MISSION: HITCHCOCK!

The new MISSION IMPOSSIBLE movie is in cinemas this summer!

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: FALLOUT was the first time the same director has been brought back for a second film... and now there's a third and fourth film by the great Christopher McQuarrie. When they began the series the plan was to bring in a different director for each film, so that each movie had a different feel. The slightly amusing part of this is that the first director, Brian DePalma, set the tone for all of the rest of the films in many ways including his reverence for Hitchcock. My book, STORY IN ACTION: MISSION IMPOISSIBLE looks at how Hitchcock has influenced most of the films.

The first film by Christopher McQuarrie, ROGUE NATION, has a great scene at the Vienna Opera where Ethan Hunt spots *three* assassins aiming sniper rifles at the Chancellor or Austria! The scene is reminiscent of the assassination scene from Hitchcock's "The Man Who Knew Too Much", but director Christopher McQuarrie says it's actually inspired by a Freixenet Sparking Wine commercial. Say what? But the commercial was directed by some guy named Martin Scorsese and supposedly based on a script by Alfred Hitchcock, and is definitely in the style of Hitchcock. So the scene in ROGUE NATION is inspired by a commercial that was inspired by THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH!

And here is that commercial!

The Key To Reserva: A Short by Martin Scorsese from Ben Grossmann on Vimeo.

And here is the scene from MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: ROGUE NATION, which uses the opera Turandot - which I point out in my book has a sly extra meaning in the scene, scene Turandot revolves around a riddle with three possible answers... and there are three assassins in this scene.





Here is the scene from the remake of THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH...



And the scene from the original version of THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH...




I prefer the original version of the film because Mom is a badass - an Olympic sharp shooter who saves her daughter with an impossible rifle shot at the end. The remake has Doris Day *singing* to save the day, which is kind of dopey.

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE!

THE MISSION IMPOSSIBLE MOVIES

All Six Movies analyzed! All of the mission tapes, all of the “that’s impossible!” set pieces and stunts, the cons and capers - and how these scenes work, the twists and double crosses, the tension and suspense (and how to generate it), the concept of each film as a stand alone with a different director calling the shots (broken in the sixth film), the gadgets, the masks, the stories, the co-stars and team members (one team member has been in every film), the stunts Tom Cruise actually did (and the ones he didn’t), and so much more! Over 120,000 words of fun info!

THE MISSION IMPOSSIBLE MOVIES - Only $3.99!

NO KINDLE REQUIRED! Get the *free* app (any device, except your Mr. Coffee) on the order page on Amazon!

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Of course, I have my own books on Hitchcock...

HITCHCOCK: MASTERING SUSPENSE

LEARN SUSPENSE FROM THE MASTER!

Alfred Hitchcock, who directed 52 movies, was known as the “Master Of Suspense”; but what exactly is suspense and how can *we* master it? How does suspense work? How can *we* create “Hitchcockian” suspense scenes in our screenplays, novels, stories and films?

This book uses seventeen of Hitchcock’s films to show the difference between suspense and surprise, how to use “focus objects” to create suspense, the 20 iconic suspense scenes and situations, how plot twists work, using secrets for suspense, how to use Dread (the cousin of suspense) in horror stories, and dozens of other amazing storytelling lessons. From classics like “Strangers On A Train” and “The Birds” and “Vertigo” and “To Catch A Thief” to older films from the British period like “The 39 Steps” and “The Man Who Knew Too Much” to his hits from the silent era like “The Lodger” (about Jack The Ripper), we’ll look at all of the techniques to create suspense!

Films Included: NOTORIOUS, SABOTAGE, STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, THE 39 STEPS, REBECCA, TO CATCH A THIEF, FRENZY, FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT, THE LODGER, THE BIRDS, TORN CURTAIN, SABOTEUR, VERTIGO, THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1934), THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1955), SUSPICION, and NUMBER SEVENTEEN. 17 Great Films!

Only 125,000 words!

Price: $5.99

Click here for more info!

OTHER COUNTRIES:
(links actually work now)

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And...

HITCHCOCK: EXPERIMENTS IN TERROR

Click here for more info!

HITCHCOCK DID IT FIRST!

We all know that Alfred Hitchcock was the Master Of Suspense, but did you know he was the most *experimental* filmmaker in history?

Contained Thrillers like “Buried”? Serial Protagonists like “Place Beyond The Pines”? Multiple Connecting Stories like “Pulp Fiction”? Same Story Multiple Times like “Run, Lola, Run”? This book focuses on 18 of Hitchcock’s 53 films with wild cinema and story experiments which paved the way for modern films. Almost one hundred different experiments that you may think are recent cinema or story inventions... but some date back to Hitchcock’s *silent* films! We’ll examine these experiments and how they work. Great for film makers, screenwriters, film fans, producers and directors.

Films Examined: “Rear Window”, “Psycho”, “Family Plot”, “Topaz”, “Rope”, “The Wrong Man”, “Easy Virtue”, “Lifeboat”, “Bon Voyage”, “Aventure Malgache”, “Elstree Calling”, “Dial M for Murder”, “Stage Fright”, “Champagne”, “Spellbound”, “I Confess”, and “The Trouble with Harry”, with glances at “Vertigo” and several others.

Professional screenwriter William C. Martell takes you into the world of The Master Of Suspense and shows you the daring experiments that changed cinema. Over 77,000 words.

UK Folks Click Here.

German Folks Click Here.

French Folks Click Here.

Espania Folks Click Here.

Canadian Folks Click Here.

Bill

Thriller Thursday: The Twisted Image

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

THE TWISTED IMAGE

Season: 1, Episode: 1.
Airdate: 9/13/1960


Director: Arthur Hiller
Writer: James P. Cavanagh, based on a novel by William O’Farrell.
Cast: Leslie Nielsen, George Grizzard, Natalie Trundy, Dianne Foster.
Music: Pete Rugolo.
Cinematography: Lionel Lindon.




Boris Karloff’s Introduction: “Her eyes. They were often upon him. Candid, admiring, possessive. Her eyes. Her extraordinary eyes. Alan Patterson was aware of her eyes. And used to them. In the lunch counter. In the elevator. He was aware of them for almost a month. And they were to lead him into guilt and terror and murder... as sure as my name is Boris Karloff. Our story is about a watcher, and the watched... and a not so innocent bystander. There’s an outsider, too: Alan’s wife. Four pairs of anxious eyes. But no one could see the shattering effect of... the Twisted Image. Well, I’ll say no more, but I promise you one thing: this is a thriller!”

Synopsis: Successful executive Alan Patterson (Leslie Nielsen) has a pair of stalkers: Lilly (Natalie Trundy), an attractive female employee who has some crazy fatal attraction crush on him... and will do anything to ruin his marriage so that she can become his next wife; and Merl (George Grizzard), an envious mail room employee at the company who wants to take over Alan’s life... once Alan is out of the way, of course. So we have a hybrid of FATAL ATTRACTION and SINGLE WHITE FEMALE, decades before either of those movies were made.

Lilly shows up at Alan’s office at lunchtime, and insists he take her to lunch. His secretary sees them together, and assumes... and when they go to lunch, another business associate sees them together and assumes... But during the lunch, Alan is a bit freaked out by Lilly: she flat out says she’s going to marry him. When he says he is already married and has a kid, she is not deterred at all. She’s crazy! She calls him at home and leaves odd messages with his wife... who thinks he may be cheating.

