Tales of Tomorrow – The Evil Within (05/01/53)

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After enduring two episodes this week of men beating up their wives, finally something to celebrate:  The last episode of Tales of Tomorrow. [1]  

Peter has brought his work home with him.  Sadly, he does not work in a bakery or modeling agency, but in a lab that produces toxic chemicals.  He tells Anne he has created “the perfect serum”.  Wow, does it cure cancer?   Maybe reverse the effects of Alzheimer’s?  Spit it out, man!  He tells her, “I gave a shot of this stuff to the monkeys at the lab to see how they reacted.  Instantly, they lost all their behavior control and their inhibitions.”  Yeah, that behavior-control that inhibited monkeys are so famous for.

Unfortunately, the refrigerator at the lab broke down and the serum must be kept cold, so he brought it home.  Pffft, some “perfect” serum.  After putting it next to last night’s meatloaf, he tells Anne that it works on humans too.  “It goes straight to the glands, then they overpower the mind.  That unleashes the evil within the human being!”  Well thank God science cracked this problem; finally we can get some evil peeps ’round here.  I wouldn’t wait for Jonas Salk to share his Nobel Prize. [2]

Anne wants to go out to a movie, but in addition to bringing his work home with him, Peter has brought his work home with him.  He pulls papers from his briefcase.  He plans to begin work immediately on an antidote which will bring out the good intentions in people.  Well that’s not really an antidote unless the people are only a**holes because they took the first drug.  What about those who are just naturally a**holes like Robert DeNiro and Peter Fonda? [3]

After a solid 15 seconds of working, he packs his bag and announces he is going for a walk, then returning to the lab to check on the monkeys.  Anne consoles herself by having a piece of the pie that was on the rack below the leaky test-tubes.  Just like the monkeys, Anne loses her inhibitions immediately and begins writhing seductively in her chair.  She dances around the apartment.  Then she gleefully pours the test tubes in the sink.  My God, if that gets in the water supply, New Yorkers could turn into angry, loud, obnoxious jerks!  Then she sets fire to Peter’s notes.

The next morning, Peter sees that the test-tubes are empty.  Anne tells him it was an accident and he isn’t too upset.  Unlike every scientist in sci-fi history, he is able to reproduce his discovery.  Well . . . he isn’t so sure when he gets to the lab and realizes he has lost his notes and has no backup.  Now that’s a Hollywood sci-fi scientist!

He returns home and confronts Anne about a call she received from his lab assistant the previous night.  She lies about it.  Then she giddily tells him she poured the serum down the drain and “burned your precious formula!”  She is happily in his face as she proudly confesses, even trilling the R’s in precious — a great choice by the actress.  “She taunts him that she “destroyed everything you care about.”

Peter figures out that Anne ate the infected pie.  Again, he tells her it will be OK because he can analyze the pie and reverse-engineer the formula.  She still says she wants to destroy him.  She pulls out a kitchen knife, and says she wants to “destroy you the way you destroyed me.”  She plans to kill herself so she will be on his conscience.  He promises to give up his career if she will put down the knife.

Peter’s lab assistant calls to tell him the serum has worn off, the monkeys are acting like little angels, although them feces-hurling angels like in the Old Testament.  He asks Anne to not do anything crazy for 15 minutes.  The serum wears off and she starts crying.

Meh, not the worst episode of the series.  In a three-person cast which included Rod Steiger and James Dean, only Margaret Phillips’ name was announced at the top of the show — and she deserved it.  Rod Steiger is the same mumbling, erratic, inexplicably praised lump he would evolve into.  As the lab assistant, James Dean — also inexplicably revered — wasn’t given much to do, but at least he didn’t cry this time.  Mags came off great though!  She was attractive as Before, but as After she was an untamed, grinning seductress / killer pie-eater.

Thus endeth Tales of Tomorrow.

Other Stuff:

  • [1] Last of the three DVD sets released, anyway.
  • [2] I am shocked to learn Salk did not get a Nobel Prize.  Barack Obama got one for reasons that still no one can figure out.  But saving millions of kids world-wide from a devastating disease only gets you into the Polio Hall of Fame (no, really).
  • [3] This doesn’t need to break down by party.  Forget politics — really, not one person in that auditorium thought DeNiro was just coarse and trashy?  And Jesus Christ, WTF did Henry Fonda do to his kids?

