Robert Bloch on TV Part Eighteen: Alfred Hitchcock Presents/The Alfred Hitchcock Hour-Overview, Episode Guide, Rankings

by Jack Seabrook

"The Gloating Place"

Robert Bloch had a hand in ten episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and seven episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. In the fifth season of the half-hour series he had two stories adapted by other writers (“The Cure” and “Madame Mystery”) and adapted another writer’s story himself (“The Cuckoo Clock”). In season six, he adapted two of his own stories (“The Changing Heart” and “The Gloating Place”) and he adapted two stories by other writers (“The Greatest Monster of Them All” and “The Landlady”). In season seven, he adapted two of his own stories (“The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” and “The Big Kick”) and one story by another (“Bad Actor”).

The show expanded to an hour with season eight and Bloch adapted a novel by another writer (“Annabel”). In season nine, he adapted one of his own stories (“A Home Away From Home”) and had another adapted by someone else (“The Sign of Satan”). For the final season, two of Bloch’s stories were adapted by other writers (“Water’s Edge” and  “Final Performance”) and he adapted two stories by others (“The Second Wife” and “Off Season”).

Episodes based on stories by Robert Bloch but with teleplays by other writers:

“The Cure”
“Madame Mystery”
“The Sign of Satan”
“Water’s Edge”
“Final Performance”

Episodes with teleplays by Robert Bloch based on stories by other writers:

“The Cuckoo Clock”
“The Greatest Monster of Them All”
“The Landlady”
“Bad Actor”
“Annabel”
“The Second Wife”
“Off Season”

Episodes where Bloch adapted his own stories:

“The Changing Heart”
“The Gloating Place”
“The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”
“The Big Kick”
“A Home Away From Home”

All were aired on CBS or NBC except for “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” which was only shown in syndication.

"The Greatest Monster of Them All"

Episode Guide:

Episode title-“The Cure”
Series-Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Broadcast date- 24 January 1960
Teleplay by- Michael Pertwee
Based on-“The Cure” by Robert Bloch
First print appearance-Playboy October 1957
Notes
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Available on DVD?-Yes

Episode title-“Madame Mystery”
Series-Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Broadcast date- 27 March 1960
Teleplay by- William Fay
Based on-“Is Betsey Blake Still Alive?” by Robert Bloch
First print appearance-Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine April 1958
Notes
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Available on DVD?-Yes

Episode title-“The Cuckoo Clock”
Series-Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Broadcast date- 17 April 1960
Teleplay by- Robert Bloch
Based on-“The Man in the Raincoat” by Frank Mace
First print appearance-London Mystery Magazine December 1958
Notes
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Available on DVD?-Yes

Episode title-“The Changing Heart”
Series-Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Broadcast date- 3 January 1961
Teleplay by- Robert Bloch
Based on-“Change of Heart” by Robert Bloch
First print appearance-The Arkham Sampler Winter 1948
Notes
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Available on DVD?-No

Episode title-“The Greatest Monster of Them All”
Series-Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Broadcast date- 14 February 1961
Teleplay by- Robert Bloch
Based on-“The Greatest Monster of Them All” by Bryce Walton
First print appearance-Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine May 1959
Notes
Watch episode
Available on DVD?-No

"The Changing Heart"

Episode title-“The Landlady”
Series-Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Broadcast date- 21 February 1961
Teleplay by- Robert Bloch
Based on-“The Landlady” by Roald Dahl
First print appearance-The New Yorker 28 November 1959
Notes
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Available on DVD?-No

Episode title-“The Gloating Place”
Series-Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Broadcast date- 16 May 1961
Teleplay by- Robert Bloch
Based on-“The Gloating Place” by Robert Bloch
First print appearance-Rogue June 1959
Notes
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Available on DVD?-No

Episode title-“The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”
Series-Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Broadcast date- syndication only
Teleplay by- Robert Bloch
Based on-“The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” by Robert Bloch
First print appearance-Weird Tales January 1949
Notes
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Available on DVD?-Yes

Episode title-“Bad Actor”
Series-Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Broadcast date- 9 January 1962
Teleplay by- Robert Bloch
Based on-“The Geniuses” by Max Franklin (Richard Deming)
First print appearance-Manhunt June 1957
Notes
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Available on DVD?-No

Episode title-“The Big Kick”
Series-Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Broadcast date- 19 June 1962
Teleplay by- Robert Bloch
Based on-“The Big Kick” by Robert Bloch
First print appearance-Rogue July 1959
Notes
Watch episode
Available on DVD?-No

"Bad Actor"

Episode title-“Annabel”
Series-The Alfred Hitchcock Hour
Broadcast date- 1 November 1962
Teleplay by- Robert Bloch
Based on-This Sweet Sickness by Patricia Highsmith
First print appearance-1960 (novel)
Notes
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Available on DVD?-No

Episode title-“A Home Away From Home”
Series-The Alfred Hitchcock Hour
Broadcast date- 27 September 1963
Teleplay by- Robert Bloch
Based on-“A Home Away From Home” by Robert Bloch
First print appearance-Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine June 1961
Notes
Watch episode-unavailable online
Available on DVD?-No

Episode title-“The Sign of Satan”
Series-The Alfred Hitchcock Hour
Broadcast date- 8 May 1964
Teleplay by- Barre Lyndon
Based on-“Return to the Sabbath” by Robert Bloch
First print appearance-Weird Tales July 1938
Notes
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Available on DVD?-No

Episode title-“Water’s Edge”
Series-The Alfred Hitchcock Hour
Broadcast date-19 October 1964
Teleplay by- Alfred Hayes
Based on-“Water’s Edge” by Robert Bloch
First print appearance-Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine September 1956
Notes
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Available on DVD?-No

"Annabel"

Episode title-“Final Performance”
Series-The Alfred Hitchcock Hour
Broadcast date- 18 January 1965
Teleplay by-Clyde Ware and Lee Kalcheim
Based on-“The Final Performance” by Robert Bloch
First print appearance-Shock September 1960
Notes
Watch episode-unavailable online
Available on DVD?-No

