CineSavant Column
Hello!
Dependable, ever-searching Gary Teetzel has sent a very welcome link to yet another ’50s TV show of considerable import — to those whose interests fold in with our own.
Four years prior to TV’s first iteration of The Twilight Zone, the anthology series Studio 57 presented a 30-minute adaptation of Richard Matheson’s short story Shipshape Home. Written for television by Lawrence Kimble, it became Matheson’s very first TV credit.
The original story features a janitor described as looking like Peter Lorre, so Studio 57 got the real deal to essay the part. Married actors Barbara Hale and Bill Williams also star, and future Count Yorga Robert Quarry appears as a family friend. The first half plays like a sitcom, and then the unusual twists start arriving . . .
After some searching, co-investigator Darren Gross decided that this web encoding at The Internet Archive looks the best: Studio 57: Young Couples Only.
We’ve also just learned about Tom Weaver’s latest ‘Scripts from the Crypt’ book, this one dedicated to the 1940 Universal picture The Mummy’s Hand.
The Bear Manor publication is a fairly hefty item, 316 pages that contain the original shooting script plus copious production notes and articles by Weaver and his associates Laura Wagner, Gary D. Rhodes, Gregory Mank, Rich Scrivani, Bob Koster & Frank Dello Stritto. I’m hoping to be able to review it soon, here at the CineSavant Column.
Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson