Classic Horrors Club

Written by | Lona Keeney
Director | Don Medford
Air Date | Sept. 26, 1952

Dr. Platan (Harry Townes) observes young couple Jeff (Robert Alda) and Kitty (Mary Alice Moore) arguing about money and marriage. Jeff needs $1,000 to close the deal on the purchase of a gas station, and Platan offers him that amount in exchange for one pint of blood. The blood type (A Rh) isn’t uncommon, but the method for collecting it is a bit unusual.

Platan has a rare blood disease and requires regular infusions, but never uses the same subject twice. What Platan promises will be a mild tingling turns out to be painful and Jeff collapses after the procedure. When he wakes, Platan looks younger. Confirming our suspicion that Jeff may grow older, a 29-year old man who doesn’t look a day over 60 (Bernard Burke) bursts in and holds the doctor at gunpoint.

Platan promises to restore everyone’s youth… by taking Kitty’s blood. However, he was lying to the gunman while he tried to figure a way out of his predicament. Jeff grabs the gun and marches them all off to the police station. There’s a final shot of Jeff and Kitty dancing that echoes the opening. I was hoping he’d spin her around and we’d see that she had grown old. But she hadn’t and I don’t know the point of this episode.

Writer | Alan Nelson
Director | Don Medford
Air Date | Oct. 10, 1952

After hours at a violin factory, Arthur Martenson (Franchot Tone) works on an invention, a new instrument that he says will be the most eloquent the world has ever known:

Properly used, it will do more to heal the world’s wounds than any corps of diplomats. And improperly used, it will be more destructive than an H-bomb.

The shop foreman, Jake Lippitt (Stephen Elliott) resents Arthur’s relationship with his boss, Max Heinkle (Joseph Latham), and his daughter, Evelyn (Barbara Joyce), especially since he’s about to marry her. Although she fears him, she defends Arthur and does something she’s been wanting to do for a long time: break up with him. Since this all happens in the first scene, you’d be correct to suspect Jake won’t just disappear.

Two months to the date, Martenson finishes the instrument. Demonstrating for the Heinkles, they hear no sound from it, but feel the emotions it’s transmitting from ultrasonic vibrations. Fast forward to the big night when Arthur is going to give the instrument to the “committee of science” with the stipulation that it’s use for the benefit of all mankind…

Jake grabs the instrument and invites Arthur to join him in using it to gain money and power. But Arthur won’t be his partner in spreading selfishness and hate. I won’t spoil the ending, but will say that Jake ends up on the same sixth-story ledge Arthur used to demonstrate the horn’s power to give Jake the fear of falling. There are no twists in this episode either, but at least it has a satisfactory conclusion.