When Alan has lunch with Lilly to tell her to just leave him alone, she *loudly* professes her love for him in the company lunch room... and is overheard by Merl, who now has some leverage against the boss he love/hates. It’s hinted at that Merl is Gay and also has a strange crush on Alan... he’s very similar to Bruno in STRANGERS ON A TRAIN in some respects. When delivering the mail, Merl steals Alan’s watch from his office.

The more Alan tells Lilly to leave him alone, the more she calls his home and office. His marriage is eroding, his wife (Dianne Foster) is sure that he is cheating on her with Lilly. His life is falling apart!

One night Merl seeks out “Alan’s mistress” Lilly, telling her he has a message from Alan. Merl has a cheap bottle of wine and soon we have *two* drunk mentally unstable people in Lilly’s apartment... both in love with the same man. When Merl puts the moves on Lilly, trying to live out his Alan fantasy, she pushes him away... and he kills her. Oops!

That’s when Alan knocks on the door to demand that Lilly leave him the hell alone. Oops!

But Merl knocks him unconscious, steals his wallet, and wipes away all of his own finger prints... making it appear as if Alan killed Lilly. When wakes up and finds the dead body of the woman who everyone thinks is his mistress, Alan leaves Lilly’s apartment, and he’s seen by the building manager... who then discovers her dead body. Now Alan has to find the real killer before the police catch him.

Merl goes out on the town, using Alan’s money and Alan’s identification.

Alan’s wife goes to have it out with Lilly... arriving just in time to see the police take her out in a body bag. Did Alan murder his mistress?

Alan decides Merl is #1 suspect, goes to his apartment... but Merl isn’t there. When Merl does come back, he sees Alan’s car on the street, and steals it... becoming more like Alan every minute. Wearing his watch, driving his car, dressed to look like him. The transformation is almost complete! But to actually *become* Ala,, Merl goes to Alan’s house and accosts Alan’s wife... *his* wife, now. Then takes Alan’s cute little kid! And holds a gun to her head! Now Alan must race home to save his wife and kid from the maniac pretending to be him.

Review: For the amount of talent involved and the number of great episodes this series would have, not an amazing first episode. Though you might only know Leslie Nielsen from comedies, he began as a serious dramatic actor... and that’s why he was perfect in movies like AIRPLANE! The audience expected him to be serious... as he is in this episode.

You may not be familiar with George Grizzard, but he was a hot actor at the time, cutting his teeth on TV before moving on to films (one of my favorite cop movies you’ve never heard of WARNING SHOT) like ADVISE AND CONSENT... but you would probably recognize the older version of him as the stern father of the bride in BACHELOR PARTY and the old version of Ryan Philippe in FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS. So we have a great cast.

Director Arthur Hiller was a TV veteran at the time, who would go on to direct huge Hollywood hits like LOVE STORY as well as great films like THE HOSPITAL and MAN IN THE GLASS BOOTH... and comedies like the original THE IN LAWS.

Writer James P. Cavanaugh was a writer for Hitchcock Presents, and many other TV crime shows. So we have all of this talent, and the episode is kind of a muddled mess.

Novelist William O'Farrell was probably famous at the time for his novel REPEAT PERFORMANCE, which is kind of GROUNDHOG DAY as a thriller, about a man who must relive the year he commits murder over and over again.

I suspect the reason is that this hour long episode is based on a novel... and what might work over the course of a novel might not work well when condensed into an hour of TV. The two stalkers thing seems unrealistic; this isn’t a movie star, it’s a business executive! In order to flesh out each character we spend some extra screen time on scenes like Merl and his sister having a dispute... which was probably a fine scene in the novel, but here it seems to come out of left field and slow down the story. And compressing all of the things that happen into a couple of days makes it seem like Alan has the worst luck in the world. When the two stalkers come together, that just seems like a huge coincidence. So we have a story that probably worked well in book form condensed into too little time... and all of the things that could be either set up or glossed over in the book now seem abrupt. The story also ends up “too plotty”, so much going on that we don’t get enough time to really see the emotional impact on Alan. Things like Merl transforming himself into Alan are rushed, and often end up more exposition than demonstration. Adding to this is that the thriller aspects don't kick in until the last quarter of the show. Too much going on!

The music for this episode is basically variations on the THRILLER theme, which makes it seem a little cheap. The same composer will do *great* work on later episodes, like PAPA BENJAMIN (about a big band leader, which Rugalo was before doing TV scores) who must deal with a voodoo curse.

Despite all of this, it’s a competent episode... it just probably should have been a two parter or something. The acting and direction is fine, and the idea that an insignificant person in your life could turn your world upside down like this is scary. I almost wish they had split the story into two stories, one with the crazy FATAL ATTRACTION woman at the office and the other with the SINGLE WHITE FEMALE stalker who transforms themself into a clone of you... an unstable, violent, murderous clone. That way each idea could have been fully explored, and more time spent on the suspense of the situation. One of the reason why I loved this show as a kid were the episodes that take a simple situation and ramp up the suspense until it is unbearable. When we come to GUILLOTINE, you’ll see a great example of that: will a poisoned executioner make it to work today? This isn’t a bad episode... but it doesn’t display the brilliance this show will achieve in later episodes.

FADE OUT.

Bill

Film Courage Plus: You Need To Keep Writing!

FILM COURAGE did a series of interviews with me at the end of 2014, and then again at the end of 2015. There were something like 12 segments from 2014, and probably around 24 segments for 2015... and that's around 36 segments total. That's almost a year's worth of material! So why not add a new craft article and make it a weekly blog entry? All I have to do is write that new article, right?

You have to keep writing after making a sale!



Welcome To Your New Day Job!

The good news is that you just sold a screenplay or landed an assignment or had a screenplay go out wide - you’re in the business, baby! You can quit that awful day job you have struggled with and finally have time to write full time!

Except for one small problem...

You have a new day job. All of the business bullcrap of being a professional screenwriter. If you think you are now a full time writer, think again! One of the things that happens when you have a script go out wide or sell is that everyone in town wants to meet with you. When I had scripts go to 50 studio based producers, I usually ended up with around 48 meetings and at 2-3 meetings a day that is a full month of your time driving from one studio to another... and you will never have all of your meetings on the same lot! My meetings were always on 3 different sides of town with insane traffic between them. One meeting I was late for because I blew a tire on the freeway and ended up dirty and frazzled when I finally got there. Great first impression!

And no writing got done when I was doing all of those endless meetings. I *wanted* to write, but at the end of the day I was just too tired.

But after that month, you are free to write, right?

Nope. One of the side effects of meetings is the “busy work” of “pitching your take” on projects. Out of those 48 meetings, none of them bought me screenplay but many of them had writing jobs they thought I might be a good fit for - so they gave me books and magazine articles and all kinds of other stuff to read and then return with my take on. Of course, I wasn’t the only one doing this - every writer they had met with over the past few weeks was reading the same book and pitching their take. But you end up spending a lot of time doing this... when you should be writing.

Meetings becomes your full time job, and you have to squeeze in writing in whatever spare time you have left over. It’s like you are back to having a day job!

But here’s the problem: Once you get done with all of the meetings and the meetings generated by the meetings? You need a new script in order to get new meetings. The hope is that one of these scripts sells or one of your takes gets you an assignment. But you need a constant supply of new screenplays.

One of the things I learned the hard way was that it’s a good idea to have a stockpile of scripts ready to go. Though I had a bunch of scripts written, most of them needed some rewrite work to match them with the current market... and that slowed things down a little. The more prepared you are for that big break, the better you can handle it. And you will need to adjust from writing in your spare time with your old day job to writing in your spare time with your new day job... and getting pages done!

Your career is going to be like a treadmill where you need to keep running!

