Miriam Hopkins has a luminous, quiet dreamy beauty.
Born in Savannah Georgia Oct. 18th, 1902 she died Oct 9, 1972-a chorus girl in New York City at the age of 20 she made her first motion picture after signing with Paramount Pictures called Fast and Loose (1930).
In 1931, she raised some eyebrows in 1931’s horror thriller Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde directed by Rouben Mamoulian.
InDr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931),Miriam Hopkins portrayed the character Ivy Pearson, a prostitute who becomes mesmerized by Jekyll and Hyde a tale of sexuality in revolt. Though many of her scenes were cut from the film she still managed to get rave reviews for the mere 5 minutes she spent on the screen.
Frederick March walked away with the Oscar for Best Leading Man in that horror gem. Miriam Hopkins had been up for the part of Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Windbeing that she was an authentic Southern lady, but the part… of course went to Vivien Leigh… “As God as my witness, they’re not going to lick me”
Miriam would make three pictures with Ernst Lubitsch,The Smiling Lieutenant 1931, Trouble in Paradise 1932, and Design for Living 1933.Design for Living is my favorite!
William Wylerrevising the film release of The Children’s Hour 1961, had been based on his original theatrical presentation with Hopkin’s in what was called These Three (1936). In the remake, she plays Aunt Lily Mortar to Shirley MacLaine’s troubled Martha, stepping into the role that Hopkins once portrayed.
These Three (1936) starring Joel McCrea, Merle Oberon, and our Miriam Hopkins as Martha Dobie in William Wyler’s toned-down version of the Lillian Hellman play.
IMDb trivia: William Wyler cut several scenes hinting at Martha’s homosexuality for fear of not receiving the seal of approval from the Motion Picture Production Code. At the time, any story about homosexuality was forbidden by the production code. Â
Directed by William Wyler, cinematography by Franz Planer(Criss Cross 1949, Breakfast at Tiffany’s 1961) working with Wyler they used effective mood changes with his lighting, creating an often provocative atmosphere. The film showcases some truly great performances by the entire cast, Audrey Hepburn,Shirley MacLaine, and James Garner (who sadly passed away on July 19th of this year.) Including Veronica Cartwright and Fay Bainter. Miriam Hopkins mixes a sad yet infuriating empathy toward her flighty judgmental and often elusive tie to the theatre she harkens back to. She is incapable of being there for her tormented niece.
The story concerns the struggle of two young and independent women trying to make a go of it by running a private boarding school for adolescent girls. The intrusion of a lie, ultimately founded on a malicious rumor concocted by the spoiled young niece Mary Tilford (Karen Balkin) begins to spread like deadly poison that Karen (Hepburn) and Martha (Maclean) are having a lesbian relationship. And the lie proceeds to ruin Karen’s engagement to Joe, worried parents flood to the school to pull out their children at risk of being exposed to that ‘love that dare not speak its name!’ and basically causes the ruination of Karen and Martha’s dream.
Whether the idea is true or not, the wake of the devastation of all the lives involved leads to poetic & unfortunate tragedy.
Martha and Karen's quite independent business relationship and personal friendship seemed to challenge very conventional standards of a woman's role, creating an uncomfortable pall over the town, the school, and the women involved in the scandal, and we sense this dis-ease on film. This all seems to feed the accessibility of suspicion when Mary makes her accusation, fueled by things she’s overheard Aunt Lily recklessly say about Martha.
Mrs. Lily Mortar–“Friendship between women, yes. But not this insane devotion! Why, it’s unnatural. Just as unnatural as can be.”
Mrs. Lily Mortar:Any day that he’s in the house is a bad day. You can’t stand them being together and you’re taking out on me. You’ve always had a jealous, possessive nature even as a child. If you had a friend, you’d be upset if she liked anybody else. And that’s what’s happening now. And it’s unnatural. It’s just as unnatural as it can be.
Miriam Hopkins is an added unpleasant moral eccentric and parasite who feeds off Karen and her niece Martha who have always had an apparently strained relationship because she’s money-grubbing, spineless, and a user right from the beginning.
Miriam Hopkin’s Aunt Lily glides through the film like narcissus’ secretary waiting for that great part that is never coming. Supposedly on tour with a drama company, or just avoiding the scandal, when she could have cleared the women’s reputations and saved the school from being shut down.
At times’s she histrionic, over-theatrical, melodramatic, and a relic of bygone days. Like an obsolete thespian Harpy who lingers around the house, tormenting poor Martha who is struggling with her own inner demons that Aunt Lily seems all too well to recognize.
Aunt Lily trying to stir up dramaturgical dust while teaching her pupil’s elocution, shows herself to be out of fashion, a bit of an outcast, and as dried up as the dead flowers, the young conniving and at times socio-pathic Mary steals from the garbage to give to Lily as a ruse for being late to class.
Aunt Lily is needful, maneuvering, and scheming as she insinuates herself into the lives of Karen (Audrey Hepburn) and her niece Martha (Shirley MacLaine) A nonstop know it all"¦ with a showy flare for dramatics.
At the school, Aunt Lily teaches the girl elocution lessons, music, and theatre which is perfect for her narcissistic compulsion to inflate her own ego while pushing her highfalutin ideas of breeding “Breeding is everything”. Lily is materialistic, money hungry, and will use Martha for whatever she can get out of her.
After Lily accuses Martha's relationship with Karen as being "˜unnatural' And how her mood changes whenever Joe, Karen’s fiance (James Garner) is in the house. Martha throws her out. Paying her off so she'll stay away. Hopkins does a truly perfect job of being the parasitic opportunist who offers nothing but grief.
I loved Miriam Hopkins as the gutsy Mrs. Shipton -‘ The Duchess’ in The Outcasts of Poker Flats 1952.
Until 1970 when like most great screen sirens, who seemed to inevitably get handed that part of Grande Dame Guignol caricature of the fading Hollywood star. Hopkin’s last film was the brutally disturbing Strange Intruder in 1970. She playing the recluse Katharine Parker, who is befriended by a psychopathic woman hater, then terrorized by him- John David Garfield (Yes son of the great John Garfield). Gale Sondergaard plays her companion Leslie who staunchly remains at her side to no avail.
WhileMiriam Hopkinswho played Martha in the original filmThese Three (1936) agreed to play the part of Martha’s Aunt Lily, Merle Oberon, who played Karen in the original film, turned down the part of Mrs. Tilford.
Mr. Happy… Bosley Crowther once again fangs the performances of The Children’s Hour with his serpentine wit. Published in The New York Times review March 15th, 1962.
“But here it is, fidgeting and fuming, like some dotty old doll in bombazine with her mouth sagging open in shocked amazement at the batedly whispered hint that a couple of female schoolteachers could be attached to each other by an “unnatural” love.
If you remember the stage play, that was its delicate point, and it was handled even then with a degree of reticence that was a little behind the sophistication of the times. (Of course, the film made from the stage play in 1936 and called “These Three” avoided that dark hint altogether; it went for scandal down a commoner avenue.)
But here in this new film version, directed and produced by the same William Wyler who directed the precautionary “These Three,” the hint is intruded with such astonishment and it is made to seem such a shattering thing (even without evidence to support it) that it becomes socially absurd. It is incredable that educated people living in an urban American community today would react as violently and cruelly to a questionable innuendo as they are made to do in this film.
And that is not the only incredible thing in it. More incredible is its assumption of human credulity. It asks us to believe that the parents of all twenty pupils in a private school for girls would yank them out in a matter of hours on the slanderously spread advice of the grandmother of one of the pupils that two young teachers in the school were “unnatural.”
It asks us to believe the grandmother would have been convinced of this by what she hears from her 12-year-old granddaughter, who is a dubious little darling at best. And, most provokingly, it asks us to imagine that an American court of law would not protect the innocent victims of such a slander when all the evidence it had to go upon was the word of two children and the failure of a key witness to appear.
In short, there are several glaring holes in the fabric of the plot, and obviously Miss Hellman, who did the adaptation, and John Michael Hayes, who wrote the script, knew they were there, for they have plainly sidestepped the biggest of them. They have not let us know what the youngster whispered to the grandmother that made her hoot with startled indignation and go rushing to the telephone. Was it something that a 12-year-old girl could have conceivably made up out of her imagination (which is what she was doing in this scene)?
And they have not let us into the courtroom where the critical suit for slander was tried. They have only reported the trial and the verdict in one quickly tossed off line.
So this drama that was supposed to be so novel and daring because of its muted theme is really quite unrealistic and scandalous in a prim and priggish way. What’s more, it is not too well acted, except by Audrey Hepburn in the role of the younger of the school teachers. She gives the impression of being sensitive and pure.
Shirley MacLaine as the older school teacher, the one who eventually admits in a final scene with her companion that she did have a yen for her, inclines to be too kittenish in some scenes and do too much vocal hand-wringing toward the end.
WELCOME TO JO GABRIEL & THE LAST DRIVEIN’S –500th POST!
“Ghosts are the outward sign of an inward fear”-Ambrose Bierce
“Everything is worse…if you think something is looking at you.” ” — Shirley Jackson
From- Cinematic Hauntings edited by Gary J. and Susan Svehla chapter The Haunting by Bryan Senn.
“Adult in concept and wide in scope. The Haunting is designed not only to appeal to those who approach the supernatural from an intellectual level, but also to the legions of movie patrons who delight in a genuine ghost story.”-The Haunting press book
Halloween is around the corner, I hear the rusty gates creaking, the rattling of skeletons, the flapping wings of jolly bats, smell the candy corn and Hershey’s kisses and the owls are hooting, the spooks are spooking, and I sense the chill of night seeping through the curtains as the best holiday of the year is upon us!
What better way to honor such a ghoulishly ghostly and creepy eve than to explore one of the all-time great movies, ghost story notwithstanding, in honor of my 500th post? Yes, long-winded me has finally reached a milestone.
How do you begin to write about a film that continues to share the spot of the favorite movie in my world alongside Rosemary’s Baby?What can I say that hasn’t already been said about Robert Wise’s masterwork, The Haunting,from 1963? How do you even give suitable tribute to a timeless masterpiece that defies genre and deserves to be upheld as unremarkable?
Incidentally, I was reading Pam Keesey’s terrific essay, The Haunting and the Power of Suggestion: Why Robert Wise’s Film Continues to ‘Deliver the Goods’ to Modern Audiences.Keesey points to a comment that Stephen King makes while admiring Wise’s film. He remarks, “Something is scratching at the ornate, paneled door… Something horrible… but it is a door Wise elects never to open.” Once again, Pam Keesey cites Wise’s influence as written about in Edmund G. Bansak’s wonderful Fearing the Dark: The Val Lewton Career, one of my favorite books in my library. Wise finally found a film that could pay homage to his mentor, Val Lewton.
“Lewton trademarks–the reverence for the underdog, the focus upon humanist concerns, the alliance between danger and darkness, the depiction of fate as an unstoppable force, and, of course the preoccupation with things unseen.”-Bansak
Sorry, Stephen King, but we don’t always need to see the monster– Val Lewton understood that well, and managed to create some of the most compelling moments of terror for us, just by suggesting and triggering our own innate fears of the unknown. This is one of the most essential working mechanisms of Wise’sThe Hauntingthat has withstood the perils of time.
Robert Wise worked as an editor among Val Lewton’s magic team of artists.
He learned the secret to any good work of fantasy/horror/suspense/noir is to suggest, BUT not reveal, what is the heart of the narrative on the screen itself, but allow our own subconscious fears and anxieties to do their work. Much credit has to be given to Nelson Gidding’s (I Want to Live! 1958, The Andromeda Strain 1971) remarkable screenplay.
While working on West Side Story, Robert Wise picked up a copy of Shirley Jackson’s ghost story. In an interview in Midnight Marquee #37, Wise recalled, “I was reading one of the scary passages–hackles were going up and down my neck–when Nelson Gidding (screenwriter)… burst through the door to ask me a question, I literally jumped about three feet out of my chair. I said, ‘If it can do that to me sitting and reading, it ought to be something I want to make a picture out of.”
Wise wasn’t sure he’d get to direct the film, noted in Bright Lights #11–“I called nervously to see if it might be available…{…}because usually by the time a book comes out in New York, the big movie companies have scouts back there, story departments, and they grab it up and it’s gone. I found out this one hadn’t been picked up.”
According to Bryan Senn in an interview in 1995, “I persuaded United Artists to buy the book rights for me and finance a screenplay. And I got Nelson Gidding, who did I Want to Live! (1958) for me to do the screenplay. When we got it done however United Artists got a little cold on it and didn’t want to proceed with it. So I talked to my agent about it. I had left a contract with MGM a few years before; I got out of the contract early but I had to promise to give them another film.
THE HAUNTING, Claire Bloom, Russ Tamblyn, Julie Harris, Richard Johnson, 1963.
The studio wasn’t keen on a supernatural horror thriller, nor of the idea of not using big named stars for the picture.Wise wanted to use classically trained actors like both British Shakespearean actors Richard Johnson and Claire Bloom and American actress Julie Harris.Wise also wanted to work with Russ Tamblyn again whom he worked with in 1961 on West Side Story. Tamblyn was reluctant to do the part after reading the script but threat of suspension from the studio urged him to take the role. Years later he recounts it being one of his favorite roles.
Luck will out and Wise needing to go over to England for a command performance of West Side Story, was able to use MGM’s little studio outside London called Boreham Wood Studios which gave him a bigger budget to work with.
And I can say without any doubts, that I’m with Robert Wise- when I was little, watching The Haunting even during the day, sun shining outside, my heart would pound and I would feel a restless shudder as I sat quietly watching what I consider to still be one of the scariest films of all time. And though I’ve seen it again and again, I still feel said hackles up the back of my neck. The shivers of fear and dread, and a true sense of terror that grips you every single time!
The confluence of artistry, Robert Wise’s sensibility that he synthesized from working with ValLewton, Jackson’s incredible ghost story, Gidding’s compelling script, the collective ensemble performances by all the great actors involved, the effective score by Humphrey Searle, and idiosyncratic and visually disorienting cinematography by Davis Boulton (Stage Fright 1950, I Thank A Fool 1962) The sense of place and the incredible performances that inhabited that uncanny space.
Photo of Richard Johnson, Claire Bloom, Russ Tamblyn, and Julie Harris in the movie The Haunting, 1963. Photo/Art by: anon.
All these elements went into creating one masterfully crafted visual narrative, a psychological maneuver, a tale of terror, and one memorable landscape of uncanny dread and paranoia.
The house itself was set in England and not the story’s old-money New England territory. While there are numerous tales of haunting in England, Jackson’s story was set in New England, and Wise wanted to stay close to the novel’s reality. It wasn’t hard to find the right house in England. However, the more daunting task was getting the roads closed off so Julie Harris could drive her car on the wrong side of the road for the scene where she travels to Hill House. Robert Wise explained in Fantastic Films, that “We wanted a house that basically had an evil look about it” He finally found the perfect house in Warwickshire, a 200-year-old manor house called Ettington Park, Wise felt that its, “facing of mottled stone with gothic windows and turrets” was exactly what they needed.
The house possessed an “unexpected, even frightening, authenticity” According to Russ Tamblyn, “It was definitely a strange place, especially the grounds. The house itself, had a history… oh, children who had been murdered, and a twelve year old who had committed suicide, some other woman who had fell out of a window.” Not to mention the little cemetery out in the back which was supposedly haunted. People had seen ghosts there.
Dr. John Markway: [voice-over narration] “An evil old house, the kind some people call haunted, is like an undiscovered country waiting to be explored. Hill House had stood for 90 years and might stand for 90 more. Silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there… walked alone.”
The film is powerful in the way it brings us into its mystifying grasp. We hear the velvet tones of Richard Johnson narrating to us, greeting us, if you will join the haunting. His voice-over is the visual montage of past events that reveals to us the menacing house. The inception of its evil roots, a domineering man, Hugh Crain, had built Hill House for his wife and daughter, “in the most remote part of New England he could find.” In a freak or strange accident, the wife had “died seconds before she was to set eyes on the house.” Her carriage crashed against a tree, her lifeless arm hanging out of the carriage in close-up. Crain’s second wife floats down the dark Victorian-style hall (Wise was the editor of The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), and the figure of the wife moving swiftly through the darkness reminds us of that film-This impression is also confirmed in More Things Than Are Dreamt of edited by Alain Silver & James Ursini ) then tumbles down a flight of stairs breaking her neck.
“The audience is thrown into the point of view of the second Mrs. Crain as she stumbles down the stairs and blurred, twisted shots approximate the last things she saw in life. Finally a grim but striking deep focus wide angle captures her sprawled at the foot of the main stairs, eyes wide in fright and her corpse in the lower foreground of the frame and behind her shadowy killer, the house itself.”–source More Things Than Are Dreamt Of -edited by Silver & Ursini
After Crain dies in England, his only daughter Abigail “grew up and grew old” In Hill House, eventually hiring a village girl to be a paid companion, “it’s with this young companion the evil reputation of Hill House really begins” When the companion took a farmhand out onto the veranda while her mistress banged on the wall with her cane and died calling for help. The companion inherited Hill House only to be driven to suicide by the unseen, menacing atmosphere of the place. She walked up to the top of the spiral staircase in the library and hanged herself. “They say that whatever there was–and still is–in the house eventually drove the companion mad.”
For Dr. John Markway (Richard Johnson), Hill House is a chance to prove himself. Eleanor has been chosen to be part of the research team because of the shower of stones that had fallen on her house when she was a little girl. Possibly possessing the powers of psychokinesis, the ability to materialize her inner demons, anger, and nightmares. Pointedly, when Eleanor says, “Suppose the haunting is all in my mind?”
From Silver & Ursini’s edited chapter Modern Classics- in More Things Than Are Dreamt Of- “The harp, the knockings, the writing on the wall-all these have a visual and aural presence in film which contradicts any inclination of the viewer to believe that Eleanor is doing this herself; and yet the word on Markway’s questionnaire which Luke doesn’t understand ‘psychokinesis’, makes it possible that she is. Even the interruption of her most flirtatious moment with Markway permits two readings. The house, her possessive, predestined lover, strikes at the harp strings out of jealousy and the need to control her. Or, like Henry James’ repressed governess in Edmund Wilson’s reading, Eleanor does it herself out of fear of sex. Both are possible.”
