Classic Film Spotlight — William Castle's "The Night Walker" (1964)

by Peter Enfantino, Christine Scoleri, John Scoleri and Jack Seabrook

The Night Walker (1964)
A Universal Picture
Directed by William Castle
Screenplay by Robert Bloch
Music by Vic Mizzy
Starring Robert Taylor, Barbara Stanwyck, Judith Meredith and Lloyd Bochner.

John: William Castle. Robert Bloch. Vic Mizzy. I know we're here to celebrate Barbara Stanwyck, but man, what a lineup! I'm sure many of you are thinking--what gimmick did Castle have up his sleeve this time? Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you. The Night Walker is not only gimmick-free, it also lacks an introductory appearance from the jovial director. Instead, we get an interesting and somewhat surreal prologue about dreams narrated by none other than the great Paul Frees, which ends with a bizarre image of an eyeball in a closed fist.

Peter: That intro goes on and on and... I thought we'd never get to the film itself. Little did I know, once we got to the film, that was about as good as it gets.

Christine: Perhaps the gimmick was to get Barbara Stanwyck and ex-hubby, Robert Taylor, together for this film.

Jack: They seem pretty chummy--you wouldn't know they had been divorced in real life.

John: I think you’re right. In his autobiography, the fantastic Step Right Up! I’m Gonna Scare the Pants off America, Castle said, “I felt the declining box office on my next picture, The Night Walker, co-starring Robert Taylor and Barbara Stanwyck, both big stars that I felt would be strong enough to pull customers in. The picture played to almost empty theaters.”

Christine: I have seen many of Barbara Stanwyck's movies from the 1930s and '40s and it's great to see that she retains the same energy and acting talent here in her last feature film that has always made her a pleasure to watch. Including Stanwyck in a film automatically elevates its potential. Some sources state that Castle originally offered the part of Irene Trent to Joan Crawford, though I have not found much evidence to support the veracity of that claim. Although Crawford made an excellent axe-murderess in the previous Castle-Bloch feature, Strait-Jacket, I think that Stanwyck is the better choice for this role. Get a load of the way this lady screams. Yowza!

Jack: Does the five-note musical phrase that plays over and over remind anyone else of "Food, Glorious Food" from Oliver!? I kept waiting for Barbara Stanwyck to ask for more.

John: It didn't until you mentioned it. I'm just glad I had already watched the film!

Peter: Actually, Jack, the guitar bit reminded me of the intro to "2000 Light Years From Home" off Their Satanic Majesties Request by The Rolling Stones. Perhaps Mick and Keef were William Castle fans?

Christine: So, right off the bat, in creepy Castle fashion, we've got a milky-eyed guy, who looks like something bad happened to his face, leering over the bed of a woman while she whispers sweet nothings to her dream lover in her sleep. Shortly thereafter, we find out it's her freaky husband who also enjoys making recordings of her intimate vivid dreams. I love the way Stanwyck delivers the line, "My lover is only a dream, but he's still more of a man than you!" as only she could when he confronts her on her somnambulant infidelity. Now I've just got to wonder, what is this important work he's doing up in his lab, and why would a blind man go exploring the cause of a smoky explosion? We can surmise the cause of his blindness and disfigurement.

John: What was it exactly that brought these two lovebirds together? The explosion in the lab might have been the best thing to happen to Howard Trent (Hayden Rorke). Fortunately, it’s well-isolated, so a quick padlock on the door and the house is A-OK for the new widow, Irene. Unfortunately, she wants out of the place, pronto.

Peter: I like when the arson detective says the blast created a temperature so intense it melted everything beyond recognition... all while he's surrounded by damaged but still pretty recognizable equipment.

John: Howard's attorney, Barry Moreland (Robert Taylor), informs her that while she’ll inherit Trent’s fortune, she can’t sell the house just yet, so she chooses to shack up in the apartment behind the old beauty shop she used to manage (Irene’s — natch!).

John: Fortunately for Irene, the literal man of her dreams (Lloyd Bochner) is not turned off by her newly-claimed widowhood. It gives him the perfect opportunity to pop the question.

John: Aside from the Vic Mizzy score, to me the creepiest thing about the movie was their dream wedding sequence with a mannequin priest and witnesses. And rather than just relying on the voiceover dialog, Castle had the characters shaken when they were speaking, which added to the eerie effect.