ONE FOR ME

But what if your script sells or lands you and assignment? Will you still need to do all of those meetings?

Yes. That’s part of the problem: you will need to strike while the iron is hot. It’s common for a screenwriter to do all of those meetings for the next gig while you are supposed to be writing the assignment you were just paid for. It’s common to “stack” assignments - use the heat from one job as bait to get other jobs and end up with two or three assignments with similar deadlines.... and now all you have to do is write them all! I once ended up with walking pneumonia because I was working non-stop on a couple of different screenplays that were going into production. A man’s gotta know his limitations - and I learned where mine are!

Your so called career will always be about the next script and the next gig. But even if you land an assignment, you will need to figure out how to squeeze in a new spec script so that you can do the next round of meetings and land your next assignment - because once you finish that assignment you are unemployed! One of the things I did on assignments was treat everything as “one for them, one for me” - I would make sure that I had enough time and made enough money to write a spec script that I could send out as bait for new assignments (or maybe even sell). Even in the years where I had three scripts go to screen (the mid 90s were very very good to me), and all of the rewriting on those three projects; I made sure to write 2-3 scripts a year for myself. So I wrote 5-6 scripts a year, 3 of them got made and went through all of the hell of rewrites. But I had new scripts to recharge my career if need be... and it often did. You are always breaking in!

One of the problems with those extremely low budget gigs that you see on places like Ink Tip is that you can’t earn enough money to pay for the time to write that one for me script, and it’s like the treadmill moving faster and faster. So part of every script deal you make needs to include some plan on your part for writing a new spec script. If you take one of those low pay gigs, you need to make sure you are paid enough to write a one for you. That probably means asking for more money, but if that ends up a deal breaker: “Reading Periods” can be the answer.

One of the wacky things with assignment contracts is that they spell out how much time you have to write each draft, and how much time the production company has to read the screenplay and give you notes before the next draft. Now, *you* must turn in your draft on time... but they often screw up when it comes to the reading period. It might be 2 weeks in the contract... and end up a month! Hurry up and wait! But that 2 weeks which may end up a month? That’s the one for you. When I was having three scripts filmed a year, if they weren’t all happening at the same time, I would use the reading period to work on my own project. A great “palate cleanser”, and I would end up with some work done on the “one for me” script.

The important thing is not to get so tied up with *their* project that you neglect *your* project. I don’t expect you to have three projects going a year for a few years like I did... but that *could happen*!

CELEBRATE GOOD TIMES!

There is a tendency when you sell a script or land an assignment to relax. I think in another of the Film Courage interviews I talk about selling COURTING DEATH to the company with the deal at Paramount and then holing up in my apartment and just leisurely writing - living the dream! But the problem became that after my 2 years of money was gone, I had some new scripts but had done nothing to network or get those scripts to market... and had to scramble to find a deal. I know some people who didn’t even write new scripts... and were in real trouble! You have to keep generating material, even after you are “successful”. Every month there is a new “flavor of the month”.

Here’s the problem with waiting until you *need* a gig to write a bunch of new screenplays - you will be writing from desperation. Instead of having fun writing your spec scripts, you will be trying so hard to make this the one that will start the deals and meetings happening again that the script will suck. I have a friend on FaceBook who has been single for a long time and is at the point of begging women to date him. Do I have to tell you that doesn’t work? Well, it doesn’t work with screenplays either - they can read in your writing that you are trying desperately to make a deal. You want your scripts to be so cool they think they don’t have a chance to date them, not so desperate and needy that they are the nightmare date. So don’t wait until the last minute! Make sure writing new screenplays is part of your “business plan” and included in writing those assignments!

You can have a sale or assignment and think that you have “made it” and can take it easy for a while... but you can’t! You have to keep writing, keep generating new material, and keep getting that material out there in the world so that when this deal has run its course you have a new one waiting. Yes, take a vacation... but that’s a week or two, right? Taking a vacation for a month or six months is probably a mistake. When you are not on vacation, you need to be working! This is a career - a marathon rather than a sprint. You need to always be writing new screenplays... even when you think you have “made it”. The problem with being a freelance writer is that once you have sold a screenplay or completed and assignment... you are unemployed! You will always be looking for work. Which means you will always be working.

Make sure you have a plan to keep writing scripts after you have landed a gig!

Good luck and keep writing!

- Bill

Gus Van Hitchcock's PSYCHO

From back in 2009... so that must have been Raindance 2004

Five years ago at the Raindance Film Festival, I met these crazy guys from The Media Lounge who make film collages that play in London night clubs. They had a feature length program playing in the festival called BRING ME THE HEAD OF ROB LOWE, which had me laughing so hard I almost passed out. Basically it was a bunch of great short pieces connected by DVD extra interviews with Robe Lowe where he said *the exact same thing* in a different location. One of the great short bits was where they mixed up the audio track of one movie trailer with the video of another... and they matched! So, the audio voice over from some cute family film with the video from some violent action flick - and the words seemed to describe the images.

I wondered what those guys were up to... and they have a bunch of collage movies on YouTube, including this mash up of PSYCHO and the remake, set to music.





- Bill

Of course, I have my own books on Hitchcock...

HITCHCOCK: MASTERING SUSPENSE

LEARN SUSPENSE FROM THE MASTER!

Alfred Hitchcock, who directed 52 movies, was known as the “Master Of Suspense”; but what exactly is suspense and how can *we* master it? How does suspense work? How can *we* create “Hitchcockian” suspense scenes in our screenplays, novels, stories and films?

This book uses seventeen of Hitchcock’s films to show the difference between suspense and surprise, how to use “focus objects” to create suspense, the 20 iconic suspense scenes and situations, how plot twists work, using secrets for suspense, how to use Dread (the cousin of suspense) in horror stories, and dozens of other amazing storytelling lessons. From classics like “Strangers On A Train” and “The Birds” and “Vertigo” and “To Catch A Thief” to older films from the British period like “The 39 Steps” and “The Man Who Knew Too Much” to his hits from the silent era like “The Lodger” (about Jack The Ripper), we’ll look at all of the techniques to create suspense!

Films Included: NOTORIOUS, SABOTAGE, STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, THE 39 STEPS, REBECCA, TO CATCH A THIEF, FRENZY, FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT, THE LODGER, THE BIRDS, TORN CURTAIN, SABOTEUR, VERTIGO, THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1934), THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1955), SUSPICION, and NUMBER SEVENTEEN. 17 Great Films!

Only 125,000 words!

Price: $5.99



Click here for more info!

HITCHCOCK DID IT FIRST!

We all know that Alfred Hitchcock was the Master Of Suspense, but did you know he was the most *experimental* filmmaker in history?

Contained Thrillers like “Buried”? Serial Protagonists like “Place Beyond The Pines”? Multiple Connecting Stories like “Pulp Fiction”? Same Story Multiple Times like “Run, Lola, Run”? This book focuses on 18 of Hitchcock’s 53 films with wild cinema and story experiments which paved the way for modern films. Almost one hundred different experiments that you may think are recent cinema or story inventions... but some date back to Hitchcock’s *silent* films! We’ll examine these experiments and how they work. Great for film makers, screenwriters, film fans, producers and directors.

Films Examined: “Rear Window”, “Psycho”, “Family Plot”, “Topaz”, “Rope”, “The Wrong Man”, “Easy Virtue”, “Lifeboat”, “Bon Voyage”, “Aventure Malgache”, “Elstree Calling”, “Dial M for Murder”, “Stage Fright”, “Champagne”, “Spellbound”, “I Confess”, and “The Trouble with Harry”, with glances at “Vertigo” and several others.