Episode title-“The Second Wife”
Series-The Alfred Hitchcock Hour
Broadcast date- 26 April 1965
Teleplay by-Robert Bloch
Based on-“The Lonely Heart” by Richard Deming
First print appearance-Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine December 1964
Notes
Watch episode
Available on DVD?-No

Episode title-“Off Season”
Series-The Alfred Hitchcock Hour
Broadcast date- 10 May 1965
Teleplay by-Robert Bloch
Based on-“Winter Run” by Edward D. Hoch
First print appearance-Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine January 1965
Notes
Watch episode-unavailable online
Available on DVD?-No

"The Sorcerer's Apprentice"

And finally, rankings (from best to worst):

Alfred Hitchcock Presents:

“The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”
“The Landlady”
“The Greatest Monster of Them All”
“The Cure”
“The Cuckoo Clock”
“Madame Mystery”
“The Changing Heart”
“The Big Kick”
“Bad Actor”
“The Gloating Place”

The Alfred Hitchcock Hour:

“Water’s Edge”
“A Home Away From Home”
“Annabel”
“The Second Wife”
“Final Performance”
“Off Season”
“The Sign of Satan”

COMING IN TWO WEEKS: SHATNER MEETS HITCHCOCK!

"The Sign of Satan"

Robert Bloch on TV Part Four- Alfred Hitchcock Presents: “The Changing Heart"

by Jack Seabrook

Have you ever had the experience of reading a story that really excited you and then being disappointed at the filmed adaptation? Such was my reaction to “The Changing Heart,” adapted by Robert Bloch from his short story, “Change of Heart.”

After having a hand in three episodes of season five of Alfred Hitchcock Presents¸ Robert Bloch’s first episode for the sixth season was “The Changing Heart,” broadcast on January 3, 1961. During the first five seasons, the series had been shown on CBS on Sunday nights. For season six, it moved to Tuesday nights on NBC. “The Changing Heart” was the first time Bloch adapted one of his own stories for the Hitchcock program.

“Change of Heart” was first published in the winter 1948 issue of the short-lived magazine, The Arkham Sampler. It is set in New York City and narrated by a young man who inherited an old watch from his uncle. After learning that the jeweler at an expensive shop does not think it worth fixing, the young man happens on the small Greenwich Village shop of watchmaker Ulrich Klemm. Clocks are everywhere in his basement shop.

Bloch’s writing in this story is lyrical. The clocks are described as if they were living things: the narrator tells us that “the face of the grandfather’s clock leaned forward.” Klemm agrees to repair the watch and his beautiful granddaughter Lisa emerges from the back of the shop. The narrator compares her voice to those of the chiming clocks, and she is described as having “golden hair and silver flesh,” two metals used in watches.

The narrator also feels like a timepiece, writing that “something leapt in rhythm deep in my chest.” This is Bloch’s way of foreshadowing the story’s shocking dénouement. The narrator accepts a dinner invitation and listens as Klemm talks of clocks and his beloved home country of Switzerland. Lisa cuts her finger and the narrator bandages it, demonstrating by her flowing blood that she is a human being, something we will wonder about at the end of the story.



Abraham Sofaer as Ulrich Klemm

 The narrator goes home and dreams of Lisa, then returns to the shop often, listening to Klemm’s stories for hours on end and learning that the old man’s father had wanted him to be a surgeon but that he preferred repairing clocks. The narrator begins to take Lisa out, soon falling in love and proposing marriage. She says that she cannot leave her grandfather because he depends on her; Bloch writes that she shook her head no, “like an automaton.” When the narrator tells the old man that he wants to take Lisa away, the clocks say no and so do Klemm and Lisa. She was “the old man’s masterpiece. He had spent years perfecting her pattern of obedient reaction.”

The narrator leaves and accepts a job in Detroit. Months later he returns to New York and hears that Lisa is dead. A friend had seen Klemm, who told him that his granddaughter had had a heart attack and was dying. The friend later saw a wreath on the door of Klemm’s shop.



Nicholas Pryor as Dane Ross

The narrator goes to the shop, knocks on the door, and is let in and welcomed by Lisa, yet all of the clocks are strangely silent. Lisa tells him that Klemm saved her but that the stress of doing so caused his own death. She has not eaten or slept since the old man died. The narrator turns on a light and sees that the girl is “white and waxen, her eyes blank and empty, her body wasted.” He takes her in his arms and puts his head to her chest, only to run screaming from “that shop of shadows and silence.” From her chest he had heard “not a heartbeat, but a faint, unmistakable ticking.”

“Change of Heart” is a beautifully written story of love and horror, one of the best pieces of writing I’ve read by Robert Bloch since I began this project. I was excited to watch Bloch’s own adaptation for Alfred Hitchcock Presents, which begins (coincidentally?) with Hitchcock emerging from a grandfather clock that cuckoos! Recall that Bloch’s last episode of the series, the prior spring, had been “The Cuckoo Clock.”

In adapting his story for television, Bloch did a very good job of expanding it and opening it up, setting scenes outside the little clockmaker’s shop and contrasting the claustrophobic interior with more open exteriors. The most disappointing aspect of the filmed episode is the casting. As Dane Ross, the narrator of the story, the producers cast Nicholas Pryor, who was 25 years old at the time. Seeing him today I cannot help but think of his roles in Risky Business (as Tom Cruise’s father) and, especially, Airplane!, as a sick airline passenger. He tries to be earnest but he just doesn’t look like someone who would sweep the lonely granddaughter of an old clockmaker off her feet.

Also problematic is the casting of Abraham Sofaer as Ulrich Klemm. Sofaer was born in 1896 in Burma and was of Burmese and Jewish ancestry. Despite his efforts at a German accent, his olive complexion, protruding eyes and unkempt hair do not fit my mental picture of an old Swiss clockmaker.

