Ghost Story (1972): "Time of Terror"

“Time of Terror” is the final Ghost Story episode before the series change formats, drops Winston Essex and Sebastian Cabot, and transforms into 1973’s Circle of Fear. 

After this installment no more Mansfield House…

That’s the bad news, especially since Mr. Essex is such a jocular fellow, and such a unique anthology host.

The good news is that “Time of Terror” is not just a good episode of Ghost Story, but one of the all-time great ones.  This is a relief, as the series’ quality has been trending downwards for some time. 

Essex introduces the episode (again standing in front of an obvious rear projected image, for some reason...) and muses about the dangers of “modern hotels,” where it becomes easy for the staff to lose guests, or treat them as mere numbers instead of as people. 

From there, we launch into a genuinely intriguing mystery.  A married woman, Ellen Alexander (Patricia Neal), wakes up alone in her hotel room.  Her husband, Harry (Elliott Montgomery) is missing.  He doesn’t respond to pages from the hotel staff, and worse, the manager, Mr. Brett (Craig Stevens) insists that Mr. Alexander has “checked out.”

Ellen soon notices that every guest has been given a “Keno” card, and that when each person’s number is called, the guest is escorted out by hotel security people.  Worse, many of the guests don’t seem to mind this odd ritual.  Betty (Alice Ghostley) and George Carter (Doug Henderson), for instance, made plans to “check out” together and are disappointed when their numbers are called separately.

Ms. Alexander leaves the hotel and, bafflingly, finds herself on an isolated stretch of desert highway, experiencing flashbacks of a car accident.  As Brett soon informs her, she must return to the hotel soon, since her number has been called. 

He then shows her the car accident in which she was killed, but her husband survived…

“Time of Terror” was adapted for Ghost Story by the great Jimmy Sangster, and based on the story “Traveling Companion” by Elizabeth Walter.  It boasts a terrific setting, a sinister “modern” hotel that is, for lack of a better word, Purgatory.  You start to get the feeling that this is actually the case about mid-way through the tale, but up to that point the setting feels downright diabolical, like all the hotel employees are conspiring to keep Ms. Alexander from re-connecting with her husband.

The story is a great character piece, too, for Ms. Neal. Because mistakes were made in Purgatory, Mrs. Alexander is given the chance to bring her husband to the afterlife with her...to keep her company/  But when she sees that he is still alive, Mrs. Alexander decides to let him live, and face the Great Unknown alone.  It’s a great character arc, going from desperation to re-connect with her missing husband to willingly parting from him, knowing she will never see him again.

The images in this episode are also very powerfully rendered.  The casino’s Keno game, for instance -- which selects who will go on to the Afterlife -- is particularly memorable. It bubbles and pops with life, and yet its calculus seems totally random.  I also liked the idea of a revolving door leading from one dimension, essentially, to another, an image that was repeated for the Hotel Royale in Star Trek: The Next Generation’s “The Royale.”

Unlike many episodes of Ghost Story, this episode truly features a driving narrative, and some honest-to-goodness human interest.  The story doesn’t endlessly repeat the same notes or meander about, and it ends with a kind of apotheosis.  As Essex says -- in his swansong closing narration -- we should be mindful of Ms. Alexander’s decision, and wonder what we would do in the same circumstance. 

After all, this is a hotel where we are all going to check in, eventually…

“Time of Terror” rockets right to the top of the Ghost Story pantheon, standing beside such brilliant efforts as “The Dead we Leave Behind,” “Alter Ego,” and “House of Evil.”  It’s a very, very creepy show, and one that possesses an authentically dread-filled atmosphere. 

Ghost Story (1972): "At the Cradle Foot"

This episode arrives courtesy of writer Anthony Lawrence, the prolific author and creator who also crafted the 1972 paranormal series, The Sixth Sense, which starred Gary Collins as paranormal investigator Dr. Michael Rhodes.

