“The Incredible Dr. Markesan” (1962)

Some things stick with you. Fifty years later I can still remember an episode of The General Electric Theater that scared the bejabers out of me (it was a ghost story and when the young heroine got into bed and comfied up, the covers began to slip down her figure as if being pulled from the bottom).  Then there was “An Unlocked Window” on The Alfred Hitchcock Hour in 1965. The one with the serial killer who specialized in a certain kind of woman.  “You’re such a pretty nurse.” Writer James Bridges won an Edgar Award for the script.

The third leg in my childhood Triple Crown is “The Incredible Dr. Markesan” from Thriller. Originally broadcast on February 26, 1962, “Markesan” summed up the chilling delights of old school, black and white filmed horror.

Thriller was an anthology program that lasted a mere two years on NBC. It’s said now that when Hitchcock moved his show from CBS to NBC the competition from Thriller got a little too warm and he was instrumental in its cancellation. Maybe so.

Thriller’s host was Boris Karloff who, frequently, went a little too over the top. His introduction to “Markesan” comes dangerously close to pure ham, but since he was introducing himself as actor in the play (he appeared in only five stories during the show’s brief run), he can be forgiven for chewing a little scenery.

He’s Dr. Konrad Markesan, retired (or was it fired?) from his job in the science department of the local university. His once beautiful home has run to ruin and he lives alone. His nephew Fred (Dick York) and Fred’s wife Molly (Carolyn Kearney) come to see him hoping that he will give them a place to stay while they look for jobs at the university. Markesan agrees, unwillingly, with the proviso that they stay in their room after dark and not go roaming around the house. To assure their compliance, the old man locks them in at dusk.

I don’t want to give away too much since the entire Thriller run is now available on DVD and you might get to see it, but know that the young couple’s curiosity gets the better of them, especially when Fred sees his uncle hosting a bizarre meeting in the library with three of his former colleagues, one of whom, he learns from an old newspaper, died several years ago. As did Uncle Konrad. (Richard Hale as the late Professor Latimore is magnificently creepy.)

Karloff, as you might expect, steals the show as the dusty, disheveled, rambling Dr. Markesan. Long pauses fit in between questions from Fred and his answers, and his smile is a hideous reminder of Conrad Veidt’s in The Man Who Laughs. It’s the forced smile of a dirty old man—literally, a dirty old man. Markesan is easily among the most sinister of Karloff’s later creations. The man is just not right.

Robert Florey directs with full-on Expressionist vigor. He gets such good work from Karloff, it makes you wonder what Frankenstein would have been like with him at the controls. (Although Florey, who was attached to the film before James Whale, wanted to use Bela Lugosi as the Creature.)

Benjamin H. Kline is the director of photography and Howard E. Johnson is the art director, both men doing superb work in making this look like a Universal horror picture from the early 1930s. Morton Stevens’ music is all strings, sighing and sobbing, and Jack Barron’s makeup work is a lot better than you’d expect from 50 year old television. The script is by Donald S. Sanford from a 1934 Weird Tales short story by August Derleth and Mark Schorer.

The film is in gothic overdrive from beginning to end, with a last shot (the one that creeped me out when I was 13 years old) that could have been lifted from one of E.C.’s horror comics.

This is one vintage TV play that still pulls the plow. If you’ve no fondness for the good old stuff “The Incredible Dr. Markesan” may come across to you as campy. Too bad for you.