Bloch’s script for the show is outstanding. The plot generally follows that of the story with some minor changes: Klemm, not the young man, bandages Lisa’s finger, and the friend only referred to in the story appears in the filmed version and goes to a Bavarian-themed restaurant with the young lovers. Bloch uses foreshadowing again, and clock phrases and imagery are pervasive—when Lisa cuts her finger, she says she cut her “minute hand.” The young man is transferred to Seattle, rather than Detroit (there is no explanation for this change—perhaps Detroit was thought to be too close to New York in the world of 1960, where air travel was more affordable and common than it had been in 1948, when the story was published).



Anne Helm as Lisa

 Dane (the young man is named Dane Ross in the television adaptation) asks Lisa if her grandfather “can carry her around on the end of a chain, like this watch” and says that “he’s turned you into a piece of clockwork that he can wind up.” Most different from the story is the way Klemm seems to exert a hypnotic influence over Lisa. When he speaks to her, the background music sounds like a clock striking, and she obeys as if in a trance. Dane remarks: “you’ve turned her into an automaton.” Earlier in the show, Klemm had mentioned leaving his automatons behind when he left Europe.

Near the end of the story, the teleplay dramatizes Dane’s friend’s visit to Klemm’s shop, where Klemm tells him “I will not let her die!” as he refuses to consider calling a doctor. At the end, when Dane visits the shop for the last time, he has to break a window in the locked door to let himself in. Lisa does not welcome him and speak to him; instead, he first finds Klemm dead at his workbench, then goes behind a curtain into a back room where he finds Lisa, sitting immobile in a wheelchair, a doll-like smile on her face. She neither speaks nor moves, and we hear a loud ticking. Dane puts his ear to her chest and looks up in shock; the camera then pulls back to reveal Klemm’s masterpiece.

Robert Sampson

This final scene of “The Changing Heart” must have been pretty shocking when it first aired in early January 1961. The horror of the beautiful young woman with a clockwork heart is reminiscent of similar horrors that were airing on NBC's Thriller, which had debuted the prior fall and to which Robert Bloch also contributed many episodes. In fact, Thriller followed Alfred Hitchcock Presents on Tuesday evenings. The prior week, Thriller had aired "The Cheaters," based on a story by Bloch, and on January 3, 1961, Thriller aired "The Hungry Glass," which guaranteed a terrifying evening for viewers lucky enough to tune in to both programs.

"The Changing Heart", was directed by Robert Florey, born in Paris in 1900 and working in films from the early 1920s. Some of his efforts in the thriller genre included Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932), The Beast with Five Fingers (1946), and “The Incredible Dr. Markesan” on Thriller. "The Changing Heart" was the first episode of the Hitchcock series that he directed; he also directed three episodes of The Twilight Zone, including “Perchance to Dream” and “The Fever.” His work with shadows often created an uneasy world that seemed like a bad dream.



Baruch Lumet

Also in the cast were the lovely Anne Helm, born in 1938 and 22 when this was filmed. She is perfectly cast as the young and innocent Lisa, though her innocence may have been long gone by the time she appeared with Elvis Presley in Follow That Dream (1962) and briefly moved into his house right after filming ended.

Robert Sampson played Dane’s friend; he appeared in many episodes of various TV series and was seen on TV as recently as 2008. Finally, Baruch Lumet (1989-1992) makes a brief, non-speaking appearance playing the concertina in the Bavarian restaurant; he was well known in Yiddish theater but is probably best known as the father of director Sidney Lumet.
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“Change of Heart” was reprinted in the 1962 paperback collection of Bloch stories, Atoms and Evil, as well as in the fall 1984 issue of Weird Tales.

Sources:

Bloch, Robert. "Change of Heart." Atoms and Evil. Greenwich: Fawcett, 1962. 129-34. Print.

"The Changing Heart." Alfred Hitchcock Presents. NBC. 3 Jan. 1961. Television.

Galactic Central. Web. 29 Nov. 2011. <http://philsp.com/>.

Grams, Martin, and Patrik Wikstrom. The Alfred Hitchcock Presents Companion. Churchville, MD: OTR Pub., 2001. Print.

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). Web. 29 Nov. 2011. <http://www.imdb.com/>.

Internet Speculative Fiction DataBase. Web. 29 Nov. 2011. <http://isfdb.org/>.

Wikipedia. Web. 29 Nov. 2011. <http://www.wikipedia.org/>.

Robert Bloch on TV Part Seven-Alfred Hitchcock Presents: "The Gloating Place"

Susan Harrison as Susan 

by Jack Seabrook

“The Gloating Place” marked the second time that Robert Bloch adapted one of his own stories for Alfred Hitchcock Presents. The first had been “The Changing Heart.” The story is one of subtle horror, where Bloch uses slang and the perspective of a teenager’s mind to diffuse the terrible things that are happening. This has two effects—it makes the events more palatable while demonstrating the callous evil of the vapid teenage girl who is the story’s protagonist.

The masked killer approaches.

Susan Harper, a high school student, goes to her gloating place, “a small ravine at the far end of the park where she could sit without being noticed or disturbed.” Right away, we learn what kind of person she is: she wishes that her parents would die in a plane crash so that she could receive insurance money. “She was alone and nobody ever paid any attention to her,” so a week before she had claimed that a man had attacked her in a vacant lot. The result “had been a real gasser,” since she began to receive attention from classmates, her family and police. When she had to identify a suspect in a police lineup, it was “the dreamiest-creamiest of all.”

When a car accident results in “three cars wrecked and two people killed,” she is upset because it diverts attention from her. Bloch describes her: “the fat, foreshortened body, the plump, pimply face, the hair the color of the brown, muddy water.” She admits to herself that the biggest reason for her lie was “to get Tom Reynolds to notice her.” In order to regain the attention she craves, she hatches a plan and murders Marjorie, Tom’s girlfriend. Bloch does not describe the actual murder; what happened only becomes evident later, as the story is filtered through Susan’s shallow, teenage mind. 

