Early TV

 

SUSPENSE:"Dr. Violet"-1949-An engaged couple go to a carny wax museum about murderers. The host Dr. Violet (Hume Cronyn) is an expert on murder. One exhibit isn't finished as the murderer hasn't been caught yet. The police suspect a nutty customer Mousey (Ray Walston). Violet leaves the girl (Anne Francis; 7 years before FORBIDDEN PLANET) alone in the museum and we learn a little more of his background. The ending is kind abrupt and awkward. Also with Frankie Thomas and Mike Kellin. 

Screenwriter Halstead Welles later wrote 3:10 TO YUMA and THE HANGING TREE. Director Robert Stevens later directed 44 episodes of “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” and the very unusual personality change drama CHANGE OF MIND (1969).

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Boris!

 

 (YouTube)

AUTO-LITE THEATER PRESENTS "SUSPENSE" (1949)-"A NIGHT AT THE INN" by Lord Dunsany. Three mugs (Anthony Ross, Jack Manning, Barry Macollum) who stole a sacred Jewel from the head of a Hindu idol hide out at an Irish inn waiting to hear the plan their boss Toff (Boris Karloff) has for them. They decide to take the jewel by force from Toff and sell it in London. However Toffee has a plan which seems to work until something unforeseen happens….

This strange little tale is an interesting look at an early live TV production (shot in NYC) with a creepy atmosphere and Karloff giving a great performance.

 “Suspense” ran on the CBS network for 5 seasons starting in 1948. It's the offshoot of a radio show of the same name that ran for 20 years beginning in 1942. Auto-lite sponsored the show throughout it's run and the on screen narrator was Rex Marshall for many of them (around this time Marshall helped found WPIX TV in NYC. He later did many other TV announcing jobs and after that owned his own radio station in Vermont until his death in 2000). 

Like many early TV anthologies it based it's shows on stories written by well known authors (Edgar Allen Poe e.g.) and many well known stars and characters are were featured. Bela Lugosi appears in an adaptation of Poe's “The Cask of Amontillado”. Many episodes are lost but at least 90 exist. Director Robert Stevens was busy on TV through the 1960's (He directed 44 episodes of “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” and the first episode of “The Twilight Zone”, “Where Is Everybody?”). He died of cardiac arrest after being beaten and robbed in his home in 1989. Screenwriter Halstead Welles also later wrote for “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” and much later “Night Gallery”.

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Bela on TV

  (imdb)

SUSPENSE-THE AUTO-LITE THEATER-1949- "The Cask of Amontillado"-In Nazi Germany an arrogant drunkard General Fortunato (Bela Lugosi in a rare dramatic TV role) visits a once prominent citizen Count Montressor (Romney Brent; later a series regular on TV's “Zorro”) intent on killing him and stealing his faithless wife. At first the count accepts his enviable fate and inviting the general (who once worked for the count and married and murdered his sister) in for a drink but then resolving to kill his nemesis by burying him alive. The only other actors to appear are Ray Walston and Frank Marth, both in uncredited roles. Rex Marshall is the announcer. Robert Stevens directed this rare unusual version of the Edgar Allan Poe classic short story.

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Jekyll & Hyde on TV

CLIMAX!-DR.JEKYLL & MR. HYDE-1955-This was a live TV broadcast (sponsored by Chrysler) with the adaptation by Gore Vidal based on Robert Louis Stevenson's classic story.

Michael Rennie stars as Dr. Jekyll who wants to find man's soul and thinks he can produce a "angel or devil" from the same person.

The story begins with Jekyll's best friend Mr. Utterson (Cedric Hardwicke) killing the notorious Mr. Hyde in Jekyll's lab. Utterson then finds the doctor's journal (left casually on a table to be read after his death) and the rest of the story is told in flashback showing how Jeykll's ceaseless experimenting produces "the devil" Hyde and begins his dual personality, dedicated doctor by day, evil deviant by night. Rennie pulls off the dual role very well and time elapsed footage is used during most of the transformation scenes (not bad considering the drawbacks). Like most early TV productions it suffers from bad lighting and sparse production values (look for a hand that mysteriously appears near a curtain) but has some cool camera angles.

Mary Sinclair (a popular TV actress at the time) is "the girl" Hyde takes a fancy to. John Hoyt (with
an English accent) is Jekyll's servant Poole and Lowell Gilmore is his friend Lanyon  who says "Where's my tea? I came here for tea not a black mass".

 Director Allen Reisner did 19 other epsiodes of CLIMAX! and became very proflific in TV. Rennie starredin 8 other episodes and Hardwicke 5 others. The version I saw had the original commercials with
host William Lunigan hawking Chrysler cars.

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