Here's another great early sci-fi TV blast from the past, this one is fairly shocking for the time period and the fact that kids might be watching, it got to me!.. In the story, a scientist perfects a chemical that unleashes the evil side of a person's personality, but before he can create an antidote for it he has to rush a batch of the concoction home to keep it refrigerated. Unfortunately, one tube cracks and drips onto some apple pie, which the wife has a slice of. Her mild resentment of his endless hours at the lab accelerates into a torrent of sadistic torments directed at her husband...
When the credits come on at the beginning, it sez... Starring Margaret Phillips, that's it. She also starred as Cassandra in "Side Show" on WAY OUT in 1961. By the way, it also stars Rod Steiger and James Dean! This was Rod's fifth acting role, he had just done "Ordeal In Space" on OUT THERE, another TV sci-fi show. This was role 13 for James.
Peter has brought home some test tubes of the experiment (it has turned their animal subjects evil) him and his associate are working on. The freezer at work broke down and he needs to put them in the refrigerator until they get theirs fixed... His wife Anne listens up.
But, one of the tubes is cracked and it drips onto a pie below!
Peter heads back to the lab and forgets his notebook. Anne grabs a slice of pie and heads back to the living room to read and listen to music.
Back at the lab, Peter and his assistant Ralph try and come up with an antidote as quickly as possible! Oops, left the notebook back at the apartment.
In the meantime, Anne is going progressively bonkers! First, she tears the pages out of her husband's notebook, then she burns them, destroying any hope of Peter's help now!!
What The Hell, girl!!.. This is the part where I started to get freaked out.
Peter comes home to find a pile of nightmares, Anne tells him lies as to why she destroyed the vials and notes. Peter is in pure disbelief, I mean, nothing is making any sense
at all!!..
After returning from the lab one more time, Peter comes home to find Anne dressed differently and acting even more aggressive! Then, she tells Peter that she destroyed everything to spite him for working so much and ignoring her!
Things turn even darker... She now threatens to kill herself so that his life will be
totally destroyed!! Seems like all is lost until Peter begs her for a little time to listen to what he wants to tell her... She finally agrees.
Peter looks her in the eye and starts painfully crying, emoting his undying love for his wife!.. Anne doesn't know what to think and the spell is finally broken...
She runs to Peter and they embrace, let this be a lesson, don't bring stuff like that home from the lab kids!!.. So, like, check back Wednesday when Eegah!! will choose the next victim!
That slice of pie with the formula dripping onto it has to be one of the most freakish ways someone turns into a Jekyll and Hyde type character. It's right up there with the way it happens in MONSTER ON THE CAMPUS and THE VAMPIRE (' 57).
ReplyDeleteI always associate Rod Steiger with weird movies thanks to THE ILLUSTRATED MAN. Even though its version of "The Veldt" is a little too depressing for me, I think the movie as a whole is very underrated.