Outer Limits – Balance of Nature (09/04/98)

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This seems like a cop-out to get to bed early.

The week started out with a Twilight Zone episode about an abused wife.  Despite, or maybe because of, two great performances, the episode was just too unpleasant to further think about.

So here we are winding down the week with the same kind of episode.  This one feels even worse since the victim is not only a woman, but 71 years old.

It’s just not something I want to dwell on.

Next . . .

Other Stuff:

  • The elderly couple was named Matheson.  Were they named after the writer Richard Matheson?  No genre series could possibly use that name without knowing the connection would be made.  Was this supposed to be a tribute?

Science Fiction Theatre – The Unexplored (11/05/55)

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“Middleton College in New York State is a respected institution of learning.  Professor Alex Bondar, teacher and authority in parapsychology, is about to give a demonstration . . .”

Well, which is it?  Are they respected, or do they have a department of para-psychology?  It can’t be both.  Dr. Bondar is about to give a demonstration of hypnosis.  He has determined that elderly Mrs. Canby can be put under by shooting sound waves through her head at 14,000 cycles per second.

In a few seconds the old woman’s face relaxes and her eyes shut.  The overly-optimistic Bondar does not check her pulse, but rather asks, “Mrs. Canby, do you know me?”  He tells his students that not only is she not asleep, but some are her senses are more acute than when she is awake.  He drapes a handkerchief in front of her face, and has a student hold an open book behind it.  She astounds the class by being able to read the text, although she mistakes a booger for a comma.

Bondar explains this feat by saying that under hypnosis, her mind might be more sensitive to infra-red rays.  Hunh?  He says he has also seen Mrs. Canby describe things that were far out of sight where infra-red rays wouldn’t explain it.  He awakens her by counting slowly from 10 down to 1.  And I mean he takes his bloody time and doesn’t miss a digit.

It is also a countdown of a different sort as Bondar has a bombshell announcement.  A college administrator has actually pulled his head out of his ass for once and canceled the parapsychology program, judgmentally calling it “nonsense.”  Bondar is leaving the College, and not by no astral projection, either.

He gets a call from the police that his colleague Dr. Bernhardt Mannheim, driving in from Montreal for a parapsychology lecture, has been missing for 2 days.  Bondar describes him as about 70, small, frail, with white hair, and having a goatee; so indistinguishable from every other German scientist on TV.

Back at home, Julie Bondar is saddened by the loss of her husband’s cushy job.  She suggests that maybe if he had concentrated less on the para- and more on the -psychology, he might still have the gig.  He says she was never supportive and considers his work “the foolish fumblings of the family idiot!”  Sing it, sister!

That night, the Bondars go to Dean Henry Stark’s house for tea and begging.  He implores Bondar to admit that his work is just a lot of hooey.  The Dean says, “Science explains what actually happens.  You’re trying to explain what has never happened.”  Right on, brother!

While there, the police call with an update on Mannheim.  Stark mentions that he had tried to hire Mannheim for the faculty.  But wait, why would he make an offer to a parapsychologist when he was shutting down the department and considered it nonsense?  Anyhoo, Mannheim used his credit card to buy gas about 200 miles from them, but then just vanished.  Stark has a brilliant idea — are we sure this guy is the Dean? — why doesn’t Bondar use telepathy or clairvoyance to find Mannheim?

Bondar is uncomfortable having his crazy beliefs put to the test like, you know, science.  He argues that such skills can’t be turned on and off like a water tap.  The Dean, quite appropriately, accuses him of not really believing in this stuff himself.  Bondar says that psychics usually have a possession of the victim to work with, like an article of clothing.  Whew, guess we can’t test my beliefs, nosiree!  His wife helpfully reminds him that he has a letter from Mannheim, and Bondar almost does a homina homina.

