobody wants to see anymore. Let's hear it for DAUGHTER OF DR. JEKYLL, Gloria Talbott, Arthur Shields (as a werewolf!), and John Agar.<br /><br />John F. Warren shot THE TORN CURTAIN for Hitchcock, and he shot a ton of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Alfred Hitchcock Hour shows. He had a solid career. For me, though, his career peaked with DAUGHTER OF DR. JEKYLL. How's he going to top that? Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3413477571485423494.post-17294846898765132702023-09-24T07:52:19.434-07:002023-09-24T07:52:19.434-07:00Robert Garrick here.
I'm with Frank Miller on...Robert Garrick here.<br /><br />I'm with Frank Miller on most of this. There were a lot of problems with this episode. Let's start with the Patricia Medina character. People are blaming Medina, the actress, but it's not her fault. It's the way her character is written. The Devil's female helpers are supposed to be luscious, cooing sex-kittens, like Raquel Welch or Elizabeth Hurley in BEDAZZLED, Gwen Verdon in DAMN YANKEES, or Julie Newmar in anything. Medina's character was a bitch, a shrew. Some men would sell their souls just to get rid of her. Blame Bloch, not Patricia.<br /><br />Meanwhile, MacDonald Carey's wife was attractive and nice, and not nearly as whiny as Medina. Yet he was willing to consign her to eternal damnation. <br />That's why he deserved to die at the end, but it's yet another thing that strains credulity.<br /><br />The best thing about this episode was John Emery. Everything perked up when he was on screen. Unfortunately, he wasn't on screen all that much.<br /><br />Finally, it's worth pointing out that MacDonald Carey, a dull but competent actor, did battle with the Devil almost twenty years before this, in Alfred Hitchcock's great 1943 film SHADOW OF A DOUBT. It's never stated explicitly, but Joseph Cotten was more than just a bad human in that film. He had occasional mystical powers (we see that in the opening five minutes), and he was always surrounded by smoke. When he arrived on the train in Santa Rosa, the train was belching black smoke that filled the air. Cotten puffed on cigars and blew smoke rings. He was charming. In one scene, his hair is combed in a way that makes it look like he has horns. I once heard Andrew Sarris talk about this in a classroom at Columbia University. <br /><br />Teresa Wright is dazzled by the demon for most of the film, but eventually she figures it out and in the last scene, she's in the arms of uber-dull MacDonald Carey. I guess that's better than burning in the pit.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3413477571485423494.post-11693337413558712802023-09-24T07:33:13.203-07:002023-09-24T07:33:13.203-07:00Robert Garrick here.
Orangey was in THE OUTER LIM...Robert Garrick here.<br /><br />Orangey was in THE OUTER LIMITS too, in season two episode one, "Soldier." Also in BATMAN, GREEN ACRES, THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES, GILLIGAN'S ISLAND. Audrey Hepburn said that the hardest thing she ever had to do in all of her years making movies was put Orangey out of the New York cab, into the rain, in BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S. When I watch that scene (near the end of the film), my heart breaks for her, and for Orangey too, who couldn't understand why Audrey would do such a thing. <br /><br />Orangey had a recurring role in OUR MISS BROOKS, from 1952-1958, as Minerva. <br /><br />Orangey has a page at the IMDB, showing credits running from 1951 to 1969. Was Orangey really making movies at age 18? I'm not sure of that. But he had a long and distinguished film career.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3413477571485423494.post-60861646921416525002023-09-23T18:37:27.512-07:002023-09-23T18:37:27.512-07:00James B. Harris (who produced several Kubrick film...James B. Harris (who produced several Kubrick films) said this about Tim McIntire, in an interview in Film Comment: <br /><br />"[H]e’s the illegitimate son of Orson Welles! Look it up in Wikipedia, you’ll see. I mean, I don’t know if you can verify it, but everybody says it, and the proof is in the pudding. His voice is exactly like Welles, his nose is exactly like Welles, he’s subject to the overweight thing, just like Welles. Welles made a picture with his mother, I forget her name—Jeannette Nolan. But so everything leads to his being Welles’ illegitimate son. And… he is. I spent so much time with him and I felt like I was talking to Orson Welles most of the time."<br /><br />As for James B. Harris, Michelle Phillips (of the Mamas and the Papas) said that Harris had an affair with 14-year-old Sue Lyon during the filming of LOLITA. <br /><br />All this fooling around--and I'm sitting at home watching old "Thriller" episodes.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3413477571485423494.post-68876113571668471792023-09-15T05:18:08.923-07:002023-09-15T05:18:08.923-07:00Robert Garrick here.
There's not enough comme...Robert Garrick here.<br /><br />There's not enough comment about the extraordinary quality of the photography in "Thriller." This one was shot by Lionel Lindon--"Curly Lindon"--who maybe hit the bottle a little bit if we are to believe Ted Post. Lindon's work in this show was gorgeous, spectacular, as good as the camerawork in a top-rank 1940s film noir. Such quality is particularly notable in a show that was done in five days. Ted Post, in his brutally honest commentary, said that Lindon was "a genius" and that he could work fast, which was a necessity. He didn't like to work fast, but he could if he had to.<br /><br />Speaking of Ted Post's commentary . . . I was stunned by Ted Post's frank takedown of this episode, and of the Thriller project in general. He had nothing good to say about Maxwell Shane ("worthless"), Hubbell Robinson (he just wanted the money) and John Ireland (miscast). (They were all conveniently long dead when Post taped his comments, and Post himself would be dead a few years later, in 2013.) <br /><br />Post was looking to make something of this story, but couldn't do it given the script, the time limitations, and the people he was forced to work with.<br /><br />The story was linear and dull and predictable--it's the writing that is the weak spot in most of the Thrillers. But the photography is well above average, and the acting is usually fine. The direction is often good too. John Brahm is reliable competent; so is Ida Lupino; and I thought Ted Post gave this episode an elegant, exotic, smooth finish. Obviously, he wasn't happy with it but I thought he performed his role well.<br /><br />Jeanne Bal looked great in that backless dress. <br /><br />Finally . . . in the commentary Steve Mitchell says that John Ireland was well-remembered for many films, including "Red River." Actually, Ireland is best remembered for having his role cut out of that film almost completely by director Howard Hawks, who was furious at Ireland for getting sexually friendly with female lead Joanne Dru. Hawks was mad because HE wanted to get sexually friendly with Dru, but Ireland beat him to it. Legend has it that you can see one of the wagons rocking gently in one of the scenes . . . <br /> Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3413477571485423494.post-78119729906190053032023-09-04T01:05:15.787-07:002023-09-04T01:05:15.787-07:00Robert Garrick here.
