THRILLER Thursday: The Last Of The Sommervilles

SEASON 2!!!



The spider web fills the screen, it's Boris Karloff's THRILLER!

Season: 2, Episode: 7.
Airdate: Nov. 6, 1961

Director: Ida Lupino.
Writer: Ida Lupino & R.M.H. Lupino (her cousin).
Cast: Peter Walker, Phyllis Thaxter.
Music: Jerry Goldsmith
Cinematography: John F. Warren.
Producer: William Frye.

Boris Karloff’s Introduction: “And how does your garden grow? Sure as my name is Boris Karloff, this one will flourish. Of courser it’s only proper there be to mark the final resting place of someone so unceremoniously interred. But then, of course, Ursula Sommerville has very little respect for the dear departed... Particularly since it happens to be a member of the family. Our story tonight concerns her slowly dwindling clan, as well as her sinister determination to become the last of the Sommervilles, which by the way is the title of our play. Our leading players are: Phyliss Thaxter, Martita Hunt, Peter Walker, and this odd looking chap is Doctor Farnham. You know I have the strangest feeling that I’ve seen that face before somewhere. Well, come - be my guests won’t you, as we resume our little garden party.”

Synopsis: On a foggy night at the Sommerville Mansion, a cloaked figure drags a dead body across the grounds to a hole and buries it, shoveling dirt over the corpse, then arranging ivy and flowers over the grave. Afterwards the figure pulls off her hood, exposing that this fiend is a woman! Ursula Sommerville (Phyliss Thaxter)... who smiles when she’s finished.

The prodigal nephew Rutherford (Peter Walker) returns to the mansion on a dark and windy night, rings the bell. Ursula answers the door - they have never met, and he assumes that she’s a servant. She tells him that his aunt has been expecting him, and sends him upstairs.

Aunt Celia (Martita Hunt) is a giddy old biddy who loves her nephew, and wonders why he hasn’t visited in the past 15 years. She invested in his African gold mine and some other ventures, and now he’s got a business venture in Paris, but he has this little problem - he needs some money. Celia says they can talk about that later, because tonight is the big party and she needs to bath and change. By the way, Aunt Sophie will be attending. Celia asks “her maid” Ursula where Sophie has been hiding herself, and Ursula reminds her that she left for Europe.

While Aunt Celia bathes, Rutherford flirts with “the maid” Ursula... until he discovers that she’s his cousin, four times removed by marriage. But that just slows him down. She tells him where the liquor is kept, and he leaves.

Later Ursula sees Rutherford passed out in the livingroom, grabs the fire poker and... pokes the fire after a moment where she seems to contemplate braining him. When Rutherford wakes up they have a conversation about Aunt Celia’s health - and her little heart seizures. Both seem to be scheming. Ursula informs him that there is no party, except in Aunt Celia’s imagination. “Nothing wrong with her being a little eccentric as long as it doesn’t interfere with her writing checks.”

A week later, and Aunt Celia has still not loaned Rutherford the money he needs for Paris. Ursula keeps talking her out of it after he talks her into it. Rutherford is becoming desperate, and is ready to leave... when Ursula offers him a deal. She has managed to become the sole financial beneficiary of Aunt Celia’s will, all the remaining living family members - Aunt Sofie and Rutherford - get some baubles. But if Rutherford helps Aunt Celia die, Ursula will pay him a large chunk of money - twenty times what he’s asked Aunt Celia for. “Murderers are often hanged.” “So are stockings.” As sole beneficiary, Ursula needs an airtight alibi for the time of Aunt Celia’s death... but Rutherford won’t inherit a cent so he has no real motive. The police will not suspect him in Celia has an “accident”.

The night of the “accident” Aunt Celia has thrown a monkey wrench into the plan by inviting her doctor to dinner. But is he really coming to dinner or is this just another one of Aunt Celia’s fantasies? Ursula and Rutherford change the plan, so that Dr. Farnum (Boris Karloff) will be a witness. Of course, Dr. Farnum has an interest in marrying Aunt Celia so that *he* can inherit. Rutherford is supposedly in town playing cards and drinking with friends, and after dinner Ursula needs to go into town for a charity auction... and Dr. Farnum offers to take her in his carriage (becoming her alibi witness).

When Dr. Farnum and Ursula leave, and Aunt Celia goes upstairs to have her bath; Rutherford sneaks out of the basement.