“At the Cradle Foot” feels very much like it could have been an episode of that mostly-forgotten series, as it revolves around a disturbing psychic vision, or premonition.  Here, Paul Dover (James Franciscus) begins to experience recurring dreams that involve his five-year old girl, Emily (Lorie Busk). 

Paul envisions her as a twenty-five year old woman (Lisa James) riding a merry-go-round in an idyllic small town in Wyoming.  As she rides, however, the adult Emily is gunned down by an angry boyfriend named Rafe Norris (George McCallister).  In this psychic phantasm, Paul watches his daughter die.  As Emily passes away, she calls to her father for help, which Paul can’t provide.

This vision is no small matter for Paul because, some years earlier, he experienced a vision that his father would die in a plane crash.  That vision came true, and he has regretted since that he never warned his father about what he saw.  He is determined not to make the same mistake twice.  Paul’s estranged wife, Karen (Elizabeth Ashley), however, fears that he is finally losing his grip on reality.

Unwilling to take a chance with his daughter’s life, Paul heads out to that picturesque town in Wyoming, and attempts to change the direction of fate.  He learns that Rafe Norris has not yet been born, but that his father, also named Rafe (Jeremy Slate), is planning to marry a beautiful young girl who runs a local bed and breakfast, Julie Barnes (Meg Foster).  Paul determines that if he steals Julie away from Rafe, then Rafe Norris Jr. will never be born, and his daughter will never be imperiled.

But it doesn’t quite turn out that way…

It’s a nice change of pace to get away from beckoning, wailing ghosts this week (though the program is called Ghost Story), and there’s an almost Shakespearean sweep to Paul’s difficult dilemma, which interacts with his obsessive personality.  He is trapped by grinding gears of fate, and every decision he makes seem only to doom his daughter further, adding another nail to her coffin, as it were.

As a committed and concerned parent, I completely understood Paul’s urgency to “do something now” rather than wait patiently for fate to unfold, as his wife urges.  Paul can’t even stand the remote possibility that the vision could come true, and so starts to intervene in events and lives where, bluntly speaking, he has no business.  He breaks up a romantic relationship, and kills a man (in self-defense).  

Although the vision is two decades off, Paul wants to fix the world now. He is thus impatient and intemperate.  And because of these qualities, each time he makes a change, the vision of Emily’s death only comes back stronger.  The metaphor of the merry-go-round works very well expressing this character weakness.  Paul goes round-and-round, trying to catch up to fate, but he never gets any closer to altering it.

If you think about it, Emily might never head off to Wyoming in the first place were it not for Paul’s interference here.  Even more so, fate seems like an abundantly resilient opponent.  It appears to have a purpose, a direction, and a drive, and every action that Paul undertakes only backfires.

Given that fact, it is entirely appropriate that the final decision in the episode involves Paul pulling back. 

He decides to “let go” at his wife’s urging, finally aware that he can’t control the world. The deadly events are not to occur for twenty years, and that leaves plenty of time for the Dovers to warn their daughter, and make certain that she is not murdered.  

Eventually, Paul sees the wisdom of this guarded approach, especially when the alternative is to shoot a pregnant woman and kill the baby growing in her womb.  That’s a bridge too far, even for him. 

My only quibble with “At the Cradle Foot,” I suppose, is that it feels like the episode needs one final twist.  The episode boasts twists and turns galore leading up to the conclusion.  But then Paul’s wife convinces him they just need to “stay alive” for twenty years to warn Emily of the danger as the date of her doom draws near.  After this epiphany, we see the reunited couple get into a car and drive away, past the ominous merry-go-round…one more time 

At this point in the tale, I was certain the couple would die in a car accident, and the vision would go unreported and unresolved.

Instead, the episode merely ends, with the idea of premonition -- and the Dovers’ survival for the next two decades -- unresolved.  I’m all for ambiguity, but I just felt that the story needed a final punch heading into its finale. 

