Hard to believe that you're watching a 60-year old show that was cranked out weekly; this episode is beautifully made, from the very first shot -- which looks as if it was filmed at Hell's gates.
Guy Rolfe - Imperious, regal, cold, statuesque; a truly impressive performer.
Hazel Court - babe, and an elegant and talented one at that.
Aidman-- does his low-key, naturalistic, Actor's Studio thing throughout, and very convincingly.
Vlad Sokoloff-- a real bonus in this show, and perfectly cast.
Alain Calliou's screenplay is first-rate; I was literally hanging on every word when re-watching this show. And what other show would allow Reggie Nalder to really display his acting chops, spouting all of that high-flown rhetoric in a junk-strewn alley?
Great tension in the dialogue scenes throughout; Aidman and Court, Aidman and Sokoloff, Aidman and Watkins in her office; Aidman and Nalder, Rolfe and Nalder; the tension builds beautifully to the big concert night, with Watkins pacing around outside the stage door like a hyena waiting for the kill. Oppressive, almost suffocating tension as Guy Rolfe slices off Aidman's shirt/collar buttons; Aidman looks like he's about to burst out crying in this scene. Then the stunt doubles are turned loose for the big fight.
Composer Jerry Goldsmith outdoes himself, with a score featuring mostly brass and those awful-sounding, Herrmannesque low woodwinds. I think the very opening clarinet melody is a styilzed easternEuropean/gypsy thing that connects with Gaafke and the graveyard, and those bizarre, low metallic sounds heard throughout are made by scraping the heavily-miked low piano strings; pretty cool idea-- to represent the demented Vicek by distorting and "perverting" the sound of a grand piano on the soundtrack.
The only unfortunate element in this show, for me, is the HANDS effect. After such an incredibly powerful, expertly wrought build-up...from the very first shot....it's a real bummer to have the ending undermined by the big effects scene at the climax. It's not even the crawling effect which, though primitive, is still pretty creepy. It's the design of the hands THEMSELVES, which look like somebody ran down to the hardware store and grabbed a pair of work gloves, painted them with those funky stripes and started filming. And yes, I can appreciate the hokey-ness and "charm" of such things in early TV production, but not in this case; the entire show up 'til that point is SO DAMNED GOOD that its' hard to take. They could have at least altered the fingers of the gloves to resemble those huge, magnificent, freakish, slender digits that we keep hearing about throughout the show. Too bad.
LR