The murder plan involves Aunt Celia taking her nightly bath, and a live electrical wire in her sponge. When she uses the sponge, she will be electrocuted, then Rutherford removes the live wire and cleans us and it appears as if she has died from one of those heart seizures. There’s some nice suspense in this scene when Aunt Celia keeps *almost* grabbing the sponge, then grabbing something else instead... there’s a tray of chocolates next to the sponge, some bath oils, etc. She finally grabs the sponge, screams, and...

The funeral at the Sommerville crypt. Afterwards Aunt Celia’s lawyer Mr. Parchester (Chet Stratton) asks if they can read the will a week from Friday. When the lawyer leaves, Rutherford is angry - he’ll have to wait almost two weeks before he can get his money.

Someone begins sending them anonymous notes accusing them of murder... Who could know? Ursula accuses Rutherford of getting drunk in town and letting something slip. Rutherford wonders if Dr, Farnham is behind the notes... and maybe Ursula let something slip. Hmm, maybe the doctor could become victim to an accident? When Rutherford worries about two murders, Ursula corrects him - Three - she killed Aunt Sophie and got away with it. Everyone thinks Sophie is in Europe.

Dr. Farnham stops by unexpectedly, and Rutherford tells him that Ursula is in town. Farnham mentions that a storm is coming, would be a shame if she was caught up in it. Farnham wonders if they’ve told Aunt Sophie, Celia’s sister, about her death? Rutherford says she’s traveling in Europe and they have no idea how to reach her. Farnham keeps hinting around that Sophie’s vacation seems unusual. Everything he says is perfectly innocent... but a veiled threat. He knows.

That foggy night, Ursula - in the hooded cloak - wakes Rutherford and tells him that someone is out on the edge of the estate watching the house. They look out the window and there *is* a figure in the fog. It must be Dr. Farnham. Ursula gives Rutherford a gun and says, “In case there’s a prowler on the grounds”.

Rutherford and Ursula sneak through the fog to attack the prowler... but she leads him into the bog, where he slowly sinks! He aims the gun at her and fires - empty! She watches him die, smiling. Then collects the coat on the branch that was the figure they saw from the window.

The reading of the will: Ursula gets the mansion and everything else (except the small things to the other (now dead) family members. But... to keep the family name alive, she will not be able to collect any of this until she marries her cousin four times removed, Rutherford, and bares a male child. If that is not possible, the entire fortune will be left to her lawyer Mr. Parchester who will be in charge of charitable donations...

Ursula is screwed! She inherits *nothing*!

Until the twist...

Ursula and Parchester were behind this from the very beginning! They’re a couple!

Years later, the mansion is for sale... because Ursula and Parchester died in a car accident.
(you can get away with murder in real life, but not on network TV - Standards & Practices forbids it!)

Review: This is probably the weakest of Ida Lupino’s episodes, but when you compare it to most of the other episodes it’s still probably in the top third as far as quality is concerned. Though all of these episodes were probably shot in a week, and many look as if they were thrown together at the last minute; most of Lupino’s episodes are filled with amazing imaginative shots and camera moves - using the same revolving bunch of cinematographers that the other episodes used. So it’s obvious that the difference between the blandly shot episodes and the amazingly shot episodes is the person calling the shots - director Lupino.

Even though here we get more standard shots that in her other episodes, we still get lots of creativity you don’t see in many of the episodes directed by others. At the beginning of the episode there’s a great point of view shot as Rutherford’s hand grabs the gate handle and pushes it open, then we dolly in maintaining the POV shot until Rutherford steps into frame and we continue with an over-the-shoulder top the front door.

And there’s a great moving camera shot as Rutherford checks himself in a mirror (no camera or crew reflection) and then enters his aunt’s room - all one shot.

Later there’s a nice German Expressionist shot as Rutherford’s *shadow* climbs the stairs - reflected on the wall - until Rutherford reaches the top of the stairs and steps into frame.

And several other nice mirror shots - enough great visual stuff to put this in that top third. The main thing that holds it back is the story itself, which is fairly pedestrian without much suspense or many plot twists. So Lupino does as much as she can with a story told in a fairly bland manner about people killing each other over an inheritance. Plot 53 B.

The only one to blame for the bland story blandly told is... Lupino and her cousin who wrote the script! She usually wrote with her husband Collier Young (even after they were divorced) so maybe he was her other half creatively as well, and her cousin was not. This isn't a bad episode, it's just not her best. Next week another new Season 2 entry... A mystery with not much in the way of thrills.

- Bill