Still, I get and appreciate the point Lawrence forges in “At the Cradle Foot.”  Sometimes by acting impulsively, we bring on our own disasters, when a wait and see attitude would better serve all parties. 

Ghost Story (1972): "House of Evil"

If you remember any episode at all from the 1972, NBC horror anthology, Ghost Story, it is likely this strange and compelling installment, “House of Evil.” 

Written by Robert Bloch, this tale stars a very young Jodie Foster as a deaf-mute named Judy, and Melvyn Douglas as her diabolical grandfather.  That description doesn’t convey enough information, however. 

The real star of the episode is a large dollhouse and its unique inhabitants: cookie “voodoo dolls” with raisins for eyes and noses, and tooth-picks for arms and legs.

Our host, Winston Essex (Sebastian Cabot), begins “House of Evil” by discussing dolls and the “little girls” who “cherish” them.  This thought leads him into a discussion of voodoo dolls, which can be used to control “the life or death of a person the doll represents.”

Then, the narrative proper commences and we meet Grandpa: a man filled with hatred and bile.  His beloved adult daughter died in childbirth, you see, and he boasts the telepathic capacity to speak with her spirit even now, in death.  Although she is at peace, Grandpa nonetheless blames her husband, Tom (Richard Muligan) for her untimely demise.  Tom has now remarried and has adopted a sibling for Judy, named Kevin (Brad Savage).

Grandpa pays the family visit, ostensibly a friendly one.  But in fact he has brought along a dollhouse replica of their home.  It’s a gift for Judy, whom he can also communicate with telepathically.  Then, when the maid, Mrs. Rule (Mildred Dunnock), bakes a batch of cookies, Grandpa sits with Judy and transforms the treats into bizarre little voodoo dolls – representative of the family – to inhabit the house. 

Then, Grandpa teaches Judy how to move the dolls through the house, and at the same time, unknowingly control her family members.

Unaware she is being manipulated by an evil, vengeful adult, Judy learns dutifully from Grandpa’s instructions.  She unknowingly traps her families in their bedrooms one night.  And then, Grandpa instructs her to start a fire in the dollhouse (by lighting candles…) and lock all the dolls inside it.

Finally, only her mother’s spirit can save Judy and the family from Grandpa’s wrath.  In the end, Grandpa’s plan backfires, and his own voodoo doll falls prey to a fire in the dollhouse…

 “House of Evil” covers a great deal of territory, from the manipulation of the innocent to communication with the dead.  But at the center of it all is a character that thrives on hate and doesn’t know the meaning of the word “forgiveness.” 

Unable to see that Tom loved his daughter, Grandpa arranges this byzantine revenge for his son-in-law, Tom’s innocent wife and even an adopted child as well.  It’s a particularly cruel form of revenge, and Douglas is hypnotic in the role of an evil man who hides under a guise of affability.

The episode’s strange imagery – of cookie voodoo dolls living in a dollhouse – is especially noteworthy, especially since the story ends with one of the cookies being “cooked” in a fire.  The visuals are just so unusual -- and kind of freaky – that the story lingers in the imagination.

But today it is “House of Evil’s” meditation on revenge that I find the most interesting on repeat viewing.  Grandpa ostensibly mounts this campaign of terror for her daughter. But from beyond the grave she repeatedly tells him not to proceed with his strategy.  He refuses to listen and doubles down on his hatred instead. 

Thus, Grandpa is exposed as a selfish man focusing not his daughter, but his own needs.  That he would exploit children (Judy) and even try to a kill a child (Kevin) makes him one of Ghost Story’s most thoroughly evil characters. There’s a sense of justice when he falls victim to his own plans.

Jodie Foster does a great job portraying Judy too.  She’s an interesting character because although she has learned to read lips Judy has never before actually heard a human voice.  The first one she does hear belongs to her Grandpa, a fact which explains why they quickly develop a bond…a bond that he exploits.  

