Man From the South (1960, Alfred Hitchcock Presents)

The scene is Las Vegas, circa 1960.

While lounging in a casino coffee shop one morning, a down-on-his luck gambler (Steve McQueen) politely lights the cigarette of an older stranger, Carlos (Peter Lorre). Admiring the gambler's lighter, Carlos proposes a bizarre but intriguing bet. If McQueen can light his lighter ten times in succession without it misfiring once, Carlos will hand him the keys to his brand new Cadillac parked out front.

If he loses, McQueen will give up something he can afford to lose... the pinky finger of his left hand. At first McQueen dismisses the proposition as the ramblings of a crazy old man. But after further goading by Carlos, and an explanation of exactly how he plans to claim the finger should McQueen lose the bet (with a meat cleaver!), McQueen agrees.

McQueen and two bystanders follow Carlos to his luxurious hotel room, where his left hand is tied down with some twine between two nails, Carlos readies the cleaver, and the bet begins.

A tense count of seven successful lighter strikes later, a woman suddenly bursts into the room and wrestles the cleaver from Carlos' hand. It is his wife, who scolds Carlos for betting again while she was away.

Carlos has nothing to bet with, she explains. The Cadillac belongs to her, along with everything else he once owned. You see, it took her awhile, but she won all of it. As she reaches for the car keys, we notice she has only two fingers on her left hand.

From the fifth season of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, "Man From the South" is an adaptation of a 1948 short story by Roald Dahl (which can be read in various Dahl compendiums, including The Umbrella Man and Other Stories.)

The story has such an instantly captivating hook, suspenseful final act and satisfying surprise payoff, it remains one of the more talked about Alfred Hitchcock Presents episodes, and has found its way to the screen more than once.

The premier episode of Tales of the Unexpected (1979), an anthology show based exclusively on the short works of Dahl and hosted by the author himself, presented a version more faithful to Dahl's original text, which sets the story at a Jamaican beach resort instead of Sin City.

But probably the most intense version is the 1985 remake done for The (New) Alfred Hitchcock Presents, which stars John Huston as Carlos and Kim Novak as his wife, and manages to dial up the tension even further by having Novak's surprise entrance cause a draft that blows out the lighter flame, bringing down Carlos' eager cleaver for a near miss before she stops the bet.

Director Quentin Tarantino even paid homage to the story for his segment of the 1995 anthology film "Four Rooms", in which a group of drunken New Years Eve celebrants, among them Tarantino and Bruce Willis, are discussing the Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode and decide to carry out the bet themselves, enlisting the aid of the bellboy, played by Tim Roth. As derivative as this premise is, Tarantino manages to make it his own with additional character nuances and a surprise ending.

I was familiar with director Alfred Hitchcock at a young age (see my previous post on his spooky story collection for children, Ghostly Gallery). As it happens, my introduction to the original Alfred Hitchcock Presents show, which I first caught in reruns on PBS sometime in the early 80s, was with the fifth season.

And what a great season to get started with, for it contains not only "Man From the South", but several other notable and memorable episodes. My favorite is the Robert Bloch penned "The Cuckoo Clock", in which a woman staying alone in a remote cabin gets an unexpected visit from an unstable stranger who may or may not be an escaped, mentally disturbed murderer.

A cuckoo clock in the cabin becomes the focus of attention for several characters, serving as a motif of madness.

"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" is a competent adaptation of the dark Ambrose Bierce Civil-War chiller we all remember from English class.

In "Special Delivery", based on a short story by Ray Bradbury, a boy starts a mushroom farm in his basement after ordering seeds through a comic book ad. But is there more to these mushrooms than meets the eye? A scene where Dad approaches his increasingly distant son in the dark basement and is ordered by his son to eat a mushroom sandwich had me squirming in my seat.

Finally, there is the exclusive, members-only restaurant depicted in "Specialty of the House", which serves a seasonal dish that seems to coincide with the loss of one of its members.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents: The Complete Fifth Season, featuring all of the episodes described above, is available now on DVD.

Pigeons From Hell (1961, Thriller)

"Thriller" was an anthology TV-series, dealing in stories of suspense and the supernatural, that aired for only two seasons, from 1961-1962. Hosted by horror icon Boris Karloff, who introduced each episode with the quiet, captivating tone of a master teller of ghost stories, "Thriller" has been described by Stephen King as "...the best horror series ever put on TV." (Danse Macabre, 1981).

"Thriller" featured stories of grave-robbing and ghosts, bleeding paintings and haunted mirrors. Several stories were penned by genre author Robert Bloch (The Hungry Glass, Till Death Do Us Part, et al.)

But the episode I want to share with you now was based on a short story that Stephen King has called "one of the finest horror stories of our century". Novelist Joe R. Lansdale, who adapted the same story for a graphic novel in 2008, has written of this "Thriller" episode that it was "...for many years the most terrifying thing ever shown on television."

It's Robert E. Howard's 1938 short story for Weird Tales magazine, "Pigeons From Hell." If you haven't already read this taut chiller about the evil thing hiding in a decrepit mansion that stands in ruin among the New England forest pines, (later adaptations relocate the story to the bayous of Louisiana), click on over here and check it out. Even though its over 70 years old, it doesn't show its age at all, and remains a quick and chilling read.

The adaptation for "Thriller" changes some names and tweaks the chronology, but its an otherwise faithful adaptation of the original story, which you will definitely want to have read before proceeding further, as there are SPOILERS AHEAD.

Brothers John (David Whorf, dark hair) and Tim Branner (Brandon deWilde, blond) get their car stuck in a gorge while driving down an old country road in Louisiana's swampy backwoods.