Professional screenwriter William C. Martell takes you into the world of The Master Of Suspense and shows you the daring experiments that changed cinema. Over 77,000 words.

Click here for more info!

THRILLER Thursday: WAXWORKS

SEASON 2: WAXWORKS

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

Season: 2, Episode: 16.
Airdate: January 8, 1962.

Director: Herschel Daugherty.
Writer: Robert Bloch, based on his short story.
Cast: Oskar Homolka, Ron Ely, Alan Baxter, Booth Colman, Antoinette Bower.
Music: Morton Stevens.
Cinematography: Benjamin Kline.
Producer: William Frye.

Boris Karloff’s Introduction: “I can not tell a lie. I cut it with my hatchet. A very famous quote from an even more famous gentleman. But his good father had no trouble obtaining the confession - afterall his victim was nothing more than a cherry tree. While ours? Ours was living flesh and blood. I wonder if an admission of guilt can be extracted from a chap who, as we have heard, has already been executed. Not once, not twice, but three times. Yes, my friends, Vardack the mass murderer certainly should be harmless now. Now that he’s merely a cleverly molded figure in the waxworks. Which, as it so happens, is the setting and the title of our story. A moving amidst models of monsters and murderers you will encounter some very real people. Our players. And they are: Pierre Jacquelin, Master sculptor whose wax companions include no less than fifty of the world’s most diabolical murderers, played by Oskar Homolka. His niece, Annette, beautiful, beguiling, a pleasant contrast to her sinister surroundings, played by Antoinette Bower. Colonel Bertroux, a pursuer as relentless as he is mysterious, portrayed by Martin Kosleck. Detective Hudson, a very young man in a very dangerous business, played by Ron Ely. His more seasoned colleague, Sargent Dane, who is to learn that flesh and blood murderers are much easier to capture than the other kind, enacted by Alan Baxter. And Lieutenant Baily, whose not so enviable responsibility it is to solve the mystery of the waxworks, portrayed by Booth Colman. So come, let us go into the chamber of horrors together! I’ll vouch for the fact that you’ll enjoy yourselves, and it’ll be interesting to see if you can find your way out... alone!

Synopsis: Pierre Jacquelin (Homolka) owns a traveling wax museum of killers, and shows a tour around. Each diorama shows the killer in the act. All look very lifelike... and one of the guests thinks one of the statues are moving. A pretty woman (Amy Fields) is sketching one of the killers - Vardack - who has a bloody ax, and Jacquelin notes that her sketch missed the lift in the killer’s right shoe - one leg was shorter than the other. It’s closing time and everyone leaves... except for the woman who lurks behind finishing her sketch, and is now locked in with the 50 wax killers. The wax figure of killer Vardack that she sketched begins walking towards her - great suspense! We see the feet - one shoe with the lift - as they stalk her in the dark housed of wax. Closer and closer and closer and... She gets to the doors and tries to get out...

The City Morgue: Lt. Baily (Booth Coleman) and Sgt Dane (Alan Baxter) ask the Morgue Attendant (J. Pat O’Malley) about cause of death and other clues - she was killed with the ax, and they will have to wait for the Medical Examiner to finish up with another customer before they can get details. There’s a great bit here where the Morgue Attendant opens one of the refrigerated drawers with a dead body and pulls out his lunch - hey, just keeping it cold! Lots of witty lines.

Police Station: The Detectives look over the victim’s persona; effects... and the sketch pad. The drawing of the man with the ax... her killer? Did she know her killer? And why would he *pose* with the murder weapon? They can’t identify the man in the sketch, so Sgt Dane goes to the Waxworks to interview Jacquelin.

Waxworks: Sgt Dane shows the sketch to Jacquelin and ask if he has ever seen this man. He has... and leads the cop to the diorama of the ax murderer. What? Jacquelin expects them to believe that a wax dummy murdered the girl? That’s crazy! There are 50 wax murderers in the waxworks, Jacquelin knows a lot about murder. Dane asks if Jacquelin has an alibi for the time of death, and his niece steps out of the shadows and says they were working on a new exhibit. When Jacqueline goes to show a group around the waxworks, Sgt Dane question his pretty niece Annette (Antoinette Bower)..

Dane asks if he can search the studio - and Annette allows him to poke around. There is a vat of wax, a work bench, all kinds of wax body parts - it’s spooky as heck! Dane wants to open a closed door, Annette tries to stop him... too late! The Detective opens the closet door and there is a *man* inside. An old bearded man! And he falls out - right at the Detective! Who catches him. Annette moves in to help - it’s a wax dummy. The very one that Jacquelin was working on last night. This is a great shock moment.

After he is satisfied that Jacquelin isn’t the killer, Sgt Dane asks if he can buy Jacquelin dinner and they walk down the foggy street at night... when they hear the roar of a car engine. The car zooms right at them - hitting and killing Sgt Dane! Behind the wheel of the car: The wax dummy that was in the closet!

After Jacquelin makes her statement at the police station, handsome young Detective Hudson takes her home. Meanwhile, Detective Baily has a theory - what if the killer is after Annette? He mistook the artist girl for Annette, and then the car was trying to kill her instead of Sgt, Dane.

As Hudson walks her home, a man follows them in the shadows. They stop at a Chinese restaurant for dinner, and afterwards each lies about what their fortune cookie says. Annette says it reads “Don’t stay out to late on the first date” - when it really says “Beware of the dark stranger.”

Just when they may be about to kiss, the man who was following steps out of the shadows with a gun! He is Colonel Bertroux (Martin Kosleck) - and Detective Baily and Jacquelin blast out of the waxworks doors and tackle him... arresting him for both murders.

Except he’s not the killer - he’s a French detective who has been tracking a serial killer. This serial killer seems to strike wherever the waxworks sets up shop. Every city in Europe where the exhibition set up camp was plagued with killings. Bertroux’s investigation has found no evidence against Jacquelin nor Annette... He believes the wax figures may be doing the killings. The M.O.s for all of the killings have matched the 50 wax figure’s killings. Bertroux has the crazy idea that the wax figures can come to life, and rattles off a series of legends and myths about statues coming to life. He’s wacky!

But Sgt, Dane was killed by a car - none of the wax killers used an automobile. Bertroux says there was a killer who murdered with a car... and the name is the same name as the new wax figure that was in the closet!

The spooky waxworks at night. Pounding at the door. Annette opens the door - to Colonel Bertroux, who has a crazy theory that Jacquelin is stealing hairs from the killers when he makes his death masks and is using black magic to bring them to life. Dude be crazy! He wants to confront Jacquelin, breaks down the bedroom door and pulls back the covers... exposing a wax figure in Jacquelin’s bed. What?

Then Bertroux hears footsteps coming closer. The hook handed killer wax figure enters the room, raises his hook... and kills Bertroux! The wax figures ARE alive!

Lt Baily and Detective Hudson pound on the door of the waxworks - they were following Bertroux. They break down the door and enter the dark, spooky waxworks - filled with 50 wax killers! They pass a wax killer with a huge butcher knife poised to stab a woman - he looks so real! Then Baily realizes that Hudson is no longer behind him, and re-traces his steps. This time the wax killer’s hand is empty - no butcher knife. The knife is in dead Hudson’s back!

A door pops open behind Baily, he spins - it’s Jacquelin. With Bertroux’s gun. Bertroux is in the bubbling caldron of wax in the workshop. Baily says he went through Bertroux’s files before coming here - evidence of murders throughout Europe, wherever the traveling Waxworks was. Baily thinks that the murders were not committed by wax figures, but by a man who disguised himself as those wax figures: Jacquelin.

They wrestle for the gun, Baily manages to grab it. Asks where Jacquein’s niece is. “I have no niece... she is my wife.” Baily opens a closet door and there is Annette... except she’s freakin’ ancient! And a wax figure. You see, she was a murderer witch who was executed and Jacquelin used black magic to bring here back - stole her body and molded wax over her dead form - a wax figure that comes alive. He needs fresh blood to keep her alive - hence the victims. Obviously he’s crazy. He takes a candle to illuminate her face... then tries to grab Baily’s gun. In the struggle Jacquelin is killed and the candle lights the wax figure of Annette and she burns - exposing a skull and skeleton underneath!

Jacquelin wasn’t crazy - Annette was really a wax figure come to life!

Review: This is a great creepy episode, with lots of suspense and twists... Daugherty was one of the “staff directors” and sometimes his episodes are great and sometimes they seem rushed for time (it’s TV, and you have to shoot the episode in time for it to air or there will just be a test pattern). But I wonder how much the writer ended up part of that equation? Robert Bloch is one of mt favorite horror writers, and his work was frequently adapted for THRILLER and often - like in this case - by his own hand. I learned a lot about creating dread and terror by reading his stories, and I assume that he carried those techniques over into his teleplays. If it ain’t on the page, it ain’t on the stage! How many of the scary episodes are due to suspense scenes being in the screenplay, so that they were scheduled into the shoot? That opening scene where the wax killer stalks the woman trapped in the waxworks after closing could have just been: “Vardack kills her” in the script, and scheduled as a couple of seconds of screen time - with only a few minutes to shoot. But if it had been written out as a suspense scene, they would have scheduled more time to shoot it and there would have been time to get all of those creepy shots. Could that be the reason why the same director has different results?

Oskar Homolka was a silent star in Austria back in 1926 who became one of Hitchcock’s great villains ten years later in SABOTAGE, and spent 50 years in the business playing all kinds of great roles including Russian Colonel Stok in a couple of the Harry Palmer movies. He was one of those dependable character actors who could show up for work and knock it our of the park. He’s so charming, here, that you know why he has evaded the police for so long.

Ron Ely is impossibly young in this episode. A few years later he would play Tarzan, and so far he is the only one to play Doc Savage on film. Antoinette Bower began her career in a TV version of Poe’s TELLTALE HEART and has had a huge TV career including playing Berlin Betty on HOGAN’S HEROES and played the principal’s wife in PROM NIGHT... and is still with us. Martin Kosleck had a career playing Nazis in movies and on TV (HOGAN’S HEROES), but I know him as the homeless guy sleeping in the windmill in FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT. Alan Baxter was in Hitchcock’s SABOTEUR.

The story is a semi reworking of Bloch’s YOURS TRULY JACK THE RIPPER with a series of murders that fallow the pattern of previous murders and the driven expert from across the pond who aids the police in their investigation... but also is one of the prime suspects. But the whole things gets a fresh coat of paint and a completely different concept. Instead of Jack The Ripper, we get the very creepy idea of house of wax killers coming to life. Instead of the victims being women and that trip to a 60s strip club, most of the victims are men and we focus on the super creepy house of wax at night. So Bloch took the skeleton of the story and jettisoned everything else, creating a completely new story. I find this stuff interesting. If you are making a living writing and selling short stories, you have to keep turning them out! How do you keep that up? One of the way Lester Dent (Doc Savage) managed to write a novel (or two) a month was to have a handful of story patterns - or formulas - that he could use as the skeleton. You can read all of those books back to back and they seem like completely different stories because the details are different. Here, Jack The Ripper being split up into the 50 wax killers in the house of wax - and the completely different resolution - make it a completely new story. All of the scenes are different. The skeleton is similar.

After last week’s crime story disguised as a horror story (the dream sequence opening), we’re back to real horror - and this is a fun, creepy episode! Next week - a period episode about witches!

- Bill

Trailer Tuesday: DAVE (1993)

President's Day!

Director: Ivan Reitman.
Writer: Gary Ross.
Starring: Kevin Kline, Sigourney Weaver, Frank Langella, Ving Rhames, Kevin Dunn, Ben Kingsley, Laura Linney.
Produced by: Lauren Shuler Donner.
Cinematography by: Adam Greenberg.
Music by: James Newton Howard.




The Capraesque DAVE (1993) is about a nice guy who runs a temp employment agency and has a side job as a celebrity look alike for the President... and ends up becoming the temporary President when the real one goes into a coma. This is a sweet film that managed to do it all: it’s a great film about American Politics, it has traces of romantic comedy, it’s shows the corrupt back alley deals that go in on (a version of the real life Keating Five Savings And Loan Scandal), it’s about a regular guy taking on the establishment (like Capra’s MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON) and it’s a fun comedy. Oh, and it’s probably the first film I ever noticed Ving Rhames in, because he steals the show as the President’s #1 Secret Service Agent. He has a line at the end that makes me tear up every time I see the movie, and the way that line is set up is a great lesson in screenwriting.

Crap, now I have to talk about that, huh?

First we need to have the story set up...

Okay, the story has Dave Kovic (Kevin Kline), a nice guy who runs an employment agency and just wants everyone to have a job on Monday morning so that they can pay their rent by the end of the month, picked to be a “decoy President”... not by the Secret Service, but by the President’s cronies Bob Alexander (played by the always evil Frank Langella) and Alan Reed (played by comic turned actor Kevin Dunn). You see, the President has a girlfriend (played by Laura Linney before we knew her name!) and would like to slip away from the press to meet with her in a hotel. So while Dave is leading the Press in one direction, the real President (also Kline) is going in another direction. The President is stiff, overly serious, and a bit of a dick. Dave, while walking down a hallway in front of the press accidentally adds a little humanity to the President, and is sure they will be mad at him for doing that. You know, he could use the extra money being a Presidential decoy now and then.

But the President’s tryst with his girlfriend goes very very wrong about 15 minutes into the film... he has a stroke mid stroke and goes into a coma. Usually the Vice President would be sworn into office at this time, but Bob Alexander and Alan think V.P. Gary Nance (Ben Kingsley) is a “boy scout” who won’t go along with the President’s not so nice policies. So they hatch a scheme. *Dave* will continue to pretend to be President (but be less visible for a while), and they will keep him away from the First Lady Ellen (who sleeps in a separate room anyway) (played by Sigourney Weaver who really deserves more love - she’s great in everything), V.P. Gary will be sent on a tour of foreign countries to get him out of the way, then they will pin a scandal on the V.P. while he’s away to discredit him, accept the V.P.’s resignation, and then Dave will appoint Bob Alexander acting V.P... and then the President will “have a stroke” and Dave will go back to his temp employment agency as the real President will publicly go to the hospital and... well, Bob Alexander will take over as President and run the country instead of just being the puppet master behind the President. Great plan!

Except for Dave.

While pretending to be the President Dave is a nice guy who realizes the President’s policies are often not so nice. They often benefit the President’s cronies more than the American people. So when President Dave has a chance to do something good, he does it... making Bob very angry. Alan is the “pivot character” here who starts out as an antagonist but is won over by Dave and becomes his ally. Now that I’ve given away everything, let’s take a look at how it all works, starting with....

INTRODUCTIONS

The opening scene has Marine One Helicopter landing on the White House Lawn, and President Mitchell (Kline) and his wife Ellen (Weaver) get off the helicopter. Mitchell is handed the leashes for his two cute little dogs, and they smile and wave past the press and into the White House.... Where Mitchell immediately throws the leashes on the ground and gets away from the dogs and his wife. An aid grabs the leash off the floor and takes away the dogs. President Mitchell and Ellen sleep in different bedrooms on opposite ends of a hallway....

Cut to...

The Grand Opening of a Car Lot, where an Announcer introduces the President Of The United States... who comes out riding a pig! It’s Dave Kovic (Kline) who looks like the President except for his hair style and color, he doesn’t wear glasses, and his general attitude - he’s a goofball. A cheerful and funny guy who does a great imitation of the President as he makes his pitch for the new car lot. Watching him is Secret Service Agent Duane (Ving Rhames - with hair) who later approaches Dave and explains that for security reasons they often employ a double for the President. Would he be interested in serving his country?

Kline does a great job of making these two very different characters - they walk and speak and move and thing differently (the thinking part is writer Gary Ross’ work). You believe that these are two different people. After Dave covers for President Mitchell so that he can boink his secretary Randi (there’s a name) and has his stroke, Secret Service Agent Duane doesn’t take him back home in the limo... he takes him to the White House, where he is needed to pass as the President while he is recovering from his stroke... and stay away from the First Lady!

UNDERCOVER COMEDY

One of the things that I find interesting is the connection between thrillers and comedies - the same plot can often work for either genre. WEEKEND AT BERNIE’S is a comedy about two guys and a corpse having to pretend that the dead guy is alive so they will not be arrested or worse. Is that a thriller or a comedy? Both Comedies and Thrillers often deal with secrets and plot twists and people pretending to be someone else. Don Winslow’s thriller “The Death And Life Of Bobby Z” is about a guy named Tim who resembles reclusive drug lord Bobby Z, who is sent undercover to pretend to be the drug lord and get information on the suppliers and everything else so that the FBI can bust everyone...

But suspense builds when the drug lord’s girlfriend shows up, along with some other people who might discover that he’s just a guy named Tim pretending to be drug lord Bobby Z... and then they will kill him. He can’t make a single mistake... and that girlfriend is a *serious* complication.

And that is the same plot as DAVE... with the First Lady as the drug lord’s girlfriend, who is going to know that he is not the President. There’s a sequence where Bob and Alan give Dave all of the background on the President, and “test” him on this knowledge until they are sure that he can pass as the President long enough for them to set all of the other parts of their plan to make Bob the President into motion... but he must stay away from the First Lady....

Which sets up a series of suspense scenes that create *laughs* as Dave tries to act like the very serious President Mitchell... even though he’s kind of a goofball.

There’s a great montage of chances for Dave to blow it - and he comes very close a few times. A photo op with babies, bowing to the Japanese Prime Minister, staff meetings, and a great set piece where he is testing some giant robot arms at a factory and ends up dancing and singing “Louie, Louie”. The political panel shows all notice the big change in him... and even though they are positive about these changes... it’s a big chance that they will discover that he’s not the President, just some guy named Dave.

And there’s a scene with the First Lady that is very tense... and Dave manages to fool her into believing that he is her husband. Maybe.

She sees him playing with the dogs on the White House lawn - rolling around on the grass with them... and that is not something that her husband would ever do.

The big scene is a visit with the First Lady to a homeless shelter for kids. In the limo on the way there, she asks why he bothered to come since he doesn’t care about the homeless or children. When she crosses her legs, her dress falls open a bit and he looks at her legs... great legs. But this is something that *Dave* would do - President Mitchell hasn’t been attracted to her for years.

At the Homeless shelter for children, while the First Lady explains the bill to help homeless children to the press, Dave notices a kid all alone in the corner and goes over to talk to him. This is a great scene - but also filled with suspense because this is not something that the President would ever do. Dave does some close up magic to entertain the kid, and then has a real heart to heart talk with him... and the First Lady notices all of this. She has started to catch on that this is not her husband...

Which builds suspense.

THE BIG TWIST

Bob Alexander forges the President’s *veto* on the Homeless Shelter Bill - kicking all of those kids out onto the street.

Dave is in the Presidential Shower, when the First Lady storms in - angry as hell. She wants the President to turn and face her - naked - in the shower. And Dave is sure that she will figure out he isn’t her husband. He’s naked. Standing before her. She is angry that after pretending to care about that homeless kid, he vetoes the bill and kicked him out onto the street....

Dave confronts Bob Alexander - who tells him that he is *not* the President. If Dave can find $650 million, they can have the Homeless Shelter.

Now, Bob Alexander has seriously underestimated Dave. $650 million is an impossible amount of money. Where will a guy who runs a temp agency and rides a pig pretending to be the President come up with that kind of money?

Dave calls his accountant friend Murray (Charles Grodin at his Charles Grodinest) and they look over the federal budget and find $650 million that is being obviously wasted.

The President calls a meeting, and Bob is angry - *he* calls the meetings, not this fake President. Dave goes over each of the obviously wasted budget elements - having to fight each department because wasting $32 million isn’t important. That kind of money is trivial. By the end of the meeting he has over $650 million... and reinstates the Homeless Shelter Bill. And all of the department heads feel *good* about this. As does Alan - Bob’s co-conspirator.... and that’s a big moment. Alan is now siding with Dave instead of Bob. Earlier I called Alan a “pivot character” - he starts out on one side and pivots to the other side... and this shows that he actually sees Dave as being a leader. Bob still thinks of Dave as that guy who rides the pig, but Alan sees him as a real President... even if he’s an impostor. There’s a great scene where Bob and Alan are on either side of a door - and Alan remains on his side. He doesn’t cross over to Bob’s side.

The First Lady lets Dave know that she knows he is not the President... and wants to know what happened to her husband? Dave and Secret Service Agent Duane go to the basement of the White House, where a make shift hospital has been set up... and the President is in a permanent coma. He is brain dead.

Dave fires Bob. Wait? Can a guy who impersonates the President fire people? Bob has created a Frankenstein’s Monster, who has turned against him. Because everyone believes that Dave is the President, they believe that he can fire Bob....

Bob begins his smear campaign against Vice President Gary being involved in a Savings & Loan Corruption Scandal... and adds the President, pushing for his resignation.

We get a great MR SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON scene as Dave and Vice President Gary have a private conversation, and Dave asks how Gary started out in politics. “I was a shoe salesman. Not very happy about it. One day, my wife says to me, ‘Why don't you try running for office? You know, you talk about it all the time. Why don't you just go do it?’ So I tell my boss I have a dentist appointment, and go down to the registrar of voters on my lunch break... next thing I know I'm a councilman. My wife was my campaign manager, we had a budget of two thousand dollars - with advertising.” Gary is a good guy, who got into politics to help people... grass roots, front line politician. Which is why Bob doesn’t want him to be President - he’s a “Boy Scout”.

Dave says that he will address Congress and the Senate over these allegations...

“I'm the President, and as they say, the buck stops here. So I take full responsibility for each one of my illegal actions. But that's not the whole story. I think the American people are entitled to the real truth.” He opens a briefcase and pulls out papers. “I have here evidence in the form of notes, letters, and written memoranda, proving that Bob Alexander was involved in each of these illegal acts, and in most cases planned them as well. Now, allegations of wrongdoing have also been made against Vice President Nance. Now, as this evidence will prove, at no time and in no way was the Vice President involved in any of this affair. Bob just made all that up. Vice President Nance is a good and decent public servant, and I want to apologize for any pain that this has caused him or his family.”

Dave continues....

