Into The Unknown

 (imdb)

THE UNKNOWN-THE FORMS OF THINGS UNKNOWN-1964-Two women (Vera Miles & Barbara Rush) kill a blackmailing gigolo (Scott Marlowe). After they wreck their car during a storm, the two seek refuge at a remote mansion where Tone Hobart (David McCallum) and his blind butler Kolos (Sir Cedric Hardwick in his last acting role) live. Hobart is experimenting with a "time tilt" machine which he says can bring back the dead.

There's a lot of talk and weird camera angles and it kind of reminded me of a Harold Pinter play! This was originally devised by THE OUTER LIMITS writer Joseph Stefano and director Gerd Oswald as the pilot for a new series to be called THE UNKNOWN. ABC rejected the idea and it became (with a different ending and credits) the finale episode of THE OUTER LIMITS' first season.

McCallum was in another episode the same season, the memorable THE SIXTH FINGER.

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TV Snow Monster

 

 (themoviedb.org)

SNOW BEAST-1977-At the Rill ski lodge winter carnival owned by Emma (Sylvia Sidney), a snow monster kills a skier. Her grandson, Tony (Robert Logan) wants to report it but Emma is afraid it will hurt business. Then a ski patrol member is killed. Meanwhile, former Olympic gold medal winning skier, now disillusioned, Gar Seberg (Bo Svenson) and his unhappy reporter wife Ellen (Yvette Mimieux), Tony's former lover, come for a visit (Gar is looking for a job). Tony believes in the monster and wants to hire Gar to kill it but Gar is more sympathetic. They try to convince the sheriff (Clint Walker) that a Bigfoot is running around. The white hairy creature attacks the lodge and Ellen gets lost in the woods. Gar and Ellen get trapped in a cabin with the monster outside. The sheriff kills a bear and that seems to close the case even though everyone at the lodge saw the attack! Gar, Helen and Tony convince the sheriff to go hunting just in case. After the sheriff is killed, Gar has a snowdown, I mean showdown with the monster. 

The dumbest part of this made for TV movie is the monster POV shots including one with a ski pole. Written by Joseph Stefano (PSYCHO (1960) and directed by Herb Wallerstein who directed many TV show episodes but Snow Beast is his only full-length movie.

 Unfortunately, he was killed in 1985 by his live-in maid who claimed self-defense.

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Supernatural TV Pilot

 

 (imdb)

THE GHOST OF SIERRA DE COBRE-1964-Architect/psychic investigator Nelson Orlon (Martin Landau) is called in by Vivia Mandore (Diane Baker in Hitchcock's MARNIE and Castle's STRAITJACKET the same year), wife of Henry Mandore (Tim Simcox), a wealthy blind man who's getting strange phone calls from his dead mother. After Paulina sees a horrifying ghost, Orlon investigates. Their new housekeeper, the spooky Paulina (Dame Judith Anderson) hangs around and doesn't like Orlon because he called the ghost of her town a fake. Things are not as they seem. Leonard Stone as Mandore's business partner and Nellie Britt as another housekeeper are skeptical. 

Alternatively spooky and talky, this is a failed TV pilot turned into a full-length movie by writer Joseph Stefano (who did the screenplay for PYSCHO (1960) and many OUTER LIMITS episodes).  He took over directing (his only time as a director) when original director Robert Stevens fell ill. Future Academy Award winner Landau was in an episode of "The Twilight Zone" and "The Outer Limits" the same year. 

Thanks for reading!

Thanks for reading!