"It
Crawled Out of the Woodwork"
| Production
Order
#18 and Broadcast Order #11 Shooting Days: 18-25 October 1963 First Air Date: December 9, 1963 |
| Production
Credits Writer: Joseph Stefano Director: Gerd Oswald Assistant Director: Lee H. Katzin Director of Photography: Conrad Hall Composer: Dominic Frontiere (stock music with additional materials from "Stoney Burke") |
| Cast
of Characters: Scott Marlowe as Jory Peters Michael Forest as Professor Stuart Peters Joan Camden as Professor Stephanie Linden Kent Smith as Dr. Block Barbara Luna as Gaby Christian Ed Asner as Detective Sergeant Thomas Siroleo Gene Darfler as watchman Warren Edgar Morley Ted de Corsia as the second Sentry Tom Palmer as the Coroner |
Opening
Narration:
"His
name is Warren Edgar Morley. For the past six months, he has guarded this
gate from eight in the morning until six at night, at which time he is
replaced by another just like himself. These are the last few moments
of his life."
Plotline:
At
NORCO, the Energy Research Commission, a cleaning woman accidentally creates
an indestructible energy cloud creature. The Director-in-chief of NORCO, Dr. Block,
decides to study and use the energy-eater monster to control his research
and living-dead staff with the help of pace-maker boxes. When enter a new recruit Professor Stuart Peters whose un-natural death triggers an investigation by Sergeant Siroleo and calls into question Dr. Block's tyrannous new order.
Closing
Narration:
"The
Conservation of Energy Law—a principle which states that energy can be
changed in form but that it cannot be either created or destroyed. And
this is true of all energy—the energy of genius, of madness, of the heart,
of the atom. And so it must be lived with. It must be controlled, channeled
for good, held isolated from evil, and somehow lived with, peaceably."
Quote:
"You must get over this repugnance for death, Stephanie. For you to hate death is as foolish as for a live person to hate life.(...) You should be grateful to me, Stephanie. Because of me, you have faced the most terrifying experience of all and gotten it over with. Now you must rise above bitterness and try to enjoy the life I've given you. (...) I... with the help of science, of course."
—Dr.
Block (Kent Smith)
Comments:
Don't
miss the fantastic opening scene with the cleaning woman. Pre-"The
Invaders" Kent Smith, as Germanic, megalomaniac and nihilistic Dr.
Block, is really terrifying ("Some people are long time dying.")
and especially his devious relationship ("Show him about a bit, Stephanie. Tell him the rules. Strict rules don't sound so strict when they come from the lips of a beautiful woman, hmm?") with
his scared female assistant: Stefanie—he displays a libidinous and
slimy behavior towards her. Dr. Block completes and subverts the speech
of Dr. Keenan (Cf. "The Man With The Power") concerning the
wild and monstrous energy source when he asserts complacently: "It
is pure energy, Sergeant. Pure, unadulterated, un-minimized power".
There is a famous shot of Kent Smith, with the close-up of his distorted
turning hand, explaining how he enslaves his staff, and ponctuated with the "Dementia #2" cue (from "The Man Who Was Never Born"): "Simple heart surgery brought them to reason. One by one I terrified them to death, and one by one I gave them back their lives. Lives they own only so long as I do not... cut off the power that makes their heart beat. You see, I have almost total control of that energy force in there. It would eagerly suck the power out of that pacemaker if I allowed it". To justify his scientifical curiosity, Dr. Block simply asserts with a self-assured voice: "Not insane... at the vorst, obsessed." And finally, his pro-Adam bomb statement: "The
wonderful questions are always answered at the cost of human life. Remember
how we wondered about the atom bomb." The look of the long corridor
that leads to the pit is scary. The extreme close-up with a wide-angle
of Ed Asner's sinister face, watching the energy monster, is totally weird.
This is the perfect example of a typical episode made with Joseph Stefano's
taut writing, Gerd Oswald's Caligari-like direction and Conrad Hall's
somber photography. This is the first episode that violently denounces
the abuse of the atomic energy—a constant subtheme during this season
(see the driving forces of many scientists in "The Architects of
Fear" and "The Sixth Finger")—and please watch "Production
and Decay of Strange Particles" with this one to complete the cycle.
This episode makes reference to Henri-Georges Clouzot's "Les diaboliques",
as in "The Forms of Things Unknown", during the electrocution-drowning
of Stuart Peters in the bathtub. The one shot of Stuart Peters in the
pit which is composed of a vast depth of field is already present in Conrad
Hall's first assignement: "The Human Factor", when Sally Kellerman
locks the medic up in the closet. And one power plant prop is recycled
in "Production and Decay of Strange Particles" which can be
interpreted as Leslie Stevens' answer to this Joseph Stefano one. Notes:
Actor Frank Kent Smith is best-remembered as Oliver Reed from Jacques Tourneur's horror classic "Cat People" (1942). Robert Johnson is the NORCO Intercom voice. Scott Marlowe returns in "The
Forms of Things Unknown", Kent Smith in "The Children of the
Spider County" and Ted de Corsia in "The Inheritors".
