Classic Horrors Club

Writer | Nelson Bond
Air Date | January 2, 1953

“The Mask of Medusa” doesn’t have the look and feel of a “regular” episode of Tales of Tomorrow. Although most of the action takes place on a set, it includes exterior scenes that are seamless in transition. Plus, the quality is better. Perhaps it was just recorded rather than broadcast live. I know it aired seven years later on an episode of Strange Stories, but I don’t know how it first came to be aired in 1953. Anyway, it’s a good one.

Raymond Burr plays against future type in his role as a serial killer on the run from the police. He ducks inside a storefront called, “Glyphthotek, Gallery of Classic Marvels,” which is a sort of wax museum of… serial killers.  Just don’t compare it to Madame Tussaud’s. The proprietor, played by Steven Geray, is easily offended. Anyway, with this set-up it’s not hard to predict where the story is headed.

Additional clues include the fact the all the figures have been captured in normal poses instead of in dramatic poses of them in gory action. Also, if you bump into one, it’s pretty sturdy, as if there’s a more solid material beneath the wax. Then, if you think about the title of the episode, all the pieces fall in place. It’s a clever combination of concepts, a horrific mash-up, if you will. Burr is fun to watch, especially each time he tries to leave, but sirens cause him to return.

Writer | David E. Durston
Director | Don Medford
Air Date | January 30, 1953

“Two-Faced” might also be a mash-up, but that depends upon what exactly you think happened to transform the ugly mug of the rich fiancee of a gold digger, Paul (Richard Kiley), into a handsome face. The woman, Lucia, is pressured by her mother to marry him…

Hardship is over for us.

…but has second thoughts when he wants a little sumpan’-sumpin’. 

I’d rather die than spend the rest of my life with you!

Enter the composer friend of Lucia, Julio, whom she really loves. That’s a figurative entrance; he’s in a coffin because he shot himself when he learned Lucia was going to marry someone else. Also, enter the “doctor” who asks the man with the hideous face if he’s willing to submit to anything if he could give him another face.

Suddenly, Julio returns from the grave, claiming that he wrote the suicide note, but then couldn’t pull the trigger. He must wear a scarf to hide the scar around his neck because it won’t fade for about a year. Facing Lucia, he realizes he couldn’t love someone as superficial as her. Their roles are reversed and for him it’s a capital offense: he attempts to strangle her.

There’s a fun ending that I didn’t expect. Sure, you might predict at a high level what’s going to happen, but the way it happens is not only especially unusual, but it undermines your thought about how Paul was transformed, you know, with the scar and all. With “The Mask of Medusa,” we have a fun double-feature of episodes that are simultaneously predictable, yet surprising.