Susan Hayward plays Christine Allison a physician prosecuted for euthanizing a patient. Peter Finch plays Stephen Dane the attorney who successfully put Allison in prison and now employs her to take charge of his mentally disturbed wife Liane, played by Diane Cilento.Â
The film also co-stars Cyril Cusack as Captain Ferris and Kieron Moore as Roscoe and is directed by Robert Stevens. (Suspense 1949, Never Love A Stranger 1958.
“Love can make a killer out of a woman… and a fool out of any man!”
The Incredible Doktor Markesan played by Boris Karloff for one of Thriller’s most memorable episodes of the series!
A sign reads “NO TRESPASSING ~VIOLATORS WILL BE SHOT ON SIGHT~DokTor Konrad Markesan”
The Incredible DokTor Markesan aired Feb 26 1962 perhaps the most creepy of all the Thriller stories, originally appeared in Weird Tales Magazine and was taken from a story written by August Derleth and Mark Schorer, and adapted by Donald S Sanford and directed by Robert Florey. The rotting corpse makeup byJack Barron actually predates Romero’s 1968 Night Of The Living Dead, which I feel only made both effectively more creepy by the B&W film.
Mort Stevens’s score begins as gravely contemplative and daydreamy single notes on the piano beckon us into this episode, then begins the darker, deeper cello strings foreboding and ominous. As the piano resolves into more somber chords, the young Fred Bancroft and his new bride Molly drive up to the entrance of Oakmoor. What has happened to the broad green lawns and the servants in starched white uniforms? They proceed to enter the house, the door having been strangely left unlocked. Seemingly vacant, Oakmoor is crocheted in cobwebs, from years of neglect. There is no electricity. Fred lights a candelabra and the couple continue to search for Fred’s Uncle Konrad. As they start to ascend the staircase, suddenly a door creaks open, the music sways from ominous to severe, and a sallow, blank, expressionless, Konrad Markesan steps out of the shadows. Uncle Konrad stares up at them, ashen, emotionless, his right hand poised in a state of rigor, he stares off, silent. Fred trying to ingratiate himself awkwardly, remains smiling, excruciatingly strained in the midst of his Uncle’s peculiarly inhospitable behavior. Molly acutely more aware of his uncle’s bizarre presence stands there obviously horrified and uncomfortable while Fred still flounders to make a connection with his relative. Molly chirps out a “Hello” and from the moment Fred holds out his hand to shake his Uncle’s, Markesan turns away and says “Come with me” and proceeds to leave the grand hallway.
Release date -Nov. 17, 1961 Episode directed by Anton Leader, written by Rod Serling and starring Lois Nettleton as Norma and Betty Garde as Mrs. Bronson.
When the Earth falls out of orbit, two women try to cope with increasingly oppressive heat in a nearly abandoned city.
An underrated episode of Boris Karloff’sThriller in brief! even for me, that is…
The Storm -Release date Jan. 22nd, 1962
Directed by Herschel Daugherty adapted for television by writer William D. Gordon from a short story by crime novelist MacIntoch Malmar. Which was later adapted for television, again directed by Hershel Daugherty in an updated film called The Victim 1972Â starring the wonderful Elizabeth Montgomery and the always acerbic Eileen Heckart.
Starring Nancy Kelly as Janet Willsom (The Bad Seed 1956) The classic American horror-thriller film directed by Mervyn LeRoy won Kelly an Oscar for Best Actress that year as psychotic Rhoda Penmark’s (Patty McCormack) mother, Christine Penmark.
Walter Kerr of the New York Herald Tribune wrote of her "Tony Award-winning stage performance:
“Though Miss Kelly has done attractive work on Broadway before, she has never really prepared us for the brilliance of the present portrait” (Walter Kerr-New York Times, January 14, 1995).
The evil Rhoda strokes her mother. Scarier than clowns….!
The Storm also stars James Griffith as Ed Brandies the quirky lecherous and intrusive cab driver. David McLean as Ben T. Willsom and Jean Carroll as the voice of phone operator Drucie. Not to be forgotten, the beautifully sleek and ever-present Baba the black cat and real star of this episode…
Nancy Kelly plays Janet Willsom, a woman besieged by noises and bad weather, while isolated in her home, waiting for her husband Ben to arrive home in during a raging storm. Kept alerted and accompanied by her faithful black cat Baba, Janet must first fend off the nauseating advances of the cabbie who brings her home and wants to practically move in on her, while her husband is away on business.
When I originally posted this feature I had made a reference to Hitchcock in the post concerning the body of the dead girl in the trunk. The focus is on her lifeless finger, with the large diamond ring dangling as limp as a soggy carrot.
The Storm, in general, contains striking elements of a good old-fashioned Hitchcock thriller! As well as the framing of one hell of a good stage play!
I hadn’t been asked to join in the BEST HITCHCOCK MOVIE (THAT HITCHCOCK NEVER MADE)Â yet. So here it is once again, with a few little tidbits thrown in so that it can take its place in the wonderful blogathon that’s going on between July 7 -July 13!
Nancy Kelly- strong actress, beautiful, never got to play a Hitchcock heroine!
The use of a strong woman, alone in a situation where there is a person unknown stalking her. Plenty of red herrings thrown in to divert our attention, and one hell of a dead body stuffed in a trunk, that we the audience are privy to, but not the feature’s protagonist, Janet Willsom.
Janet Willsom, finds herself in the midst of one single night’s journey of survival, trying to stay one step ahead of a murderer and also delay an uncomfortable bit of evidence, that could turn her entire world upside down.
From its small taut moments of built-in suspense, until the eventual climax, ‘The Storm’ plays out truly like any good Hitchcock ‘Woman in Peril’ such as Dial M For Murder 1954 Starring Grace Kelly and Ray Milland.