Susan reaches out to grab Marjorie.

Once again the center of attention, Susan wants some time to herself, so she sneaks off to the gloating place, where she recalls carrying out Marjorie’s murder, strangling the girl until she was “just a big, boneless pig doll that was no good to Tom Reynolds or to anybody.” She gazes at her own reflection in the water, certain that she has not changed, now comforted by her familiarly ugly appearance. Just then, she sees the reflection of a man behind her, as his gloved hands “closed over her throat.”

Bloch's story is one of subtle but powerful horror, in which a killer gets her comeuppance in a twist ending. He had a difficult challenge in adapting the story for television, since the tale is told mostly through the thoughts of the main character. The script is passable, but there are some problems with the program that make it one of the less successful Bloch/Hitchcock efforts thus far. The first, and probably the biggest, problem is the casting of the lead. Susan is played by Susan Harrison, an actress probably best known for playing the ballerina on the Twilight Zone episode, "Five Characters in Search of an Exit." She was born in 1938, making her 22 or 23 years old when “The Gloating Place” was filmed in the spring of 1961. Harrison is too pretty to play the Susan of the story, and her acting abilities are not equal to the task of explaining why such an attractive young woman would be so psychologically damaged as to commit the crimes she does. In the story, Bloch describes her as ugly and unpopular, but in the show, she just seems odd. The rest of the cast is not much better. Worst of all is Erin O’Brien-Moore, as Susan’s mother, whose histrionics seem out of place with the rest of the low key acting on exhibit. 

The most interesting cast note is that Marjorie, the girl Susan kills, is played by a very young Marta Kristen. Born in 1945 and aged 15 or 16 when this was filmed, Kristen’s coltish beauty is perfectly suited to her role. She would later become famous as Judy Robinson on Lost in Space, and she still makes appearances and has her own website. One other interesting cast note is that one of the other high school girls is played by Monica Henreid, daughter of actor/director Paul Henreid, who directed "The Landlady," Bloch’s prior script for this series.

“The Gloating Place” was directed by Alan Crosland, Jr., who lived from 1918 to 2001 and directed scores of episodes of series television, including 20 for the Hitchcock series. The first time I watched the show, I was disappointed in how it had been adapted from the printed page, and I thought that the director might be to blame. However, on re-watching it, I noticed a number of interesting camera setups and lighting choices. The scenes at the gloating place are filmed by contrasting shots of Susan with shots of her reflection in a pool of water. When she first has the idea to fake having been attacked, the voices of her classmates echo around her as the camera cuts and pans from one eerie, leafless tree to the next. The effect shows just how alone Susan feels. 

Marta Kristen in "The Gloating Place"

Marta Kristen on Lost in Space

Susan reflected in the glass at the lineup.

Another nicely filmed sequence is the lineup in the police station. Susan and the policemen sit behind one way glass and the room is lit in a high contrast, noir style.

The last sequence is effectively planned, shot and edited to show a brutal attack on a young woman without really showing anything, and it is thus very effective and almost daring for a network television program in 1961. 

The final twist.

“The Gloating Place” was first published in the June 1959 issue of Rogue and it was reprinted in Blood Runs Cold (1961) and Bitter Ends (1990). The television adaptation was broadcast on NBC on Tuesday, May 16, 1961, at 8:30 on the East Coast. It was up against The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, another teen-oriented show, on CBS, and at 9 o’clock on NBC, the “Terror in Teakwood” episode of Thriller aired, directed by Paul Henreid, whose daughter had appeared in “The Gloating Place.”

The show was remade for the 1980s revival of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and broadcast on January 5, 1986; it can be viewed here. The original episode is not yet available on DVD but can be viewed here.

Sources: 

Bloch, Robert. "The Gloating Place." Bitter Ends: The Complete Stories of Robert Bloch, Volume Two. New York, NY: Citadel, 1990. 257-64. Print. 

Galactic Central. Web. 16 Jan. 2012. <http://philsp.com/>.  "The Gloating Place." Alfred Hitchcock Presents. NBC. 16 May 1961. Television.  Grams, Martin, and Patrik Wikstrom. The Alfred Hitchcock Presents Companion. Churchville, MD: OTR Pub., 2001. Print. The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). Web. 16 Jan. 2012. <http://www.imdb.com/>. Marta Kristen - The Official Website. Web. 16 Jan. 2012. <http://martakristen.com>. Wikipedia. Web. 16 Jan. 2012. <http://www.wikipedia.org/>.

Robert Bloch on TV Part Six-Alfred Hitchcock Presents: "The Landlady"

by Jack Seabrook

Dean Stockwell, on his way to being stuffed.

For his third teleplay of the sixth season of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Robert Bloch was assigned to adapt Roald Dahl's short story, "The Landlady," which had won the 1960 Edgar Award for best short story. Originally published in the November 28, 1959 issue of The New Yorker, the story follows 17 year old Billy Weaver as he arrives in Bath from London by train on a cold night, looking for a place to stay before taking his place in the business world. Young and naive, he imitates the brisk walk he has observed in successful businessmen.

He sees a sign advertising Bed and Breakfast in a cozy setting; through the window he sees a comfortable room. He starts toward a pub, the Bell and Dragon, for more congenial companionship, yet feels compelled to ring the bell at the house. A middle-aged woman welcomes him in as if she had been waiting for him and offers him a room at the "fantastically cheap" rates of five shillings and sixpence a night. "She looked exactly like the mother of one's best school-friend welcoming one into the house to stay for the Christmas holidays." There is no evidence of another lodger, as she guides Billy through her "little nest" and shows him his room.

