This Is a Thriller: An Episode Guide, History and Analysis of the Classic 1960s Television Series

by Alan Warren

The late 1950s and early 1960s were the golden years of horror television. Anthology series such as Way Out and Great Ghost Tales, along with certain episodes of Twilight Zone and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, were among the shows that consistently frightened a generation of television viewers. And perhaps the best of them all was Thriller, hosted by Boris Karloff. In Thriller the horror was gothic, with a darker, bleaker vision of life than its contemporaries. The show's origins and troubled history is first discussed here, followed by biographies of such key figures as producer William Frye, executive producer Hubbell Robinson, writers Robert Bloch and Donald S. Sanford, and Karloff. The episode guide covers all 67 installments, providing airdate, production credits, cast, plot synopses and critical evaluations.

215 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1996

Reviews

[Anatoly · Rating 5 out of 5]

The short story "The Extra Passenger” by Stephen Grendon represents a genre of comic horror tales. The plot includes the story of preparing the murder and what happened after that.

This is the first line: "Mr. Arodias had worked a long time on his plan to kill his eccentric uncle, and he was very proud of it." Mr. Arodias bought the ticket for the train, he decided to commit the crime during the time when he left the train on one station and came back on the next. He expected that it would be an excellent alibi and it could be. But unexpectedly when he returned back to his compartment in the train, the new passenger appeared. This extra passenger kept silence, suspicion of the plot started to increase dramatically.

It is interesting how grammar constructions in English can help to highlight the tense

"Mr. Arodias was suddenly aware that his traveling companion had been speaking of his uncle for the past few minutes in the past tense".

What happened next, the readers can know from the story. This is a link for the text:
http://www.unz.org/Pub/WeirdTales-194...
This is a short movie about this story:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvkU3...

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book length study of the show Stephen King called “The Scariest Show on Television.” Warren does a nice job in the opening section detailing the genesis of the show, its struggles to define exactly what kind of show it was going to be, its development into the premiere “Terror TV” show, and its unfortunate early cancellation at the hands of no less a person than Alfred Hitchcock. The next section does a nice job with the episode guide, with thorough cast and crew lists and adequate plot summaries of each episode. Where it falls down is in the analyses of the episodes - most are merely perfunctory, and some are not present at all. The discussion of why the show succeeded after a bumpy start leaves much to be desired. As a filmography it is more than adequate; as a critical study, not so much.