Grace Kelly – The Strong Hitchcock blond-beautiful!
The episode opens with a mysterious pair of man’s trousers assailing a beautiful blonde in the midst of the rainstorm. She is strangled and stuffed in a trunk in the cellar, as we are strategically shown the emphasis on a shiny diamond ring on her lifeless finger sticking out of the trunk. A very Hitchockian moment…
Is Janet now being stalked by the same mad killer? What’s behind every noise and flash of light and sweep of shadow?
I love this episode because it creates a perfectly creepy environment of isolation. Very much lit as a faithful crime drama Film Noir, the shear simplicity of each moment, each little task Janet undergoes to create normalcy and safety in her surroundings, what would usually be merely ordinary banal gestures become tautly drawn-out maneuvers in a darkly ominous, tweaked and dangerous landscape.
Invoking more of a sense of terror because of its bared-down realism, than a manufactured horror. As suggested by David Schow‘s wonderful commentary of this episode on the recently released DVD box set, the atmosphere of the isolated ‘woman in peril‘ who must fend off whatever is lurking, reminds us of Audrey Hepburn in Wait Until Dark 1967
This is also a faithful psychological Film Noir piece, utilizing the very best in Nancy Kelly as the dame in danger and James Griffith as the lasciviously intrusive cab driver Ed whose quirky character is either a raving maniac or just a red herring to throw us off the scent of the true murderer.
(Anthony Perkins) plays Dennis Pitt, a mentally disturbed young man recently released from an institution, who tells a pretty All-American girl Sue Ann Stepanek (Tuesday Weld) that he’s a secret agent working for the CIA.
She’s thrilled to feed into Dennis’ fantasy world and that’s when all hell breaks loose and subterfuge Folie à deux and murder ensue, in this dark thriller from the 1960s. Co-starring Beverly Garlandas Mrs. Stepanek and John Randolph as Morton Azenauer
Directed by Noel Black and written by Stephen Geller based on his novel, and screenplay by Lorenzo Semple Jr.
“…Wait till you see what they did to his aunt – the night watchman – to her mother.”
In the early 20th century, a Gorgon takes human form and terrorizes a small European village by turning its citizens to stone. This Gothic Hammer Horror of mythic proportions is directed by Terence Fisher and stars those British titans of terror Christopher Lee, as Prof. Karl Meister, Peter Cushingas Dr. Namaroff, and Barbara Shelley as Carla Hoffman.
European Director/Provocateur Roger Vadim(And God Created Woman 1956, Barbarella 1968, Spirits of The Dead 1968, Pretty Maids All In A Row 1971) adapts Sheridan Le Fanu’s tale of sensuality, jealous Obsession, and Vampirism.
The Gorgeous Annette Vadim is ‘Carmilla’ Karnstein who is jealous of her cousin Leopoldo de Karnstein’s (Mel Ferrer) upcoming engagement to the beautiful Georgia Monteverdi (Elsa Martinelli).
Carmilla’s fixation manifests itself in the form of a female ancestor who is a vampire, which possesses her thus beginning a siege of terror at the family estate, culminating in a surreal and stunning bloodbath.
Stumbling onto the ancestral tomb! Is it real or imagined?
This is a beautiful cinematic horror film… a surreal journey that is at times told in dream-like sequences that are utter visual feasts for the Gothic soul. Blood and Roses has some of the most memorable imagery, and tastefully lensed eroticism, especially for ‘Lesbian Vampire’ aficionados. One of my favorite classic Euro horror films of the 1960s.
Directed by Gerd Oswald and written by Joseph Stefano
Two women decide the only way out of an abusive relationship with a sadistic blackmailer is to poison him. In the midst of fleeing, they come upon an isolated house with an odd old caretaker and a solitary young man who dabbles with clocks, time travel, and raising the dead.
The dreamy David McCallumplays Tone Hobart, the man who can tinker with time, space, and soul revival. Vera Miles plays the self-assured Kasha, Barbara Rush is the slightly neurotic Leonora, Cedric Hardwicke is Colus, the stoic manservant and Scott Marloweis the fiendish Andre. From one of the truly timeless series, with the advent of a social consciousness, The Outer Limits, is one of my favorite television series of all time!
As I’ve been known to write about Boris Karloff’s Thriller, I do plan on covering a few of my most treasured episodes in-depth and certainly with my usual long-winded overview and images of the original The Outer Limits!
For now… I couldn’t resist adding my musical voice to a ‘moment in time’ of one of the most poetic and haunting stories in the series. Here are edited scenes from The Forms of Things Unknown mashed up with my song ‘The Mistress of Time’ off my album The Amber Sessions.
Herk Harvey’s one film masterpiece of the macabre, starring Candace Hilligoss.
I’ve taken scenes from the film and edited them together with my song called Vacant Little Stare off the album Fools and Orphans.
This cult classic is so incredibly atmospheric and the imagery so unique for its day, that I couldn’t resist melding it together with my song, of alienation, loneliness, and madness, which compliment Mary Henry’s persona very well I think! Enjoy!-Joey
‘A story so unusual it will burn itself into your mind’
Here is a music/film mash-up tribute to Bava and Steele, using edited clips from the classic film and a song off my neo-classical lo-fi album The Last Drive In!
Mario Bava’s masterpiece of Gothic horror starring the legendary Barbara Steele is the vengeful witch Katia Vajda / Princess Asa Vajda who rises from the tomb to possess the body of her descendant!
“STARE INTO THESE EYES… discover deep within them the unspeakable terrifying secret of BLACK SUNDAY… it will paralyze you with fright!”
