The wrost episode, for me, was the one where the boy is messing around with the shotgun all the time outside his country house, whilst his parents are spending most of the time just talking. Nothing hardly happens in this episode, and so it made a refreshing change when the episodes started to get more spooky and darker as the series went on.
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Yes, I watched this on YouTube and found myself skipping through alot of the parents' continuous arguing to get back to the kid with the gun. For a suspense piece it was a terribly dull ride.
shareIt's certainly a contender, but I'd give the prize to the very last episode, The Specialists just for the pure crassness of sending off Thriller with a failed pilot for another series.
share"Alfred Hitchcock Presents" did a similar story in which Billy Mumy plays a boy who walks around town with a loaded gun, which he thinks is a toy. It was much better, perhaps because it was one of the few episodes directed by Hitch himself.
shareI saw Bill Mumy speak at a con some years ago, and he related a great story about that episode.
Bill said that towards the end of the day, he was getting fidgety (as kids tend to do after awhile), and in one of the final shots he was standing and shifting himself from side to side.
Since the episode was centered on a child, Hitch needed to complete the shot before Mumy's strictly limited time was up (and the on-set child labor advocate would pull Mumy from the set).
Having just enough time for one more take of the shot, Hitch walked out to Mumy and said, "Little boy, for this shot I need you to stand perfectly still. Now, if you don't stand perfectly still, I shall come here with a hammer and two large nails. I will drive one nail into each of your feet. [Lowering his voice] And your blood will flow like milk. Do you understand, little boy?"
With that, a terrified Billy Mumy remained absolutely rooted to the spot for the final shot.
I do see a lot of people dislike this one and not just here on the imdb, which surprises me. I feel it's pretty underrated. I got caught up in a story of a kid starting to lose his grip on reality. It seems like something that wasn't done much in the early 60's on TV (showing a mentally disturbed child). The story the mother tells of him pointing a gun at another kid at summer camp was kind of eerie. I agree that the parents scenes do go on for far too long and they should probably have concentrated more on the kid's POV,but the ending was pretty tense and him going through with shooting the apple off his father's head was pretty surprising. I thought for sure he'd come to his senses by his parents somehow reaching him. I'm glad they didn't do that. The cast was also really good in this one.
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This is the Thriller board and the episode you are mentioning about Bill Mumy was another program--another little boy with a gun, but you are talking about Alfred Hitchcock presents not thriler
Yes, it was mentioned that it was an "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" episode. It was cited as a similar story that was much better. Are you saying no other TV programs can be mentioned here?
Indeed, I was picking up on the previous post which mentioned the similarly-themed AHP episode.
shareYes, that episode seemed like drama classes or something. It was a .22 rifle the boy had though, not a shotgun. Huge difference.
shareSo a boy gets in trouble for shooting an apple off another kids head, and a year later the wife still hasn't mentioned this to her husband. Then they keep guns hanging around and bullets loose in a drawer.
If you take a boy into the woods for the summer, with no companions to play with, he is bound to go nuts. Especially since they don't seem to give him any chores or activities.
I just watched this episode, the kid was a nutcase mess, at the end I wanted someone to slap him silly. I never liked Tommy Nolan as a kid actor. Yuck!
share
ANY actor - child or adult - is better than scenery-chewer Harry Townes.
Yuck indeed!
Most of the crime drama / "Noir" like episodes of THRILLER were boring and dumb. I forgot the episode title but there was one crime drama of the series I did like 1 episode with Mort Sahl and Werner Klemperer. Sahl tries to prevent Klemperer's gangster character from kidnapping a rich man's daughter. Not a great episode, but solid compared to the other crime drama ones.
shareIf he could shoot an apple off his father's head with a shotgun that would be quite a shot.
shareIt's up there, or down there, as the case may be. I watched it the other night, or as much of it as I could. It was dreadful.
sharetelegonus -
CHILDS PLAY was definitely one of the worst episodes.
Though, ironically, the subject matter (a troubled kid with a gun) has become quite topical and disturbingly relevant today.
However, just because it's 'believable', doesn't necessarily make it great drama or thrilling entertainment.
This episode belonged on the 11:00 News - A disturbed kid shoots up his school.
Have times really changed?
Sadly, not. In fact things are worse today as to the kinds of guns kids can acquire. Back fifty years ago it was just hunting rifles and handguns, most of them revolvers.
The worst Thrillers for me are the more lighthearted ones, and anything with Edward Andrews. I like some of the early crime episodes, as they sort of show the series leaning toward horror without being horror (The Twisted Image, The Fatal Impulse).
telegonus-
I had a similar problem with TWILIGHT ZONE's lighthearted episodes. By his own admission, Rod Serling wasn't that good with comedy, or black comedy like Robert Bloch & Hitchcock were.
I liked a few of the better crime episodes like MERRYWEATHER FILE, KNOCK 3 1 2, THE WATCHER, CHOOSE A VICTIM (anything with Susan Oliver). LATE DATE was a stand-out. Who thought that Larry Pennell could really act? And FATAL IMPULSE was another favorite. We once discussed how it could have worked as a NAKED CITY with Guest Stars Galore
Sure, they are more suited for the Hitchcock Hour, but a few Hitchcock Hours were better suited for THRILLER. Whether the genre is crime/noir or supernatural isn't as vital as to how tense and suspenseful it is. The final impact.
A few were of the 'criss-cross' genre, blending crime mystery with the supernatural. Was THE PURPLE ROOM supernatural or cruelly ironic? Could go either way.
It needs that touch of doubt, like the ending of LA STREGA.
Always great hearing from you.
There are excellent Audio Commentaries on the THRILLER Box Set. They did their homework and research.
Thanks, Deluge. The Meriweather File was offbeat even for Thriller. I enjoy The Watcher due mostly to Martin Gabel's riveting performance, his voice, his mannerisms. The writing wasn't great, nor was the story original, but the presentation was good. The one with Nehemiah Persoff chasing the child killer was also well done if not as well written as it might have been.
Dialogues With Death has grown on me over the years, with the first episode quite chilling, the second, comical and yet also somehow frightening. Another one featuring more than one story, Trio For Terror, kinds of shoots its bolt with the best story, which comes first. I especially like the use of similar props, with their suggestions of diabolism, what appear to be signs of the zodiac, and best of all Terrence De Marney and his game cock . They're familiar and exquisitely designed, were used in Dark Legacy and The Weird Tailor as well.