“I’d like to apologize to the American people. You see, I forgot that I was hired to do a job for you. And it was just a temp job at that. I forgot that I had 250 million people who were paying me to make their lives a little bit better. And I didn’t live up to my part of the bargain. You see, I think there are certain things you should expect form a President. I ought to care more about you, than I do about me. I ought to care more about what’s right than about what’s popular. I ought to be willing to give up this whole thing for something that I believe in. Because if I’m not, then maybe I don’t belong here in the first place.”

Then, Dave has a stroke and falls to the floor. An ambulance takes away the President, and the Vice President is sworn in as President...

CONCLUSIONS

Which brings us to a great set up and pay off...

Early in the film, when Dave first gets the job as temp President, he asks the Secret Service Agent Duane (Ving Rhames) if it’s true that Secret Service Agents would take a bullet for the President. Rhames says he would gladly sacrifice his life for the President. Dave asks if Rhames would take a bullet for *him*? Rhames gives him a look. Dave realizes he’s in trouble if someone shoots at him...

This is a great gag.

But also sets up one of the last lines of the movie, in the ambulance after they have taken the Real President in a coma to the hospital, when Rhames says he’d gladly take a bullet for Dave. This is one of those big moments that comes out of nowhere and makes your eyes moist.

DAVE is one of those films that manages to be both sweet and savage at the same time. If you haven’t seen it, or just haven’t seen it in a while, check it out. President’s Day was yesterday, right?

- Bill

Fridays With Hitchcock: Ten Screenwriting Tips!

Ten Screenwriting Tips from Hitchcock?

The fun part of writing my Hitchcock Books (for screenwriters) is finding all of the *story* techniques that Hitch uses to involve the audience in the stories, and whenever I get off my lazy butt I will write the third book in the series that's all about screenwriting and Hitch's writers. The great thing about Hitchcock is that when he found a writer that he worked well with, he just kept using them again and again, and some (like Joan Harrison) ended up producers on his TV show and the editor of his magazine (or was it *her* magazine?).

So here's a nice little video that looks at some of Hitch's story techniques...

Of course, I have my own books focusing on Hitchcock...

HITCHCOCK: MASTERING SUSPENSE

LEARN SUSPENSE FROM THE MASTER!

Alfred Hitchcock, who directed 52 movies, was known as the “Master Of Suspense”; but what exactly is suspense and how can *we* master it? How does suspense work? How can *we* create “Hitchcockian” suspense scenes in our screenplays, novels, stories and films?

This book uses seventeen of Hitchcock’s films to show the difference between suspense and surprise, how to use “focus objects” to create suspense, the 20 iconic suspense scenes and situations, how plot twists work, using secrets for suspense, how to use Dread (the cousin of suspense) in horror stories, and dozens of other amazing storytelling lessons. From classics like “Strangers On A Train” and “The Birds” and “Vertigo” and “To Catch A Thief” to older films from the British period like “The 39 Steps” and “The Man Who Knew Too Much” to his hits from the silent era like “The Lodger” (about Jack The Ripper), we’ll look at all of the techniques to create suspense!

Films Included: NOTORIOUS, SABOTAGE, STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, THE 39 STEPS, REBECCA, TO CATCH A THIEF, FRENZY, FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT, THE LODGER, THE BIRDS, TORN CURTAIN, SABOTEUR, VERTIGO, THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1934), THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1955), SUSPICION, and NUMBER SEVENTEEN. 17 Great Films!

Only 125,000 words!

Price: $5.99

Click here for more info!

OTHER COUNTRIES:


UK Folks Click Here.

German Folks Click Here.

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Canadian Folks Click Here.

And....

HITCHCOCK: EXPERIMENTS IN TERROR

USA Readers click here for more info!

HITCHCOCK DID IT FIRST!

We all know that Alfred Hitchcock was the Master Of Suspense, but did you know he was the most *experimental* filmmaker in history?

Contained Thrillers like “Buried”? Serial Protagonists like “Place Beyond The Pines”? Multiple Connecting Stories like “Pulp Fiction”? Same Story Multiple Times like “Run, Lola, Run”? This book focuses on 18 of Hitchcock’s 52 films with wild cinema and story experiments which paved the way for modern films. Almost one hundred different experiments that you may think are recent cinema or story inventions... but some date back to Hitchcock’s *silent* films! We’ll examine these experiments and how they work. Great for film makers, screenwriters, film fans, producers and directors.

Films Examined: “Rear Window”, “Psycho”, “Family Plot”, “Topaz”, “Rope”, “The Wrong Man”, “Easy Virtue”, “Lifeboat”, “Bon Voyage”, “Aventure Malgache”, “Elstree Calling”, “Dial M for Murder”, “Stage Fright”, “Champagne”, “Spellbound”, “I Confess”, and “The Trouble with Harry”, with glances at “Vertigo” and several others.

Professional screenwriter William C. Martell takes you into the world of The Master Of Suspense and shows you the daring experiments that changed cinema. Over 77,000 words.

UK Folks Click Here.

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THRILLER Thursday: An Attractive Family

SEASON 2: AN ATTRACTIVE FAMILY

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

Season: 2, Episode: 15.
Airdate: January 1, 1962

Director: John Brahm.
Writer: Robert Arthur.
Cast: Richard Long, Otto Kruger, Leo G. Carroll, Joyce Bulifant, Joan Tetzel.
Music: Morton Stevens.
Cinematography: Henry Freulich.
Producer: William Frye.

Boris Karloff’s Introduction: “What you have witnessed, my friends, was of course a dream. But was it a fearful dream of self destruction? A dark premonition of murder? Or was it one of those nightmares which means just the opposite of what they seem? Well, as sure as my name is Boris Karloff, you’re going to find out, And in doing so, you’ll meet an attractive family named Farrington. Marian, Bert, and Dick Farrington. In fact, that’s the title of our story: An Attractive Family. There’s nothing one could dislike about them, unless you object to the fact that they occasionally commit a casual murder. Of course, you really shouldn’t object to that. Afterall, they only do it when it’s absolutely necessary. But then, I’ll let you form your own opinion. And now, permit me to introduce our players. They are: Richard Long, Joan Tetzel, Otto Kruger, Leo G. Carroll, and Joyce Bulifant. Remember, no hasty judgments! I’m sure there are several attractive families living on the same block... right there with you. That’s a shocking thought, wouldn’t you say?

Synopsis: Virginia Wells (Joyce Bulifant - Marie from the MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW) runs up to a gated old mansion with a sculpture garden and... the statues tell her to come up to the house! The Bates House from PSYCHO. She climbs the stairs, enters the house... which is filled with cobwebs and vacant. The statues inside tell her to go up the stairs... to do what she has to do, what she came to do... She climbs the spooky stairs, covered with cobwebs, to a door. Inside the room - a noose hangs from the ceiling with a chair underneath it... waiting for her. The voices tell her to do what she came here to do. A trio of shadows on the wall tell her she must do it. The shadows tell her that if she does it she will be at peace, like Alice. And she hangs herself!

New England: 1947. On a beautiful lake, new bride Marian Drake (Joan Tetzel) and her wealthy new husband George (William Mims) and Marian’s brother Dicky Farrington (Richard Long from THE BIG VALLEY in super sleazy mode) decide to take a canoe ride to a picnic spot. George is afraid of the water, can’t swim, and Marian makes a joke about he even shied away from Niagra Falls on their honeymoon. The local guy who rents them the canoe mentions that, although the lake is supposed to be bottomless, it’s actually 800 feet deep. This doesn’t make George any less afraid of the water. Marian jokes that they plan to stay on the surface, and row across the lake...