Peter: Though I liked the Mizzy score (of course, it doesn't hold a candle to his themes from Green Acres and The Addams Family), I thought in several scenes (most notably when Irene is explaining her dreams to Barry), the music is intrusive and threatens to distract the viewer from the dialogue. Of course, considering that the dialogue isn't all that good, that may be the point.

Christine: Nothing says bad dream like wax figures at a wedding. The dramatic organ music helps create the nightmarish atmosphere. This is my favorite part of the whole film.

 

John: The shot of the organ playing while the unmoving hands hovered above the moving keys reminded me of another Vic Mizzy favorite, The Ghost and Mr. Chicken! Sadly for Irene, her former (toasted) husband also received an invitation to the nuptials.

 

Christine: Do you think William Castle may have seen "The Cheaters"?

"The Cheaters" episode of Boris Karloff's Thriller

John: Hmmm... that episode of Thriller was based on a Robert Bloch story. Can you believe that behind that make-up, Irene's dead husband is Dr. Bellows from I Dream of Jeannie? Hayden Rorke also played a role in another Robert Bloch penned episode of Thriller, "The Devil's Ticket."

Jack: Barbara Eden later wrote that Rorke was "unashamedly gay" and his partner was a TV director named Justus Addiss. I never suspected! He wasn't campy like Paul Lynde or Charles Nelson Reilly.

John: There’s nothing like your ex showing up at your wedding to send you off into a strange psychedelic dream within a dream sequence… a screenshot doesn’t even do this one justice!

Christine: Heads spinning, candelabra spinning, melted ex-husband...obviously someone drugged the champagne.

John: Scream and scream again! I don't think I ever thought of Barbara Stanwyck as being a scream queen, but she certainly pays her dues in this film.

Christine: She was warming up for this in Sorry, Wrong Number. She has an impressive lung capacity for someone who had reportedly been smoking since she was nine years old.

John: Joyce (Judith Meredith), the new gal at Irene’s beauty shop, has an interesting technique to make Irene feel better… but it turns out she’s more involved in the plot than even Irene knows.

Jack: Judith Meredith spiced up the movie for a few minutes but never had much of a career.

John: Of course, that results in her ending up in Irene’s bedroom in the middle of the night with a knife in her back!

Christine: Irene was apparently all out of screams by this time.

John: This is where things sadly fell apart for me. All of the build-up to this point leads to a revelation straight out of Scooby Doo, and while there are a few twists in the final minutes, it basically amounts to everyone being ‘in on it’ with the exception of Irene. 

Peter: I thought, aside from the set-up scenes which were tense and showed promise, The Night Walker was a sloooooow burn that never went anywhere. I sure liked it when I was a kid. Scared the hell out of me, but then so did my fourth grade teacher, Mr. Stack. Difference is, I don't have to revisit him forty years later to find out he was just a big pussy cat.

Christine: Despite William Castle's warning, I don't believe many viewers will be forced to dream of secret desires they're ashamed to admit as a result of watching this movie. It is a bit of a let down after the way it was built-up, but I enjoyed the unexpected twists at the end, and Barbara Stanwyck and Robert Taylor make it an entertaining ride that's worth watching. Vic Mizzy's music makes it all the more delightful. The Night Walker's lack of success may have had something to do with Stanwyck's decision to work exclusively in television henceforth. Apparently she complained that she was only offered parts thereafter about "grandmothers who eat their children."

John: When all was said and done, The Night Walker reminded me of one of those episodes of Boris Karloff's Thriller that led you to believe something supernatural was at play, only to reveal at the climax that it was not supernatural at all. That said, I still think it’s a fun entry in William Castle’s filmography.

Peter: Not Robert Bloch's finest moment.

Legendary poster artist
Reynold Brown's art for The Night Walker.

Michael Avallone's tie-in paperback.
Note that Robert Bloch's name is highlighted

The Hitchcock Project--An Introduction

by Jack Seabrook

Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour ran for ten seasons on CBS and NBC from 1955 to 1965. I was born in 1963 and was thus too young to see it or even be aware of it on its first run. I was also too young to see Hitchcock's Frenzy when it was released in 1972, so my first exposure to a Hitchcock film was his last, Family Plot, which came out in 1976. At some point around that time I discovered reruns of Alfred Hitchcock Presents on local New York TV stations, and I was hooked right away.

