Fri 1 Jan 2016
A TV Series Pilot Review: GHOST STORY “The New House” (1972).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , TV Horror[19] Comments
GHOST STORY “The New House.” NBC. Pilot episode, 60m, 17 March 1972. Sebastian Cabot (host), David Birney, Barbara Parkins, Sam Jaffe, Jeanette Nolan, Caitlin Wyles. Written by Richard Matheson. Producer: William Castle. Director: John Llewellyn Moxey.
As the pilot film for a proposed series, Ghost Story: The New House was aired in the spring of 1972, paired up, I am told, with the pilot for another series, the name of which I do not know, nor of course do I know whether the other would-be series was successful or not. [LATER: But see the first comment!] Ghost Story was picked up, however, with the first episode of its first and only season airing on 15 September 1972.
There were in total 23 episodes in this anthology series with a supernatural slant, including the pilot, but it ran into difficulty 13 shows into the run. The series went off the air briefly on 22 December 1972, and when it came back on 5 January 1973 under the title Circle of Fear. Sebastian Cabot as the host was dropped, and the emphasis was no longer on ghost stories.
Ghost Story came along a year before Thriller, a somewhat similar series created by Brian Clemens appeared in the UK, and even though the shows I’ve seen so far from the latter have been uneven in quality, unfortunately I think the worst has been better than “The New House.”
What it is is the story of a young couple, the wife pregnant, who move into a new house, only to find that it was built on the land where a young girl in the 18th century was hanged for stealing a loaf of bread. Soon the wife begins to hear strange noises at night, with no apparent cause, even though she wakes her husband up to go check. He is very exasperated by this, since he hears nothing.
There was one short scene that made me jump, close to the end with the power off (in the story) and a thunderstorm crashing all around the house, the wife alone with the newly born baby.
Other than that, I was not convinced. Neither star seemed to really get into the spirit of things, nor — even though I am sure this was done deliberately — do I believe that newly built homes in the US with dishwashers and modern two-car garages are conducive to ghostly hauntings. They seem to do this kind of story a whole lot better in England.
I also think that once you accept the premise that ghosts can exist, and that they are not necessarily friendly, that they ought to act logically, not bang around and make nuisances of themselves when they really have evil intent in mind.
December 31st, 2015 at 11:17 pm
This film was paired up by NBC with another hour movie, MOVIN’ ON, under the combined title DOUBLE PLAY, which was rebroadcast in the summer on 24 July 1972. According to IMDb, the second film starred Geoffrey Deuel and Patrick Wayne as “a race car driver and his friend, a motorcycle racer and former POW, [who] join forces to tour the U.S. in search of competition.” That it was created by Stirling Silliphant didn’t seem to matter much. Two tryouts, and it was gone.
January 1st, 2016 at 12:59 pm
GHOST STORY was so miserably bad, and CIRCLE OF FEAR no improvement. Serling’s crack that NIGHT GALLERY was the (later, more bland) MANNIX in a shroud would’ve been several steps up for GS/COF.
I wouldn’t be surprised if GHOST STORY wasn’t the proximal cause of the running parody on SECOND CITY TELEVISION/SCTV, “Doorway to Hell”…
January 1st, 2016 at 2:30 pm
Wrong network!
The two pilots, and the subsequent Ghost Story/Circle Of Fear series, were on NBC.
January 1st, 2016 at 2:38 pm
Thanks, Mike. I’ll fix that ASAP. Too much eggnog last night!
January 1st, 2016 at 7:42 pm
Around this time period they ran into the problem that the actors available in American television simply didn’t sell this kind of thing very well. Young actors of the period tended to be very much contemporary actors and they seemed out of place in any sense of the gothic or futuristic to me.
A number of series from this era seemed to fail because leading actors like these just could not sell the material convincingly.
The ghost story in particular is very much about a mood and mindset and if the casting is off it doesn’t work.
And to be honest, while he was in a lot, I never found David Birney convincing in anything, not even when he played his real wife, Meredith Baxter’s, husband. He gave bland leading man a bad name for my money. I still haven’t forgiven him for CARAVAN TO VACCARRES.
January 1st, 2016 at 8:48 pm
David
Birney had a lot of name recognition back then, but I won’t argue with you about your characterization of him as an actor. Not good, not bad. I’m OK with bland. Very good looking, though.
January 1st, 2016 at 7:51 pm
If I recall correctly, that “New House” story was adapted from a British short story. I read it in an anthology years ago. Darn, now I’ll have to find it.
January 1st, 2016 at 8:45 pm
You recall quite correctly, Tim. Matheson based his teleplay on a story “The New House” by Elizabeth Walter, published in her collection Snowfall and Other Chilling Events (Harvill, UK, 1965). She’s a British writer, so I assume the original story took place in England. Transporting it to this country didn’t turn out all that well, or at least that’s the way I saw it. Do you remember how well the story worked for you?
