Mon 8 Mar 2010
A TV Review by Mike Tooney: THE ALFRED HITCHCOCK HOUR “Black Curtain.”
Posted by Steve under Reviews , TV mysteries[5] Comments
“The Black Curtain.” An episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (Season 1, Episode 9). First air date: 15 November 1962. Richard Basehart, Lola Albright, Harold J. Stone, Gail Kobe, James Farentino, Lee Philips, Celia Lovsky. Teleplay: Joel Murcott. Based on the novel The Black Curtain (1941) by Cornell Woolrich. Director: Sydney Pollack.
During the course of getting mugged by some street punks, Phillip Townsend (Richard Basehart) gets conked on the noggin; when he comes to, he has an entirely different identity. What he’s forgotten is his criminal past, which soon catches up with him when a man tries to kill him in the park ….
You can hardly go wrong with a Cornell Woolrich story; just about everything he wrote had cinematic potential. This particular narrative had already been dramatized on radio and even filmed as Street of Chance (1942) with Burgess Meredith and Claire Trevor, except a building had to fall on the protagonist to induce his personality change.
Richard Basehart made quite a splash with his psycho cop killer in He Walked by Night (1948). He also appeared in Tension (1949), Fourteen Hours (1951), The House on Telegraph Hill (1951), The Intimate Stranger (1956), Portrait in Black (1960), The Paradine Case (1962, live TV), The Satan Bug (1965), 110 episodes of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964-68), and The Great Bank Hoax (1978).
Lola Albright appeared in The Good Humor Man (1950), The Killer That Stalked New York (1950), five appearances on Burke’s Law, one episode each of McMillan & Wife and Columbo, and 81 episodes of Peter Gunn (1958-61) as Pete’s girlfriend Edie.
Hulu: http://www.imdb.com/video/hulu/vi836239385/
March 8th, 2010 at 8:41 pm
Basehart was particularly good as Barbara Stanwyck’s crazy husband and Errol Flynn’s brother in CRY WOLF and the manipulative brother in THE BROTHER’s KARAMOZOV.
He was the sane moral American officer in DECISION AT DAWN, and gave one of his most interesting performances in the film of William O’Farrell’s REPEAT PERFORMANCE where the character he played in the book was a homosexual called William and Mary. In the film they made him a hetero gigolo, but Basehart played the role as a homosexual anyway. He was a great villain in THE SATAN BUG too.
Despite being physically completely wrong for the role he was very good as George Washington in the television version of VALLEY FORGE. He and Honor Blackman also did a good episode of COLUMBO where they were a husband and wife acting team who had committed a murder detected by Columbo during a visit to London.
But for much of his career his signature role was HE WALKED BY NIGHT.
This is a very good version of THE BLACK CURTAIN (it was also done on radio’s SUSPENSE) with Basehart walking that fine line between hysteria and melodrama without ever crossing it.
As for Lola Albright my crush started with her Edie on PETER GUNN and continues today.
March 8th, 2010 at 9:05 pm
The last movie I saw that Richard Basehart was in was TENSION, in which he was the mild-mannered druggist who tries to kill his wife who’s been stepping out on him (Audrey Totter). For some reason, though, I don’t seem to have written a review of it, but it was a memorable performance.
One Basehart film that I have reviewed here on the blog is REPEAT PERFORMANCE (1947), his first film, but without the review, I wouldn’t even remember him in it.
https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=488
I did see one partial episode of VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF SEA a while ago, but I don’t remember how or where. I do recall everyone on board being freaked out by a ferocious fake-looking seaweed creature before I gave up and turned it off.
As for Lola Albright — who is 85 this year, can you believe it? — I agree with your last sentence 1000 percent, and I think I am speaking for every male member of my high school class. All of the ones I spoke to, at any rate.
I was looking earlier at her film and TV credits on IMDB. She had a long career, but nothing stands out as anything close to her role as Edie Hart on PETER GUNN. A performance for the ages.
— Steve
March 8th, 2010 at 9:14 pm
VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA was known for it’s cheesy monster of the week though the first black and white season was fairly good. If you do watch an episode through notice how much STAR TREK borrowed from the basic set up of VOYAGE, while Shatner and Basehart are both actorly performers who use a sort of controlled hysteria in their style.
And Shatner was of course the saintly younger brother to Basehart, Yul Brynner, and Albert Salmi in KARAMOZOV.
March 9th, 2010 at 7:20 am
And don’t forget Basehart’s clown in LA STRADA
March 9th, 2010 at 9:53 am
Dan
LA STRADA, how could I forget. Thanks for the reminder.
Steve
I was nine or ten when PETER GUNN debuted, and I think my first sexual experience was when he walked into his apartment where Edie was ironing his clothes wearing nothing but one of his shirts (at least that was what we were supposed to think).
I didn’t know exactly what I was attracted to at that age (we were pretty innocent and backward then), but I never felt that way about Dale Evans or Miss Kitty.
And while she was really no singer, that voice still has the Siren song for me. I know exactly why Pete used to sit their entranced listening to her.