Star Trek fans were probably the first to compile and publish detailed episode guides to a TV series, but I first encountered such guides in Don Rosa's Information Center, a regular column that ran in the fanzine, Rocket's Blast Comic Collector (RBCC), beginning in the mid-1970s. These were followed by Gary Gerani's book, Fantastic Television, which was released in 1977. I bought that book and wore it out, combing through the pages and checking off episodes I had seen. As good as Gerani's book was, it was missing one thing--an episode guide to Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. Undaunted, I began to compile one. I spent hours after school in the public library, poring over microfilm rolls of the New York Times TV listings to collect details about the series. On weekends, I took the train to New York City, where I became a regular visitor to the Lincoln Center Library of the Performing Arts, home to a bound collection of old TV Guides, which provided more details about the shows. One Saturday, as I sat flipping through TV Guide volumes taking notes, Tony Randall sat down across from me and Jerry Stiller sat down next to me. They were there to do research of their own.

It was there that I discovered what I think was the first attempt to study the Hitchcock TV show in a scholarly fashion: an article from the fall 1971 issue of Cinema called "The Television Films of Alfred Hitchcock." This article only discussed the episodes directed by Hitchcock himself. Much to my dismay, the RBCC began to publish an episode guide to the Hitchcock series in 1978 ("based on data submitted by Bob Reed"). I had corresponded with Don Rosa about my intention to complete such a project, and he was kind enough to telephone me about it. I have never forgotten that phone call from someone I greatly respected and who would go on to become a well-known creator of comics himself.

After the initial disappointment of the RBCC episode guide, I decided to continue my work with the intention of publishing a book on the TV series. In the late '70s and early '80s, Alfred Hitchcock Presents could be seen in the middle of the night on New York stations. I would try to stay up, usually falling asleep at some point during The Tonight Show, or else I would set my alarm for 2:30 A.M. On the rare occasions when I actually managed to wake up and turn on my TV, I saw classic episodes like "The Dangerous People" and "A Night With the Boys."

By the early 1980s, publications such as Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone Magazine had begun to publish more detailed episode guides of series like The Twilight Zone, and books ("companions") about specific shows began to appear. Marc Scott Zicree's The Twilight Zone Companion and David J. Schow's The Outer Limits: The Official Companion were favorite examples. I made a trip into the CBS offices in New York City, where I was given access to their old microfilm files on the Hitchcock series but, once again, I was "scooped" when John McCarty and Brian Kelleher's book, Alfred Hitchcock Presents: An Illustrated Guide to the Ten-Year Television Career of the Master of Suspense, was published in 1985, with a foreword by Robert Bloch.

McCarty and Kelleher's book led me to discard all of the notes on the series that I had compiled over the years. Their volume was a great resource; it lacked air dates and detailed credits and occasionally got plot details wrong, but it was the only place that collected so much information about the series and it made for a very handy checklist. On television, Alfred Hitchcock Presents returned, first on NBC and later on USA, with new episodes that ran on and off from 1985 through 1989. The series used colorized versions of the Hitchcock introductions from the original series and featured new versions of old episodes interspersed with original stories.

My hopes for writing a book on the Hitchcock show appeared dashed but my love for the series continued unabated. My wife and I married in 1988 and moved into an apartment where we spent most nights watching The Alfred Hitchcock Hour in reruns on the USA network. In the 1990s, Alfred Hitchcock Presents began to turn up here and there on emerging cable networks such as Nick at Nite and TV Land. I watched the occasional episode, such as "The Contest for Aaron Gold," but these runs seemed always to start with season one and rerun the same bunch of shows, petering out before reaching the later--and less familiar--seasons.

In 2001, The Alfred Hitchcock Presents Companion by Martin Grams Jr. and Patrik Wikstrom was published, with a foreword by Patricia Hitchcock. Despite receiving mixed reviews, this massive tome contains more information on the Hitchcock series in one place than any other source and is much more detailed than the 1985 book that preceded it. The most exciting development regarding Alfred Hitchcock Presents occurred in 2005, when Universal released season one on DVD. I am sure I was not the only Hitchcock fan who thought his dreams had come true! After decades of watching the shows on TV in syndicated reruns, I could at last possess all 39 episodes of the 1955-1956 season, to watch and treasure at leisure. The production of this first set was not perfect, since they were burned on two-sided DVDs that sometimes caused problems with quality (my copy of "Breakdown" does just that), but it was a thrill nonetheless, made more exciting by the prospect of future releases of the rest of the series.