She drops her paddle in the water, asks George to grab it for her.. And he tips over the canoe in the process. Marian and Dicky grab the canoe - George panics and drowns. Well, there’s a moment where it looks like George might keep his head above water until they are rescued, so Dicky makes sure his head is below water - holding him down until he drowns.

Mexico: 1955. Dicky is the newlywed this time, his new bride is the quiet and studious Alice Wells (Diedre Owens) and they are on honeymoon, with Dicky’s Uncle Bert (Otto Kruger from MURDER MY SWEET) tagging along. Some conversation about how Alice is a lonely girl who never had a date and never expected to get married... and that she and her sister are wealthy orphans with a bank in charge of their estate. Oh, and they just made new wills and took out life insurance policies on each other - with double indemnity for accidental deaths.

Uncle Bert wants to take a picture of Dicky and Alice on the edge of a cliff with a beautiful view of the mountains in the background. Has her take off her glasses - sun glare, you know. Take a step back... another step... and she’s off the edge of the cliff and Dicky has just inherited and collected on the life insurance.

New England: Present Day (1962). In their luxurious family home, Dicky, Marian and Uncle Bert discuss their need for cash. They are broke. The liquor store won’t take their credit and Uncle Bert is down to his last bottle of booze. It seems that when Alice met her tragic death in Mexico, half of her estate went to her little sister Virginia - Jinny - and Dicky became the executor. Well, Dicky embezzled a bit, and when Virginia reaches 21 the money is all hers... and she will discover that some of it is missing. So Virginia has become their house guest over summer, and they plan on making sure that she dies before her upcoming 21st birthday. That way the embezzled money is never discovered and they inherit Virginia’s money as well. Win, win!

Major Downey (Leo G. Carroll) comes to pick up Virginia to go bird watching, and they stumble upon the old Merriview House (the Psycho house) with it’s spooky sculpture garden - from the opening scene. Downey tells her the history of the place - Merriview hung himself in an upstairs room and the house has been vacant ever since. Rumor is, the house is haunted. On the way back, Downey spots some mushrooms, “Nature’s bounty!”, and Virginia picks them.

Back at the house, Virginia shows Marian the mushrooms and Marian says that Virginia can have them for dinner. Not enough to share. When Virginia leaves the room, Marian tells Dicky and Uncle Bert that the mushrooms are poison - this solves all of their problems!

At dinner, Virginia tries to get Dicky to eat a mushroom - and he has to find a way out of it. Every time Virginia starts to put a mushroom in her mouth, someone says something that she responds to... and doesn’t eat the mushroom. Some mild tension is built here, but they don’t build it very well. Before Virginia can take a bite of the mushrooms, she accidentally spills her plate and the mushrooms go into the trash.

On to plan B - a picnic near a cliff. When Virginia goes to bed, the rest of our attractive family begins planning her death.

Virginia wakes up screaming from a nightmare - the show’s teaser - and tells Mariam and Dicky about the dream where she hangs herself in the old Merriview House.

The next morning, before the picnic by the cliff, Marian calls the local doctor to ask if there’s a psychiatric specialist who can help Virginia, because she has been having suicidal thoughts.

Dicky and Virginia go out on the picnic, Marian and Uncle Bert will join them later. Dicky takes her to the cliff and tries everything to get her to go to the edge - but nothing works. Virginia tells Dicky that her sister Alice wrote her a letter the day she died... a letter about Dicky. Dicky worries that the letter might be incriminating, wants to know what it said...

Since the cliff isn’t working, Dicky takes Virginia to the old Merriview House. She’s afraid, but he tells her that she must confront her fear... And drags her up the spooky stairs to the room from her dream... the room with the noose and the chair. Marian and Uncle Bert join them, encouraging her to face her fears - stand on the chair, put the noose around her neck. Virginia does this (WTF?) and then she says that Marian and Dicky and Uncle Bert are just trying to kill her... the way they killed her sister Alice! The three admit that this is true, and get ready to kick out the chair...

When Major Downey and the town Sheriff burst into the room and arrest the three. This whole time, Virginia and Major Downey have been trying to trick them into confessing - it’s been a sting operation all along!

Review: The sting operation makes no sense.

The twist ending in this story is completely out of left field to the point that it’s obvious that the writer didn’t know it was coming. The thing about any plot twist like this is that it was there all along. If Virginia and Major Downey were doing all of this to get them to confess to murdering Virginia’s sister, then those characters knew that is what they were doing and when we see them together they should be working out their next step in the sting... but instead, they are acting as if they have no idea that there is a sting.

But instead we open with the hanging nightmare - which she shouldn’t be having if the old house and the hanging ending is part of the plan. Isn’t the purpose of the nightmare to steer them towards trying to kill her in the old house - where the Major and Sheriff can be hidden with recording equipment to over hear the confession? Why would she have this nightmare if she was in control of the sting? And why would we have the scene where Major Downey takes her on the birdwatching hike to the old house and explains the whole backstory to her? Wouldn’t she know the backstory if she were part of the sting? This twist end makes no sense at all! The story doesn’t ,match the twist!

Many writers don’t outline their short stories - heck, they’re *short*. But usually they have the whole story in their minds before they sit down to write it. Both of the “Crime Time” short stories that I’ve published on Kindle have twist ends, and I actually began with the twist ends on both and then working backwards to the beginning. I’m pretty sure that’s how most writers do it, because you have to set up the twist end’s reality at the very beginning and then have that reality exist while diverting the reader’s attention away from that reality in the rest of the story. If Norman Bates and his mother are the same person, you can’t have a bunch of scenes in the beginning showing them both together having a conversation - that’s impossible.

And having Virginia actually put her neck in the noose which standing on that rickety chair makes no sense as part of any plan.

Of course, there’s an odd possibility that there were some script notes involved here - the episode opens with the dream sequence - which doesn’t make any sense if Virginia is part of the sting and trying to get revenge for her sister... but the point in the story where she has the nightmare and then tells Marian about it is much later in the story. So a decision was made to move that upfront so that the episode could start strong. Without the strange dream sequence, this episode is a standard thriller - and maybe they were trying to make it seem more like a horror story? There’s also the possibility that Major Downey was originally a villain and there wasn’t a sting, which would make Virginia not in on it... but that’s a whole bunch of major conjecture. The writer, Robert Arthur, also wrote THE PRISONER IN THE MIRROR and DIALOGUES WITH DEATH, two pretty good episodes... so I’m trying to figure out how he would end up with this nonsensical twist ending.

One of the things that works with the episode are the murders - each is well planned with the boat rental guy as a witness in George’s drowning: they make sure to talk about George being unable to swim in front of him, and Uncle Bert actually takes a picture of Alice stepping off the edge of the cliff with no one around her.. And the call to the psychiatrist about Virginia’s suicidal dreams. So you can see how they have managed to get away with it for all of these years. There was a woman in Marin, CA who had a dozen wealthy husbands die of natural causes and it took forever for police to become suspicious.

Richard Long, the nice guy lawyer on THE BIG VALLEY is great here are a super charismatic, slick, and sleazy - he seems to be having a great time playing a villain. There’s also a really creepy incestuous scene where he makes out with sister Marian that must have had the censors worried. Joyce Bulifant, who played Ted’s airhead girlfriend on MTM and the mother of the dying girl on her way to the Mayo in AIRPLANE! seems like an odd choice - unless it was all about the twist end sting. She’s playing naive to the point of stupid. It’s always great to see Otto Kruger, and he gets to play a charming con man.

The birdwatching allows an amusing last line... about spotting a trio of vultures.

Not one of the best episodes in the series, but still kind of fun... as long as you don’t think about that twist ending for over a second.

- Bill