But one can easily understand why the isolated Judy would find it hard to defy Grandpa at first.  It’s difficult enough for children to question authority figures and adults, but even more so when an adult becomes the center of the child’s universe. Lose him, and Judy loses her closest “human” connection, or so she believes.

For its weird and memorable imagery and welcome commentary on hatred and vengeance, “House of Evil” ascends to the top tier of Ghost Story tales.

Ghost Story (1972): "Alter-Ego"

This week, Ghost Story/Circle of Fear fires on all thrusters with the chilling “Alter-Ego,” a macabre story about a kindly old school teacher named Miss Gilden (Helen Hayes) who unexpectedly grapples with a young student’s villainous doppelganger. 

At Mansfield House, our host Winston Essex (Sebastian Cabot) introduces the episode. Essex discusses the origins of chess, a deceivingly “harmless” game.  But, he notes, chess is based on war games: attack, defend…capture…checkmate.  It requires two players “under ordinary circumstances,” he opines, but in the upcoming story, the circumstances will be far from ordinary…

The horror commences when young Bobby Cameron (Michael-James Wixted) is sidelined by an accident and forced to stay home from school for a long stretch of time.  Bobby’s parents don’t know how to relate to the boy, or even how to really talk to him, and the boy’s loneliness grows and grows and grows. 

One day, while playing chess by himself in his room, Bobby is surprised to see an exact duplicate appear there.  Unlike the real Bobby, the doppelganger is sinister, secretive, and tricky.  Worse, the evil double seems to know all of Bobby’s thoughts.

When Bobby innocently makes a remark about how much he likes his elementary school teacher, Miss Gilden, the sinister twin heads off to school to make the instructor’s life a living hell.  The doppelganger quickly proves a distraction in class, but then sets about framing Miss Gilden for using force against him.  His plan is successful, and Miss Gilden is fired from her long-held teaching job just months short of her retirement.

At the Cameron home, meanwhile, Bobby grows more and more afraid of his duplicate.  The evil double kills the family cat and then turns his attention to Bobby.  Bobby realizes that he is indeed weakening, losing strength to his ever-more powerful double.  With little time left before he passes away, Bobby challenges the doppelganger to a game of chess…a battle of wits.  The evil twin agrees to the contest, unaware that Bobby boasts a secret ally…

When Ghost Story works…it really works, and “Alter-Ego” proves an excellent reminder of this quality.  This episode is absolutely riveting as Miss Gilden and the sinister Bobby duplicate play a real life game of chess, matching move and counter move perfectly.  The performances by Hayes and Wixted are more than equal to the material, and the teleplay by Dorothy Fontana is very strong too.  The story itself is based on a literary work by Stanley Ellin (1916 – 1986), and in 2001 I had the chance to ask Fontana about her contributions:

“It was based on a short story, and I had to develop the script out of that story.  It only had to be an hour long, but much of what goes on in a short story is internal.  I had to externalize much of the story.  And then when I heard Helen Hayes was going to do the episode, I was just thrilled.  I didn’t even conceive that she might be willing to do our little TV show, and when I saw it, I thought she was just wonderful.”

The “evil child” represents one of the great pop culture tropes of the 1970s, appearing in films and television series such as The Exorcist (1973), Space: 1999 (“Alpha Child”), and The Omen (1976) to name just three.  “Alter-Ego” is a highly cerebral variation of the tale, but also an expression of the idea that all children boast a good and a dark side.  Only in this case, the dark side is externalized as a separate (and murderous) entity. 

“Alter-Ego” captures our attention so easily and so fully because Miss Gilden is a charming, sweet, old woman, and does nothing to deserve the evil “attention” of Bobby’s double.  Any time Miss. Gilden attempts to fight back, she risks censure and unemployment.  The evil child realizes this fact of course, and keeps staging threatening incidents which require super-human patience from Miss. Gilden.