After washing up, Billy goes down to the living room, thinking "this is a bit of all right." He signs the guest book and notices that the two entries before his were made by Christopher Mulholland and Gregory Temple. The names sound familiar but he can't recall why. The landlady fixes Billy tea and a biscuit as he tries to remember where he had heard those names before. Billy notices a faint odor emanating from the landlady, who admits that Mulholland and Temple are both still there, on the third floor. She adds that Temple was 28 years old and had not "a blemish on his body." Billy notices that the parrot in the room's birdcage is stuffed. The landlady takes credit, and points out that the dachshund on the floor is stuffed as well. "I stuff all my little pets myself when they pass away." Billy notices that his tea tastes of bitter almonds.

The story ends with the landlady telling Billy that there have been no other guests beside Mulholland and Temple in the last two or three years. The subtle message is that Billy is about to join them, as another of the pets she will kill and stuff for her collection.

Roald Dahl has been celebrated as a writer of wonderful stories for adults and children for decades. As Jeremy Treglown writes, in his introduction to the Everyman's Library collection of Dahl's stories, "his work is part of the mid twentieth century revival of gothic, particularly the vogue for 'sick humor.'" Dahl was born  in 1916 and lived till 1990.

It was fitting that Robert Bloch was assigned to adapt "The Landlady" for television, since he shared an affinity for the gothic style and sick humor. The Alfred Hitchcock Presents version aired on February 21, 1961, just a week after Bloch's last contribution to this series, "The Greatest Monster of Them All." Watching the show and comparing it to the story demonstrates Bloch's knack for making small changes to fit the material to the medium.

The setting of the tale is changed from Bath to "a provincial town in England," according to a superimposed title at the beginning of the show. This town is soon identified as Bramley by Wilkins, the bartender at a pub at which the first scene takes place. Bloch added this entire scene to help establish the English location and also to set up a red herring that will continue throughout the episode--the bartender and three patrons discuss a burglary in Bramley. Billy Weaver enters the pub, having just arrived by train, and soon uses a Swiss Army knife to open a jammed cash register. Billy, bespectacled and seemingly erudite despite his youth, stands out in the pub. The men in the pub exchange glances and the inference is that Billy's skill at opening locks could mean he is the burglar.



Burt Mustin, George Pelling, Barry Harvey, and Laurie Main

Billy then leaves the pub and walks around a foggy corner, immediately finding the landlady's home. There is no sign of the strange compulsion that draws Billy to ring the doorbell in the story; perhaps Bloch reasoned that it would be difficult to portray this internal motivation on film. Bloch then follows the story closely, even using lines of dialogue from Dahl's original, such as having the landlady refer to her "little nest." Billy mentions the rumor about a burglar that he had heard in the pub (keeping the red herring alive), but the landlady asks, "who'd want to harm an old lady like me?"

Alone in his room, Billy reads aloud a letter he has written to a friend, allowing Bloch to express directly some expository details that had been narrated in the story. He again mentions the burglary scare. Bloch cleverly added the idea of a burglar to the tale to divert attention from what is really going on. Unlike the story, which takes place in the course of an evening, the teleplay has Billy stay the night in his room and join the landlady downstairs the next morning for breakfast. It is raining and she advises against going outside.

In another change from the source, the landlady invites Billy to find out if the other two lodgers are still there. She shows him their coats and hats hanging in the hall and remarks, "you see, they did come back." In a lovely sequence, she tells Billy that they get together every Sunday afternoon and she plays the old hymns. Temple's favorite, she says, is "All Things Bright and Beautiful"--ironic, since the next line of this hymn is "All creatures great and small," creatures she kills and stuffs!

Patricia Collinge as the landlady

Billy notices that the overcoats are dry, even though it is raining outside. The landlady disappears upstairs and begins to play the organ; to the strains of the hymns, Billy ascends the stairs and investigates another lodger's room. This is filmed by alternating point of view shots with shots of Billy's reactions; the directorial trick is unusual for this series, which typically utilizes standard closeups and middle distance shots to tell ts stories. Billy finds a suitcase with some valuables inside, but otherwise the room is strangely empty.

The final scene takes place in the first floor parlor, as the landlady announces that she heard on the radio that the burglar has been caught. The burglar thread of the story thus is closed, and the viewer is slowly led to the horror of the tale's real denouement. Bloch's final addition is very subtle. The landlady asks Billy if  the silly register is in his way, referring to the guest register. Yet a careful viewer will realize that, in the opening pub scene, Billy was able to unlock the cash register, yet his subsequent inability to unlock the mystery of the landlady's guest register will prove fatal.

The end of the television adaptation is more demonstrative than the end of the story--the landlady tells Billy that "I stuff all my little pets when they pass away," and he seems to slip into paralysis. As he sits on the sofa, immobile, she announces: "Well, my pet, time to join the others!" as the camera cuts between her stuffed, dog, Basil, and Billy, who will soon be stuffed. While not as understated as the story, this is very subtle for a television program, and brilliantly done.




Jill Livesey as Rosie, in the pub

"The Landlady" was directed by Paul Henried (1908-1992), who was best known as an actor for playing Victor Laszlo, Humphrey Bogart's rival in Casablanca (1942), but who became a director, mostly of episodic TV, in 1952. He directed 28 episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and one of the Alfred Hitchcock Hour. "The Landlady" stars Dean Stockwell (born 1936) as Billy and Patricia Collinge (1892-1974) as the landlady. Stockwell began his career as a child actor in Hollywood and played many memorable roles, but for me he will always be remembered for the TV series Quantum Leap (1989-1993). Collinge was on stage from 1904 and in movies from 1941; she appeared on the Hitchcock series six times and had a role in Hitchcock's film, Shadow of a Doubt (1943).

The other five cast members appear in the initial pub scene. Most memorable was Burt Mustin (1884-1977), who doesn't say a word but who plays an old man as he did in so many other TV shows from 1951 to 1976.

The Hitchcock episode of "The Landlady" is not yet available on DVD but can be viewed online here. The original short story has been reprinted often, most prominently in Dahl's 1960 collection Kiss Kiss, his 1979 collection, Tales of the Unexpected, and the posthumous 2006 Collected Stories.

