Categories
Ghost Story / Circle Of Fear

The New House

Ghost StoryAfter a brief stay at a posh hotel owned by the debonair Winston Essex, the Travises arrive at their new home on Pleasant Hill. Expecting their first child within a month, Eileen Travis is already a bundle of nerves, but nearly every night she thinks she hears something in the house late at night, and she dispatches John to check the house every time. Eileen hears, from various neighbors, that Pleasant Hill was once the site of a cemetery, or an 18th century gallows where a 19-year-old girl was hanged for stealing a loaf of bread. Many of Eileen’s frights involve a woman’s cackling laugh, and she begins to think that the hanged girl is haunting her home. But when her daughter is born, the strange nighttime noises seem to stop for a while…until the hanged girl’s ghost returns, with her eyes on the baby.

written by Richard Matheson
directed by John Llewellyn Moxey
music by Billy Goldenberg

Ghost StoryCast: Sebastian Cabot (Winston Essex), Barbara Parkins (Eileen Travis), David Birney (John Travis), Jeanette Nolan (Mrs. Ramsey), Sam Jaffe (De Witt), Allyn Ann McLerie (Miss Tate), Caitlin Wyles (Thomasina Barrows), Ivor Francis (Priest), John Garwood (Sgt. Booth)

Ghost StoryNotes: The executive producer of Ghost Story was schlock horror auteur William Castle, in the wake of his most high-profile credit as producer of the Roman Polanski-directed Rosemary’s Baby in 1968. Richard Matheson was already renowned for published works such as “I Am Legend” (which had, at this point, already been adapted for the big screen as The Omega Man) and numerous episodes of The Twilight Zone.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Ghost Story / Circle Of Fear

The Dead We Leave Behind

Ghost StoryCountry life suits forest ranger Elliott Brent just fine, but his wife Joanna is another story. The dull routine on which he thrives is boring to her, and she’s begun finding distractions – male ones, almost every time she goes into town. Elliott has bought her a television set to try to curb those tendencies, but she’s made up her mind to leave him. Angered, he lashes out, killing her; after he buries her, he tries to resume his normal life while also covering up what he’s done.

Order the complete serieswritten by Robert Specht
directed by Paul Stanley
music by Billy Goldenberg

Ghost StoryCast: Sebastian Cabot (Winston Essex), Jason Robards (Elliott Brent), Stella Stevens (Joanna Brent), Jack Kelly (Motorist), John McLiam (Titus Paul), Skip Ward (Tommy Harper), Burr Smidt (Jud)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Ghost Story / Circle Of Fear

The Concrete Captain

Ghost StoryOn their tenth anniversary, Ed & Kate Lucas enjoy a vacation drive, but a wrong turn leads them to a house near the sea, where Kate has the unsettling feeling that someone is calling to her. The old man who lives there, Daniel, tells the Lucases the story of the concrete captain, who was harpooned to death and encased in concrete to end his suffering after a horrific accident involving the rocks just off the coast. Their stop goes from romantic to disturbing as Kate wanders to the edge of the sea one night, again drawn by a distant voice, but she remembers none of this the next day. Ed is growing anxious to leave before anything worse happens. Are he and Kate somehow re-enacting a tragedy that took place a century ago?

Order the complete seriesteleplay by Jimmy Sangster
based upon the story by Elizabeth Walter
directed by Richard Donner
music by Robert Prince

Ghost StoryCast: Sebastian Cabot (Winston Essex), Stuart Whitman (Ed Lucas), Gena Rowlands (Kate Lucas), Walter Burke (Daniel), Eugenia Stewart (Katherine), Glenn Wilder (The Captain), Lloyd Gough (The Doctor)

Notes: This episode is adapted from the short story of the same name by Elizabeth Walter (1927-2006), a British short story writer; another of her stories, “The Spider”, had been adapted a year before for Rod Serling’s Night Gallery.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Ghost Story / Circle Of Fear

Creatures Of The Canyon

Ghost StoryJust widowed, Carol Finney is having to learn to live life without her husband around, with quite a bit of help from her sister Georgia. Not making matters any easier is that fact that her neighbor, Mr. Mundy, seems unable to control his dog, Adam – a Doberman formerly owned by the Finneys. After Adam snarls at her from just outside her front door a couple of times, Carol feels compelled to ask Mundy to tie the dog down at night, which he refuses to do. Georgia, who is scared of large dogs, takes more decisive action to solve the Adam problem, but that action is not only inhumane, but triggers off a series of events with deadly consequences for both sisters.

Ghost StoryOrder the complete seriesteleplay by Del Reisman
directed by Walter Doniger
music by Billy Goldenberg and Robert Prince

Cast: Sebastian Cabot (Winston Essex), Angie Dickinson (Carol Finney), John Ireland (Arthur Mundy), Madlyn Rhue (Georgia Strauss), Mary Murphy (Maggie Mundy), Robert Donner (Ralph)

LogBook entry by Earl Green