Having read an interesting essay that touches on Robert Wise’s 1963 ghost story from Hidden Horror, the chapter on Carnival of Souls by Prof. Shelly Jarenski makes a few interesting comparisons to Carnival of Souls 1962
Such as the prelude –“And we who walk here, walk alone.” in my malleable childhood mind, both the prelude and the coda stayed with me like a creepy lullaby or maudlin soliloquy. Jarenski asserts, “The film’s core themes are encapsulated in that line uttered by the misfit heroine Eleanor Lance.” I would totally agree with her assessment. The Haunting is not merely a ghost story; it is a story about an alienated loner, a ‘misfit heroine’ who is in dire search for relief or release, possibly from this world. We, too, are witnesses to a lonely, disillusioned woman (I loathe to use the word: spinster), most likely a virgin, who is longing to make a connection.
Jarenski writes, “Words like “˜we’ or “˜walking’ does create an “ominous ambiguity.” That Eleanor will either join the collection of lost souls in Hill House or be doomed to walk alone for all eternity in “˜isolation and despair.’
Asserting that Carnival of Souls can be understood as a corollary to the more ceremonious and celebrated The Haunting because“It portrays what being part of the community of the dead, while simultaneously feeling utterly alone, looks like.”
In More Things Than are Dreamt Of-Silver and Ursini point out the idea thatThe Hauntingis much more than just a ghost story. As Shirley Jackson wrote in her novel, “During the whole underside of her life, ever since her first memory Eleanor had been waiting for something”¦”
Theodora, affectionately known as Theo, has been recruited to help in the research because of her extremely honed powers of ESP. This becomes established before Dr. Markway introduces everyone around the breakfast table. While Mrs. Dudley regurgitates her soliloquy of fear & gloom, Theodora takes a mental inventory of Eleanor’s psychic bag, and when Eleanor asks how she knew what she was thinking, Theo cheekily replies, “You wear your thoughts on your sleeve.”
The Haunting(1963)could be said to be the penultimate example of ‘nothing up that proverbial sleeve’ and ‘it’s what you don’t see’ cinematography. The visual narrative is what makes it timelessly heart-pounding to watch and what gives it an artistic atmosphere of misdirection, anxiety, hysteria, dread, romanticism, and well, yes, that “haunting’ feeling.
Memorable scenes of veiled terror lurking in the corners or beyond the massive wooden door frames. The allusion to the various cold spots is underscored by trilling piano keys. Stark frames capture a portion of the house as if it were a live entity. Dr. Markway refers to the house as being ‘born bad. The manifestation of the angry and tyrannical Hugh Crane, who built an evil house. There are so many moments of The Haunting that have stayed with me for years. And I must admit that I usually watch it several times a year, like one makes pot roast because the craving strikes you at that moment. “It’s time to watch The Haunting again,” is heard in our house. I can never forget the moment when Julie Harris as Nell awakens frightened, where we hear a child’s muffled laughter swiftly turning to a menacing scream. She tells Theo that she’s breaking her hand, she’s holding it so tight. The camera only focuses on Nell and her outstretched arm in the darkness, swallowed up in her ornate room, like a fly in a spider’s web. When she can no longer bear Theo’s tight grip, she screams, “Stop it!” and turns the light on, only to find in horror that she’s been holding a ghostly hand. “Whose hand was I holding?” Theo is shown across the room, still lying in bed, unaware that Nell had been going through any nightmarish ordeal.
In other sequences, the visual perspective seems to warp all we see, pulling us into the dis-ease of Hill House. From the moment Eleanor pulls up to Hill House, the point of view is skewed so that we are watching Eleanor, who is also being watched by the house. It’s a startling moment as she realizes, “It’s staring at me.”
And of course, there’s the eerie and otherworldly invisible assault on the two women as something unseen pounds on the doors with a ‘cannonball’ Disembodied laughter, scratching, growling, and Baroque-style brass doorknobs with Medusa’s face that turn ever so slowly, as if something trying to gain entry into the room.
Eleanor ‘Nell’s’ name has been scripted on the wall in something ‘like chalk.’
And then the ghostly message written on the ostentatious wallpaper in ‘something like chalk’ outside the dining room-“Help Eleanor -Come Home!”
Hill House’s expression of love, the seduction by way of written message in ‘something like chalk’ both frightens Eleanor yet stimulates her because someone or something was finally paying attention to her. as Alain Silver and James Ursini point out the house’s dark secrets, “represent the intimacy which Eleanor has never had with any other being…”
There’s also the emphasis on the powerfully imposing use of matrix work, utilizing the inherent designs of the interiors themselves, textiles, wallpaper, and wood carvings to create diabolical faces watching back at us. The stone and bronze cherubs and gargoyles that inhabit Hill House, the myriad of mirrors, and long winding hallways mixed with the turbulent sky outside the towering Hill House.
The iconic scene where the door seems to expand as if breathing was actually two technical people who used 2x4s to push into the middle to create the effect. It’s that simple, and yet it is one of the most lasting scenes in film history.
The book by Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House, is a hell of a read, but as a rarity, the film invokes the uncanny of the story even better than the novel.
“SCREAM…no one will hear you! RUN…and the silent footsteps will follow, for in Hill House, the dead are restless!”
I’ve had any number of people over the years say to me, ‘You know, Mr. Wise, you made the scariest picture I’ve ever seen and you never showed anything. How’d you do it?” And it goes back to Val Lewton, by the powers of suggestions”–Robert Wise in Fearing the Dark: The Val Lewton Career
Robert Wisemade The Haunting in 1963 as a way of paying homage to his mentor, Val Lewton, who had died 12 years earlier.
The always-poised Richard Johnson plays the very earnest Dr. John Markway, a researcher in the paranormal who wants to use Hill House, an imposing Gothic New England house, as the main epicenter for his studies in the supernatural. Based on the legend of all the ghostly goings-on surrounding said place, Markway gets Mrs Sanderson (Fay Compton) to agree to lease the house to him for one year. Though she is the voice of caution
– Mrs. Sanderson: “The dead are not quiet in Hill House.”
The great Fay Compton as the crusty waspy Mrs. Sanderson warns Markway that the dead are not restful at Hill House.
Markway initially collects the names of potential participants in his experiment and chalks them on his blackboard. Eventually, the names drop off, and only two women arrive to help him uncover the truth behind the legend of Hill House. Is it truly haunted?
Theodora: “Haven’t you noticed how nothing in this house seems to move until you look away, and then you just… catch something out of the corner of your eye?”
Theo, sensing a presence, says, “It wants you, Nell… the house is calling you.”
Mrs. Sanderson sends along her cocky nephew out of the Midwest, Luke (Russ Tamblyn) to accompany Dr. Markway since one day Luke hopes to inherit Hill House. The exterior of Hill House is an actual Hotel called the Ettington Park Hall Hotel in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. The interior sets were brilliantly designed by John Jarvis.
We meet Eleanor ‘Nell’ Lance (Julie Harris) in her sister’s living room, which doubles as her bedroom. The very hypersensitive Nell is being tortured by her sister, brother-in-law, and their precocious brat of a child who insists on playing a child’s record march consisting of inane flutes and snare rattles, causing a pervasive tenor of chaos, madness, and dysfunction. Like nails on a blackboard, the little tune serves not only to cause psychic aural conflict and irritate Nell but also pulls us into her sense of being trapped in a claustrophobic world where she must break free. Nell steals the family car and hits the road with all her belongings in a box, driving out of Boston out into the light of the New England air toward something, anything, even the unknown, which would be better than the captivity she’s been experiencing. She is one of the people Dr. Markway has invited to participate in exploring Hill House.
More Things Than Are Dreamt Of edited by Alain Silver & James Ursini- The Haunting of Hill House is a third-person novel with a lot of interior monologues and other first person aspects…{…}Eleanor is neither a para-psychologist nor a believer, but a disheartened spinster yearning for escape and adventure; or as Jackson puts it, ‘During the whole underside of her life, ever since her first memory, Eleanor had been waiting for something…’
Eleanor is the first person to see the ‘vile’ house. Silver & Ursini frame it by Jackson’s occult vision, that Hill House is the cause of Eleanor’s ‘deliverance and destruction’. How Eleanor’s religious discourse becomes an ironic fate that turns inward on itself for in the end, “journeys end in lovers meeting” Eleanor’s volatile relationship with Hill House is absolutely one of love/hate.
Upon her arrival, she is confronted by two of the locals who harbor a maniacal animosity toward city people. The Dudleys were played by Rosalie Crutchleyand Valentine Dyall ( Who was perfectly sinister as Jethrow Keane in Horror Hotel 1960, yet another favorite classic horror film of mine.)
Rosalie Crutchley attributes the films power to Robert Wise’s skillful direction and David Boulton’s sinister cinematography that transformed the benign Ettington Park into the malevolent manor of Hill House. “It was a strange house” the actress told Bryan Senn. Crutchley continues, “which looked threatening from the outside but which wasn’t actually at all. But it was brilliantly shot you see, so that it looked very, very threatening.”
Mr. Dudley: “You’ll be sorry I ever opened the gate.”“Get away from here; get away at once. It’s my chance. I’ve been given a last chance. I could turn my car around and go away from here, and no one would blame me. Anyone has a right to run away. But you are running away, Eleanor. And there’s nowhere else to go.”
Mrs. Dudley takes care of the interior of Hill House as no one else in the village dares come near the place, setting out the meals but being very clear about leaving before it gets dark. The sardonic grin on her face as she divulges to Nell and Theo her little creepy-intoned soliloquy… “No one will come any further than town…”
No one will hear you scream… Mrs. Dudley’s expression is somewhat a combination of that intense little fellow, the prairie dog from the viral YouTube video where he turns around and stares, and Lewis Carroll’s Cheshire Cat.
Anyhoo… Markway leads the other three on a journey of discovery of the unknown. He chose Eleanor ‘Nell’ because of her poltergeist experience that occurred when rocks pelted her family home for a week. Eleanor suffered from a tremendous guilt complex shortly after losing her chronically ill mother, whom she cared for and who passed away, and this puts Nell on the edge of a breakdown. Theodora is known quite well for her powers of ESP. Luke Sanderson is the skeptical playboy of the foursome…
Markway is filled with glee as they have stumbled onto the proverbial ‘cold spot.’Luke-“There’s got to be a draft!”Dr. Markway tells Luke-“Look I know the supernatural is something that isn’t supposed to happen but it does happen… and if it happens to you your liable to have that shut door in your mind ripped right off its hinges!”
The ‘Adventurous All’ get together, trading small conversations and observations, while Hill House begins to reveal its cold heart. Or is the house truly a bad place? Built by a man who used odd angles and macabre embellishments, he created one “distortion as a whole,”as Nell comments. Hugh Crane, a man who was a religious zealot, entrapped his daughter in the foul house until her death as an old maid. She grew up and grew old in the house, where a series of mysterious accidents, suicides, and deaths ensued… Hill House is the epitome of Dark spaces or Bad spaces.
The nurse is too busy out on the veranda with the farm hand to hear Abigail pound on the door with her cane, and eventually hangs herself after inheriting Hill House.
Eleanor Lance: “Can’t you feel it? It’s alive… watching.”
Hill House does begin to show particular attention toward the vulnerable, fragile, and bedeviled Nell. But…
That begs a larger question. Can a house be born bad, or have Nell’s neurotic fixations and need to belong caused her to unravel the mysteries of the place much quicker? Is it just her longing and alienation that has created a certain madness, or is it both a ghost story and a story of abject loneliness and psychosis? Much like a Lewton story, there is the feeling of intense loneliness, an imbalance in the environment that is either mental or perceived to be a reality, and ambiguity that links these elements to the supernatural world.
There are definitely themes of repressed sexuality exhibited by the presence of the very stylish Mary Quant sporting Theo (Claire Bloom), who it is heavily suggested is a sophisticated Greenwich Village Sapphic who toys with the uptight Nell. When asked what frightens Theo, she glumly replies, “Of knowing what I want.”
Something that begins to cause friction between the ensemble because Nell has fallen into the well of deep delusion and longing, for Dr. Markway not realizing that he is not just only interested in her as a test subject but he is already married.
Theodora, dressed like a black widow, spins her web of jealousy yet reveals the truth about Markway and Nell’s unrequited love.Theo-“You’re making a fool of yourself over him.” Nell-“I’d rather be innocent than like you.”Theo-“Meaning what?” Nell-“Now, who’s being stupid and innocent? You know perfectly well what I mean.” Theo- “Is this another of your crazy hallucinations?”Nell- “I’m not crazy.”Theo-“Crazy as a loon. You really expect me to believe you’re sane and the rest of the world is mad.” Nell-“Well, why not? The world is filled with inconsistencies, unnatural things, nature’s mistakes, they’re called you, for instance!”Nell tells Theodora that “she’s the monster of Hill House.”Markway sees that Nell is unraveling and threatens to send her packing.
Poor Nell is a tragic Gothic figure whose famous inner monologues might slightly touch the third rail of hysterical camp yet somehow manage to become a restrained performance of inner turmoil and madness that perfectly co-exists parallel to the odd and uncanny manifestations escalating in Hill House, with a rainstorm of inner monologues to guide us through the treacherous darkness.
Mrs. Markway shows up unexpectedly and asks to sleep in the most rotten heart of the house… Nell obliges by telling her about the nursery, which, until now, has been sealed.
“Now I know where I’m going–I’m disappearing inch by inch into this house.”
In Scarlet Street Magazine, Julie Harris stated that she would have played Nell differently. “Well, I would’ve been odder looking as Eleanor,” Harris said. “I think she was too ordinary. I just wanted to be — odder.” That’s okay, Julie Harris, whom we sadly lost on August 24th of last year. No one could have done a better job of bringing Eleanor Lance to life than you did… Your Eleanor Lance will eternally remain the central tragic figure of the play, as Pam Keesey calls her the ‘persecuted innocent.’
By the end of the film, Luke, who is the cynic of the bunch, tells us…” It ought to be burned down… and the ground sowed with salt.”
The poor bedeviled Nell dances with the statue of Hugh Crane, believing that both he and she have killed Grace Markway.Grace Markway ( Lois Maxwell) doesn’t go untouched by the dark forces that lay behind the stone and silent standing wood… well, maybe not so silent!
–Happy Halloween, gang… and thanks for making all 500 posts a whirling experience! – Your Everlovin’ MonsterGirl
Some of these episodes have been revised and updated to more extensive overviews including biographies of the big-screen actresses who transitioned from Hollywood the television! May 14, 2023, Please visit the links below!
Hitchcock: “To be quite honest, I am not interested in content at all. I don’t give a damn what the film is about. I am more interested in how to handle the material to create an emotion in an audience.”
As a child of the 60s, as soon as the emblematic theme song and opening credits started to play, I would feel chills running up my spine. I remember the reruns were still broadcast late at night, I understood that each story had something foul afoot, a shadow of the uncanny loomed over my tiny shoulders, and the room filled up with a sinister quiver. Even with its smart-alecky delivery and Hitchcock’s well-placed tongue-in-cheek humor to offset some of the more gruesome aspects of the show, I couldn’t wait til 10 pm, and the idea of watching a dreadfully good mystery even for such a young, impressionable mind as my own! The timpani is an intermezzo between each thrilling scene to raise the goose bumps and keep the heart pounding!
Alfred Hitchcock transported his brand of cheeky suspense narratives from the big screen to the advent of the intimate living-room television experience of the 60s where tv stations were fertile with playhouse theater melodramas, stage play-esque stories featuring some of the most emotive and original character actors who’s careers were vibrant with possibility.
Using some of the most well-known mystery writers, seriously cutting-edge and unorthodox directors, and the best actors who could bring forth the most nuanced performances from the riveting scripts.
The show premiered on Thursday, September 20, 1962, from 10 pm-11 pm on CBS. It ran opposite Alcoa Premier Theater on ABC and The Andy Williams Showon NBC. From 1963 -1964 it moved to Friday nites and then from 1964-1965 it found its slot on Monday nites opposite Ben Casey on ABC.
The Alfred Hitchcock Hour ranks among the top fifty longest-running series in television history!
Robert Bloch talks about his years working with Hitch, starting out on the program in 1959. He was summoned to Shamley Productions’ office and offered an assignment to write a script based on Frank Mace’s story “The Cuckoo Clock.” Bloch began adapting his own published stories alongside the other writers on staff. Bloch’s work was only dramatized by other writers when his commitment to the competing anthology show wasn’t calling for his time. That show was Boris Karloff’s Thriller. Bloch recalls producer and part of the creative team Joan Harrison as a remarkable lady who went from secretary to screenwriter to independent producer with a unique vision.
Norman Lloyd had a certain style of speech and mannerisms that might designate him as an Englishman when in fact he was born in Jersey City, New Jersey! Starting out as an unbelievably talented actor who worked several times with Hitchcock in film. Lloyd played Fry in Hitch’sSaboteur 1942,& Mr. Garmes in Spellbound 1945.
Lloyd had been blacklisted and hadn’t been able to work in television for four or five years.
“Around 1955 they got Hitchcock to say he’d do television which was a big thing. And in ’57 the order for the half hour show was amplified, with a new series called Suspicion. I think Suspicion had many shows. Hour shows. And MCA took ten of them. New York took ten and so forth. And with the ten he was adding on they used to do 39 half hour shows a series. It was his producer Joan Harrison, is how I really learned how to be a producer. Divine. She was beautiful, exquisitely dressed, in perfect taste for the set. She was divine. She was a writer for him, and she was now his producer. And they needed someone else to come in an help her because of the quantity of the work not for the half hours, but now the hour. So she and Hitch decided, they wanted me to do it. Cause I also knew Joan very well. And so they presented my name”¦ however”¦ And this was told to me by Alan Miller who headed television at MCA, he came back, Alan Miller from the network and says ‘there seems to be a problem about Lloyd’ and Hitch said, “˜I want him!’ that was the end of the blacklist!” -Norman Lloyd
“Hitch was a world-figure. He was a man of great humor, had a very definite view of the world. He saw the world a certain way and we have as a result what is known as the Hitchcock film. It became the Hitchcock story, so to speak, almost like an Edgar Allen Poe story.” Directors try to imitate him but they never get the mixture right. Only Hitch had the mixture of the romance, the suspense, the humor, the twists” –Norman Lloyd
Joan Harrison started out as Hitchcock’s secretary and began reading scripts, writing synopses, and actually contributing to the scripts. She followed Hitchcock to Hollywood in 1939, working as his assistant, and was then hired by MGM in 1941 as a scriptwriter. In 1943, she became a producer for Universal Studios. To her film credits, she produced some of the most compelling film noir/ mysteries. One of my personal favorites is Phantom Lady 1944, and then… The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry 1945, Nocturne 1946 They Won’t Believe Me 1947, Ride the Pink Horse 1947, Eye Witness 1950, and Circle of Danger 1951.