"The Landlady" was adapted for TV a second time, as the April 21, 1979 episode of Tales of the Unexpected. Robert Bloch did not write the teleplay. The episode is available on DVD and can also be viewed online here.

Sources:

Dahl, Roald. "The Landlady." Roald Dahl Collected Stories. New York: Everyman's Library, 2006. 635-44. Print.

Grams, Martin, and Patrik Wikstrom. The Alfred Hitchcock Presents Companion. Churchville, MD: OTR Pub., 2001. Print.

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). Web. 03 Jan. 2012. <http://www.imdb.com/>.

"The Landlady." Alfred Hitchcock Presents. NBC. 21 Feb. 1961. Television.

"The New Yorker" A Web Site for New Yorkers. Web. 03 Jan. 2012. <http://www.thenewyorker.com>.

Tales Of The Unexpected Episode Guide to Tv Series. Web. 04 Jan. 2012. <http://www.tales-of-the-unexpected-episodes.com>.

Treglown, Jeremy. "Appendix." Roald Dahl Collected Stories. New York: Everyman's Library, 2006. 849-50. Print.

Treglown, Jeremy. "Chronology." Roald Dahl Collected Stories. New York: Everyman's Library, 2006. Xxiv-xxvii. Print.

Treglown, Jeremy. "Introduction." Roald Dahl Collected Stories. New York: Everyman's Library, 2006. Ix-Xxi. Print.

Wikipedia. Web. 03 Jan. 2012. <http://www.wikipedia.org/>.

Weird Tales: So What's It All About?

by Peter Enfantino

There’s been a lot of talk lately over on our sister blog, A Thriller a day, about the importance of Weird Tales in regards to the Boris Karloff series Thriller. That’s just a small portion of the importance “the unique magazine” had on the genre during its’ initial reign from 1923 through 1954. But how to experience the charm, magic and horror that this pulp emitted while not going broke purchasing rotting chunks of dust? There is a way and I shall tell you. There have been hundreds of collections that reprinted one or two WT stories, but we’ll concentrate on those multiple author collections that are built predominately (or altogether) from Weird Tales. The easiest way to find these books is to search for them on eBay or abebooks.com. There are several sharks in the water who will charge what they want to charge, not what the book is worth (perfect example, the Marvin Kaye collection below can be found on abe for $3.64 up to $99.99), so be careful.

Weird Tales (Pyramid pb, 1964) edited by Leo Margulies, with a nice Virgil Finlay cover. Margulies was a very good collector in several different genres. This was one of my first exposures to Weird Tales so it has quite a bit of sentimental favor going for it. Having said that, it’s still a solid collection of not-anthologized-to-death tales.

What’s it got? 8 stories. Standouts include “The Man Who Returned” by Edmond Hamilton, “The Drifting Snow” by August Derleth (winter vampires!), “Pigeons From Hell” by Robert E. Howard, and my personal favorite, Fritz Leiber’s “Spider Mansion,” tailor made for the gothic eccentricities of Thriller, and yet, sadly, not dramatized. Reprinted by Jove in 1979 with the famous “batgirl” cover by Margaret Brundage.

Worlds of Weird (Pyramid pb, 1965) edited by Leo Margulies, with another Finlay cover. A quickie sequel (issued just seven months later), but still stuffed with quality fiction.

What’s it got? “Roads” by Seabury Quinn (I recall reading somewhere that this was voted one of the most popular stories to appear in WT), “Mother of Toads” by Clark Ashton Smith, and Robert E. Howard’s “Valley of the Worm.” This was reissued by Jove in 1978 with the same “batgirl” Brudage cover. Only difference was that this cover was in a green shade whereas the above book was issued in a red shade.

There were also two earlier paperbacks in Leo Margulies WT reprint series, neither of which had Weird Tales in its title. Regardless, they were made up of WT stories. The first was The Unexpected (Pyramid, 1961).

What’s it got? “The Valley was Still” by Manly Wade Wellman, “The Strange Island of Doctor Nork” by Robert Bloch and Margaret St. Clair’s “Mrs. Hawk” (filmed for Thriller) and 8 more.

The second was The Ghoul Keepers (Pyramid, 1961) with 9 more stories.

What’s it got? “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” by Robert Bloch (infamously filmed for Alfred Hitchcock), “Spawn of Dagon” by Henry Kuttner, and Ray Bradbury’s “The Lake.”

Weird Tales (Neville Spearman HC, 1976) edited by Peter Haining. 23 stories, most from the 1930s and 40s, with a cover by Harold S. DeLay (from the October 1939 issue). This was reprinted in paperback by Sphere (London) and in America in 1990 by Carroll & Graf (with a variant cover).

What’s it got? “Ooze” by Margaret St. Clair, “The Beasts of Barsac” by Bloch, and "The Shuttered House" by Derleth. This was a unique book in that Haining designed it as a facsimile of an actual issue of WT (though no single issue of WT contained 23 stories) including The Eyrie (letters page) and house ads.

Weird Legacies (Star pb, 1977) edited by Mike Ashley. A British paperback with a foreword by Robert Bloch.

What’s it got? 9 stories including the essential “He That Hath Wings” by Edmond Hamilton, and several collaborations (among them Lovecraft/Derleth and Bloch/Kuttner).

Weird Tales (Nelson, Doubleday hardcover, 1988) edited by Marvin Kaye with a sharp Richard Kriegler jacket painting. Reprinted in 1996 by Barnes and Noble.

What’s it got? 44 stories, the majority of which appeared in the first run of WT, including August Derleth’s “Mr. George,” and stories by Ray Bradbury, Robert Bloch, Robert E. Howard, H.G. Wells, Seabury Quinn, Fredric Brown, H. P. Lovecraft, and Richard Matheson.

Weird Tales - 32 Unearthed Terrors (Bonanza HC, 1988) edited by Robert Weinberg, Stefan R. Dziemianowicz, and Martin H. Greenberg (WDG), with a reprinting of the WT cover by Hannes Bok. This was the book that started the pulp reprint craze of the late 80s, early 90s. The WDG team edited several outstanding volumes of pulp stories from different genres. I believe this was their most popular.