Drawn by an otherworldy howling that sounds like a cross between a cat and a baby's cry, Jim wanders into the forest towards a ruined old mansion.

The grounds are swarming with pigeons, which are startled when a second howling cry erupts from the house.

Entering the mansion, the brothers call up to see if anyone is home.

No one responds, but the audience gets to see something the brothers don't... an upstairs door being slowly pulled shut (left side).

The brothers decide to stay the night in the house. They bed down in a neighboring room with a fireplace, and an old portrait of a former resident.

John is awakened in the middle of the night by a hypnotic whistling, accompanied by the rumbling sound of cooing pigeons. He appears to be in a trance as he stalks methodically up the stairs.

Moments later, he lets out a horrific scream, which wakes Tim. Tim runs up the stairs in pursuit of John, only to encounter his brother in a zombie-like state, his head bleeding from what should be a mortal wound, and a hatchet in his hand.

John attacks Tim with the axe, but he manages to get away, fleeing the mansion, only to hit his head while navigating the night-black forest.

He revives in the custody of Sheriff Buckner (Crahan Denton), who had found Tim's catatonic body in the forest and moved him to a nearby shack. Tim explains the baffling story as best he can. Buckner finds it highly suspect, but perceives just enough truth in Tim's fear to give him some benefit of doubt.

They return to the mansion to investigate.

Once upstairs, they find a splash of blood and an old diary.

Buckner explains that the mansion was the property of three sisters, the Blassenville's, who had lived there since the Civil War era, but had left one by one over fifty years ago. The diary appears to be that of the last sister to leave, Elizabeth Blassenville, and has entries describing her fear of some kind of supernatural monster stalking her throughout the house.

Buckner takes Tim to a man he knows, Jacob Blount (Ken Renard), who may know more about the Blassenville's.

Jacob tells of a monster that may be haunting the Blassenville's mansion, a zuvembie, a human who, through voodoo magic, is turned into an undead creature that can hypnotize the living with the sound of its voice, and command a lifeless body until its flesh is cold!

He also reveals that there was a fourth sister, a half-sister who was mistreated by the other Blassenvilles, and who lived as a servant at the house. Buckner and Tim return to the house, planning to wait until morning to perform a thorough search. But they get separated, and Tim is beckoned upstairs by the whistling sound.

Finally we see a glimpse of what is waiting for him upstairs... the fourth sister, the zuvembie!

She approaches the entranced Tim with her hatchet raised to strike!

Meanwhile, Buckner has discovered a secret door to a hidden chamber that is housing what's left of the other three Bassenvilles, who hadn't left the mansion after all.

I won't completely give the ending away here, and instead encourage you to read the original text.

"Thriller" has not been officially released to DVD yet, but there is a placeholder entry for it on Amazon.com where you can sign up to be notified, a promising sign.

Darkroom (1981, Episode 5)

This post is 3rd in a series describing the episodes of the 1981 anthology horror series Darkroom. Previous installments found here and here.

SPOILER ALERT! Episode summaries to follow!
EPISODE 5 - The Partnership / Daisies / Catnip

Episode 5 is the first of two episodes containing three segments instead of the usual two. The first story, "The Partnership", is one of my favorites.

Not that there's anything particularly unique (or even original) about this simple little story, but it worked for me as a kid and still does today. Based on a story by William F. Nolan, (whose screenwriting credits include Trilogy of Terror and Burnt Offerings), "The Partnership" centers on local chatterbox Tad Miller (Pat Buttram) who strikes up a conversation with a drifter, played by David Carradine, at a roadside diner.

Tad volunteers his life story to the uninterested Carradine, who is just trying to find a ride to the next town. Seems that, among other things, Tad used to operate the local lakeside amusement park, Happyland, which has been closed and shuttered for years. This sparks the drifter's interest. Tad convinces him to go on an after-hours exploration of the ruined amusement park, dangling the promise of giving him a ride out of town if he agrees.

Happyland is a dilapidated wreck of a fun park, boarded up and covered in cobwebs. Tad leads Carradine by lantern light into the old funhouse.

When Carradine cuts himself on a nail, Tad is a little too eager to run back to the truck to fetch a bandage, leaving Carradine alone in the spooky hall of mirrors.

But Tad isn't detouring to his truck, but to a secret control room, where he triggers a trapdoor that sends Carradine down a chute and through the floor, dropping him into the lake below.

A tentacled sea-creature with two glowing eyes closes in on Carradine as he splashes helplessly in the dark water.

Seems "the partnership" of the title is an arrangement between Tad and the creature. The creature crushes its prey with its tentacles and deposits the corpse on the shore, where Tad loots the corpse of any valuables before turning it over to be eaten by the beast.


The next segment, "Daisies", is only a few minutes long.

A scientist is studying the ability of plants to communicate via electronic impulses. He gives his visiting wife a headset and special microphone to allow her to listen to the flowers in his lab.

The flowers immediately rat out the husband, who has been cheating on her with his lab assistant. She pulls a revolver and murders them both on the spot.

The final segment, "Catnip", is based on a story by Robert Bloch.

Ronny, a veteran turned street thug, crosses paths with a black cat that belongs to a neighborhood witch.


After a few run-ins with the cat and being scolded by the witch, Ronny decides to take revenge by rigging a small explosive to its pet-door.

But the explosive unintentionally kills the witch instead.

The cat starts showing up everywhere Ronny goes, finally following him to his home, where it leaps through the bedroom window and hides under the bed.

In one of the creepiest moments of the series, Ronny peeks under the bed to look for the cat...

...only to be confronted with the twisting, hissing head of the witch!

Not so tough now, are we Ronny?


....
The final two episodes will be detailed in next post.