Director Robert Siodmak, producer Joan Harrison, Ella Raines, and Franchot Tone on the set of Phantom Lady, 1944
The cinematographers who worked on various episodes included Stanley Cortez, Benjamin Kline, Lionel Linden, WilliamMargulies, Richard Rawlings, John L. Russell, and John F. Warren, with art direction by John J Lloyd and Martin Obzina.
The magnificent musical contributions were offered by Hitchcock veteranBernard Herrmannand a personal favorite of mine,Lyn Murray, whose stirring melodies recycle themselves in several of the most poignant episodes. The brilliant and prolific Pete Rugolo can be heard as well as Stanley Wilson.
Florence Bush was the hairstylist for the show, and she was very active during the 60s! You’ll spot her name listed in the credits on so many television programs of that era. Including Leave it to Beaver and Hitchcock’s film Psycho!
THE DIRECTORS- Bernard Girard, John Brahm, Alan Crosland Jr., Alf Kjellin, Norman Lloyd, Sydney Pollack, Jerry Hopper, Joseph Pevney, Leonard Horn, Jack Smight, Charles F. Haas, David Lowell Rich, James Sheldon, Herschel Daugherty, Robert Douglas, Joseph Newman, Harvey Hart, Laslo Benedek, William Whitney, Leo Penn, Harry Morgan, Philip Leacock, Lewis Teague, Arnold Laven, David Friedkin, James H. Brown, Alex March, Herbert Coleman, William Friedkin, and Alfred Hitchcock…
Writer Robert Bloch was a contributor to many of the show’s spine-tingling narratives!
Hitchcock first managed to develop an anthology series that drew from his magazine and radio stories of the macabre, suspenseful, crime drama, and cheeky thriller, often lensed with a noir style. This show was, of course, Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Eventually, in order to compete with the growing market of 50-minute teleplays, like Playhouse 90, Boris Karloff’s Thriller, The Twilight Zone, etc, Hitchcock changed his format to meet an hour’s worth of programming, still employing Hitch’s classic introductory droll prologue. And where Karloff’sThriller painted the stories with a more macabre brush stroke, Hitchcock’s anthology show presented these criminal acts in two parts in a most ironic and irreverent manner…
According to John McCarty, Hitchcock made the shift from a half-hour show to an hour format without much issue. “When we had a half-hour show, we could do short stories…{…} Now, in an hour, we have to go to novels.”His staff read through thousands of crime novels to find the right script. Yet frequently it became necessary to utilize a short story and expand it, in order to fill out the hour.
While Boris Karloff’s Thriller was pervasive with its stories of the macabre and the uncanny, Rod Serling’sThe Twilight Zone, with its more sociological morality with a heavy science fiction spin, Alfred Hitchcock maintained an ironic lens on very suspenseful/crime-oriented material that kept the focus on human nature as perilous. He always provided the same sort of ‘twist’ at the end as in its pithy precedent, Alfred Hitchcock Presents!
While Alfred Hitchcock Presents might have provided a shorter more enlivened ride to the turn of the plot because it had to deliver the lightning in a more synoptic amount of time, the hour format allowed for more psychological background, with room to build the character study of the players involved.
Alfred Hitchcock is still the larger-than-life, Aesopsian voice of modern crime-infused with foul deeds springing from human nature and the darker sides of the mortal mind and how far it can reach when working under a compulsion, obsession or pathology. His vision created some of the most compelling little dramas for a ’60s audience to digest, still relevant after all these years.
Hitchcock’s brand of humor was dry and witty, ironic and fablist. Drawing from some of the finest mystery writers of the day, his little tour-de-force dramatizations showcased some of the best examples of theatre and acting even on the small screen. His first show which gave us a 25-minute sequence that the series featured premiered on October 2, 1955, after Alfred Hitchcock had been directing mesmerizing films for over three decades!
“GOOD EVENING…..”
The iconic opening title sequence for the show has become unforgettably imposed in our psyches and in popular culture, as the simplistic yet mirthful intro possesses the camera fading upon an easily recognizable caricature of Hitchcock’s porcine yet endearing profile. Set against one of the most memorable musical themes written by Charles Gounod– the piece is called Funeral March of a Marionette. A type of adult nursery song that tickles the funny bone, comparable to the curious bone… the one that gets triggered when there’s a marvelous mystery afoot! The theme– suggested by Hitchcock’s musical collaborator, the brilliant Bernard Hermann.
As if it couldn’t get any more smashingly wicked and alluring, Hitchcock himself takes shape behind the silhouette from the right of screen, then in grand theatrical style walks center stage to eclipse the drawing. He commences with his nightly, “Good evening…” and we are in for an irresistibly gripping treat!
In the opening set of each episode, Hitchcock is given props against an empty stage. At times, he himself becomes the prop, or main focal point, where he imparts either sage elucidation, comical warning, or sardonic advice. A witty prelude to the evening’s tale or just a frivolous bit of shenanigans to put one in the mood for the evening’s program. As he drolly introduces the night’s story, his monologues were conceived of by James B Allardice. Many of his missives took shots at the sponsors, spoofing the popular American fixation on commercials and commercialism.
Always at the end of the show, Hitchcock would reappear to lead the audience out of the evening’s events. To either enlighten them on the aftermath of a story, the scenes they did not see, and to reassure us that the criminals featured did get their comeuppance. To tie up any loose ends within the question of morality’s swift hand.
Originally 25 minutes per episode, the series was expanded to 50 minutes in 1962. The show was then renamed The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. Hitchcock directed 17 of the 268 filmed episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
Hitchcock directed one of the hour-long episodes called “I Saw the Whole Thing,” starring John Forsyth, who is accused of hit and run, while several witnesses swear they saw him leave the scene of the accident.
Here is how the show was syndicated back in the 60s:
Sunday at 9:30-10 p.m. on CBS: October 2, 1955 September 1960
Tuesday at 8:30-9 p.m. on NBC: September 1960 September 1962
Thursday at 10-11 p.m. on CBS: September December 1962
Friday at 9:30-10:30 p.m.on CBS: January September 1963
Friday at 10-11 p.m. on CBS: September 1963 September 1964
Monday at 10-11 p.m. on NBC: October 1964 September 1965
The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, lasted three seasons from September 1962 to June 1965, There were 93 episodes in total. Alfred Hitchcock Presents had a total of 268 episodes.
Hitchcock directed two episodes of Presents that were nominated for Emmy Awards–“The Case of Mr. Pelham (1955) and one of the most popular stories with it’s fabulous dark humor, “Lamb to the Slaughter” (1958) starring Barbara Bel Geddes.
The episode that won an Emmy Award was one of my particular favorites as it is both poignant and eerie, “The Glass Eye” (1957) starring Jessica Tandy, Tom Conway and Billy Barty.Robert Stevens won for his direction.
Cinematographer John L. Russell’s incredible shots of Jessica Tandy in The Glass Eye.
“An Unlocked Window” (1965) is one of the most starkly intense and transgressive in nature of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour and won an Edgar Award for James Bridges writing in 1966. The episode stars Dana Wynter and Louise Latham, both wonderful, unsung actresses!
Dana Wynter and T.C. Jones in An Unlocked Window–nurses in peril, oh my!Louise Latham in An Unlocked Window
THE ACTRESSES–Â Martha Hyer, Vera Miles, Patricia Breslin, Angie Dickinson, Carol Lynley, Carmen Phillips, Isobel Elsom, Charity Grace, Susan Oliver, Kathleen Nolan, Peggy McCay, Adele Mara, Lola Albright, Dee Hartford, Gena Rowlands, Jayne Mansfield, Dina Merrill, Patricia Collinge, Jan Sterling, Elizabeth Allen, Anne Francis, Ruth Roman, Gladys Cooper, Inger Stevens, Zohra Lampert, Diana Hyland, Joan Fontaine, Irene Tedrow, Sarah Marshall, Nancy Kelly, Betty Field, Katherine Squire, Martine Bartlett, Phyllis Thaxter, Natalie Trundy, Linda Christian, Laraine Day, Anna Lee, Lois Nettleton, Madlyn Rhue, Patricia Donahue, Diana Dors, Claire Griswold, Mary LaRoche, Virginia Gregg, Anne Baxter, Jacqueline Scott, Sondra Blake, Ruth McDevitt, Katharine Ross, Patricia Barry, Jane Withers, Joyce Jameson, Teresa Wright, Linda Lawson, Jean Hale, Mildred Dunnock, Felicia Farr, Kim Hunter, Collin Wilcox, Jane Darwell, Jocelyn Brando, Joan Hackett, Gloria Swanson, Lynn Loring, Pat Crowley, Juanita Moore, Naomi Stevens, Marjorie Bennett, Jessica Walter, Gia Scala, Joanna Moore, Kathie Browne, Ethel Griffies, Sharon Farrell, Nancy Kovack, Barbara Barrie, Doris Lloyd, Lillian Gish, Maggie McNamara, Josie Lloyd, Tisha Sterling, Ann Sothern, Patricia Medina, Elsa Lanchester, Jeannette Nolan, Ellen Corby, Julie London, Margaret Leighton, Lilia Skala, Olive Deering, Kathryn Hays, Dana Wynter, Louise Latham, Sally Kellerman, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Fay Bainter, Jane Wyatt, June Lockhart, Colleen Dewhurst…
MY SELECTED EPISODES THAT FEATURE THE HITCHCOCK LADIES OF THE EVENING!….
Vera Miles as Daphne and devilishly handsome Jeff Hunter in Don’t Look Behind YouFear grips the campus and Vera Miles… Abraham Sofaer watches Daphne go out into the dangerous night woods
A small college campus is gripped by fear when a maniac is on the loose. Two young female students are slaughtered while walking home through the surrounding nefarious nighttime woods. All eyes are on several members of the faculty, though the police have no clues to go on. Alf Kjellin plays Edwin Volck, an intense pianist/composer who seems very tightly wound, especially around women. Handsome Jeffrey Hunter is Harold, the psychology professor who dabbles in abnormal behavior. Harold convinces his fiancée Daphne (the lovely Vera Miles) to act as bait to lure the killer out. Vera Miles is always possessed of a smart and inquisitive sensuality. In this episode she’s perfect as an academic who doesn’t shy from the idea of hunting a serial killer.
Harold-“Daphne, I know this man’s secret. I’ve studied these people, I know how they think!”
Daphne-“It’s frightening sometimes”¦ how you know people.”
Actors Ed Nelson and Arnold Moss listen to the recordings sent by the plagued Warren Barrow. Is he a murderer? Angie Dickinson is the seductress, and James Mason is the tormented man.
This episode is directed by actor turned director Alf Kjellin, based on the teleplay by Richard Levinson andWilliam Link of Columbo! from a story by John Bingham.
James Mason plays mystery writer Warren Barrow a pseudonym he uses to contact his publisher with a series of tape recordings describing what is either the outline for his latest murder mystery or the details of an actual murder he himself is planning to commit. Barrow describes a relationship with an alluring woman named Janet West (the sexyAngie Dickinson) who wants Warren to kill her husband so they can be together. Ed Nelsonplays another writer Tom Keller whom the publisher Victor Hartman (Arnold Moss) asks to review the tapes with him in order to help determine whether the impending murder is real or fictional. Angie Dickinson is so perfect as Janet West, the femme fatale Warren Barrow can’t resist.
Janet West- “You know there’s one part of the Bible I know by heart. I saw unto the sun, that the race is not too swift nor the battle too strong, but time and chance happen to them all. Means you can be as clever as you like but you gotta have luck. You gotta work for it and grab it when it comes. I was very poor when I was young. Very poor.”
“Oh sister, not tears again… you’ve cried a whole river these past weeks”-Sister Jem
Directed by Norman Lloyd, story and teleplay by mystery writer Henry Slesar (Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Twilight Zone, Two on a Guillotine 1965, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. 1966, Batman 1966, Run For Your Life ’66-67 Circle of Fear 1972, McMillan & Wife 1974, Tales of the Unexpected 1981-1984) co-starring Clu Gulager Isobel Elsom Carmine Phillips, Charity Grace.
Carol Lynley is Sister Pamela who on the eve of taking her final vows has a crisis of faith. Sister Pamela fears that she might just be hiding from the world. The Reverend Mother (Isobel Elsom) sends Pamela and Sister Jem (Charity Grace) on a mission to collect a valuable statue of Saint Francis that is being donated to the convent by reformed gangster William Downey (R.G. Armstrong).
On the way back to the convent, the lovely young novice is fooled by slick hoodlum/loser Jimmy Bresson (Clu Galager, who is terrific at being smarmy), who stalks train stations stealing bags. Pamela is filled with guilt for having let down her dying mentor, Sister Lydia (Sara Taft). She leaves the order and submerges herself in the sleazy jungle where Jimmy works and socializes in order to find the statue and redeem herself. Lynley is another underrated actress who delivers an extremely poignant performance as a girl at the crossroads of her life. She has an endearing, innocent beauty that is genuine and charismatic.
Sister Pamela-“Sorry, Sister Jem, I have only myself to blame.”
Sister Jem-“You’re not thinking of… what we spoke of the other day?”
Sister Pamela-“I haven’t been thinking of anything Sister. I’ve tried not to think.”
Sister Jem-“Have you prayed?”
Sister Pamela-“Sister… I’ve prayed for humility and obedience. But there was no answer in my heart Sister Jem… only silence!
“You’ve been pretending so long… You don’t know what’s real and what isn’t”-Annabel
Annabel-“David, what is my picture doing here? David, who lives here?”
Directed by Paul Henreid, written by Robert Bloch, novel by Patricia Highsmith (she wrote the original story for Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train, 1951), costarring Dean Stockwell, Kathleen Nolan, Gary Cockrell, Hank Brandt, Bert Remsen.
Dense-browed Dean Stockwell plays research chemist David Kelsey, who is hopelessly in love and obsessively fixated on Annabel (the wonderful Susan Oliver). But Annabel is married Gerald Delaney (Hank Brandt) Kelsey assumes a phony identity William Newmaster and pursues Annabel with a blind devotion that is downright creepy. He purchases a beautiful home that he has filled like a shrine to his great love, a place tucked away in the country where they can sojourn in their own private world. The trouble is, Annabel isn’t in on the romance. But David isn’t taking no for an answer. Added to the web of obsessive love is the fact that Linda Brennan (Kathleen Nolan) is as fixated on David as he is on Annabel. What a mess!
Directed by Joseph PevneyteleplayWilliam D Gordonand Alfred Hayesbased on a story by V.S.Pritchett as published in The New Yorker and co-starring Peter Falk in one of his most impressive roles as the psychotic revivalist Robert Evans.
Falk plays a fire-and-brimstone fanatic who yearns for his own church and will kill in order to achieve his life’s dream. First he woos Patricia Collinge(The Little Foxes 1941, Shadow of a Doubt 1943, The Nuns Story 1959) as the wealthy Naomi Freshwater, murdering her one night in order to take over her large house he claims she promised to him in order to help him build his tabernacle. The scene is quite disturbing and fierce. a well done scene that predates many psycho-sexual narratives to follow.
When her niece, the world traveling Laura (Dina Merrill) comes to get her aunts things in order, Robert begins to romance her with the same bombastic fervor as he did her aunt Naomi. As Robert discloses his past to Laura, she discovers that he might have killed his first wife as well and that he has visions of his calling to be a great evangelist. Evans is a deranged ego-maniacal woman hater who mistakes his visions of glory for the need to be in control!
Robbie-“Sure the whole world is filled with problems Miss Naomi. We’ve all got to puzzle over what we’re supposed to think. None of us. There’s nobody that’s gotta puzzle over what we’re supposed to do!”
Naomi-“Oh that’s so clear to me Robbie, you know what to do and you do it… I feel so free! No more aches and pains.”
Robert- “Burn it… Burn it. Take your whole past and burn it out there in that fire pit. Start a new life with me” Laura- “I don’t have your faith in new lives Robert.” Robert-“But I told you once… I’ve got the faith.”
Mrs Raydon (Gladys Cooper): “I think he’s dead, you’ve always wanted this to happen.You’ve done this to him. You’ve killed him!”
Directed by Jack Smightwith a teleplay by Henry Slesar, based on the story byMary Belloc Lowndes who wrote the novelette The Lodger, which was the inspiration for Hitchcock’s first suspense film in 1927 and of course the version with Jack Palance in 1953 called The Man in the Attic.
One of my favorite episodes due to the presence of Ann Francisas Eve Raydon and Ruth Roman as her companion, Adelaide ‘Addie’ Strain. Eve is framed as a jezebel by her nasty vicious old mother in law. The storyline has a definite undertone of lesbian desire, akin to Lillian Hellman’sA Children’s Hour. Eve is married to a stuffed shirt named Howard ( Gene Lyons–the commissioner -Ironside) who resents Addie’s presence and is still tied to his mommy’s (the great Gladys Cooper Rebecca 1940, Now, Voyager 1942, The Song of Bernadette 1943) apron strings. Howard fires Addie, who has been hanging around Eve in the position of ‘maid’, who also happens to have a little boy named Gilly, who breaks a valuable antique, sending Howard into a rage and prompting him to fire her. Addie is desperate to stay with her mistress and poisons Howard’s nighttime glass of milk by spiking it with some K9 liniment. But Eve is accused of the murder instead and her intolerable mother-in-law is all too happy to see her pay for the crime. co-starring Michael Strong as defense attorney Malloy, Stephen Dunn as Jack Wentworth, and Tim O’Connor as Prosecutor Halstead.
Addy talks to Eve about Howard finally firing her-“He means it this time… things could have been so different!”