What’s It Got? Nothing but Weird. The infamous “The Loved Dead’ by C.M. Eddy, Seabury Quinn’s Jules de Grandin in “Satan’s Stepson,” and “Come and Go Mad” by Fredric Brown. All the major (and many minor) WT authors are well represented.

Weird Vampire Tales (Gramercy HC, 1992) edited by WDG, with a reprinting of the WT cover.

What’s it got? 30 vampire stories, 17 gathered from WT, including “Howard’s “The Horror from the Mound,” and Carl Jacobi’s classic “Revelations in Black.” In addition, you get stories from Astounding, Strange Tales, Terror Tales, Horror Stories, and several other pulp zines.

100 Wild Little Weird Tales (Barnes & Noble HC, 1994) edited by WDG.

What’s it got? Just what the title tells you, 100 short short stories from WT’s first run. The fact that these are very short stories (most around 3 pages) means you’re going to get a lot of material new to reprinting. “Hypnos” by Lovecraft, “The Extra Passenger” by Derleth (filmed for Thriller), “Dark Rosaleen” by Seabury Quinn, etc.

The Best of Weird Tales: 1923 (Wildside Press tpb, 1997) edited by Marvin Kaye and John Gregory Betancourt, with a Stephen Fabian cover. This was supposed to be the first in a series but I don’t believe a second volume was ever published. Shame. This could have become the definitive collection of WT.

What’s it got? 13 stories collected from the magazine’s first year, including H.P. Lovecraft’s “Dagon.”

Weird Tales: Seven Decades of Terror (Barnes and Noble HC, 1997) 28 stories from the various incarnations of the magazine, 16 from the initial run, with a cover by Bob Eggleton (not taken from a Weird Tales cover but rather from a novel by Ray Garton!).

What’s it got? The weakest of all the WT collections, this one doesn’t offer much you can’t get elsewhere. There’s a little seen Derleth called “Pacific 421” and the oft-anthologized “Lucy Comes to Stay” by Bloch but, for my money, there’s too much of the new stuff here. To be fair, it is subtitled “Seven Decades of Terror” not “Four…”

In addition to 100 Wild Little Weird Tales, Weinberg, Dziemanowicz, and Greenberg edited a series of 13 more books (from 1993-1999), published by Barnes & Noble in hardback collecting 100 short short stories per volume. Many of these stories first saw a newsstand as a Weird Tale (Of course, none of these compares to the monster WDG known as Horrors! 365 Scary Stories). I think these are your best bet for good short horror fiction but I’m not going to take up column space listing them. Perhaps another column in the near future? I think so.

Robert Bloch on TV Part Five- Alfred Hitchcock Presents: “The Greatest Monster of Them All"

by Jack Seabrook

Robert Bloch’s second teleplay for season six of Alfred Hitchcock Presents was “The Greatest Monster of Them All,” broadcast by NBC on February 14, 1961. As the show opens, Hal Ballew sits in his office in a run-down Hollywood studio, reading a book on entomology and trying to find a new insect around which he can build a cheap monster movie. Director Morty Lenton chides him for his cheapness, suggesting a giant cockroach. Tipsy screenwriter Fred Logan arrives and, in place of a giant bug, Ballew suggests that he write a horror movie with a high school angle—playing youth against death. Logan brings up the name of Ernst Von Kroft, an old-time monster movie star.

Later, Ballew brings Von Kroft to his office and introduces him to Logan. Von Kroft takes his job seriously, wanting to create a horror picture “in the great tradition.” Ballew and Lenton don’t have the same aspirations; Lenton even suggests a toothless vampire.

The scene then shifts to the movie set, where the young cast takes a coffee break as Logan brings in new dialogue for the scene about to be filmed with Von Kroft. Von Kroft acts out a scene with starlet Lara Lee, putting his all into it, and Logan applauds his efforts. Lenton insists on close-ups of Von Kroft but won’t say why.

The great Sam Jaffe.

Once the movie has been released, Ballew sends Logan to a theater to take notes on audience reaction to his new picture; he mentions that Von Kroft will also be attending. As Logan watches the movie unfold, Von Kroft sits nearby, in a theater otherwise filled with teenagers. They appear to be frightened by the events onscreen until Von Kroft’s scene begins. Lenton dubbed a Bugs Bunny voice for all of Von Kroft’s lines, and the theater explodes with laughter. Logan is shocked and Von Kroft is angry and mortified.

William Redfield

Logan, drunk, visits Von Kroft at his apartment, only to find the old man distraught, wondering why Lenton made him look like a fool. Von Kroft pulls out his old makeup case and Logan passes out. On awakening, Logan goes to Ballew’s office and finds it empty. He continues on into the studio, exploring the darkened set of the recently-filmed motion picture. He finds Lenton dead, with two puncture wounds in his neck. Nearby, he finds Ballew injured. Ballew tells him that Von Kroft killed Lenton and is still on the loose.

Von Kroft, in full vampire makeup and with knife in hand, leaps from a catwalk above Logan and Ballew but breaks his neck in the fall and dies. Says Logan, he was “the greatest monster of them all.”

Bloch’s teleplay was based on a story of the same name by Bryce Walton. Comparing the story to the teleplay demonstrates Bloch’s talent for solving dramatic problems in a way that utilizes the medium of television to improve upon a source.

The monster, shrouded in fog.

Walton’s short story features the same characters and plot, but Bloch’s teleplay expands it, adding more humor and making significant changes. The banter between Ballew and Lenton is new, and actors Sam Jaffe (as Ballew) and, especially, Robert H. Harris (as Lenton), play their scenes broadly, with Yiddish/Brooklyn accents and misplaced words (“Edgar Albert Poe,”  for example). At one point, Lenton vigorously massages his bald head in what appears to be an attempt to stimulate hair growth. Watching this program, it’s clear that everyone involved was having fun, going well beyond Bloch’s script in order to be entertaining. One suspects that the subject matter was quite familiar to all of them.