Bondar agrees to haul Mrs. Canby in at 10 am the next morning to try to locate Mannheim.  Julie is suddenly on team Bondar again and doesn’t want him to go through with it.  She fears the Dean will make a fool of him, and reminds him that Mannheim warned him he was throwing his life away.  Again, wait — this is the same Mannheim who was driving down for the parapsychology lecture, right?

In the classroom, Bondar fires up the parabolic dish pointed at Mrs. Canby’s grey noggin again.  To Stark’s delight, this time the sound waves just hurt her ears; especially the good one.  Heyyyoooo!  They fall back on a method that had also worked with her — a metronome.  Honestly, this is a great piece of business because the silence broken only by the perfectly regular clacks is indeed hypnotic; so much so, I wonder why I can’t recall ever seeing it used again on TV or in movies.  The camera slowly pushes in alternately on the metronome, then Mrs. Canby’s face in a series of shots that is — dare I say — worthy of Hitchcock.  Was SFT fooling around with the antibiotic fungus from two weeks ago?

That does not work either, so Bondar tries using light as a stimulus.  Maybe they were still using the fungus, because he shines a spot in Mrs. Canby’s eye, then shines it in Julie’s for no reason I can figure.  Trying to put Mrs. Canby under, Bondar counts slowly from 1 to 29.  Think of that — on network TV, they had a scene where absolutely nothing happened except a dude counted slowly for 30 seconds.  Maybe that earlier 10 second countdown tested well.  Mrs. Canby freaks out at the pressure they put on her and is taken away.

The camera pans over to Julie who has not moved an inch.  She seems to be in a trance as she walks to her husband. [1]  She is not feeling well and asks him to drive her home; and to use the Stone Mountain route so she can get some fresh air, and maybe a Pecan Log Roll.  Julie tells her husband to stop at a certain point, then tells him to go down the hill and look around.  At the bottom of a steep hill, he sees Mannheim’s car where it crashed 3 days ago.  Bondar’s paranormal beliefs are vindicated because Julie’s clairvoyant vision made her stop them at this specific place; or it might have been all the flies.

Like Tales of Tomorrow, you really have to grade this series on a curve.  Objectively, the episode is awful.  However, considering the budget, the times, and compared to the rest of the series, parts of the episode are just a masterpiece.  The metronome, the editing, the counting, the shot compositions . . . there was just a lot to like here.

Other Stuff:

  • [1] OK, it is a great idea that Julie was caught in stray light that was intended for Mrs. Canby.  But it’s not like she was right behind Canby.  Bondar really had to swing that light around to get it in Julie’s eye, and do it more than once.  It would have been so easy to just line them up so Canby caught the light on the left side of her face and Julie behind her caught it on her right side.
  • Major kudos to the director Eddie Davis.  He has a ton of credits, but nothing that indicates an auteur.  Maybe I should rewatch his earlier SFT effort, The Strange People at Pecos.
  • BTW, IMDb has his age at 115.  Maybe they need a — dare I say — Dead Man’s Switch.  At some point, ya just know you missed an email.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents – Madame Mystery (03/27/60)

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Not that it matters, but that is the same beach-house that was in The Last Dark Step.  I remember it from 18 months ago because it was kind of sad.  It looks like a great old California getaway, right on the water.  The sad part is that it was probably plowed under decades ago to make way for some ugly $MM condominiums.

Steven is pounding away on a typewriter when a soaking wet floozy wanders in the front door — a beach-house feature second only to the beach.  Unfortunately, the wet, liquored-up blonde — I haven’t gotten to the unfortunate part yet — is there with Jimmy Dolan.  He has promised to help her career.  Honesty, I hope her character is a better actress than the actress playing that character.

After summarily throwing the girl out of the house, Jimmy starts talking about another actress, Betsy Blake, who was killed in a speedboat accident.  Her death had sunk a $6M production at Goliath Studios.  The studio execs are too dumb to move the release date up to capitalize on the tragedy.  Since her body was discovered this morning, the story is over.  Jimmy is worried that by the time the film comes out, everyone will have forgotten Betsy.