Addy Strain to Molloy- “I can’t believe that all this is happening, it’s all that woman’s fault. That awful old woman, Mrs Raydon. She hates Eve. She’s always hated her. She hates Eve just because she married her son. That’s why she accused Eve of killing him.”
Gertrude Flynn as Ethel Chesterman, “I heard you, David. You’re going to marry the maid. At least this afternoon, you’re going to marry the maid. My wedding present to you will be my absence.”
Marie-“Your eyes shine in the dark, David. I think you are part Cat”. David –“A tiger, a leopard, ready to pounce.”Marie-“I’m going to have to get a wonderful cage to put you in.” David-“Nobody is going to put me in a cage!! Marie-“Stop, David, you’re hurting me…”
Directed by Alf Kjellin, with a teleplay by writer/director James Bridges (When Michael Calls 1972, The China Syndrome 1979) based on a story by Nicholas Blake.
Zohra Lampert plays Marie, a naïve French maid who runs off with the wealthy son, David (Robert Redford), who is actually a compulsive cat burglar/jewel thief. David’s wealthy mother throws a few coins at them to buy a toaster, goes to Europe, and changes the locks on the door. And so for money David runs to his partner in crime Karl. And so begins a queer struggle with David’s odd accomplice, a flamboyant wig designer Karl Gault played to the hilt by Barry Morse.
David cannot change the way he is, although he is truly in love with Marie, he only knows how to steal and scheme. Karl falls in love with Marie, creating the immortal triangle. In order to get his rival out of the way, Karl creates an elaborate ruse in order to trap David in a robbery gone wrong and have him arrested for the murder of a guard. Co-starring Gertrude Flynn as David’s mother, Ethel Chesterman.
Marie-“Your eyes shine in the dark, David… I think you are part cat.”
John-“Alice have you ever read any fairy tales? There’s one about a princess. She was very beautiful. She lived in a beautiful castle. Had a beautiful garden. But her fairy godmother warned her not to do one thing. There was a particular flower in that garden that she wasn’t to pick. If she did, she’d lose everything. Her beauty, her castle, everything. Alice– “I don’t get the point”. John –“Alice princess, don’t touch that flower please” Alice- “oh please don’t be silly they only write fairy stories to keep children out of mischief.”
Directed by Jack Smight with a teleplay by Alfred Hayes and a story by Rebecca West.The Paragon allows screen legend Joan Fontaine to give what I feel is perhaps one of the most extraordinary performances of her career. As the infuriating perfectionist who meddles in everyone’s lives Alice Pemberton married to the beaten down John Pemberton played by the always wonderful Gary Merrill.
John loves his wife but is beginning to feel the strain from years of Alice’s intruding and dictating moral codes and her ideals to anyone within reach, even the maid Ethel, played with fabulous scorn by Irene Tedrow. All her friends and relatives cringe at the sight of Alice, for they know she will inject some sort of righteous advice and admonition. Alice is like a child who cannot see the damage she has done or how she hurts the people around her. She believes that she is helping to improve themselves, though she alienates herself instead. John urges with a tender yet firm clues that she must stop her behavior before it’s too late. Even relating a fairy tale to her with a warning… Alice is very much like a character in a fable who does not heed the warnings or the signs that she is tempting the shadows to converge upon her!
Vera-“Michael and I are leaving now, Mrs Henderson, I’m taking him home with me. Oh, I am sorry for you because I think in your own way, you’ve grown really fond of my baby. But you see, Michael is my child. I’ve known that from the very beginning.”
Directed by Jack Smight with a teleplay by William D Gordon based on a story by Celia Fremlin.
Louise (Gena Rowlands) is a busy mother of two precocious young girls, Jennifer Gillespie (What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? young Jane) and a small infant boy. She rents the room upstairs to the mysterious Vera Bradley (Nancy Kelly), who is supposedly working on her thesis paper, but in fact has her eyes on Louise’s baby boy. She secrets him off each day to another room she is renting, that she has decorated for the little guy. She also calls him Michael. The child looks more like Vera as he has dark curly hair, and both Louise and her husband are blonde. Is Vera there to steal the boy and claim him as her own? This is an extremely taut and well-acted little story. The performances by both Kelly and Rowlands are stellar. The interplay between the two women brought me to tears; it was so poignantly played without being melodramatic or contrived. A truly heart-wrenching experience, especially for fans of these fine actresses, as well as one of the most effectively dramatic of all the episodes. Also watch for an appearance by the wonderful Juanita Moore as Mrs. McFarland and Joyce Van Patten as best friend Grace.
Dean Jagger tries to quiet Jennifer West after he tries to steal more than a kiss from the town hussy Alice.Betty Field plays George’s flakey nagging wife.Slamming the fridge door and shuffling her feet. Jenny confronts George’s peculiar behavior on the jury Jenny – “Would the star juror care to give me some justification for his behavior? George- “What behavior?” Jenny-” What behavior! The behavior that has brought down ridicule and scandal over our heads!” George-” What you talkin’ bout Jenny? Jenny- “Have you gone deaf and blind?… Unplug your ears… open your eyes! George Davies, the most respected highly thought-of citizen in this town protecting this infidel, this murderer… No wonder you get indigestion.”
Although this is very much Dean Jagger’s vehicle, Betty Field, who is a wonderful actress, stands out as the blowsy, whiney wife to George Davies, who becomes so aroused by the town hussy Alice (Jennifer West) while out at the lake during a picnic. When she rebuffs his advances, he strangles her and allows her boyfriend, JJ Fenton (Will Hutchins), to take the rap for her murder. JJ has been known to knock Alice around, and soon the town is out for his blood. But the guilt of what he has done drives George to try and defend JJ to exasperating results. This is a quirky, dark, comedic episode that just seems to want to be kind to George. The show also co-stars Martine Bartlett as Flossie and the wonderful Crahan Denton as Sheriff Walter Watson, who just won’t take George’s confessions seriously.
Nora’s inner monologue- “In heaven’s name, Jean, don’t leave us here alone.”
Directed by Robert Douglas with a teleplay by William D. Gordon & Charles Beaumont based on a story by Hilda Lawrence.
Michael Rennie plays a con man, Ralph Manson, who marries Nora (Phyllis Thaxter) for her money. When he screws up an elaborate scheme to embezzle funds from the bank, trying to pin it on her eldest son, he accidentally kills the boy. While trying to make it look like the young man hangs himself, Nora stumbles into this horrific deed, she winds up taking a fall down the stairs that paralyzes her and leaves her in an apparent catatonic state, which is good for Ralph, as he needs this witness to be silent. But Nora might not stay silent for long… The well-crafted suspense yarn utilizes Nora’s inner monologue to help guide us through the tense narrative cues. This is such a tautly played suspense piece as Nora is conscious of her husband’s murderous nature, and his desperation to keep Nora quiet. It’s only a matter of time before he finds a way of making it look like she dies of natural causes. Enter the pretty Natalie Trundy as her attending nurse Jean Dekker, who senses something is wrong and stays close by! This one’s a nail-biter!
Dianne-“Oh Nanny it’s wrong, I didn’t think he’d blame you” Nanny-“The important thing is that he isn’t blaming you” Dianne–“Oh I’m letting you be hurt and I can’t do that.. I didn’t think he’d react this way. Nanny I”m going to tell him the truth” Nanny-“What are ya going to tell him. That you were with the baby holding a drink!” Dianne-“But you’re not the guilty one, he mustn’t blame you Nanny-“Dear in the past when things went badly you know what happened. You don’t want that now. You promised him that you’d give it up. Oh, when the baby was here it was better” but better’s not what you promised!”Lois Nettleton as Dianne and Doris Lloyd as Nurse Andrina Gibbs
Consuela- “She feels guilty, she feels responsible for the baby’s death. And the drinking helps her to forget. So we’ll see that she continues to drink. And when the bottle is all gone. We’ll get more Vodka. Or whiskey or whatever she likes. She can hide it from Victor for a while, I suppose. But he will find out, and then he’ll be terribly hurt. and disappointed in her. He’ll need help and sympathy from someone else!”
Directed by Jack Smight with a teleplay by Alec Coppel and William D. Gordon, based on a story by William D. Gordon.
Lois Nettleton plays Dianne Castillejo, who adopts a little boy, who drowns in their swimming pool while she is sitting out in the sun with a cocktail. Dianne is a recovering alcoholic, and there is a question as to whether she was intoxicated when the tragic accident occurred. Dianne is visited by a mysterious woman, (Madlyn Rhue) Consuela Sandino, who claims to be the little boy’s birth mother. She proceeds to blackmail Dianne about the circumstances of the little boy’s death. She convinces Dianne to allow her to stay in the house as a guest, being an old-school friend. Here, she plans on helping Dianne submerge herself in booze so she’ll pay out loads of money and eventually have to be taken away to a sanatorium where she can then work on the handsome (Anthony George) Victor. Co-starringDoris Lloyd as Nanny.
John Gavin as Dr. Don Reed and Tom Skerritt as friend Dr. Frank Farmer… Don is just smitten.Scott Brady as Nickie’s boyfriend, Bill, stands by herNickie-singing Just One of Those Things-“So goodbye dear and amen” Bill- “Where you going?” Nickie-“Maybe California. You know I came back just to have a look at you. You got really weak eyes Bill. Here’s hoping we meet now and then.” Bill- “But you haven’t asked me to come along.” “Nickie-“Well I came here thinking I’d have to, but I don’t need you anymore the boomerang’s broken baby’ Bill-“You wanna bet!” Nickie “Uhuh, It was great fun, but it was just one of those things.”
Directed by Bernard Girard with a teleplay by James Bridges and a story by Henry Kane.
Doctor Don Reed (John Gavin) falls head over heels for a sexy nightclub singer, the slinky Nickie Carole (Diana Dors), who is just no good. Both his father and Nickie’s own band leader boyfriend try to warn Don. Nickie accepts Don’s proposal of marriage, and then his father drops dead after hearing the news. The newlyweds use the inheritance money to take a honeymoon cruise, in which Don stumbles upon his bride getting all snuggly with another passenger. In a rage, Don causes the man to fall overboard. Of course, Nickie urges Don to keep his mouth shut. And he is now a murderer. Soon after Nickie grows tired of Don, as her old lover Bill warned would happen, and this hard-edged old boyfriend (Scott Brady), Bill Floyd of the Bill Floyd Trio, shows up in the picture again… What will happen to this dangerous triangle of lust and obsession…
Natalie-“I understand, they’re patients aren’t they? Permissive therapy?” Dr. Fennick-“Yes, that’s it exactly. A new method, an experiment. I wanted to prove that my patients would act normally if treated like normal human beings.”
Sarah-“Oh, I feel fine, doctor, just fine. I always feel fine talking to you.” Dr. Fennick-“That’s what I’m here for’ Sarah-“Yes, I know but… what am I here for? Beatrice Kay as Sarah Sanders, the aging film star.Inmates Virginia Gregg as Miss Gibson and Ronald Long as The MajorThe real doctors are locked up in the attic!The deranged Ray Milland as Dr. Fennick who menaces Natalie (Claire Griswold ) in Home Away from Home- The Alfred Hitchcock Hour
Virginia Gregg as Miss Gibson-“The doctors told everyone about you. I know they’re just CRAZY to meet you!!!”
Directed by Herschel Daugherty with a teleplay based on his story by Robert Bloch from Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine.
This is one of those great ‘the inmates have taken over the Asylum’ narratives starring Ray Milland. Milland plays Dr. Fenwick, a mentally disturbed doctor who believes in role-playing as a therapeutic means to unlocking a patient’s identity crisis and finding happiness. After he kills the director of the sanitarium, he assumes his identity, of course. He locks away the staff in the attic and allows the inmates to pick roles that would suit their desires. Things are going pretty well until the director’s niece, Claire, shows up to visit her uncle. At least she has never seen her uncle before so she quickly assumes that Milland is who he says he is. Unfortunately, Claire discovers the dead body of her real uncle and urges Fennick to call the police. Uh oh! What mayhem will ensue.
There are great little parts by Virginia Gregg as Miss Gibson roleplaying the nurse, Connie Gilchrist as Martha, Mary La Roche as Ruth… and Beatrice Kay as Sarah Sanders!
That’s actor Harry Townes lying dead under that shiny star pillow…
Janice referring to Larry (George Segal) –“He’s the kind of man who could make you do anything… anything at all…”
This episode is directed by Joseph Pevney with a teleplay by Mann Rubin
George Segal plays the young, ambitious actor who wins over casting agent Anne Baxteras Janice Brandt. Janice falls deeply in love with Larry, the cocky and short-tempered actor with whom she gets a screen test in Hollywood and turns him into an upcoming male lead.
She has given up everything for this strong-willed actor, including her career, and even sacrificed her marriage.
While back in New York, Janice calls Larry desperately, telling him that her ex-husband Ed (Harry Townes) has tracked her down completely drunk and is now unconscious on the floor. Larry calmly coaches Janice into finishing off the job by smothering him with a pillow, so she can finally be free and join him in Hollywood… But is that all there is to it?
Sheriff Will- “You can’t think of anyone at all who might have had a grudge against Frenchie?” Katherine Squire as Mrs. La Font- “Only one person, Will, Myself. He was my son, I loved him, there was no harm in him, he never hurt anyone, but he was lazy. He would not accept responsibility. That’s why he wanted me at the restaurant so I could do all the work of running it, while he’d play Frenchie La Font for the public. I used to get so angry with him. So angry… (crying)The creepy custodian of the library terrorized poor Susan with his tales of working the slaughterhouses.
In Northfield, a rural community in northern California, a teenage boy, Tommy Cooley, is found brutally murdered. His father, R.G. Armstrong, who is a religious fanatic, goes on a mission to avenge his boy’s murder. There is only one piece of evidence, a broken-off part of the car’s headlight found at the murder scene. First, believing that he is getting signs from God, he murders Frenchie La Font (Dennis Patrick), the person who owned the car. Then the car falls into the hands of an elderly librarian who considered purchasing the car and might have had access to it. The residents of Northfield become terrorized by the events and demand that (Dick York) Sheriff Will Pearce do something about it. Jacqueline Scott who plays Susan March a librarian and the Sheriff’s girlfriend is now the one who wound up with La Font’s car. Cooley now suspects her. He is on a mission from the lord to avenge his son’s death. Will Susan be next? Co-stars Katherine Squire as Mrs.La Font, who turns out a tremendous performance as the mother of a good-for-nothing son who winds up being the victim of Cooley’s wrath.
Carol-“You don’t talk much do you?” Terry-“I guess not.” Carol –“Is the rest of your family like that? Quiet I mean?” Terry- I don’t know. I don’t even know who they were. I was raised in a county home” Carol-“You mean like an Orphanage? Terry“Now what else could it mean? I’m sorry, maybe we oughta start back, it’s a long way. ” Carol -“We can take the subway.” Terry -“I wanna walk, you wanna take the subway? Go ahead if that’s the way you feel about it.” “Carol-“Why did you come with me?”Terry– “I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just that it’s the rush hour now. Look, I gotta thing about being closed up in places is all.” Carol- “Claustrophobia?” Terry “Yeah” Carol- “So does Mr. Calucci. He was a prisoner of war.” Terry– “I was a prisoner once… No war though.” Carol –“You mean the home.” Terry-“Home reformatory, state prison, take your pick. Anything else you’d like to know? Carol– “Some date huh?”Terry-Bet you don’t have any boyfriends like me.” Carol- “I don’t have any boyfriends”Terry– “Come on” Carol- “I haven’t dated since high school.” Terry- “Girl like you why not?” Carol-“What do you know about me?” Terry “I could learn.”
Three paroled ex-convicts stage a heist but inadvertently unleash radioactive cobalt on a small urban city street. Actors Chris Robinson, Norman Fell, and James Gregory, who are now garage mechanics, decide to rob the payroll office. When they can’t crack open the safe, they take it to their garage, which is adjacent to the little shop next door run by Carol.
Terry who is acutely claustrophobic (Chris Robinson) begins a romance with Carol, as he struggles between self-preservation and his sense of humanity and love for this beautiful young woman. Katherine Rossis a particularly seductive pixie in this episode. Ross’s presence brings an element of realism and humanist equilibrium to the very nihilist tone of the story.
Lana/Peaches-“You and Snakebite are among the very few things that fail me in that respect.”
Directed by Robert Stevens with a teleplay byWilliam Fayand a story by Robert Arthur.
This is one of the cheeky mystery installments of the show, and Patricia Barryis just superb as the brassy dame with a secret past who’s looking out for number one. The night she wins the Oscar, movie star Lana Layne is visited by her old ex-convict husband George (Stubby Kaye), who, she thought, had died in a prison fight. Rosemary ‘Peaches’ Cassidy had married the bum when she was only seventeen and didn’t know any better. But George has plans of letting Lana remain his wife since she’s so successful and wealthy, and if they did get divorced, she’d owe him half of anything that was hers. She wants to marry handsome manager Harry Lawrence (Robert Culp). Lana clocks George on the head and accidentally kills him. Now Lana and Harry must try to hide the body while finding a place to have their honeymoon, assailed by gossip columnist Baila French (Alice Pearce- Bewitched’s neurotic neighbor Gladys Kravitz). It’s a comedy of errors!
Rosie, “You’ve had a narrow escape. Well, life’s given you another chance. And you should take it”¦ You should free yourself. When something’s over, it’s over.” The always delightful Joyce Jameson as Rosie Feather, the ‘dancer.’
Directed by Alf Kjellin story and teleplay by Robert Gould
Withers plays Edith Swinney, the consummate nagging harpy who dominates her husband Gerald’s (Bob Newhart) mundane life. Gerald concocts a very elaborate plan to drive Edith mad, using paranoia as he digs a grave-like hole for a fish tank, leaving empty boxes of rat poison around the kitchen. Edith is so convinced that Gerald is out to kill her that she shares her fears with her friends and neighbors. Gerald purchases a pair of rats from a pet shop and plants them in the kitchen. She falls for the bait and puts rat poisoning in his cocoa, making it look like murder made to look like suicide. She calls the police the next morning, but they find a very alive Gerald. Edith is arrested for attempted murder… but is that the end of the story? Joyce Jameson stars as dancer Rosie Feather, always fabulous, perhaps playing the featherbrained blonde bombshell– but always endearing!
