Tag Archives: horror television

Made for TV Horror 3: Spectre (1977)

Dan Curtis, Dark Shadows, Gene Roddenberry, Gig Young, Gothic, Halloween, Horror films, horror television, horror tv, Majel Barrett, Robert Culp, Samuel Peebles, Spectre (1977), Star Trek, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Spectre (1977)

Spectre (1977) is a made-for-Television film that I had read about but was not able to catch for many years.  The premise of two investigators of the supernatural, one a wealthy and erudite believer (Robert Culp) and one a disgraced doctor and skeptic (Gig Young) ,  investigating the paranormal had piqued my interest – something of an ancestor of The X-Files duo – except Scully wasn’t a heavy drinker, though working with Mulder certainly could have pushed her in that direction.  About 20 years ago, I caught the last ten or fifteen minutes of it and was intrigued, hungry for more, which I finally got some years later.  At the time, I was pretty well satisfied with what I saw; however, watching the movie again, this month, my approval dropped precipitously.  There are some good things about the film.  The early interactions between Culp and Young, as Culp tries to convince the latter that he is the victim of voodoo, do raise mystery and suspense.  Clever is Culp’s figuring out that the unexpectedly arriving sister of a fellow expert is a succubus via her subtle avoidance of a chair he offers her to rest, a chair with a cross design on the back, and his disposal of her/it by pressing an arcane sacred text against her.  Lilith, the laconic, knowing housekeeper who guides Young’s character through Culp’s moderne abode further establishes an air of mystery and eeriness.  Then, there is the inexplicable rough weather that nearly downs the investigating duo’s trip to England, piloted by Culp’s British fellow expert in the supernatural (John Hurt!).  Equally good is Culp and Young’s arrival in London, searching for another expert to help them, taking them through a London rain-slicked and shadowy like a noir metropolis.  There, the tension grows as they enter a mansion where something demonic has horribly mangled the man they seek and only a pentagram can keep them safe.  Produced by Gene Roddenberry and cowritten by him and Sam Peebles, the movie led me to expect good things – even if the film does fall into the ’70s trap of assuming an over abundance of harpsichord music is always scary.

But things fall apart, especially when we get to the orgy/satanic celebration and sacrifice toward the end.  Like too many 1970s films, even horror ones, there’s just too much filler light.  The final sacrifice, as it were, actually looks pretty damned (so to speak) cheery with lighting as full and bright as you see in most sitcoms.  And don’t forget the artificial rocks of the cavern walls, all nice and shiny.  Director Clive Donner and Cinematographer Arthur Ibbetson really ought to have taken a gander at Edgar Ulmer’s work in The Black Cat, where impossible angles on stairs, altars, crosses, and doors in chiaroscuro  unsettle with an unnatural, Expressionist vision of reality.  Then there is also the fine example of disquieting cinematography in the use of shadow and darkness in Tourneur’s Night of the Demon.  In the ’70s,  even Dan Curtis gets the lighting right with his use of blue filters and eerily obscuring (dark) shadows  (I couldn’t resist) in the Norliss Tapes.  Click here for my review of that made-for-tv movie) 

It gets bit creepier when Culp goes up against demon Asmodeus, but the monster is till a rubber-mask dinosaur-type.

Furthermore Spectre’s demonic festivities look more like a lascivious New Year’s Eve Party.  We are supposed to be shocked by all that sexuality, especially the repeated  shots of ladies’ boobs  escaping their flimsy scarlet costumes and jiggling around.  My pearls remained unclutched. All I could think of was that one shot in Airplane mocking gratuitous nudity where, amidst the panic of the passengers, a topless woman suddenly jumps in front of the camera, shakes her girls, then disappears.  Apparently, this material was added for a theatrical release of Spectre.  Obviously, 1970s television wouldn’t have been ready for such hot stuff.

In all fairness, it does get a bit creepier when Culp goes up against the demon Asmodeus, but the monster is still a rubber-mask dinosaur-type.

The one gem in this movie was Majel Barrett as the housekeeper Lilith.  Tall, stately, beautiful, and commanding in a long black dress reminiscent of a chi pao, she was also a wry breath of fresh air.  Barrett’s Lilith was fully in charge of Culp and Young through her practical magic, guiding characters with a wonderfully wry, subtle sense of humor.  What a breath of fresh air.  This made-for-TV movie was a pilot for a proposed series by Roddenberry that didn’t get accepted.  Still, with some fine-tuning and more of Majel Barrett (aka Mrs. Roddenberry), we might have had something here.  Anyway, it’s still worth a watch. 

For more background on the film click on the IMDB link and the Wikkipedia link.

All images screen shots from Spectre (1977, Twentieth Century Fox), author’s collection)

No copyright infringement intended by use of the properly attributed photos.  If you feel there is a problem, contact me about removing the images.

10/28/26

 

 

 

 

 

 

Take That One Step Beyond

Autumn, Gothic, Halloween, horror television, horror tv, John Newland, One Step Beyond, supernatural, , , , , , , ,
Recently, I caught actor/director John Newland in a 1948 Bulldog Drummond movie, Thirteen Lead Soldiers.  That appearance piqued a craving to see more of Newland in a TV program that those of us growing up in the late 1950s and early 1960s knew, One Step Beyond.  So, for the past couple of weeks, I’ve been re-watching the program on my Alpha Video editions.  A perfect treat to prime me for the Halloween holidays.