Robert H. Harris tries to promote hair growth.

The opening scene, where Ballew and Lenton try to come up with a new insect for a giant bug movie, is not in the story, nor is the scene where Von Kroft visits the producer’s office and spontaneously tries out for the part by attacking Lenton like a vampire. As he has done in other scripts, Bloch uses foreshadowing here, anticipating the later murder of Lenton by Von Kroft in a manner made to look like that of a vampire.

Best of all is the movie set. The show’s third scene opens with a close-up of a fog-enshrouded monster that looks like the monster from Night of the Demon (1957); the camera pulls back to reveal a woman dressed in black, who moves in to kiss the monster before they both take a coffee break. The blonde starlet, Lara Lee, chews gum incessantly until Lenton tells her to get rid of it; she takes it out of her mouth and tosses it disdainfully on the floor of the set, saying “yes, master” in a voice like that of a mad scientist's hunchbacked servant.

Director Robert Stevens, who directed 44 episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (this was his last, until the series expanded to an hour), also deserves credit for this wonderful episode. He uses an extreme close-up of Von Kroft’s eyes during the informal tryout in Ballew’s office to show that Von Kroft has talent of the sort that is sorely lacking in the contemporary movie business.

One aspect of the story that Bloch chose to play down is the detail about Von Kroft’s rooming house, which Logan visits prior to seeing the movie. Describing the ancient Hollywood rooming house, Logan tells us:

It was really very old, with cupolas and a bell tower, and surrounded by untended masses of rose bushes, wisteria, and untrimmed palm trees whose branches hung dry and brown, like dead grass skirts.

Bloch chose to replace these evocative details with humor and action. In Walton’s story, Von Kroft is clearly an amalgam of Bela Lugosi, Lon Chaney, and Boris Karloff. He was a matinee idol in Hungary (like Lugosi), he became famous in Hollywood for playing a monster in heavy makeup (like Karloff), and he always did all of his own makeup (like Chaney). In Bloch’s teleplay, Von Kroft’s background is not discussed, beyond stating that he had been a great horror film star in the old days.

Meri Welles and Richard Hale

The biggest differences between the story and the teleplay involve Lenton’s betrayal of Von Kroft and the story’s ending. In the story, Lenton films Von Kroft in close-up, focusing on his toothless mouth. When shown on the big screen, a toothless vampire gumming a starlet evokes audience laughter. In the teleplay, Lenton instead dubs what has to be an uncredited Mel Blanc reading the lines in a Bugs Bunny voice. The effect is much more dynamic onscreen, both funny and cruel.

At the end of the story, Von Kroft uses his makeup to turn himself into a summary of various monsters he had played. When Logan arrives at the studio, he finds Lenton lying in a grave with a broken jaw and Ballew hanging dead from a gibbet, replacing a dummy that had been there before. In the teleplay, Von Kroft dresses as a vampire, as in the movie he had just filmed, kills Lenton with a knife to make it look like a vampire’s bite, and leaves Ballew in a grave with unspecified injuries. At the end of the story, Von Kroft is found lying dead under the gibbet from which Ballew is hanging; in the teleplay, he leaps to his death from a catwalk.

Bloch’s adaptation of Walton’s story is very creative, using sound and pictures to turn the story into a real send-up of low-budget monster movie making around 1960. Bryce Walton was a prolific pulp author who wrote over 1000 short stories in his career and lived from 1918-1988. “The Greatest Monster of Them All” was first published in the May 1959 issue of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, and it was reprinted in Ellery Queen’s 1967 Anthology.

The cast of the Hitchcock show features William Redfield as Logan. Redfield lived from 1927-1976, and was in many TV shows and movies. He had a key role in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and helped found the Actor’s Studio, but I will always remember him as Floyd Unger, Felix’s brother, in the “Shuffling Off to Buffalo” episode of The Odd Couple, broadcast February 8, 1974. Floyd ran a bubble gum factory in upstate New York and briefly hired Felix, whose unsuccessful ideas included Opera trading cards for kids who didn’t like sports.

Playing Hal Ballew was Sam Jaffe (1891-1984), who had a long and brilliant career in Yiddish theater, on Broadway, in movies and on TV. He was blacklisted in the 1950s but spent 50 years in the movies. Robert H. Harris played Morty Lenton; Harris lived from 1911-1981 and appeared in 9 episodes of the Hitchcock series, including “The Dangerous People.”

Richard Hale played Ernst Von Kroft. Hale lived from 1892-1981 and appeared in many movies and TV episodes. Much to my surprise, as I was recently watching All the King’s Men, Richard Hale turned up in a crowd scene early in the film and then later had a key role playing the father of a girl killed in an auto accident. His character’s name? Richard Hale!

Other minor payers in the cast included Baruch Lumet, who also had a small role in “The Cuckoo Clock,” and Meri Welles (as Lara Lee), who appeared in “Madame Mystery.”

Sources:

EBooks-Library.com - Your Best Source for EBooks, Historical Documents and Sheet Music - All in PDF Format. Web. 20 Dec. 2011. <http://ebooks-library.com>.

Galactic Central. Web. 21 Dec. 2011. <http://philsp.com/>.

Grams, Martin, and Patrik Wikstrom. The Alfred Hitchcock Presents Companion. Churchville, MD: OTR Pub., 2001. Print.

"The Greatest Monster of Them All." Alfred Hitchcock Presents. NBC. 14 Feb. 1961. Television.

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb). Web. 20 Dec. 2011. <http://www.imdb.com/>.

Walton, Bryce. "The Greatest Monster of Them All." 1959. Ellery Queen's 1967 Anthology. Ed. Ellery Queen. New York: Davis, 1966. 146-57. Print.

Wikipedia. Web. 20 Dec. 2011. <http://www.wikipedia.org/>.