Marion Brown tells her husband, “You have been a bigamist 4 times. Now you can stay alive with me or be dead away from me!”
Directed by Joseph Newman with a teleplay by Arthur Ross and a story by Kenneth Fearing.
Dan Duryeais a gambler and a proud bigamist named Raymond Brown. He truly loves his wife… I mean all four of them. But something is going quite wrong. One by one, his wealthy meal tickets are all turning up dead. At first, it appears that they are suicides. But the police start to suspect Brown of murder. Marion (Teresa Wright) has been the long-time dutiful wife who has waited and suffered through heartache to finally have her philandering husband all to herself. Could she be the one who is bumping off all of Ray’s wives? Wright takes a much different approach from the gentle farm wife Stella and shows herself off to be quite resourceful when holding onto a cheating husband!
Grace Renford sarcastically confronts her aunt- “All men are rotten, aren’t they, Minnie? As soon as they’re interested in me, they’re no good!”
Aunt Minnie-“If he’s a doctor at all he should be giving out pills not talking to dead people!”
Directed by Alf Kjellin with a teleplay by Alfred Hayes and William Gordon. Story by Miriam Allen de Ford.
Grace Renford (the haunting Diana Hyland) plays a wealthy and beautiful socialite who longs to meet the man of her dreams. Someone who will love her for who she is and not the money and status that is her legacy. The lonely Grace answers an ad in a spiritualist magazine where she begins to correspond with a young man named Keith Holloway (Jeremy Slate).
He is an engineer who does his work in Bolivia, or so he says. When he comes to the States to meet Grace for the first time, she has rented a modest apartment and pretends that she is just an ordinary working-class girl. Minnie (Mildred Dunnock) acts as guardian to the lost waif and knows something isn’t quite right with this man. But when Grace and Keith get engaged, she tells him about her true identity. Keith insists that he is not interested in her money and that he has his own business ventures in Bolivia. Keith returns to South America, planning on having Grace join him soon. But Grace gets a telegram saying that he has been killed in a mining accident.
Sent into the world of spreading grief, Grace turns to spiritualism and mysticism to find a way to contact her lost love. Thus, Dr.Shankara (Abraham Sofaer) appears, who can connect Grace with her dead love. Wanting to shed her worldly goods, she gives away her possessions to the doctor and his temple. But Minnie suspects that Keith is very much alive and that a scam has been going on with the doctor for years. Minnie tries to intervene with disastrous results!
Roy- “A string of men friends all the time Mrs. Fowler, a string of men friends, a string of men friends all the time ssh don’t tell anybody Roy this is your Uncle Joe from Kokomo Roy, why don’t you go outside in the yard for a little Roy huh! {} There’s a smell of death around women like you. Death and corruption. You corrupt people the way you go on all the time. So you better cut it out you understand that” Marcia Fowler-“Get away from me you’re out of your mind. Nobody would blame me now if I shot you now with your filthy phone calls, breaking in here like this. How exciting am I now with a gun pointing at you?”
Felicia Farrplays the sexy Marcia Fowler, who accuses the neighborhood thug Roy Bullock (Bruce Dern) of not only playing peeping tom but sexually harassing her. Roy is a tightly wound teen filled with angst and rage, and could possibly be a psychopath while we’re at it. He denies it when confronted by Marcia’s husband. (David White)
Marcia does appear to be self-absorbed, neglecting to pay enough attention to her stepson. But when the obscene phone calls begin, Marcia convinces her hubby to confront Roy about it, who tells him she’s just looking for attention. When Roy Fowler goes away on a business trip, he challenges Marcia, calling her a tease and a lousy wife and mother, the way his own mother had failed. Okay, so the angry boy has mother issues. Things get out of hand when Marcia begins to feel threatened and takes out a gun. But is everything as it seems?
Kim Hunter is stunning as a ruthless woman who has no conscience and borders on the sociopathic. At the end of WWII, Adelaide exploits the grief and loss of surviving members of the family to act as a spiritual medium. She earns a nice living by taking money from these grieving people, claiming to ease their suffering by connecting them with their lost loved ones. Gene Lyons plays Adelaide’s bunko buddy Robert who helps set up the patsies for the taking.
There is nothing more heinous than bilking grieving families of soldiers killed in battle out of their money, pretending that she can communicate with them.
Enter the wealthy widower Edward Porter (John Larkin), who has just lost his son in the war. Adelaide convinces him to join her in a Séance. Desperately lonely and longing for his son’s return, Edward begins to come around and embrace Adelaide’s powers. Edward has also fallen in love with Adelaide and wishes the three of them to be together…!
Robert (Gene Lyons) “I taught you everything there is to know about this racket.” Adelaide “Profession Robert.” Robert – “That’s what you’d like to pretend, but it is a racket, a swindle a con game as any I ever did.” Adelaide-” I only obtain the more crude aspects of the profession from you.” Robert-“Everything and I want you to stop pushing me around.” Adelaide-“You taught me a series of Halloween tricks. Carnival mumbo jumbo… I made it pay.” Robert –“They’re still carny tricks.” Adelaide-“Science!” Robert- ‘And you took them from me…”
Directed by Joseph Newman with a teleplay by James Bridges and a story byMargaret Millar (Rose’s Last Summer-Boris Karloff’s Thriller starring Mary Astor).
Joan Hackett (The Group, 1966), a very underrated actress of the ’60s & ’70s, plays Helen Clarvoe, a woman who is being tormented by phone calls from a menacing woman named Dorothy, who is threatening her life. Kevin McCarthy is a lawyer, Paul Blackshear agrees to investigate and track the maniacal Dorothy down. The crazy woman blames Helen for the break up of her wedding engagement. Paul finds a photographer for whom Dorothy recently posed, though she has destroyed any negatives and photos of herself. Then the photographer is murdered! While in the midst of his investigation, Paul receives a frantic call from Helen that Dorothy has broken into her apartment and is holding her at gunpoint!
Directed by Robert Douglas with a teleplay by Henry Slesar and Joel Murcott. Story by Slesar.
When Dave Snowden (James MacArthur) and his new bride Bonnie (the lovely and underrated Lynn Loring) visit the estate owned by Bonnie’s late father, Dave finds a mysterious locked door and surmises that there must be something of value hidden there. Bonnie tells her mother (Gloria Swanson) that they’ve just been married, who instantly assumes that Dave is after her inheritance. Mrs.Daniels tries to give the young man money to go away and annul the marriage. Dave is hungry for money and gets Bonnie to go along with a plan for her to fake a suicide attempt by overdosing on sleeping pills. This, they hope, will get the mother’s sympathy. Things go badly when a childhood illness leaves Bonnie allergic to sleeping pills. The climax is stunning as the great ironic natural law of justice is served. Swanson is marvelous as always as the elegant and protective Mrs. Daniels!
Miss Emmy Rice –“I was just thinking of how awful it is when people are so mean to each other. That’s one thing when you get to be seventy five, you see clearer than anything else. How mean people are to each other.”
Directed by Joseph Newman with a teleplay by James Bridges and a story by Veronica Johns.
The delightful Ruth McDevitt plays Miss Emmy Wright, an elderly lady who sits in the park and is befriended by Gerald Musgrove (Roddy McDowall), who, with his wife, has just successfully robbed $100,000 but needs a good place to hide the dough ’til the heat is off.
Emmy is a known pack rat who invites the couple over to her cluttered and quirky place for many social dinners. Gerald gets the bright idea of stashing the loot inside the old, dust-covered magazines that Emmy has collected over the years. Gerald also convinces Emmy to draw up a will leaving him the beneficiary so that they can later kill her off and claim the clutter that holds their stolen cash. This is a dark comedic episode with stellar performances by both McDevitt and McDowell, playing off each other’s usual droll manner. Co-starring Juanita Moore as Mrs. Jones and Naomi Stevens as Mrs. Goldy.
Directed by Robert Stevens with a teleplay byAlvin Sargent and a story by Patrick Quentin.
Patricia Collingeis one of my favorite character actors. Here she turns in quite a moving performance as a woman trapped in a safe with time running out. And in this episode I’m particularly fond of her doting on her two Siamese cats, being a staunch advocate for cats, and someone who shares their home with let’s say a variety of pussycats, a Siamese rescue being just one of them!
In The Ordeal of Mrs. Snow, Aunt Adelaide Snow is at the mercy of her scheming niece’s husband, Bruce (Don Chastain), who is afraid that Auntie will go to the police about his check forging. While away on a weekend vacation, he locks Mrs. Snow inside the bank vault in her house, hoping she’ll suffocate and it will look like an accident. But he has also locked one of her cats inside. Thank god, because these little felines are very smart indeed. Mrs. Snow’s niece Lorna (Jessica Walter) tries to call her aunt, worried that something is wrong, not realizing what her sneaky, murderous husband has done… Don’t worry, the cats come to the rescue! Also co-starring George Macready as Adelaide’s dear friend, Hillary Prine.
Sharon Farrell plays the seductive Melanie Rydell, who doesn’t intentionally get men chasing after her. But her psychotic husband Lew Rydell (Frank Gorshin) gets off on a murder charge after Ned Murray (Martin Landau) successfully gets him an innocent verdict. To Ned’s horror, he learns that Lew is, in fact, a hot-headed, jealous nutcase who was guilty of murder and is now accusing him of going after his sexy wife. Ned is conflicted by law, but wants to bring this loaded canon to justice, but can’t get him prosecuted for the same crime twice. He solicits the help of an old gangster friend who owes him one but realizes that he has inadvertently put a hit out on the unstable Lew.
Directed by Alf Kjellin. Teleplay by William Fay and Henry Slesar, from a story by S.B. Hough.
Again, the highly underrated Barbara Barrie, who has always given her all in any performance, notably several of The Naked City. Here she plays a very timid and unstable single woman. Isabel wrongly accuses Howard Clemens (Bradford Dillman) of sexual assault. Howard Clemens is sentenced to two years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. Once he is released, the first thing he does is steal a large amount of money. $13,000, which is the amount he would have drawn as a salary had he not been thrown in jail.
He comes back to the same town where Isabel teaches and opens up a record shop. He purposefully manages to bump into Isabel until he finally gains her confidence. Eventually, the pair becomes engaged. While on their honeymoon, Howard tampers with the fuel ignition switch on the boat, which will cause the boat to explode. He tells Isabel to take the boat out alone. A bit later, he hears the blast and is finally satisfied that he has gotten his revenge on her at last.
Directed by Joseph Newman (The Outcasts of Poker Flats 1952, The Human Jungle 1954, This Island Earth 1955, The Twilight Zone ’63-’64) with a teleplay byHarold Swantonand story by Margaret Manners.
I’ve written about this marvelous episode for Movie Silently’s The Gish Sisters Blogathon! Here Lillian Gishplays the sassy Bessie who lives with her daughter Camilla (Maggie McNamara) Bessie is a staple of the town, and when her handyman falls to his death because of the arrogance of her neighbor Samantha Wilkins (Patricia Cutts-The Tingler 1959) and her whipped husband Henry (Peter Lind Hayes) Bessie goes on a mission to try and bridge the feud with the couple by inviting them over for supper.
Samantha refuses to break bread with the Carnbys, but Henry starts to insinuate himself into Bessie and Camilla’s lives. One night, Henry disappears, and Bessie sees Samantha digging a hole in the barn. She accuses the woman of murder, and eventually, Samantha is executed for killing her husband. But… Henry unexpectedly returns, claiming to have been on a long sea voyage, not able to hear about his wife’s trial. Bessie suspects that Henry has staged the whole thing and begins to feel terrible guilt about what she has done. Will she be able to rectify the awful mistake she has made and bring Henry to justice?
Bessie-“To bring to the light of day the two lies that together make a truth. “
Elsa –“There’s something wrong with this house, I lye awake at night and I can feel it. There’s is something wrong with this house Something we don’t know about.”Elsa-“That’s the girl I saw at the beach, she’s lovely.” Keith- “What I want, what I really want. What I’m sure as sitting here want, uh.” Elsa –“Keith it may be, it just very well maybe I want the same thing”. Keith-“What are you talking about baby? What you were talking about.” Elsa-“How we rid ourselves of each other”¦ and when! Me of you and you of me.”
Michael Blodgett and Tisha Sterling do some mod dancing in Change of AddressElsa… do you really need to go down to the basement to see what your adolescent husband wants to show you? Can’t you guess!!!!
Elsa Hollands (Phyllis Thaxter) hates the new beach house. Keith Hollands (Arthur Kennedy) refuses to grow older and chases after the local beach hottie Tisha Sterling. The house gives Elsa the chills, and it doesn’t help that Keith starts digging a hole in the basement floor that he claims is for the new boiler. Elsa and Keith keep clashing over the strain in their marriage. She just wants to go back to her old apartment, and senses something terribly wrong with the damp place.
While Keith is playing around with the young blonde beauty, Elsa contacts the ex-owner’s wife to discourage her from selling and perhaps finds out the truth about the place. When Keith can’t take Elsa’s complaints anymore, finding her an obstruction in his world of newfound vitamins, jumping jacks, young beach bunnies, hair dye, turtle necks, late nites out at the disco dancing alongside the dreamy blued-eyed Michael Blodgett, he kills her and buries her in that nice big hole he’s been digging. But will Elsa’s investigation come back to bite Keith in those awfully ugly jogging shorts?
Helen-“Funny you dreaming’ about me and here we are. Life’s a big surprise.”
Directed by Bernard Girardwith a teleplay by Alfred Hayes and a story by the great Robert Bloch!
Rusty Connors (John Cassavetes) is newly released from prison. While in prison, his mate Mike Krause (Rayford Barnes) talks incessantly about the perfect blonde he left behind. Krause dies in prison, and so while Rusty gets out, he decides to look up this gorgeous dish that was married to his former cellmate. Krause had been in prison for robbery and murder, but neither the money nor the body of his partner has ever been found. Could Krause’s wife, Helen, know where the loot is stashed?
Rusty comes to find Helen (Ann Sothern) slinging hash at a greasy spoon, but she is far from the pin-up that Mike Krause crooned about. Still, Rusty plays up to her, thinking that she can lead him to the stolen money. The pair form a tumultuous sexual relationship, greedy to find the hidden cash. They stumble onto an abandoned boathouse infested with starving rats. The two might just turn on each other, but you’ll have to see the episode and find out for yourself! This is a macabre and gritty story by the master of the suspense genre Robert Bloch author of Psycho…
Stella “I’m scared of Jesse… You scared of him too. You scared too. talking don’t help Emery I heard you talking to Jessie in the orchard. You told him you married me to have someone to feed ya. Is that why we ain’t ever have any children?”
Teresa Wrightis outstanding as poor Stella, married to a horrible dolt of a husband who doesn’t appreciate her. Emory (Pat Buttram is a weak and unloving bumpkin who owns a peach farm. This is a dark Americana tale about a quiet woman named Stella who suffers in silence but has a few joys, like the love of animals, in particular her little pet squirrel. One day, an ominous drifter asks if he can work the farm for a bit. Bruce Dernplays Jesse in a role that surpasses so many of the psychopaths he’s had the opportunity to play. Jesse has a particular viciousness that is spine-tingling. While he helps harvest the peach crop, he secretly torments Stella with his fondness for his sharp knife. Stella feels threatened, but her husband acts clueless, while at times we see that he is very aware of what is going on, he just chooses not to intervene out of cowardice. The episode is perhaps one of the most psychologically enthralling, and its climax will leave you breathless. The performances are absolutely stunning. Just as frightening as any modern thriller on the screen today! And Wright turns in a performance that tugs at your heart with so many levels of emotional reflection as a woman trapped by her circumstances. John F. Warren’s cinematography portrays a rural hinterland that is otherworldly and melancholy.
Eva-“You crying? You are crying, Ha! What do you’ve got to cry about? If anybody’s gonna cry, it should be me. Although I must say… You are a most unusual gasman!”
Directed by Joseph Newman with a story and teleplay by Lewis Davidson.
Eva (Lola Albright) is an adulterous wife to an unsuspecting businessman (George Kennedy) who is a penny pincher, though he is quite well-to-do. One day, a mysterious stranger (Barry Nelson) manages to work his way into the house by claiming to be the gas man. He acts very peculiarly, until finally, he gets her into bed. Colin convinces Eva that it would be easy to kill her husband… This zany and interesting episode has a lot of twists so I won’t give anything away! Just watch for great performances by Nelson and, in particular, the lovely Lola Albright, who can do comedic mystery thrillers with ease!
Mary-“You are a vain man.”Brother Thomas- “A minor vice.“ Mary-“There is no such thing as a minor vice.” Brother Thomas “trimming a mustache harms no one.” Mary-“It’s so difficult for you to be the kind of missionary you should be.” Brother Thomas- “I have a good reputation.” Mary-“Because I have made sure of it.” Brother Thomas–“Yes, you have.” Mary-“You begrudge me that recognition.” Brother Thomas-“I’m the first to admit it.“ Mary-“I have loved you.”
Mary- “I don’t know if I still do. I’ve had to forget my needs and devote myself to your work.”
Directed by Harvey Hart with a teleplay by Arthur Ross and a story by Robert Branson.
This is a particularly intense addition to The Alfred Hitchcock Hour due to the fine performances by Ed Begley and one of my favorites Jeanette Nolan.Nolan plays Mary, the enigmatic wife of a missionary medical man (Begley). The strong woman behind the man, so to speak. Begley plays Brother Thomas Fitzgibbons, who in actuality is an incompetent surgeon living in a primal world in the rugged terrain of India. Mary is ambitious and wants all the glory for herself and her weak husband. When Tom Simcoxand Maggie Pierce –Brother John Sprague and his wife Lucy come to help the mission, Mary fears they will expose the truth about Brother Thomas’ work, as well as usurp their position there. Oh, what a tangled web we weave. Nolan almost reignites her Lady Macbeth with her role as the conniving and treacherous Mary Fitzgibbons– Her silver-tongued laments, as always, put her at the top of my favorite character actors!
“Would you like to meet Mingo when she comes? She’s not very big. She’s big enough to live in a bird cage and big enough to have a frog for a horse!”“Do you believe me about Mingo?”
