(1950-1952)
Circulating Episodes: 31
Produced by Chick MacGregor in 1950, these quality mysteries focused on the human mind and how an obsession with a twisted, singular idea can lead a person to a bizarre and horrifying end.
Amnesia
A sappy story about a guy, Robin, who has amnesia and is hired to pretend to be a woman’s lost love, finally returned but without his memory. Guess what? Yep. it’s really him, but then the mug figures out he had been blackmailing his own fiance’s father. After Robin learns what a scumbag criminal he is, the guy who set it all up, Painter, who is himself in love with Marian, says “She was always in love with you. I’ll step out of the way,” like a big pansy, and the dame cries how she knew about the blackmail all along and doesn’t care because: True Love. (Of course, her pop did say he’d rather see Marian dead before she’d marry Robin!) In my mind-canon, the sherry she pours for him at the end… is poisoned in retribution! But that’s not how it goes in the story.
Case of The Living Dead, The
On his Honeymoon to England, Investigator Bill Christopher and his wife Pat are asked to help prevent another death of the archaeologists who opened the tomb of the Pharaoh Amon Ra-Tep. Sir Richard believes they are cursed for profaning the tomb, as the six who entered before him have all died suddenly! He’s right. Death follows the Egyptian servant Aram Sed as he offers a scarab ring to each of the transgressors!
Cousin Charlie
Jake Crowley has embezzled ten grand from work, and he and his wife Trina have until Monday to come up with replacement cash. By chance, Cousin Charlie comes to visit and has just sold some property for exactly $10,000 in cash! Jake and Trina try to fake his suicide and fail, so they cut the brakes on the car. Then comes a heads-up phone call from a friend at work: investigators are on their way over right now!
Holiday House
When a buyer arrives to take possession of a mansion put on the market after the owner Mrs. Holiday, “accidentally” shot her husband during a hunting party. The buyer, Mr. Marshall, is prevented from conversing with Mrs. Holiday by her doctor and family friend Lloyd, who immediately has her committed to an asylum. Mr. Marshall discovers phony prescriptions… and a bullet still in the chamber of the gun that supposedly killed Mr. Holiday! (Turns out he kinda deserved it.) But Lloyd just wants what’s his!
Kiss of Kismet, The
During a mountain expedition in India (to the village of Tabo, in Himachal Pradesh in the Himalayas, home of a thousand year-old monastery favored by the Dalai Lama,) we learn that a married woman has fallen in love with another man in the caravan. Clive and Grace resolve to break it to her cruel, overbearing husband that she is leaving him when they reach camp. But Clive’s turn is up when they need a man to test the width of the trail along the high ridge. There is, of course, a slide. (They were given fair warning by a mysterious monk who just disappeared.) Grace then becomes obsessed with her lost love, but the Lamayouro Monastery somehow calls to her… and there, just as Clive’s voice is about to reach out from beyond, …the show ends! Roll credits!
Paranoia
(Vincent Price) During transport to prison, a prisoner gets the best of his guard, and when a woman has to share their train car, she wonders why the man handcuffed to the officer is bleeding… and dead. The killer coerces her to unlock the cuffs, then jumps out the window on a slow curve, planning to steal the cops’ identity. The criminal is supposed to be “paranoid;” they use the term improperly, but its superfluous to the story. No plot and a tacked-on spin ending, but Price makes the tension fun.
Raised From the Dead, The
Crime. A trio fake a friend’s death to break him out of prison, but once he draws a map to where the loot is buried, it all goes for nothing. One by one, the rest of the mob drops, and the moll stands alone. Her crazy voice is something else!
Shadow of Huntley House, The
A woman decides she’s got a chance at her twin sister’s newly acquired inheritance… by taking her place! She kills her husband after he aides in dumping the body. She is almost successful, but murder runs in the family!
Silver Cord, The
The woman who took Sarah in when she was orphaned has her wrapped around her finger. Every time Sarah tries to go out, even just to the town dance, her old lady fakes an illness or complains to keep her caretaker home. Why? Because she’s afraid to lose her, afraid she’ll run off and marry that no-good young man, Jason! At the last moment, Granny reveals that Sarah has madness in her family, so she can never marry! It’s a tense episode, and entertaining, but the ending is abrupt, and so out of character for Granny, it’s impossible to buy.
Solitary Genius, The
A bizarre rendition of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven and an extremely condensed version of Fall of The House of Usher. The framing story is a biopic of Poe. It’s a creepy little short, the highpoint being the sound bite of an actual bird cackling something that sounds like a strangled “nevermore”
Tailored For Murder
This boy Hector is hard to feel sorry for because he’s such a pushover for his girl. (I think these were high school kids?) One day a hitchhiker gifts Hector an expensive, imported, bespoke overcoat and hat. Yes, you guessed again! The wearer of this coat was implicated in a murder, and guess who’s about to be on trial for it? Phyllis, his alibi, wants him to keep it all hush hush, because that night she had snookered him into “borrowing” her daddy’s car, …and then ditched him for a party! How much will this guy take before he wises up? Will the snooty girl come to his defense, risking her father’s grouchiness to save Hector from the chair? Jeez, if she offers to marry him at the end, he better high-tail it away from this girl!
Windsong
Anne has second thoughts as a debonaire young man lures her away from her plain, safe-bet fiancee. Her brother-in-law tries to get rid of Brad by saying she’s not interested, but Anne finds out. Anne follows her heart in the end.