In subsequent years, seasons two (2006) and three (2007) were released annually, just in time for Christmas. Then the delays began. It took two years for season four to come out (2009) and over two years for season five to appear (early 2012) Each series was a thrill to see, and I can only hope that the rest of the ten seasons will be released in time.

In the meantime, I had been writing about popular culture. My first book, Martians and Misplaced Clues: The Life and Work of Fredric Brown, came out in 1993, and my third, Stealing Through Time: On the Writings of Jack Finney, was published in 2006. In late 2010, I stumbled across the blog, A Thriller a Day, while looking for online reviews of the TV series Thriller, which was just then being released on DVD. I began following the blog and commenting, and this led to an invitation from Peter Enfantino, one of the authors, to write for another blog, bare bones e-zine. I began with a series of articles on Fredric Brown, supplementing my book with material I had uncovered in the years since it was first published. This led to my first series on classic TV, Fredric Brown on TV, which included Brown's work for Alfred Hitchcock Presents along with other series where his stories had been adapted.

When this series ended, I began a series called Robert Bloch on TV, which focused solely on that author's work as shown on the Hitchcock series. By this time, I had discovered that episodes that were unavailable on commercial DVDs could often be found online on channels such as Hulu or You Tube, placed there by fans. I also discovered that the final five seasons of the Hitchcock series were available from other fans on DVDs whose quality was not up to the Universal standard, but whose rarity made them irresistible.

As the Bloch series continued, I decided that I would finally fulfill a lifelong dream and write about the entire ten-year Hitchcock series, dividing it up not chronologically but rather by subject, whether it be by author or by another creative personality. Bloch was followed by a series on William Shatner's appearances on the show (Shatner Meets Hitchcock), then by a series on the Ray Bradbury episodes (Ray Bradbury on TV) and, most recently, by a series on the John Collier episodes (John Collier on TV). Along the way, I made a few decisions.

1. Enough has been written about the introductions by Alfred Hitchcock. The 2001 Companion transcribed all of Hitchcock's introductions, following the trend set by Zicree back in 1982. Yet next to nothing had been written discussing the actual episodes themselves in detail. I determined to focus on the stories rather than the frames.

2. Detailed cast and crew information is easily available on sites like imdb. I chose not to include detailed credits in my articles, instead focusing on important or interesting contributions and giving background on creative talents of interest.

3. Pictures are important. I chose to illustrate each article with a combination of magazine or book covers and screen grabs from the DVDs themselves. I am confident that this represents a fair use exception to any copyrights that exist. The website Galactic Central is an excellent source for old magazine covers.

4. Title cards are not necessary. After reproducing title cards for my first several articles, I gave up the practice because I don't think it adds anything to the analysis and is visually dull.

5. Links are useful. Whenever possible, I include links to a source to purchase a DVD of the episode being discussed or a place to view it online. This allows interested readers to watch the episode that inspired each article.

6. Read the stories or the books. In preparation for each article, I track down and read the short story or book from which the episode was adapted. This allows for a comparison with the filmed episode.

Now that I am committed to doing the entire series, I have decided to change the umbrella title for these articles to The Hitchcock Project. Articles will appear every other Thursday on the bare bones e-zine website for many years to come, as long as the site remains viable and I remain conscious, until every episode has been discussed. When it is all over, I hope to collect the articles into a book, either paper or an e-book. I offer sincere thanks to Peter Enfantino and John Scoleri, founders of bare bones, for providing a place to publish this work, and to everyone who reads and/or comments on the articles. Suggestions for topics are welcome. Henry Slesar, surely the most prolific writer on the series, will be profiled next, in a group of articles that will take about two years to complete.

Every so often I will update the episode guide, which begins below. I will provide links to the articles I have written on each episode in order of their network airing. The episodes will be coded with two numbers, the first representing the season aired, the second representing the order within that season (for example, the first episode of season one is coded 1.1, etc.). Happy reading!

8/29/22: An updated list of episodes discussed is here.

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
Watch episode
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
Watch episode
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
Watch episode
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
Watch episode
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
Watch episode
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
Watch episode
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
Watch episode
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
Watch episode
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
Watch episode
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
Watch episode
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
Watch episode
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"