Eva-“Is it dark where daddy is?”-Nell “ I hope not. I don’t know.” Eva “Numa knows. Mingo says it’s brighter than day! They have bumble bees there too.“-Nell- “Who’s Mingo, honey?”-Eva “My best friend!”
This is one of Alfred Hitchcock Hour’s most supernatural tales that breaks the mold of the crime/suspense drama. Along with The Sign of Satan, The Monkey’s Paw, and The Magic Shop by H.G Wells. Where the Woodbine Twineth could have fit nicely into Boris Karloff’sThriller anthology series. A haunting tale that will stay with you for a long time. Margaret Leighton is mesmerizing as Aunt Nell, a woman who just can’t embrace her little niece’s wild, imaginative tales. I’ve recently become acquainted with Leighton’s work and have fallen in love with the actress!
Directed by Alf Kjellin with a teleplay by James Bridges and a story by Davis Grubb (who wrote Night of the Hunter, The Cheyenne Social Club, and a few short stories for Rod Serling’s Night Gallery 1971.
Leighton is marvelous as she coldly, rigidly lacks understanding of her recently orphaned niece, who talks about fey people who live under the Davenport and visit her at night. When Eva comes to live with the elderly Mississippi riverboat Captain Snyder, her grandfather, her aunt Nell just can’t break through.
Nell just believes the child to be willful and lazy, trying to blame things on her imaginary friends like Mr. Peppercorn and Mingo… Aunt Nell just can’t handle the role of caretaker to a wily and free-spirited child, and begins to crack under pressure. The conflict becomes very real when Nell challenges Eva at every turn.
When Eva (Eileen Baral) gets a wonderful Creole doll she names Numa from her riverboat King grandfather, tensions ignite and Nell comes face to face with the mystical world where the woodbine twineth. A nether region between life, death, and the realms you cannot see with the naked eye. To balance out the constant struggle between the suffering Nell and the precocious Eva is the calming and level-headed presence of Juanita Moore as Suse, who understands Eva and is more like a mother to the young girl than Nell can possibly manifest from her rigid identity.
Nell is obsessed with controlling Eva and catching her in lies. She fears the child’s freedom and resents how happy she can be. When she hears Eva chatting and playing with Numa, the doll her grandfather had given Nell, she suspects that it is a child from the neighborhood.
Eva warns that if Nell takes Numa away, Eva will have to trade places with Numa and go to dwell in “Where the Woodbine Twineth.”
But obstinate Aunt Nell defies Eva and puts Numa on top of the player piano, Eva steals Numa away and runs into the woods. Suddenly in an eerie haunting manner the player piano mysteriously starts up by itself. Nell desperately stumbles onto Eva in the backyard playing with a little black girl –they are dancing.
Nell chases the girl away, warning her to stay away but then Eva disappears. When Nell finds a doll in Numa’s box it looks exactly like a porcelain version of little Eva, Nell realizes that the magic was real and that she has lost her little niece forever to the ether world beyond the trees… A changeling in her place, never to return.
One of my all-time favorite episodes. Just effectively creepy yet magical stuff… with a haunting quality that lingers…
This piece was directed byJohn Brahmfrom a teleplay byClyde Ware& Lee Kalcheim. (Let’s Scare Jessica To Death 1971, All in the Family 1972) is a story based on Robert Bloch.
Roger Perry plays Cliff Allen, a television writer on his way to Hollywood, who picks up a pretty hitchhiker named Rosie. (Sharon Farrell) Later Rosie accuses Cliff of abducting her when he is stopped by the local police. Of course, Cliff denies the charges but the sheriff orders him to come back to town with him. Cliff’s car breaks down, and so he is forced to stay over in a very run-down motel.
Off-the-beaten-path Motels already smack of creepy so as you can imagine when it turns out that it is run by a washed-up vaudeville actor name Rudolph Bitzner or Rudolph the Great ( great –for what you’ll find out! )
Rudolph is played by the wonderful Franchot Tone, who dreams of a comeback someday, and Rosie is the daughter of his dead wife who used to be his partner. Now Rosie not only works at the cafe/motel but she’s being groomed to be part of the comeback act.
Rosie sneaks off to apologize to Cliff for lying, but she is terrified of Rudolph, who is forcing her to marry him once she turns 18, which is in a few days. Cliff agrees to help Rosie escape once his car is fixed. But when he goes to her cabin, she is not there. Rudolph convinces him to sit out in the audience and watch his great comeback act with Rosie before he leaves for Hollywood.
One of the most subtly grotesque and atmospheric relics of the early ’60s before psycho-sexual cinema hit the proverbial fan!
I won’t give it away; you must see this macabre and eerie installation in The Alfred Hitchcock Hour collection.
Dexter and Joyce Daily (Jeremy Slate and Kathryn Hays) hire Dexter’s old German nanny, Frieda (the inimitable Lilia Skala), to come and take care of their newborn baby boy. She did such a good job with Dexter when he was just a tot. But Joyce becomes suspicious when she hears a radio broadcast about a nurse who is wanted in the poisoning death of an infant in San Francisco. Frieda does have some peculiar ways, but Joyce goes as far as to contact the murdered baby’s aunt, played byOlive Deering. Christine Callendar only confirms Joyce’s greatest fears that Frieda is the one the police are looking for and that she is a dangerous baby killer!
As Maude’s husband reads the newspaper about the recent strangulation murders –she comments-“I read a book about a man who only killed trombone players, he beat them to death with their own trombones.”
Directed by Joseph Newman with a teleplay by James Bridges and a story by Ethel Lina White
Stella Crosson (Dana Wynter) is the nurse to an invalid heart patient (John Kerr). Stella needs help and is very happy to get some relief when Nurse Betty Ames (T.C. Jones) shows up to help. The large house is also inhabited by an alcoholic housekeeper, Maude, played by the wonderful Louise Latham. The night is fret-filled with storms, and the news has reported that a maniacal nurse killer is on the loose! Oh, and the power has gone out, so they’re all in the dark.
Maude sends her husband out in the storm to get some medicine, and Stella goes around the house locking all the windows and doors. Except she fails to secure one that is in the creepy basement. The shocking ending will catch you off guard.
Directed by David Friedkin with a teleplay by Morton Fine and David Friedkin and a story by Avram Davidson
American Sally Benner is soon to marry London policeman Tommy Bonn (Ron Randall). While on a transatlantic cruise, they announce their engagement, but four hours before they are to be wed, Sally has pangs of doubt and goes out into the London fog. There have been a series of murders, and her family grows weary for her safety. Tommy and his partner, Stephen Leslie (Michael Pate) go in search of Sally.
They eventually stumble on an odd young man named Edward Clarke (David Carradine), whom they suspect might be the strangler, and with the description of the woman he confesses to murdering, they fear Sally’s fate. The episode also stars Kent Smith and Edith Atwater as Sally’s parents. This episode is very atmospheric andKellermanas usual does a wonderful job of manifesting a languid sensuality and longing that hangs like dew on the petal.
Directed by Harvey Hart with a teleplay by James Bridges and a story by Selwyn Jepson (Stage Fright! 1950)
Richard Johnson is a smooth con artist, Jarvis Smith, posing as a stock expert who insinuates himself into the lives of the wealthy Mary Caulfield and her suspicious companion, Agatha. It’s always wonderful to see Geraldine Fitzgeraldin any performance, and here is no exception. She has an elegant and restrained sensibility that can be as poignant as it is sophisticated. She works well againstFay Bainter, who is always enigmatic like a fine bit of silverware that is timeless and sturdy. Johnson sheds his kindly Dr. Marquay (The Haunting) persona here and plays the perfect cad. Jarvis eventually romances Agatha and takes over the handling of Mary’s sizable fortune, pretending that he is investing it for her. When it comes to light what Jarvis has done, the drama becomes a taut little mystery melodrama.
Directed by Joseph Newman with a teleplay by Robert Bloch from a story by Richard Deming
June Lockhartplays Martha Peters. Martha has answered a lonely hearts ad and becomes a mail-order bride. She finally meets Luke Hunter (John Anderson), a miserly, reserved sort of man who seems to have no joy in his life. Married once before, his first wife was a mail-order bride as well, who died under mysterious circumstances. When Luke goes to visit his relatives, Martha’s fears begin to build when she finds a coffin-shaped box hidden in the garage. She also hears her husband digging all night down in the locked cellar.
Suddenly Luke insists that they go on vacation for the Christmas Holidays, and urges her to start packing so they can go visit his relatives. Before they leave the house, Luke unlocks the cellar door and insists that Martha go downstairs and see what he’s been working on!
Directed by Herbert Coleman with a teleplay by Gilbert Ralston and a story by Clark Howard, this is a stand-out story, with a sublime performance by the always-compelling Dewhurst.
Here, Dewhurst plays a very compassionate nurse, Ellen Hatch, who is taking care of a cop-killer, Jerry Walsh (Tom Simcox), on his way to death row. Jerry manages to melt Ellen’s tough yet kind exterior and lure her into believing that he’s fallen in love with her so that she can help engineer his escape.
“ONLY THE MAN WHO WROTE PSYCHO COULD JOLT YOU LIKE THIS”
Director Michael Anderson( The House of the Arrow 1953, The Dam Busters 1955, Chase a Crooked Shadow 1958, Conduct Unbecoming 1975, Logan’s Run 1976, Dominique is Dead 1979 ) creates a wavelength of dark tension and monochromatic extremes in this atmospheric post noir suspense yarn.
Adapted for the screen by Joseph Stefano’s (The Outer Limits 60s & Psycho 1960) based on the novel byMax Ehrlich (The Reincarnation of Peter Proud, The Glass Web, various dramatic television series)
The Naked Edge opens as the credits roll in a manner similar to Saul Bass, we are dropped into a gruesome stabbing in the darkly lit office building, where George Radcliffe (Gary Cooper)is the key witness.
Sadly, This would be Gary Coopers last film, after battling cancer. The Naked Edge was released a month after his death, but was not received well at the box office.
After Mr. Evan Wrack (the marvelous Peter Cushing) grills the only witness to murder in court Gary Cooper in his last role plays American George Radcliffe whose testimony helps bring a guilty verdict for murder and theft of his co-worker Donald Heath (Ray MacAnally) who then gets sent to prison.
There’s a question as to whether Heath actually committed the crime???
Years later…
George’s wife Martha, the always enchantingDeborah Kerrbegins to suspect her husband when various clues start pointing in his direction… Is she married to a cold blooded killer?
With a fantastic supporting cast, Peter Cushing, Michael Wilding, Eric Portman, Diane Cilento,Hermione Gingold, as Lilly Harris, Ronald Howard, Helen Cherry, Wilfrid Lawson and Diane Clare.
Dramatic musical score by William Alwyn (The Fallen Idol 1948, She Played with Fire 1957, I Accuse! 1958, A Night to Remember 1958, Burn Witch Burn 1962)
Most impressive is the offbeat cinematography by Erwin Hillier (The Mark of Cain 1947, The House of the Arrow 1953, Chase a Crooked Shadow 1958, and perhaps his best–the extraordinary Eye of the Devil 1966 again with Deborah Kerr, David Niven and Sharon Tate)
Hillier’s quirky angles and low lighting add an apprehensive atmosphere, and loads of key frames that are just beautifully shot as a refrain to the tension. Both Anderson & Hillier love to emphasize faces… it’s a touch that I love about their work together.
George Radcliffe:“Do you think a woman could live with a man and sleep with him and not know she was sleeping with a murderer?” Martha Radcliffe: “Do murderers make love differently?“
Lilly Harris-“He implied that the fear of talking, had something to do with the fear of giving… sexually that is”
There are thousands of films in my collection… this has been one of them! Your ever lovin’ MonsterGirl
Based on the novel by William Temple and adapted to the screen and directed by Terence Fisher, this intriguing, thought provoking British sci-fi melodrama invokes the question of creation, playing god, obsession and fate.
Barbara Payton (Bad Blonde 1953) plays both Lena and Helen a beautiful women caught between two friends who have adored her since they were children. The brilliant Bill (Stephen Murray) invents a duplication machine, and has pined for Lena since he and Bill used to vie for her affections playing knights with wooden swords. But Lena has always been in love with Robin (John Van Eyssen) the other friend that make up the love triangle.
After succeeding in duplicating watches and rabbits Bill wants to try a human subject. One in particular! Tinges of Lang’s Metropolis...
When Lena and Robin get married, Bill asks Lena to allow him to reproduce her in his contraption so he can possess her too. And Lena agrees… the results are disastrous. Co-starring James Hayter as the sympathetic Dr. Harvey.
Karloffstill possesses that lyrical majesty and does the best job he can with this slightly meandering 50’s schlocky script, directed by noir, cult, television drama and big box office–producer/directorHoward W. Koch and written byRichard H Landauwho scripted The Quartermass Experiment 1955, The Girl in the Black Stockings 1957
As always Karloff’s presence makes any film a joy to watch. He always took his acting seriously and it shows here, which makes this odd little modernity meets old mad science horror flick with some interesting set design and chilling moments worth watching.
Karloff plays the last of the line of Frankensteins who desperately needs money in order to continue his arcane experiments on the reanimation of the monster, he has hidden beneath the family crypt in the Castle. The monster is kept bandaged through out the film, (saves on make-up) and becomes a lumbering bandaged plaster of Paris block head with two hollow holes for eyes. Is it effective or defective… well, I focused onBoris Karloff most of the time.
Frankenstein is now using atomic energy to resurrect his ancestors creation (the lab is actually very groovy Strickfaden would approve), but needs a few more things, like an atomic reactor, brains, eyeballs etc.
Baron Von Frankenstein whose face is badly scarred from the Nazi’s who tortured when he refused to experiment on their victims, allows a film maker and his crew to shoot their low budget horror picture on the grounds, finds their presence an immortal intrusion but he is broke and must put up with the nuisance.
But– the aggressive and meddlesome bunch uncover Dr. Frankenstein’s secret laboratory and it just gets chaotic from there…
Rudolph Anders plays the Baron’s confidante Wilhelm Gottfried, and Norbert Schiller plays the very simple butler Shuter… poor poor Shuter…
Directed by Charles Brabin and an uncredited Charles Vidortheyoffer this highly stylized horror/sci-fi-/fantasy hybrid from the 30s!
Boris Karloff is the diabolical genius Fu Manchu who only wishes to conquer the world with the help of his beautiful but equally nefarious daughter Fah Lo See played by the exquisite Myrna Loy.
Sir Nayland Smith of the British Secret Service played by Lewis Stone rushes to the Gobi Desert to find the mysterious mask and sword of Genghis Khan. He must get there before Fu Manchu possesses it’s power.
Fu Manchu kidnaps Sir Lionel Barton and tortures him in order to find out where the great treasures of Genghis Khan are buried in his lost tomb, but Barton refuses to tell…
Mean Sir Lionel’s daughter Sheila (Karen Morely) Sir Nayland Smith, Terrence Granville (Charles Starrett) and Von Berg (Jean Hersholt) set out to uncover the whereabouts of the relics before the evil menace can use them in his diabolical plan to conquer the world!
The Mask of Fu Manchu boasts the wonderful Kenneth Strickfaden designs!
As a treat I thought I’d talk about 4 really interesting films that were released amidst the slew of suspense thrillers of the 1940s. Some Gothic melodrama and a few perhaps conveying an almost hybrid sense of noir with their use of flashback, shadow, odd camera angles and elements of transgressive crime. I’ll just be giving a brief overview of the plot, but no worries there are no spoilers!
I recently had the chance to sit with each film and said to myself… Joey, these would make for a nice collection of obscure thrillers so without further adieu, I offer for your enjoyment, The Suspect, Love From A Stranger 1947, Moss Rose & The Sign of the Ram!
THE SUSPECT 1944
Directed by Robert Siodmak (The Spiral Staircase 1945, The Killers 1946,Criss Cross 1949, The Dark Mirror, Cry of the City, The File on Thelma Jordan 1950) and adapted to the screen by Bertram Millhauser and Arthur T Horman from the novel This Way Out written by James Ronald. This film, very loosely based on Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen’s murder of his wife, was sensationalized at trial in 1910.
The Suspect stars the inimitableCharles Laughton (Dr. Moreau – Island of Lost Souls 1932, my favorite Quasimodo in William Dieterle’sThe Hunchback of Notre Dame 1939, the most lovable ghost Sir Simon in The Canterville Ghost 1944, The Paradine Case 1947, The Strange Door 1951, Witness for the Prosecution 1957, Spartacus 1960, Advise and Consent 1962 and notably–director of two films–his masterpiece Night of the Hunter and his uncredited The Man on the Eiffel Tower 1949)
The film also stars the underrated Ella Raines (Phantom Lady 1944,Impact 1949), Dean Harens, Stanley Ridges (Possessed 1949, The File on Thelma Jordan and No Way Out 1950)Henry Daniell, Rosalind Ivan and Molly Lamont (The Dark Corner 1946, Devil Bat’s Daughter 1946) Raymond Severnplays the delicious little urchin Merridew who works for Phillip as he tries to keep the little guy on the straight and narrow. Merridew would make the perfect name for a little tabby cat!
Charles Laughton gives one of his most subtle performances as a kindly man trapped by an abusive wife. Siodmak, as usual, creates a dynamic framework for this psychological thriller, lensed in shades of darkly ominous spaces that seem to shape themselves around Laugton’s comfortable face and Ella Raines’ intricate beauty.
Lux Radio Theater held broadcast of a 60-minute radio adaptation of the movie on April 9, 1945, with Charles Laughton, Ella Raines, and Rosalind Ivan reprising their film roles.
Music by Frank Skinner (Blond Alibi 1946, Johnny Stool Pigeon, The Brute Man, The Spider Woman Strikes Back, and way more ) with cinematography by Paul Ivano. Who did the camera work on director Hugo Haas’s treasures like Strange Fascination 1952, One Girl’s Confession 1953, and Hold Back Tomorrow 1955!
And marvelous gowns and hats by Vera West. (The Wolf Man 1941, Shadow of a Doubt 1943, Flesh and Fantasy 1943, Son of Dracula & The Mad Ghoul 1943, Phantom Lady 1944, Strange Confession 1944, Murder in the Blue Room ’44, House of Frankenstein ’44, The Woman in Green 1945, Terror by Night 1946, The Cat Creeps, She-Wolf of London, Dressed to Kill, Danger Woman & Slightly Scandalous 1946.)
