Boris Karloff Hosts a Thriller

In his 1981 history of horror fiction Danse Macabre, Stephen King dubs Thriller "probably the best horror series ever put on TV." It's still hard to argue with King's assessment. While this 1960-62 anthology series was inconsistent, it boasted some of the most chilling content ever broadcast on television. Ironically, that--combined with its one-hour length and short run--may explain why it never achieved lasting popularity along the lines of The Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Simply put, episodes like the classic "Pigeons from Hell" (which featured a "zuvembie" and a hatchet murder) aren't everyone's cup of tea.

Don't let Miss DeVore (Patricia Barry)
remove her wig!

Thriller was created by Hubbell Robinson, a television pioneer who served as executive producer of CBS's prestigious anthology series Playhouse 90. According to the book Fantastic Television, Robinson sold Thriller to NBC without a pilot and based on a vague description. From the beginning, Robinson and his producers disagreed about the direction of the series. Unlike The Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Thriller lacked a strong vision and its initial ratings were soft. Fantastic Television includes this enlightening Robinson assessment: "The show simply did not have time to find its identity."

Veteran producers Maxwell Shane and William Frye were brought in to salvage the show. At the same time, the series' scope was narrowed to suspenseful crime stories (produced by Shane) and horror tales (Frye). Although Thriller fared better with critics and viewers, it was still a show with a split personality. One never knew what to expect on a given week: an episode about a botched kidnapping scheme or a scary yarn about a wig that turns its wearer into a vengeful killer.

Henry Daniell in "Well of Doom."

In retrospect, the show's reputation rests almost exclusively on the horror episodes--many of which are still hailed as genre classics. The aforementioned "Pigeons from Hell," adapted from a Robert E. Howard (Conan the Barbarian) story, is a contemporary Gothic tale about two brothers who encounter a zombie-like, murderous creature in a decayed Southern mansion. In "The Cheaters," a pair of unusual glasses reveals different things to its various owners--but the result is always bad for everyone involved. The title hairpiece in a "A Wig for Miss DeVore" was once worn by a vengeful witch burned at the stake. It restores youth to a washed-up actress--who unfortunately transforms into a nasty-looking killer whenever the wig is removed. And, in a personal favorite, the densely-atmospheric Well of Doom, a man and his fiancee are imprisoned in a dungeon by mysterious strangers that may possess supernatural powers. The stellar cast features Henry Daniell (looking like Lon Chaney in London After Midnight) and Richard Kiel (Jaws in two Bond films) as the villains.

John Williams in "Yours Truly,
Jack the Ripper."

While I agree that the crime episodes are not as engrossing overall, there are notable exceptions. Stand-up comic Mort Sahl gives a good dramatic performance as a none-too-bright joe who overhears a kidnapping plot in Man in the Middle. His unconventional solution: Kidnap the heiress first. In The Twisted Image, married businessman Leslie Nielsen becomes the target of an obsessed younger woman. And in another fave, "Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper," John Williams (a Hitchcock semi-regular) portrays an expert engaged by the Washington, D.C. police to help apprehend a Ripper-like murderer. Or is the murderer actually Jack the Ripper himself, who has used black magic rituals to defy ageing? This episode was based on a short story by Robert Bloch, who also penned teleplays for Thriller (and wrote the source novel for Hitchcock's Psycho). Interestingly, Block revamped his Jack the Ripper short story a few years later as the Star Trek episode "Wolf in the Fold."

Boris Karloff served as host of Thriller. It was not his first TV series, that distinction belonging to the 1954-55 British program Colonel March of Scotland Yard. Karloff, whose career was fading in the 1950s, gained fame anew when his Universal monster films were released to television, starting in 1957. By 1960, his name was synonymous with horror and he brought instant recognition to Thriller. Alas, his introductions weren't always well-written and often add little to the show. They lack the dark humor of Hitch's introductions on Alfred Hitchcock Presents and the poetic fate of Serling's Twilight Zone narratives.

Thriller composers Pete Rugolo and Jerry Goldsmith earned a well-deserved Emmy nomination in 1961 for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Music. Rugolo, who wrote the jazzy Thriller opening theme, is perhaps best remembered for his work on The Fugitive. Goldsmith, of course, went on to a long, highly successful career as a film composer. Morton Stevens, another Thriller composer, later wrote one of the famous of all TV series themes: Hawaii Five-O.

To learn more about Thriller, I recommend checking out the entertaining blog A Thriller a Day... and Alan Warren's book This Is a Thriller. You can watch Thriller on MeTV; the complete series is also available in a boxed set from Image Entertainment.


This post is of part of The Summer of MeTV Classic TV Blogathon, hosted by the Classic TV Blog Association. Click here to view all the other great blogathon entries.