Those moments will require super-human patience from you as well, as it becomes increasingly clear that Gilden is falling right into the sinister double’s trap.  The episode’s final battle -- which involves the unexpected appearance of one of the dramatis personae -- does a great job of getting across the message that an evil child is nonetheless a child…and should be treated (and disciplined) as such.

Ghost Story (1972): "The New House"

Ghost Story/Circle of Fear (1972 – 1973) represents the TV collaboration of William Castle, the great 1950s exploitation showman responsible for “Emergo” and “Percepto,” and Richard Matheson, brilliant scribe of The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957), The Omega Man (1971), The Legend of Hell House (1971) and Somewhere in Time (1980), among others.

The TV series -- a one-hour horror anthology -- ran for just one season on NBC in the early 1970s, and starred (as host) actor Sebastian Cabot.  He played “Winston Essex,” the “old world aristocrat" and owner of the upscale hotel/bed-and-breakfast called Mansfield House.  

In each episode of Ghost Story, Mr. Essex would reveal an unusual and macabre story about his various guests.  This aspect – the host and his world – were dropped from the series entirely when it transitioned into Circle of Fear after fourteen hour-long episodes.

As Ghost Story geared up for broadcast, co-creator and producer William Castle wrote that it would involve “strange happenings” and “ordinary people,” and that his intentiion was “not merely to shock or scare, but to do it in a fun way. Like a ride on a roller coaster.  You scream and you laugh.” (John J. O’Connor, The New York Times: “Cabot in Ghost Story, A Chiller Series,” September 29, 1972, page 87).

Despite the promise of a good time, the series was not particularly well-received by critics, though this is hardly unexpected given the mainstream perception of the horror genre during that time period.  Time Magazine noted that “week after week, this is perhaps the silliest of all the silly hours on TV.” (December 18, 1972, page 67).  The New York Times reviewer, O’Connor, reported yawning “once or twice” during the series, and that “Sometimes the ghosts work.  More often they don’t.”

The pilot episode for Ghost Story, titled “The New House” (or “Pilot”) was based on the English author Elizabeth Walter’s story She Cries, and it aired originally not as part of the series proper, but earlier – on March 17, 1972 -- as the first hour of a two-hour special entitled Double Play.  The second hour presented the pilot for the Trucker series Movin’ On.

In “The New House,” directed by John Llewelyn Moxey and adapted by Richard Matheson, the Travis family moves into its newly constructed modern home, which sits atop the peak of picturesque Pleasant Hill.  

When expectant Eileen Travis (Barbara Perkins) begins hearing ghostly noises at night, she grows convinced that the new home is haunted.  She soon visits a local historian, De Witt (Sam Jaffe), who tells her that her home is actually built over a two-hundred year old gallows, the very spot where a defiant, unrepentant thief, Thomasina Barrows (Allyn Ann McLerie) was hanged on March 2^nd, 1779.  Upon her death, she swore to one day return…

Disturbed by her frequent night terrors, Eileen goes into labor and has a beautiful baby girl.  Things seem happy for a while, until a dark night when Mr. Travis (David Birney) can’t seem to get home from work, and Thomasina makes her ghostly presence known…

“The New House” is an effective horror tale that, in some ways, reflects the aesthetics of Rosemary’s Baby (1968).  Here we have another pregnant woman, spending her days alone, worrying about things.  And in that state of anxiety, she encounters the supernatural.  Of course, from the perspective of others, Eileen Travis seems unstable, and it’s easy to write  off that instability as a sign of her “condition.” 

In fairness, Mr. Travis is not evil, as Rosemary’s husband was in the classic Polanski film, but he’s not very useful to have about., either  He tries to patiently respond to his wife’s situation, but never cares enough to stay home from work, for instance.  Thus, Eileen’s feelings of isolation are powerfully-wrought in the episode.

Some of the visuals are nicely vetted too.  Eileen brings home a creepy statue at one point in the story, and when she hears ghostly singing inside the house at night, the visuals suggest the statue is, itself, vocalizing.  There are also some nice cockeyed pans across the exterior house, ones that suggest, in essence, that the house is off-balance, off-kilter.