The mistress was played by K...Robert Garrick here.<br /><br />The mistress was played by K.T. Stevens, the daughter of Hollywood director Sam Wood (A NIGHT AT THE OPERA, KITTY FOYLE, FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS, KING'S ROW, PRIDE OF THE YANKEES).<br /><br />At this stage of his career, Ross Elliott played some roles with a hairpiece, others without. Here, he was without. <br /><br />Bethel Leslie plays an unhappy spouse in this episode for the second time on "Thriller." She had also been in "Child's Play," which would get my vote as the single worst "Thriller," and one of the most unwatchably bad shows in the history of television as well. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3413477571485423494.post-87019849409711944162023-08-30T07:56:04.996-07:002023-08-30T07:56:04.996-07:00Robert Garrick here (unwilling to open a Google ac...Robert Garrick here (unwilling to open a Google account).<br /><br />There are some interesting things to say about this one. First, in the life-imitates-art category: star Larry Blyden would die young (age 49) while he was driving through Morocco, with valuables in his car. He was carjacked by bandits who killed him and stole his goods. Now where, have I heard that one before? Oh yeah--it was the plot of the previous episode, MAN IN A CAGE.<br /><br />Now that's weird. Too bad Blyden (real name: Ivan Blieden, from Houston) didn't have Barry Gordon around to call the cops.<br /><br />Blyden had been a close childhood friend of Rip Torn, who starred in an earlier Thriller episode, THE PURPLE ROOM.<br /><br />Guy Mitchell, who turned up at the end in a bit part, had been a major pop star in the 1950s. By modern standards, he should have had about a billion dollars in the bank. His records "Heartaches by the Number," "Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania," "Singin' the Blues," and "My Truly Truly Fair" (among others) were some of the biggest records of the decade. <br /><br />And yet here's Mitchell, after all of that, doing a walk-on part on a low-rated TV show. You wouldn't see Taylor Swift doing that.<br /><br />One of the things about this episode ("Choose a Victim") is that it's full of babes. For my money, the older woman, Tracey Roberts, is way hotter than Ann Oliver. But that's just me. Roberts was 47 years old when she did this episode--that was OLD by 1961 standards for a sexy female star. It's also worth noting that Guy Mitchell was briefly married, back in the 1950s, to an extremely attractive Playboy Playmate. As I recall she was Scandinavian. The marriage was over in a flash, and I'll gratuitously note that Mitchell was only five-foot-six. But it was probably a good week or two for him. As for Larry Blyden, he was married to knockout dancer Carol Haney for seven years, while both of them were on Broadway in a number of musicals. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3413477571485423494.post-88631112181775715432023-08-22T09:31:22.021-07:002023-08-22T09:31:22.021-07:00Good comment Anon, and I was going to make the sam...Good comment Anon, and I was going to make the same observation. Isn't it the ultimate "spoiler" to mark an episode with the closing shock image? I just watched "The Cheaters" for the first time, and when I got to the end I thought: "Oh yeah, that guy. I saw him at the start of the show." <br /><br />What louts and clueless bozos those DVD guys were, to do that. <br /><br />It was a good episode, easily the best "Thriller" so far. But I didn't find it remotely scary. As a kid, I would have been scared by the last five minutes, but as an adult I yawned through it, and I figured the show would end with the image I'd already seen--which it did. <br /><br />Gary Gerani's commentary was excellent.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3413477571485423494.post-26684857146923308902023-08-21T01:55:05.100-07:002023-08-21T01:55:05.100-07:00Robert Garrick here, with no Google account.
Th...Robert Garrick here, with no Google account. <br /><br />The most shocking moment in TV horror--and I really don't think there's much doubt about this--is the Alfred Hitchcock Hour presentation of "An Unlocked Window," which first ran on February 15, 1965. My mother allowed me to stay up, though it was way past my bedtime, because she didn't like to be up alone. (My father was out of town.) And then we watched THAT episode. It's still the most frightened and shaken up I've ever been, by anything on TV or in a movie theatre. And (unlike some of the Thrillers) it holds up.<br /><br />The Psycho house is used in the episode, and there's music by Bernard Herrmann, and the photography is by Stanley Cortez. The woman-in-peril is no other than Dana "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" Wynter. James Bridges wrote many of the best Hitchcock hours, and he wrote this one. And the competent Joseph M. Newman directed.<br /><br />At least one writer, somewhere (maybe in the MacFarland Press book, "This is a Thriller") says that "Pigeons from Hell" and "An Unlocked Window" were the two most frightening hours shown on commercial TV--ever--and that both were lucky to slip through the censors. Certainly that's true of the Hitchcock show.<br /><br />I'm getting to it late, but I'm enjoying your website. Most of the Thrillers so far have been awful (including "The Guilty Men"--awful) but the damage is mitigated by your amusing and learned comments.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com