In 1902 London, a respected middle-class Englishman but unhappily married shopkeeper Phillip Marshall (Charles Laughton) develops a loving and warm friendship with young and beautiful Mary Gray (Ella Raines), whose father has recently died, leaving her down on her luck and looking for a job. Phillip Marshall is such a kind and genteel man he stops to say a kind word about his neighbor Mrs Simmon’s garden, loves his son, and shows real affection. He is like a father to young Merridew, and beloved by the community. Even when he approaches Mary, and she hasn’t yet looked up from her tear-soaked hanky, thinking a lecherous man in the park is approaching her, “I’m not that sort,” tells her, only wanting to see if she needs help.
Mary, like Phillip, is lonely. The first night, Phillip begins to walk her home —“A cup of tea, a six-pence novel and a good cry.”
Mary- “I’m afraid you’ve been looking in my window.”
Phillip’s dreadful wife Cora (Rosalind Ivan –ideally suited to play the emasculating harpy-she had a similar role tormenting Edward G Robinson in Scarlet Street 1945) is a reprehensible shrew who humiliates and demeans both her husband and her son (Dean Harens who had more room to act in Siodmak’s terrific noir Christmas Holiday 1944 which starred a very different kind of Gene Kelly and the self-persecuting Deanna Durbin) John is shown moving out of the house because his horrible mother has burned some important papers of his. She got into one of her rages, and before he could stop her, she burned a whole week’s work.
Cora Marshall is vicious and cruel, showing no maternal feeling and caring little that her son is leaving home.
Cora-“That’s just what young hopeful did, he’s clearing out bag and baggage that selfish ungrateful good for nothing.” Phillip-“What did you do to him?” Cora- “What did I do to him… that’s right, put the blame on me. All I did was bring him into the world, nurse him, and make myself a doormat for him to walk on!… Go on, go to him and tell him from me that when he leaves this house, needn’t think he can come crawling back. Deserting his own mother!… And what do you think you’re doing now?” Phillip- “I’m moving into John’s room.” Cora- “Of all the indecent…we’re married, aren’t we?” Phillip (deep sigh)- “Oh, we’re married, all right.”Cora –“Then how dare you! I forbid it do you hear me. I forbid you to treat me like this.” Phillip says, “Now Cora, that’s all over now that John’s gone. It’s all over and done with, do you understand me?… I’m moving out of here, and there’s nothing you can do about it.” Cora- “Oh yes, there is. There’s plenty I can do!”
They wrestle with his clean, folded white shirts, which he’s busy moving out of the bedroom. She tries to grab them, but he finally loses his composure and yanks them away.
Cora- “What’s got into you? I’d like to know what’s going on in your head.”Phillip- “It’s much better that you shouldn’t, Cora, it might frighten you…”
Saddened by John’s departure, whom he loves and will miss, Phillip prompts Cora to move into his son’s room. Cora, so bent on appearances, is driven to tirades of abusiveness toward the meek and genteel Phillip, harassing him at every turn. I might have thrown her down the stairs myself or given her one of those late-night glasses of milk!
The scene with Merridew tickles me and shows how kind, compassionate, and caring Phillip is. He calls Merridew over talking to him in a quite earnest and fatherly tone, all the while you can tell he’s quite fond of the little fellow and visa versa.
Phillip- “Merridew, I have to bring a very serious matter to your attention. I regret to say there’s a shortage in your accounts there’s a penny missing from the stamp box.” Merridew- “It… it was for a sugar bun this morning, but I’ll put it back on pay day, honest Mr. Marshall.” Phillip- “And the tuppence the day before yesterday, what was that for?” Merridew- “Acid drops, sir.” Phillip- “Acid drops???Quizzically… that’s very serious. And the hay penny the day before?” Merridew- “For the monkey with the hurdy-gurdy, but I’ll put it all back Saturday every last farthing. “ Phillip- “That’s what all embezzlers plan to do.”
tears in Merridew’s voice make it quiver as the camera shows Mary listening in, she smiles and laughs at this whimsical inquisition.
Merridew- “But I’m not an embezzler.”
Phillip- “Yes, but you can get started that way. It’s the first step that counts… after that, it all becomes too easy. Six pence tomorrow, half a crown the day after… then a five-pound note… I know you’ll always mean to pay it back, but I’m afraid you’ll finish by paying it back in the Portland quarries.”
Merridew- “Don’t send me to no quarries, please, Mr. Marshall(sniffling).”
Phillip- “Well, not this time, Merridew. Now stop sniffling and wipe your eyes.” he hands him a hanky.
Mary has come into the shop looking for employment. When Phillip tells her there isn’t a position available, he later finds her crying on a park bench. He takes her to dinner, gets her a job with a colleague and the two begin a very tender friendship.
Phillip continues his platonic relationship with Mary, but once his wife finds out that he’s been seen supping with the young lady, he breaks it off, as he’s a gentleman who truly thought his wife would want out of a loveless marriage.
Still, Cora threatens him with scandal as well as making trouble for Mary. When Cora refuses to divorce him, worried that gossip will spread that she has failed to hold onto a husband, he is driven to the point of frustration and despair. She tells him the neighbors are all beginning to gossip about him coming in at all hours.
Phillip- “None of that business, Cora.”
Cora- “Ha! Married people’s lives is everyone’s business, and I’m not going to be made an object of pity in front of my friends, do you hear!…I wonder what ever possessed me to tie myself up with a poor stink like you… walked through the forest and picked a crooked tree that’s what I did. A crooked, fat, ugly tree.”
Even after she’s been so cruel, he tries to reason with her about getting a divorce and face things honestly by admitting that they’ve never been happy together. He asks her to let him go. But she wants to punish him because she is a bitter and cruel woman, calling him immoral and indecent.
Phillip is very decent; in fact, even though there’s only been friendship between him and Mary, he breaks it off with her so as to do what’s expected of him, telling Mary that he behaved badly, but he was afraid that she wouldn’t want to see him again. He was sure Cora would let him go… Phillip tells Mary, “And I couldn’t let you go once I’d met you.”
But Cora won’t be happy til she drives them both ‘into the gutter where you belong!”
Because of his gentle nature, Laughton is affable and wonderfully believable as a romantic figure.
His murderous response is more to protect Mary from Cora’s wrath, who tells him with a face like a Victorian harridan spewing poisonous vitriol.
“You better be afraid. As sure as the sun rises tomorrow, I’ll give her the Merry Christmas she’ll never forget.”Paul Ivano’s brilliant camera angle frames Laughton as somewhat diminished, seemingly trapped or rather oppressed by the space around him.
And so, Phillip murders his wife. We see him grab one of his canes and assume, though we don’t see him actually bashing her head in with it, that he has, in fact, brained her. The next morning, she is found dead at the bottom of the stairs, and it is deemed an accident.
Added to the plot’s layering of Sturm & Drang is the always wonderful scoundrel in Henry Daniell’s Gilbert Simmons, Phillip’s neighbor a stumbling drunkard who also beats his wife (Molly Lamont) Mrs Simmons and Phillip also have a very sweet relationship, one that ultimately anchors Phillip to his integrity. But I won’t reveal the outcome of the story. The miserable Gilbert Simmons also has the distinction of turning to blackmail, adding to his other earthly vices.
Amidst all these dreary, grim, and dark ideas, the film still emerges as a beautiful story, partly due to Siodmak’s ability to guide suspense along its way with an appealing cadence. As Foster Hirsch states in his must-read Film Noir-The Dark Side of the Screen, “Siodmak films like Christmas Holiday and The Killers have an extremely intricate narrative development…{…} the relative extremeness of Siodmak’s style is reflected in his obsessive characters.”
The Suspect works as a great piece of Melo-Noir mostly due to Laughton’s absolute perfection as the sympathetic, trapped gentle-man. As always, he is masterful with his intonations, sharpened wit, and ability to induce fellowship with the characters he’s playing… well, maybe not so much with Dr. Moreau, Capt. Bligh, Judge Lord Thomas Horfield or Sire Alaine de Maledroit in The Strange Door. But he’s a lovable sort most of the time, one can’t deny.
Charles Laughton and Margaret O’Brien in Jules Dassins’ The Canterville Ghost, 1944-based on the story by Oscar Wilde.
Ella Raines is just delightful as Mary. She’s such a treat to watch as you start to believe that this beautiful young woman genuinely has fallen for this older, portly, yet kind-hearted misfit. You find yourself hoping that he gets away with his wife’s murder and that the two find happiness together.
Scotland Yard Inspector Huxley (Stanley Ridges) stalks Phillip Marshall, believing he killed his wife.
Phillip is staunchly pursued by Scotland Yard Inspector Huxley (Stanley Ridges), who has the tenacity of Columbo. Speaking of which, a poster of The Suspect appears in an episode of Columbo – “How to Dial a Murder” in 1978.
LOVE FROM A STRANGER 1947
On the darker, more sinister side of these suspense yarns, we find Sylvia Sidney as Cecily Harrington at the mercy of a very deranged bluebeard in John Hodiak as Manuel Cortez.
The exquisite beauty of Sylvia Sidney.
Directed by Richard Whorf, who became more fluent in television directing. Written for the screen by Philip MacDonald(Rebecca 1940, The Body Snatcher 1945 for Val Lewton, The Dark Past 1948, Boris Karloff’s Thriller episode The Fingers of Fear 1961, The List of Adrian Messenger 1963) based on Agatha Christie’sshort story Philomel Cottage. Hair Stylist Eunice Helene King is responsible for slicking back Hodiak’s swarthy and murderously Lothario hair, he’s almost Draculian. He definitely covets his slickety hair as he shows his first sign of deranged pathology when Cecily tries to stroke his locks, and he lashes out at her, telling her not to touch it.
The marvelous costumes equipped with capes, sequins, and ostrich feathers are byMichael Woulfe(Blood on the Sun 1945, Macao 1952, Beware, My Lovely 1952).
Isobel Elsom plays Auntie Loo Loo with her usual exuberance; Ann Richards is Mavis Wilson’s faithful friend. Anita Sharp-Bolsteras Ethel the maid (wonderfully crabby Christine in The Two Mrs Carrolls)
And again, a terrific score by Hans J. Salter. This period piece is lavishly framed by Tony Gaudio(The Letter 1940, High Sierra 1941, The Man Who Came to Dinner 1942). Once the protagonist and her murderous husband honeymoon at their hideaway cottage, the lens turns the film into an almost chamber piece, becoming more claustrophobic as Manuel and Cecily begin to awaken to the revelation of his dangerous nature.
Sylvia Sidney plays Cecily Harrington, an unassuming English girl in Liverpool who has just won £50,000 in the Calcutta Sweepstakes, which was a fortune in turn-of-the-century England. Cecily meets Manuel Cortez (John Hodiak) when he sees her name in the newspaper next to the headline of his latest murder. He follows her and then arranges to make it appear as if he’s looking to rent her flat. She is taken with this mysterious stranger and suddenly breaks off her engagement to her fiancee Nigel Lawrence (John Howard), rushing into marriage with the mysterious stranger, who turns out to be a Bluebeard who is after her money.
The swarthy Manuel Cortez has already alluded the police for the murder of three women believed to have drowned while trying to escape. He has changed his appearance, with darker hair and no beard. Dr Gribble (Philip Tonge), who is a crime connoisseur, collects journals and books, one with a drawing of him showing his beard. It also mentions his earlier crimes in South America and New York (Hodiak’s character is given several Spanish aliases- Pedro Ferrara and Vasco Carrera).
The newlyweds spend the summer at their secret honeymoon cottage, where he’s been planning to kill her and bury her body in the cellar.
Isobel Elsom plays Auntie Loo Loo with her usual exuberance, Ann Richards is the faithful friend Mavis Wilson.Manuel Cortez pretends to be looking for a flat to rent, showing up at Cecily’s door; he has actually followed her from their ‘accidental’ meeting at the post.
Cortez begins to work his Bluebeard charms on Cecily.The handsome John Howard as Cecily’s fiancee, Nigel Lawrence, is crushed to find her love has gone cold, as the swarthy Manuel Cortez now entrances her.Neither Nigel nor Mavis trust this mysterious stranger with the slickety hair and cape.Everyone around Cecily knows there’s something not quite right.
Auntie Loo Loo is surprised at her niece’s impetuous behavior.
Ethel and Billings, the gardener, greet the newlyweds at the cottage they’ve spirited off to.There’s a dark cellar with a lock on the door. That never bodes well!
Digging the hole!Which poisons to use, decisions, and decisions.Manuel warns Cecily to stay away from his experiments in the cellar.Auntie Loo Loo and Mavis find out where the honeymoon cottage is and pay Cecily a visit to ensure she’s alright.The couple are going away on a long voyage soon, though Manuel hasn’t shown her the tickets.
Auntie Loo Loo is worried!Dr Gribble- Walking over to the book shelf- “Ah criminology are you interested in criminology Mr Cortez?” Cortez- “Yes, it’s a sort of hobby of mine, doctor.” Dr Gribble- “Well, we’re fellow enthusiasts” Cecily: “Yes, I think it’s a horrid morbid pastime.”Dr. Gribble “But fascinating Mrs. Cortez. Here’s a great favorite of mine. Criminals and their mentality. That’s great psychology… Bless my soul, the latest journal of Medical Jurisprudence and the Criminal. I should have thought I was the only person within a hundred-mile radius who ever so much as heard of this publication.” Manuel Cortez-“Really, I’ve subscribed to it for years” Dr Gribble: “Let’s see, did I read this issue? Ah, yes, this is the one with the account of that South American Carrera. It’s a very interesting case.” Manuel Cortez- “I don’t believe I’ve read it.” Dr Gribble- “You should have. This fellow Carrera was a professional wife murderer. They caught him after he completed his third crime. Then he was drowned trying to escape.” Manuel Cortez- “Oh yes, I remember. They never found the body, did they?” Dr Gribble- “No, as a matter of fact, they didn’t. I don’t think there’s any real doubt he’s dead!”
Manuel catches Cecily by the cellar door. Look, his hair has finally lost control!
Love From A Stranger is perhaps the more melodramatic and Gothic of all these films I’ve talked about in this post, but perhaps the most unrewarding in terms of its depth. While there are some truly terrifying scenes, the queer chemistry between Sidney and Hodiak creates a distance from the narrative. It’s still worth watching as part of the canon of 40s suspense melodramas.
Sylvia Sidney has a certain edgy sensuality to her that doesn’t make her performance thoroughly implausible for the story, but perhaps a different actress might have brought another style of vulnerability to the role. And Hodiak has an unctuous, gritty sort of sex appeal, which makes his part as a psychopath believable. He’s got intensely dark, focused eyes, sharply defined features, and an iron jawline that slams shut when he’s internally scheming. Toward the end, he brings it a bit over the top, but he’s sort of good at playing a surly mad dog.
Told to read aloud from the Journal of Criminology- “There is no doubt at all that Vasco Carrera, the last name he was known by, is a truly remarkable character. “He posed as a great world traveler; women, even those from a cultured background, succumbed very quickly to his peculiar charms, possessed of a remarkable charm of manner, Carrera exerted an extraordinary fascination over women.”
YOU AND ME 1938- Sidney, Sylvia, and George Raft- Now that’s chemistry!
Perhaps the one issue I have with the casting is the chemistry between Sidney and Hodiak, which never truly rings authentic. He’s too internally frenetic to be romantic. It’s mysterious, but he’s not convincing in his wooing of Cecily. The character of Cecily doesn’t seem to have the layers that peel innocence away, unveiling a vulnerable yet eruptive sensuality that would be unconsciously drawn to the scent of a dangerous man. That’s why Ingrid Bergman in Gaslight and Joan Bennett in Fritz Lang’s Secret Beyond the Door1947 work so well.
John Hodiak is a puzzle for me. I’ve been trying to decide whether he’s one of the most intriguingly sexy men I’ve come across in a while or if I find him completely cold and waxen in his delivery as a leading man. I’m leaning toward sexy.
John Hodiak and Tallulah Bankhead in Alfred Hitchcock’s marvelous floating chamber piece Lifeboat 1944.
He had me going in Hitchcock’sLifeboat 1944. I would have thrown my diamond Cartier bracelet over the bow to tumble under the tarp for a few hours with that sun-kissed, salt-sprayed crude adonis, sweaty, brash, unshaven -the whole deal. I just watched him in Somewhere in the Night 1946, and once again, I found Hodiak’s character of George Taylor compelling in his odd way of conveying vulnerability but faithful to the lure of the noir machismo. I felt sorry for a guy who can’t remember who he is or if he should stay forgetting- in case he was a rotten human being.
But as the cunning and psychopathic lady killer in Love From A Stranger, he sort of makes my skin crawl, which I suppose means he did a fabulous job of inhabiting the role of Manuel Cortez. Maybe he would have had better chemistry with someone like Alexis SmithorAudrey Dalton.
Now, I haven’t yet seen Basil Rathbone’s version in director Rowland V Lee’s 1937, also known as A Night of Terrorwith Ann Harding -still based on the short story by Agatha Christie but set in contemporary England, Rathbone plays the intrepid type of urbane gentleman who sweeps Ann Harding off her feet and plunges her into a sudden and dangerous marriage. Where he then plots to kill her and take her money. In the earlier version, the heroine gradually realizes that she’s in danger.
Basil Rathbone and Ann Harding in the 1937 version of Love From a Stranger.
Sylvia Sidney looks stunning as the new bride who begins to notice her husband’s strange behavior and realizes once she goes down into the cellar that Manuel is hiding something. He spends hours locked away down there, preparing for the moment he will kill Cecily, and has forbidden her to go down there, claiming that he’s doing experiments that are dangerous. Well, that’s true since he’s mixing poisons and digging her grave.
This version places it back in Victorian England, perhaps due to the success of the melodramatic thrillers that were proving to be so successful in the 40s like, Rebecca, Gaslight, The Lodger, Hangover Square, The Woman in White, Fritz Lang’s The Secret Beyond the Door 1947, and The Two Mrs Carrolls 1947.