The punctuation of all the horror comes when the ghost of Thomasina Barrows appears (in a thunderstorm, naturally), but we don’t see her face.  

Instead, we observe a shadowy, still figure in a long shot, at some distance from the camera.  The Travis’s maid actually speaks to her, believing she is speaking with Eileen, not a ghost.  It’s a creepy, creepy moment as you come to realize that the malevolent ghost is arranging to be alone in the house with Mrs. Travis and her innocent baby.

“The New House” also doesn’t fail in terms of commitment to the genre.  Something diabolical and awful happens at episode’s end regarding Thomasina’s encounter with Eileen and her daughter, and Ghost Story doesn’t back down from it.   Although I didn’t see the episode when it originally aired (I would have been three…) I can certainly imagine watching this pilot at night -- in the dark -- and being creeped the hell out.

In terms of series continuity, this first Ghost Story installment, introduces audiences to Winston Essex, the “host” of Mansfield House. He’s quite different from other series hosts, namely the macabre Alfred Hitchcock and the ironic Rod Serling.  Instead of taking on a tone of detachment or even black humor amusement, Essex exhibits concern and sympathy for the characters in his plays.  “I wish they weren’t going there,” he worries for the Travis family, off to their new home on Pleasant Hill.

Also, Essex describes himself as a “devious dinosaur” and discusses the incompatibility between Gothic tales and “the nuclear age.”  In a real sense, that’s the terrain Ghost Story wishes to tread.  

The series hopes to bridge the gap between modern reason and science, and our ancient, campfire fears of ghosts and goblins.  This idea recurs several times throughout the short-lived series, and I'll be sure to bring it up again when it does.  

Importantly, “The New House” sets its horror inside a modern house, one that has never been lived in before.  It boasts all the modern conveniences of the 1970s, from telephones to dish washers.  And yet despite such comforts, something terrifying and ancient – from an age past – infiltrates the family’s life. 

“The New House” is well-written, scary, and effectively shot.  The story is solid, if not revolutionary.  In short, it’s a pretty good start for Ghost Story. 

Ghost Story/Circle of Fear (1972 - 1973) Final Episode Tally

Episode Title	Good	Fair	Bad
The New House	X
The Dead We Leave Behind	X
The Concrete Captain			X
At the Cradle Foot	X
Bad Connection		X
The Summer House			X
Alter Ego	X
Half-a-Death			X
House of Evil	X
Cry of the Cat		X
Elegy for a Vampire			X
Touch of Madness		X
Creature of the Canyon		X
Time of Terror	X
Death’s Head			X
Dark Vengeance	X
Earth, Air, Fire and Water	X
Doorway to Death		X
Legion of Demons	X
The Graveyard Shift	X
Spare Parts		X
The Ghost of Potter’s Field		X
The Phantom of Herald Square	X

Here’s my final tally quality for Ghost Story/Circle of Fear.  Although the  horror anthology series started out as relatively weak, it finished relatively strong.  Overall, eleven episodes out of twenty-three I would rate as good or great, which is a strong tally for a series.

The best episodes -- and ones I highly recommend -- are:

“The Dead We Leave Behind” (w/Jason Robards)

“Alter Ego” (w/Helen Hayes)

“House of Evil” (w/Jodie Foster)

“Time of Terror” w/Patricia Neal)

“Earth, Air, Fire and Water”

“The Graveyard Shift” (w/John Astin)

“Legion of Demons” (w/Shirley Knight)

“The Phantom of Herald Square” (w/David Soul)

I must confess, I am pleasantly surprised how well so many of these episodes hold up after forty years.  Also, the series improved radically once Sebastian Cabot’s Winston Essex and Mansfield House were jettisoned from the format and the program became Circle of Fear.

If you can only watch three episodes, my top episodes would include "Alter Ego," "House of Evil," and "Earth, Air, Fire and Water."