In the 1968 film, Targets, Boris Karloff gave one of his final performances. It was also one of his best.
Karloff played an aging horror actor named Byron Orlok, a role that was based on Karloff himself. Though once a huge star, Orlok’s style of horror has gone out of fashion. As he explains it, the real world has gotten so scary that his horror films are now tame by comparison. In this scene, Orlok proves that he can still give a compelling performance when he recites a short story about death and fate.
Reportedly, Karloff did this scene in one take and received a standing ovation after director Peter Bogdanovich called cut.
For tonight’s televised horror, we have yet another classic episode of the Boris Karloff-hosted anthology series, Thriller!
In the Wig for Miss Devore, Sheila Devore (Patricia Barry) is an actress looking to make a comeback. She’s recently been cast in a film about a real-life witch who was executed centuries ago. Sheila’s so determined to make the part her own that she’s even willing to wear a wig that once belonged to the dead witch.
Needless to say, that proves to be a mistake for her.
For tonight’s excursion into televised horror, we have an episode of Thriller!
This episode is called La Strega and it deals with an artist (Alejandro Rey) who saves a young woman (Ursula Andress) from drowning. It turns out that the local villagers believe that the woman is a witch. The artist has no time for superstition and takes the woman back to his home. She starts as his model and then becomes his lover. She may not be a witch but her mother (Jeanette Nolan) definitely is…
And, of course, this episode is introduced by the one and only Boris Karloff!
Tonight’s excursion into televised horror should is based on a Robert Bloch story about Jack the Ripper!
Yours Truly, Jack The Ripper is a classic episode of the 60s anthology series, Thiller. This episode aired on April 11th, 1961 and it was directed by the Oscar-winning actor, Ray Milland. As always, the great Boris Karloff is on hand to serve as our host.
For tonight’s televised horror, we have another episode of the Boris Karloff-hosted anthology series, Thriller!
In this episode, a religious fanatic in a named Freitag (Martin Gabel) lives in a resort community and targets young people who he believes have failed to live up to his standards. His latest targets are played by Olive Sturgess and Richard Chamberlain. This is actually a rather grisly little episode. With its theme of religious hypocrisy, I can only imagine how people reacted when it was first aired on November 1st, 1960.
Today’s horror scene that I love comes from 1935’s Bride of Frankenstein!
In this scene, directed by James Whale, the Monster (Boris Karloff) meets his first friend, a blind hermit played by O.P. Heggie. It’s a scene that features Karloff at his best and it’s still touching, even if it is kind of hard to watch it without thinking about Peter Boyle accidentally burning down Gene Hackman’s shack in Young Frankenstein.
Tonight’s excursion into televised horror is the very first episode of Boris Karloff’s Thriller!
Thriller was an anthology series that lasted from 1960 to 1962. Each episode presented a new story of horror and/or suspense. What makes this series especially memorable is that each episode was introduced by none other than Boris Karloff! I’ve seen a few episodes of Thriller (the entire series is on YouTube) and, to be honest, it’s kind of a hit-or-miss show. But Karloff and that mischievous twinkle in his eye makes it all worth it!
This episode originally aired on September 13th, 1960. It’s called The Twisted Image and stars Leslie Neilsen as a man being stalked by two mentally disturbed individuals. This episode was well-directed by Arthur Hiller and, if it’s more of a suspense story than a horror story, it still has its creepy moments.
Who wouldn’t love to see a movie where a youngish Jack Nicholson played a French soldier who, while searching for a mysterious woman, comes across a castle that’s inhabited by both Dick Miller and Boris Karloff?
In Roger Corman’s 1963 film The Terror, New Jersey-accented Jack Nicholson is the least believable 19th century French soldier ever. However, it’s still interesting to watch him before he became a cinematic icon. His performance here is rather earnest, with little of the sarcasm that would later become his trademark. Boris Karloff is, as usual, great and familiar Corman actor Dick Miller gets a much larger role than usual. Pay attention to the actress playing the mysterious woman. That’s Sandra Knight who, at the time of filming, was married to Jack Nicholson.
Reportedly, The Terror was one of those films that Corman made because he still had the sets from his much more acclaimed film version of The Raven. The script was never finished, the story was made up as filming moved alone, and no less than five directors shot different parts of this 81 minute movie. Boris Karloff’s scenes were filmed first, with the other actors performing in front of a body double during their scenes. Among the many directors who filmed bits and pieces of TheTerror: Roger Corman, Jack Hill, Monte Hellman, Francis Ford Coppola, Coppola’s roommate Dennis Jakob, and even Jack Nicholson himself! (Despite this number of directors involved, Corman received the sole directorial credit.) Perhaps not surprisingly, the final film is a total mess but it does have a definite historical value.
(In typical Corman fashion, scenes from The Terror were later used in the 1968 film, Targets. In that film, Karloff plays a version of himself, an aging horror actor who watches The Terror and dismisses it as being “terrible.”)
In today’s film, Boris Karloff plays a brain surgeon who makes the mistake of trying to save a friend’s life by performing an experimental procedure that involves combining bits of a gangster’s brain with the brain of an otherwise meek English professor. Bela Lugosi plays a rival mobster.
First released in 1940, Black Friday is an entertaining combination of sci-fi horror and gangster action. Originally, Lugosi was going to play the mad scientist and Karloff was going to play the mobster but Karloff, who felt he had been typecast as a villain, reportedly requested to be given the more sympathetic role. This noir-tinged fright flick was the last of the movies that Karloff and Lugosi would make together,