"For some nights I slept profoundly; but still every morning I felt the same lassitude, and a languor weighed upon me all day. I felt myself a changed girl. A strange melancholy was stealing over me, a melancholy that I would not have interrupted. Dim thoughts of death began to open, and an idea that I was slowly sinking took gentle, and, somehow, not unwelcome possession of me. If it was sad, the tone of mind which this induced was also sweet. Whatever it might be, my soul acquiesced in it." "• Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, ‘Carmilla’
The Light in the Window … The Lock on the Door … The Sounds in the Night! A Possession is Taking Place!
A while ago I double featured Let’s Scare Jessica to Death (1971) and The Night God Screamed (1971). I made it clear that I felt Let’s Scare Jessica to Death was the superior film but somehow they made good companion pieces. And since I’m a child of the 70s, those days of the double bill, musty theaters, milk duds, and groovy posters, I’ve decided to pair these particular films. And once again, I’ll emphasize now that I believe Lemorato be by far not only the superior film but one of the MOST uniquely beautiful horror/fantasy films I’ve ever seen.
Because the film hit a very bumpy road on its release, it wound up being passed around like an orphan from one distributor to another. Thus is the reason for several titles over the years. It has been called The Legendary Curse of Lemora and Lemora, Lady Dracula, the latter hoping to ride the wave of low-budget vampire films that have now also attained cult status such as Bob Kelljan’s authentically potent Count Yorga Vampire 1970 starring Robert Quarry, and the equally stylish Blacula 1972 and of course the Gothic vampire pageantry of Hammer Studios churning out stylish costume melodramas with a lesbian vampire sub-text like The Vampire Lovers 1970 and Lust For a Vampire 1971, Stephanie Rothman’s The Velvet Vampire 1971, and Vicente Aranda’s The Blood Spattered Bride 1972. The liner notes written by Richard Harland Smith of Video Watchdog & Chris Poggiali of Fangoria and Shock Cinema interviewed Richard Blackburn and Byrd Holland and point out that Blackburn’s film is “less exploitative” yet “not unerotic” while using the “fragility of innocence.”
From the Journal of Horror and Erotic Cinema-Edited Andy Black
Bev Zalock’s- Girl Power From The Crypt
“In a sense, horror more than any of the other exploitation genres, with its monsters of the imagination, feeds fantasy and configures fear in a very direct way. With its linking of sex and death, horror taps into the unconscious and is associated with surrealism and the fantastic in both literature and cinema. Desire becomes the primary mise-en-scene within the realm of the supernatural and, as David Pirie observes in his excellent book The Vampire Cinema’ there is a strong cultural connection between our perception of sex and the supernatural. Pirie cites an article by Susan Sontag written in 1967 entitled “The Pornographic Imagination” in which she locates the fantastical realm of the human imagination as the site in which the two are classically connected.” – from Susan Sontag’s piece–Styles of Radical Will 1966
Celeste Yarnall is the dark lady vampire in Stephanie Rothman’s -The Velvet Vampire-co-starring Sherriy Miles.
In addition to these lesbian vampire narratives, you have Jess Franco’sVampyros Lesbos 1970 and auteur Jean Rollin’s distinctive style who like Hammer connected suggestions of the ‘pornographic imagination’ that Susan Sontag describes. Films that use the spectrum of surrealist imagery from the Gothic to the gory. What they share is a ferocious appetite for power and the desire for sexual freedom.
Directed and written by Richard Blackburn (Eating Raoul 1982 with cult idol Mary Woronov and co-written with director Paul Bartel) fresh out of UCLA film school, with his pal Robert Fern. Blackburn has said in interviews that there are things he would have done differently with a better budget and more time. He shot Lemora in a month. I think the crudely macabre tonality of Lemora is what makes films like these from the good old ’70s oneiric, quintessential, haunting, and flawless as is.
There is a discrepancy as to whether the running time of the film is either 85 minutes or 113 minutes (uncut). The remastered DVD through Synapse Films took the original 35mm negatives and brought this film back to its ‘never before seen clarity.’ The prints were presumed lost for over 30 years.
The hauntingly macabre and somber music is by Dan Neufeld who crafted electronica and claviers and what I think might be a Melatron to evoke the eerie essence of the story is absolutely brilliant. With crying strings that fortify distorted wails and moans. With music box tinkling, poignant yet eerie flutes, and piano, muted horns-noises that shimmer and reverberate on cue with the dialogue or surreal set piece- I wish Dan Neufeld had done more movie scores. The sound design, the dysmorphic groans-unearthly wails- they’re the sounds you’d imagine the ‘old ones’ make in a Lovecraftian tale. Even the crickets and chorus frogs of the swamp sound metamorphosized into frightening aberrations.
Directed by Jack Smight (Harper 1966, The Illustrated Man 1969, Airport 1975 (1974) plus various work on television dramas and anthology series) John Gay wrote the screenplay based on William Goldman’s novel (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid 1969, screenplay for The Stepford Wives, Marathon Man ’76, Magic ’78, The Princess Bride. Smight shows us sensationalist traces of The Boston Strangler killings to underpin his black satire.
Lee Remick, George Segal & Eileen Heckart on the set of No Way To Treat A Lady (1968).
No Way To Treat a Lady 1968 Stars Rod Steiger, George Segal, Eileen Heckart, Lee Remick, Murray Hamilton, David Doyle, Val Bisoglio, Michael Dunn, Val Avery, and the ladies… Martine Bartlett, Barbara Baxley, Irene Daily, Doris Roberts Ruth White and Kim August as Sadie the transvestite, a female impersonator who was a featured performer at a Manhattan cabaret.
The film has its gruesome, grotesque, and transgressive set pieces of women splayed with lipstick kisses on their foreheads. Director Jack Smight’s and writer William Goldman’s vision is outrageously dark, sardonic, satirical, penetrating, and contemptuous of motherhood and humanity in general.
From“Ed Gein and the figure of the transgendered serial killer” by K.E. Sullivan–“NO WAY TO TREAT A LADY a story about a serial killer who was psychologically abused by his mother and kills women to get revenge upon her. The killer is most likely based on William Hierans (The Lipstick Killer),yet the narrative foregrounds cross-dressing as part of the murderer’s technique, despite the fact that Hierans did not cross-dress.”
The dynamic Rod Steiger enlivens the screen as lady killer Christopher Gill, living in the shadow of his famous theatrical mother. He impersonates different characters in order to gain access to his victim’s homes, where he then strangles them, leaving his mark a red lipstick kiss on their foreheads. Gill begins a game of cat and mouse with police detective Morris Brummel (George Segal), who lives at home with his domineering mother.
There is an aspect of the film that is rooted in the ongoing thrills of watching Rod Steiger don his disguises as a sex killer. But what evolves through the witty narrative is the moral confrontation between the antagonist and protagonist surrounding their conflicting values and class backgrounds. The one psychological thread that runs through their lives is the parallel and sexual neurosis both have because of their dominating mother figures.
The opening scene… Christopher Gill impersonating Father McDowall (Steiger) is walking down the street viewed with a long shot, he’s whistling a ‘sardonic’ tune… in the vein of “the ants go marching” alongside The East River. Present, is the activity of cars passing by on the East Side Highway.
As he approaches the camera, we can see that he is wearing a priest’s frock.
We hear the city noises, the sounds of cars honking, young children plowing into him as they run by, and a young girl in a short lime green dress greets him as he continues to walk along the sidewalk.
As Gill passes Kate Palmer (Lee Remick) descending the stairs of the apartment house, he says, “Top of the morning to you, young lady!”
The Seven Minutes1971 is based on a novel by Irving Wallace. Directed by provocateur Russ Meyer(Lorna 1964), Faster, Pussycat, Kill! Kill! & Mudhoney(1965) with a screenplay by Richard Warren Lewis and an uncredited Manny Diez. This film comes on the heels of his hit at FOX with Beyond the Valley of the Dolls 1970. (Dolls with a screenplay by Roger Ebert) Meyer and Fred Mandl (Checkmate, The Munsters, The Twilight Zone, The Fugitive) create a great visual romp with the cinematography. The opening titles roll over the first almost seven minutes of the film as we hear the ticking of a clock…
With a very unusual cast of character actors starring Wayne Maunder as Mike Barrett, and Marianne McAndrew  (Hello Dolly 1969, The Bat People 1974) as Maggie Russell. Philip Carey (I’ve always been amazed at how much he reminds me of Charlton Heston) as District Attorney Elmo Duncan.
Phillip Carey has always reminded me of Charlton Heston in stature and mannerism- a great underrated character actor…
the ubiquitous John Carradine. I could watch him in anything… he tickles me…the beautiful Yvonne de Carlo here as Constance Cumberland movie actress.love love love that Yvonne de Carlo- a kindly beauty (I met her on the set of Laugh-In at the Westbury Music Fair in the 70s while taping the show live… She was an absolute gem, warm-hearted and filled with tangible grace.)
Music byStu Phillips(Quincy M.E.) with Lionel Newman supervising. BB King sings Seven Minutes.
‘The Seven Minutes’ refers to an artistically erotic banned book published thirty-five years ago in Paris, that essentially opens up the floodgates for the public discourse about pornography, censorship, violence against women, and the dual standards during a time when morality was ambiguous. You know, just like today.
Argo Book Stores clerk played by Robert Maloney… arrested for knowingly selling smut… convenient scapegoat for the cause.Charles Drake plays vice cop Kellogg entrapping the poor Mr. Fremont book seller for being a clerk where an allegedly filthy book is being sold.
A bookstore clerk is indicted for selling obscene material which leads to a court trial. There is also the question as to whether this licentious book actually led to the rape of a young girl. The film is part trial based as the defense lawyers try to hunt down any clues that would prove the author of the book was not a smut merchant but trying to express an artistic viewpoint that can not be silenced by censorship.
Wayne Maundy as Michael Barrett’s defense attorney for bookseller Fremont
The author and the mystery surrounding their identity are key to the plot. Meyers does a high-spirited job of developing this narrative with engrossing scenes that portray a society of zealots and self-serving neophytes in turmoil with themselves. All amidst a groovy 70s palate that’s nostalgic and filled with a colorful verisimilitude.
The film opens with some great 70s devil may care by composer Stu Phillips. At first, we see a beauty chasing her dog passed a small storefront. The story reveals that the vice bureau is staking out the ARGUS bookstore, as Sgt Kellogg (Charles Drake) walks in with his cigarette box tape recorder ready to entrap the clerk for selling smut. He asks the young bookseller for something ‘brand new -unusual, ‘something you wouldn’t find in an ordinary library.’The clerk (Robert Maloney) just tells him to look around, the jackets tell the story pretty well.
Kellogg casually asks for one particular book on display The Seven Minutes by JJ Jadway and the bookseller repeats the title ‘Oh yeah” Kellogg remarks, “That’s a pretty sexy cover ain’t it?” As Kellogg ogles the pretty blonde talking to the young clerk who tells him she’ll see him later.
Sargent Kellogg (Charles Drake) “You read it?” Clerk -“The new addition at least… the first one was banned thirty-five years ago.” Kellogg-Â “How come it was banned?” Clerk– “Cause it was considered obscene” Kellogg-Â “Do you think the book’s obscene?” Clerk– “Why don’t you buy the book and find out for yourself.” “How much is it?” ” $7.30 with the tax.”
“Wrap it up… You the manager around here?” Clerk-“Yeah, the day manager.” Kellogg-“Who do I bring it back to if I don’t like it” The clerk answers– “Fremont, Ben Fremont.”Kellogg waves.
Kellogg’s partner is tape-recording the conversation from the car. “Took you long enough.”“Literary conversations take a little doing, we better start comparing, same jacket same title, same publisher, same publishing date, and copyright… Let’s pay Mr. Fremont another visit.”
They arrest him for knowingly selling obscene matter which is a misdemeanor in the state of California. And this starts the ball rolling in this film. As the powers that be, seek out district attorney Duncan who feels that The Seven Minutes would be found obscene if taken to court.
Mike and Faye Osborne are bed pals. She’s the spoiled daughter of an influential father.Cars the way they used to look… oh those were the days.never had one of these… but I know people who did! cool…70s memorabilia. Even the brown striped sheets.
the hair and the groovy chick appear later on at a funky club but I couldn’t resist putting her in the visual time capsule with the Volkswagon bug and the phone and Selleck…teehee.Mr Selleck don’t you look fine! He plays the publisher’s son Phil Sanford of Sanford Publishing.Â
Check out that cherry Volkswagon and Corvette, check out that cool 70s phallus phone, Check out that really young Tom Selleck as the publishing guy… who calls hot shot attorney Michael Barrett (a very cool Wayne Maunder) who is representing the publisher Phil Sanford (Tom Selleck) who’s in a panic about the book clerk Fremont going to jail for selling one of Sanford House’s books.
The tower of self-righteousness Elmo Duncan the D.A. (Phillip Carey) wants to be propelled into the Senatorial seat in California. The powers that be who want him to become Senator conspire to exploit this contrived issue of corruption & decency so Duncan has a powerful platform to run on. This elite cabal wants to build a state-wide case in which Elmo Duncan can fight the ‘Smut Merchants.’
Defense Attorney Mike Barrett tries to appeal to district attorney Duncan.District Attorney Duncan looms large as the figure of ethical fortitude.the secret cabal setting up the scenario for Duncan to influence public opinion and win the election. Stanely Adams, Olan Soule & Jay C. Flippen
They have a political agenda to stamp all youthful violence incited by salacious material in reading matter and films, and so this cause has become the lynchpin with which they hope to win an election, making ‘The Seven Minutes’ the subject of their campaign.
Meanwhile, a violent rape takes place involving the son Jerry (John Sarno) of a wealthy advertising tycoon Frank Griffith (Lyle Bettger) who owns a copy of The Seven Minutes and was present at the time of the assault committed by his psychotic friend, the one who actually commits the brutal rape.
The rape scene is handled with quick cuts interwoven with Wolf Man Jack doing his thing on the air. It’s all very frenetic as the soundtrack “love train” is sung by Don Reed.
The prevailing secret surrounding pathetic Jerry Griffith (John Sarno) is that he’s been emasculated by his domineering father and now can’t get it up, so he’s impotent sexually and in helping Sheri Moore (Yvonne D’Angers) while she’s being attacked by his violent friend.
Jerry takes the blame for the rape and refuses to talk about it, thereby implicating himself as an impotent sissy and allowing the lynch mob and voyeurs to assert that Jerry would not have committed such an act if The Seven Minutes hadn’t been available to him. Duncan is now convinced that a clean boy wouldn’t have done the crime if it weren’t for the availability of the dirty book.
this is Shawn ‘baby doll’ Devereaux -well it sure ain’t Tennessee Williams and Elia Kazan’s vision of Carroll Baker is it…
These hypocritical old cronies have young girls of their own on the side, watching pornography while salivating at the mouth. Yerkes has a girlfriend he calls ‘baby doll’ who dances provocatively for these guys. She’s got ample boobs (It is a Russ Meyer film after all) hanging out of her 70’s style yellow hot pants. Amidst the interesting subject matter Shawn ‘Baby Doll’ Devereaux gyrates and inserts herself into the frame to show us the hypocrisy of these old farts who condemn others for their own personal agenda all the while being the worst kind of purveyors of sinful behavior.
the wealthy Frank Griffith that wants all this smut taken out of the reach of impressionable teens like his son. What’s carefully framed by Meyers playing in the background is a porn film that the men have been reviewing and enjoying way too much-we witness the HYPOCRISY.
Russ Meyer had his own dealings with censorship so the subject is probably of very personal substance for him. He does a fantastic job of pointing out the duality of persuasions. And he builds the story really well here. Showing the belligerence by equal sides of the coin toward a moral center and a society ripping at the shreds of personal freedom to express, create and destroy.
Whether you’re an avid Russ Meyers fan or just think you might like to venture into the complex questions the film evokes, presented in that real 70s style The Last Drive In weeps for most days, it’s a film worth watching, even just to spot the few character actors that pop up on the screen like baby doll’s and Faye Osborne’s (Yvonne & Edy) eh hems… well you know… the cleavage shot!
What appears on the surface as a controversy surrounding a banned book that contains alleged salacious material-The defense evokes some good examples of Henry Miller’s ‘Tropic of Capricorn’ or, D.H. Lawrence’s ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’, etc.
What manifests is an interesting commentary on censorship, masculinity, and the spurious connection between perceived immoral content and violence in society.
Manhood and masculinity is a texture that is not necessarily used as the theme in the story, but let me tell you it is all-pervasive with images of Duncan heaving his heavyweights as he sweats and works out in front of Mike, spouting his holier-than-thou rhetoric. It was almost masturbatory.
He gave Michael that “politician’s holier than thou number” Duncan was hostile while he pumped weights in front of the intellectual Mike Barrett. Dueling of masculinity and the question of causality with pornography and violence against women.
Duncan talks to a church official about ‘freedom’ Duncan–Â “We only want to penalize those who would corrupt it.”
Duncan and his reprehensible comrades belong to a group called Strength Through Decency.
The acronym STD... was this intentional? Probably. It’s hilarious as these types of organizations do spread like a social disease. They’re against lust, motorcycles, homosexuals, and lesbians. All the factors that made the 70s so dangerous of course. Those lustful lesbians on motorcycles riding down 5th Avenue in NYC wreaking havoc with our delicate morality. Why I’m surprised we all survived it…
So as much as the words “smut merchants’ are bandied around, and the question of censorship takes priority in full view, the underlying sub-context is the posturing of masculinity and the double standard of sexism & classism and who gets to play and who must obey.
Marianne McAndrews is fabulous as Maggie Griffith. I really dig those orange orbs… truly the light fixtures I mean…
I won’t get into the story behind the mystery or the trial, the story behind Jerry’s impotence, the elitism, or the ultimate reveal about the author of The Seven Minutes. The media frenzy that occurs feeds on the sensationalism of the situation who condemn the book but want to hear about the details of rape victim Sherri’s violation.
Is The Seven Minutes a beautiful novel about a woman’s awakening or really filthy trash? You’ll have to find out… but I’ll say that Russ Meyer’sThe Seven Minutes is a great addition to the socially conscious sexually charged films of the late 60s & 70s like Roger Vadim’s Pretty Maids All In a Row, and Robert Thom’s Angel, Angel Down We Go 1969…