What is One Step Beyond?  Well, the half-hour (23-5 minutes sans commercial) was one of the early horror anthologies of the time period I mentioned above – right in there with The Twilight Zone, Thriller, and (just a little behind these) The Outer Limits (original version).  All filmed in glorious black and white.  Part of what made One Step Beyond stand out from the others was that its stories were all allegedly true, taken from “the records of human history.” So, the crippled woman calling out for help at the immanent impact of a tidal wave is rescued by and rescues the only one who hears her, a deaf man whose disability leaves him unaware of the blaring warning sirens.  A turn-of-the-century young wife is haunted by premonitions of deadly blazes set by a twin to whom she seems to be psychically attuned. A pilot radios back that he’s seeing something astonishing of the UFO variety, disappears for several days, then miraculously reappears hundreds of miles beyond the range of his prop plane before dying.  A bellhop repeatedly has visions of the rooms and buildings around him crumbling in an earthquake – in San Francisco, 1905.  No one believes him, and then it’s too late.  A German submarine sets out to sea as the Third Reich crumbles, with hammering and thumping in between hulls haunting it – only for a skeleton to be found between hulls holding a wrench twenty years later.  A night-school teacher receives a cameo as a gift from an awkward student, then finds whenever she writes on blackboard or paper that her hand is possessed to write in a foreign language she doesn’t know but is native to her gift-giver – all of which puts her at risk from him at what the writing reveals.

John Newland, himself, adds a unique touch.  Neither skeptical like Serling nor sinister like Karloff (Thriller), he talks to us calmly, almost warmly, all the while undercutting our “logical” explanations, raising questions with his knowledge of experts on “bilocation,” “psychometry,” “telepathy,” “precognition,” etc.  Then he ends with a warm smile, reassuring us – or maybe slyly enjoying having destabilized our certainties.

 

One Step Beyond may be less disturbing than its fellow horror shows for another reason.  Usually, the supernatural events occur to set right murder or injustice, give voice to the oppressed, reunite estranged spouses or families, rescue those in danger, or give comfort the suffering.  UXB guy William Shatner manages to see his wife one last time under unusual circumstances when she is pregnant. A wife leads her husband to their son trapped in a mine, only the rescuers also find her dead body trapped in that same mine. A psychic bond leads a wife to find her husband trapped under a car in rising waters, while the spirits of three neglected children reunite a child with her estranged father.  More unnerving but still equitable, ghosts mete out justice to their murderers who have left them on a mountain to die, sent them off to die on a patrol ambushed by Indians, poisoned them to marry a mistress, or disguised their killing as suicide.  Still, there are enough threatening, even unjust, experiences recounted to make us wonder just how reassuring John Newland’s smile is.  All her premonitions about being caught on a sinking boat doesn’t save a young bride’s husband from death on the Titanic.  The poor bellhop with premonitions of the San Francisco quake dies, even if his warnings do save that adorable old Italian couple.  How about the woman whose twin sister appeared to be setting fatal conflagrations – did she really merit for her fate? Did photographer Cloris Leachman ask to be chased around her apartment by the maniacal ghost of the guy who murdered his wife many years ago? No wonder she moved to Minneapolis and changed her name to Phyllis Lindstrom!

The program also has an intriguing roster of guest stars.  There are up-and-comers:  William Shatner, Louise Fletcher (!),Warren Beatty (!!!), Charles Bronson, Elizabeth Montgomery, Suzanne Pleshette, Patrick McNee, Robert Blake, Mike Conners, Werner Klemperer, Cloris Leachman, and Robert Lansing – to name a few.  Then there are some folks who were once big or relatively big names: Joan Fontaine, Anna Lee, Patty McCormick, Carl Esmond, Ron Randall, and Catherine McCleod.  Bob Newhart’s father-in-law, Bill Quinn, makes a few appearances, too – as well as lots of sixties stalwarts like William Schallert, Joanne Linville, Ed Platt, Johnny Seven, Warren Stevens, Scott Marlowe, and Jan Miner. Those of you who know your TV supporting players and later stars will have a blast identifying them.

Other folks I know who have seen One Step Beyond pretty much all agree on one point.  The really scary thing about the program wasn’t the stories, the acting, the visuals, even John Newland.  It was the damned music!  That darned theme, appropriately named “Weird” by composer Arthur Lubin, sent chills coursing through out bodies!  Then there was “Fear”:  once its bars snaked into hearing, you knew something creepy was afoot – but more powerful was that their sinuous, haunting snake up your spine.  I’ll tell you, when I was a little kid and my bedtime was 7:00, there were only two shows that I could see worth watching (long before cable!):  first One Step Beyond, then The Twilight Zone.  No wonder I slept with a night light until I was thirty-seven.

So, here, to set your October off in the right mood are  links to “Fear” and “Weird”.  Listen – if you dare!  But be sure to put on a sweater first – chills up the spine, you know!

 

Some Episodes that I highly recommend”

“The Promise”

“The Dark Room”

“Reunion”

“The Dead Part of the House”

“Ordeal on Locust Street”

“Deadringer”

“The Explorer”

“The Death Waltz”

“To Know the End”

John Newland Image:  https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/John_Newland_-_1959_%28One_Step_Beyond%29.jpg

Images from episodes are screen shots of public domain episodes and cover of Alpha Videos art work; author’s collection