Journey to Midnight

Two episodes of the UK television serial "Journey to the Unknown", with Sebastian Cabot as our host (Joan Crawford's aid as co-hostess was either edited from the original telecast or has simply been deleted from the syndicated version). "Poor Butterfly" has Chad Everett being invited to a costume party where he knows no one but everyone knows him; it's an anticlimactic story mounted with such leisurely precision that it's enough to drive one batty. Episode 2, "The Indian Spirit Guide", is much better, with Julie Harris hoping to contact her dead husband, turning to impossibly handsome, impossibly masculine detective Tom Adams, who exposes fake mediums with alarming regularity; the short story is well-written and acted and has a twist or two. Neither presentation is particularly memorable, but the cynical edge in both is an amusing sign-of-the-times (these days, TV-movies have to establish their tone right from the start, driving all points home in the first act). Cabot, who later played host in the 1972 series "Ghost Story" (a.k.a. "Circle of Fear"), is a charming trickster himself, with a touch of playful foreboding in his delivery.