January 1st, 2016 at 9:04 pm
Getting back to Elizabeth Walter, I’ve found a blog post that reviews all of the stories in each of her five collections of weird and supernatural fiction:
http://jefferyscottsims.webs.com/elizabeth%20walter.html
January 2nd, 2016 at 7:07 am
I can just about remember this series. In the early ’70s it was used as a sort of late night filler programme on commercial TV in the UK. As I remember they were all pretty much ‘blah’, although there was one with Angie Dickinson menaced by a possessed poodle that was comedy gold.
The TV ghost story can be one of the toughest things to do, as so much depends on atmosphere. It’s interesting to compare this with the exactly contemporary A WARNING TO THE CURIOUS, which was part of the annual A GHOST STORY FOR CHRISTMAS series on the BBC; period setting, creepy soundtrack by Ligeti, moody photography, actors who know how to treat the material, and an uncompromisingly bleak ending. Another comparison that has already been made is the Clemens THRILLER series, and it’s noticeable that this show tended to avoid the supernatural stories (although there are a handful). It’s much easier to maintain a mood over a running time of 60 to 70 minutes when you aren’t having to get the audience to suspend disbelief.
On the subject of ghosts, I have to say that a genuine visitation that happened to some friends of ours occurred in a thoroughly modern house, which was built on a site that had no history of violent death or horror.
January 2nd, 2016 at 7:25 am
Gentleman, I’ll second/third any condemnation of Birney, who usually strikes me as not so much bland as smarmy…the removal of creators Brand and Falsey (and their brand of curdled whimsy) and Birney after the first season of ST. ELSEWHERE led to the marked improvement of that series for the rest of its run.
January 2nd, 2016 at 6:13 pm
Like other bland leading men – Kent Smith and David Brian spring to mind – David Birney was an excellent villain and a capable red herring. He gave really good performances on HAWAII 5-O and MURDER, SHE WROTE, especially the latter, where he tended to be cast in the sort of part one associates with Vincent Price.
January 2nd, 2016 at 10:04 pm
Maybe the same kind of part, Daniel, but even though I’m sure you’re right in saying that David Birney did well in the right roles, I just don’t see him in the same league as Vincent Price as an actor in any regard.
January 3rd, 2016 at 12:25 am
I’m sorry for the misunderstanding, Steve. Like you, I would never put Birney and Price in the same category, and it was careless of me to imply as much. What I should have said was that Birney had a talent for soft-spoken menace which made him surprisingly effective at times, much more than one would guess from the performances for which most people remember him today, and that his best work had a distinctly Price-like flavour: not as potent as the original, of course, but enjoyable nevertheless.
January 3rd, 2016 at 12:33 am
Oh, no, I wasn’t disagreeing with you. You weren’t comparing Birney with Price as actors, only in the roles they played. Even so, it was a thought that hadn’t occurred to me before, and I was playing around with it in my own mind. As I was trying to formulate a reply, I didn’t realize how you may have taken my own comment. It was a clumsier job than usual on my part.
So thanks for the followup. You’ve given me a whole new perspective on Birney’s abilities.
January 3rd, 2016 at 12:49 am
You’re welcome. It’s good to have these little confusions cleared up.
By the way, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank you for putting this website together and keeping it alive. I hope I’ll be able to contribute to the comments on future occasions.
January 3rd, 2016 at 1:16 am
Stop by again, any time!
March 15th, 2018 at 11:32 am
Even as the author of Richard Matheson on Screen, I’ll admit that “The New House†was not his finest hour, despite being directed by Moxey, as was his classic The Night Stalker. Ironically, although he had no further involvement, the fact that he had written the pilot earned Matheson a “developed for television by†credit on the ensuing series. Walter’s work also provided the basis for other episodes of Ghost Story and Night Gallery. Funny that David Vineyard mentioned Caravan to Vaccares when Parkins’ credits include the other Alistair MacLean adaptations Puppet on a Chain and Bear Island . In later years, Richard laughed about how he kicked himself for suggesting that Castle shoot the opening to the series down at the Coronado Hotel outside San Diego, which he was then using as the setting for his novel Bid Time Return, filmed as Somewhere in Time.
July 20th, 2018 at 10:53 am
I still to this day find The New House one of the scariest things I’ve ever seen. Simple concept and something we all fear, bumps in the night. The final sequence, i.e. the ghost tricking the housekeeper to leave, then the scene of her ascending the stairs for the baby, sheer brilliance. I first saw this in an old creaky Vermont house. Added to the scariness of it. I actually could argue this was Matheson at his very best.