Jimmy wants Betsy to have the biggest funeral ever, bigger than Rudolf Valentino; but doomed to be dwarfed in 3 years.  He thinks that will make him a big man in Hollywood.  His plan is to then start a rumor that Betsy Blake is still alive.  Plan B is to concoct a back-story for her — the real Betsy Blake that no one ever knew.  That’s why he needs a writer to help him.  Steven refuses to lower himself to such a spectacle; until Jimmy offers him $300.

Weeks later, Alfredo is about to leave the beach-house.  Wait, who?  He mentions tools, so he might be a plumber.  Steve’s pipes were mentioned earlier, but that might have been a metaphor; plus, months have elapsed.  He seems to know about the Blake scheme as if Steve had confided in him.  And when Jimmy enters, he calls Alfredo by name.  Alfredo glares at him.  Alfredo is just kind of a strange, superfluous character who does not need to be there.  Kind of like that floozy, but at least she was blonde; and wet.

Jimmy is just giddy at his success in promoting the dead woman as a star.  Steve has been writing articles like Love Secrets from Beyond the Grave and I was Betsy Blake’s Astrologist.  Jimmy says, “The best thing that washed-out, platinum-rinsed old pelican ever did in her life was to ram her speedboat into that jerk from Pasadena.”   Then Jimmy is shocked when Betsy walks in and says, “the next phase should be The Return of Betsy Blake!”

Betsy (aka the titular Madame Mystery) is a strange piece of work.  She has a great natural sexiness, but this is mitigated by her personality.  She shouts her lines as if she were drunk, but she does not otherwise appear to have been drinking.  True, she makes a beeline for Steve’s liquor cabinet, but there is no weaving or slurring of words.  Almost immediately, she is full-on drunk, though.

Turns out, there was a blonde on the boat she hit that had a similar build and blood alcohol level.  When the police fished her body out of the water, they just assumed it was Betsy Blake.  So Betsy took this opportunity to escape from her horrible, horrible life as a movie star.  Just as well.  She had sworn to leave the country if Nixon became president anyway.

There is no mention of the other girl’s family.  Since no other body was found, her parents must be worried sick about their vanished daughter.  Do they even know she was out on a boat?  Was there an air-pocket in the sunken boat where she waited desperately to be rescued?  Did some privileged a**hole leave her to die?  Maybe it’s appropriate that Jimmy planned a Kennedyesqe funeral for Betsy.  And let’s not forget that Betsy is pretty chipper, and the two dudes are pretty forgiving considering she killed two people.

Jimmy and Betsy argue and insult each other.  He is upset that her reappearance will ruin his good fortune.  She berates him for being successful only by exploiting her.  There is a twist that might have been shocking in 1960, but mostly it left me thinking it was a total non-sequitur.

Far be it from me to criticize such a great show, but this one did not quite live up to its potential.  Audrey Totter could have been great as Betsy had she dialed her performance down to 10.  I know she had to be obnoxious to have the conflict with Jimmy, but she is frequently just too grating.  Harp McGuire was a stiff as Steven.  Only Joby Baker as Jimmy seemed well-cast.  He has the perfect face for the era.  It is hard to imagine him 10 years before or after with his mug.  And that twist — nice, just too out-of-nowhere, man.

Other Stuff:

  • AHP Deathwatch:  Jimmy is still with us.  Sadly, Steve died six years later at only 44.  Even more sadder, Lois, the floozy in the first scene, died at 36.
  • Audrey Totter was last seen in Spider, Inc.
  • As always, more info on the production and source material can be found at bare*bonez ezine.

Twilight Zone – Acts of Terror (12/03/88)

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“Well,” as the commenters say, “there’s nothing funny about this.”

Louise Simonson, after years of physical and psychological abuse by her husband, gets the ability to conjure attack dogs for protection.

That’s about it.  The episode really destroyed my desire to think any more about it, which, I guess, means it was effective.  The thought of the prison Louise was in and the excuses she made for her bruises continued long after the brief enjoyment of seeing her idiot husband gets his due (actually getting off way too easy).

Melanie Mayron and Kenneth Walsh were amazing in their roles.  If I have any criticism, it is that maybe it was a little too real for this often-silly edition of The Twilight Zone.

Next . . .