Merwin Gerard Movies

Bound to the ABC Saturday Suspense Movie 72-minute limitation, Linda could have benefitted from ten or twenty extra minutes' running time. The film, based on a novel by John D. McDonald, stars Stella Stevens as the woman scorned whom Hell hath no fury like. Stevens murders the wife (Mary Robin-Redd) of her lover (John Saxon), then plugs the lover. Stevens' husband Ed Nelson suspects that his wife is responsible for the killings. Stevens responds by framing hubby for the woman's death. John McIntyre plays the aptly named Marshall Journeyman, who methodically ferrets out the facts. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Longest Night is a harrowing made-for-TV movie based on a real-life kidnapping. Sallie Shockley is abducted from the home of her parents and held for ransom. Her captors entomb her in a box buried several feet underground, with an air hose as her only conduit to the outside world. As the police close in on the kidnappers and search for the girl, she desperately tries to stave off hysteria and to prevent the cutting off of her air supply. She is rescued comparatively early in the storyline, which then switches to the trackdown of the culprits. The Longest Night effectively conveys the claustrophobic atmosphere of the story, even though it runs out of gas before the end. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Olivia De Havilland plays a middle-aged woman who has recently been released from a mental institution after suffering a breakdown. She insists one evening that she can hear the muffled scream of a woman emanating from beneath the ground. Since no one else can hear these screams, De Havilland is dismissed as a crank. But Ms. De Havilland is steadfast in her conviction that the screams are real, and to that end investigates on her own. She discovers--at the peril of her own life--that the screams are those of a woman buried alive at a construction site by her recluse husband. Losing credibility long before the denouement, The Screaming Woman is based on a vastly superior short story by Ray Bradbury, in which the protagonist is not an adult ex-mental patient but a precocious little girl with a reputation for lying. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A guest instructor at a South American university, American political-science professor Gavin Carroll (Larry Gates) takes an academic interest in a young insurgent who has been killed during an attempt to assasinate a local dictator. But after sniffing an unusual-looking flower, Carroll is suddenly possessed with revolutionary fervor--whereupon he sets out to finish the job that the late insurgent had started. This is the last One Step Beyond episode to be filmed in Hollywood. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Lois Maxwell, best remembered as Miss Moneypenny in the "James Bond" films of the 1960s, is here cast as Esther Hollis. Though she and her husband want to have children, Esther is afraid of conceiving because of a history of insanity in her family. Late one night, Esther hears the sound of sobbing child, emanating from a room in her house that has never been used or even furnished. Open the door, she finds that the "room upstairs" has been converted into a nursery. . .whereupon the crying intensifies at a maddening rate. This is one of several One Step Beyond episodes filmed in England. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Having quit his job as a newspaperman, Phillip Werris (Lonny Chapman) tries to make a go of a farm in Canada, but before long he and his wife Jan (Jena Engstrom) are flat broke. With no other option, Phillip decides to go back to writing, and begins turning out freelance articles. . .in his sleep. Curiouser still, the articles written by the slumbering journalist are about a pair of dead men whom Phillip has neither seen nor previously heard of--but whom he describes down to the smallest detail. This episode was remade on the sequel series Next Step Beyondin 1978. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Actual, documented cases of the supernatural, the paranormal, and the occult are dramatized in the first season of the half-hour anthology One Step Beyond. Differentiating this season from previous ones is the fact that 13 of the final 14 episodes were filmed in the United Kingdom, rather than in the series' usual Hollywood stomping grounds at the MGM studios. This was essentially an economy move, designed to utilize "frozen funds" accrued by MGMduring WWII; also, at the time these episodes were produced (1960), there was a move afoot by both American and British commercial television to turn out "dual-market" programs that would appeal equally to viewers in both countries. Whatever the reason for the relocation, the major benefit to One Step Beyond is an influx of first-rate British acting talent, including such familiar players as Christopher Lee of Hammer horror fame , Lois Maxwell (later Miss Moneypenny in the James Bond films), Andre Morell (frequent portrayer of Dr.Watson in British-produced Sherlock Holmes movies), Peter Wyngarde, Elizabeth Sellers, and Anton Diffring. But no matter where the episodes were filmed this season, Hollywood-based actor John Newland continues to serve as the series' narrator and director. Among the season's best episodes are "Tidal Wave," a story of psychic projection that would later be remade as the pilot for the One Step Beyond sequel The Next Step Beyond; "The Death Waltz," starring Elizabeth Montgomery (Bewitched) as a spoiled Army brat whose vanity results in a terrifying supernatural backlash; "The Promise," with Star Trek's William Shatner in the grim retelling of a WWII-era premonition; and "The Last Round," spotlighting a pre-superstardom Charles Bronson as a disgraced boxer who experiences an epiphany courtesy of a long-dead colleague. Season three's most uncharacteristic episode -- and one of its most compelling -- is "The Sacred Mushroom," a semi-documentary in which hostJohn Newland and One Step Beyond producer Collier Young participate in a strange experiment to see if a certain species of mushroom can enhance one's psychic powers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Nearly succumbing to a deadly attack of scarlet fever, Laurie Warren (Reba Waters) makes an abrupt and unexpected recovery. But it isn't a full recovery, nor is Laurie quite "herself." Rather, the girl has taken on the voice, mannerisms and emotions of Alice Mason, a girl who drowned in another city several miles away. Appearing as Alice's grieving mother Helen is Anna Lee, better known as General Hospital's Lila Quartermaine. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

While being transported to his execution, murderer Calvin Gannis (Frank Overton) escapes his captors, and after narrowly avoiding a fatal car accident he hides out in ghost town. The only other residents in this Godforsaken spot are widow Sally Dolan (Sallie Brophy) and her son Joey (Charles Herbert). As the hours creep by, the three lost souls are baffled by a series of strange and inexplicable occurrences--including a long-dead oak tree which suddenly returns to life. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A young artist is determined to make his reputation with an epic painting--only to be killed in battle, leaving the painting half-finished. Then, miraculously and without explanation, the work is completed. A young woma wants to find out how this could possibly happen. . .and so, presumably, does the audience. Featured in the cast is child actor Danny Zaldivar, who as "Danny Bravo" would later supply the voice of Hajji on the classic prime time cartoon series Jonny Quest. This is the final episode of One Step Beyond's second season. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

San Francisco, 1906: As a fancy downtown hotel prepares for a concert by the legendary Enrico Caruso, overrage bellhop Gerald Perkins (David Opatoshu) has a disturbing premonition, involving widespread death, devastation and destruction. Alas, when Gerald tries to warn people of his visions, he is believed to be drunk and is booted out of his job. But at least one other person in San Francisco seems willing to believe Gerald...just before the earth begins to move. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this lighthearted episode, timid Viennese postman Josef (Rudolph Anders) is pining over pretty coffee house waitress Elsa (Vanessa Brown), who in turns feels much the same affection towards Josef. Alas, the lovers are repeatedly kept apart, no matter how much they yearn to be together. Is it a disapproving relative or a jilted suitor who wants to sabotage this romance. No, the "villain" is a curmudgeonly poltergeist--a restless ghost who is particularly troublesome because he's unaware that he is a ghost. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide