User Reviews

Robert Bloch, best known for writing the Hitchcock-produced Psycho, has always been one of my favorite authors. This one doesn't disappoint and Edward Andrews portrays bookstore owner Frank Logan in his usual outward milquetoast manner containing an evil streak. Frank's problem is his wife Louise has a bad habit of taking up with young male lovers.

Because of her dalliances, there's empathy for Frank's character as his wife and her lovers think he's none the wiser and they can just assault his dignity. But Frank is an avid reader and his beloved selection of books give him ideas on how take out her current boyfriend and get away with it. Afterwards, he torments his wife by indirectly hinting his involvement, which causes Louise, through her brother, to hire a private detective to look into the matter. Frank soon dispatches both of them, making it look like an accident before moving Louise out to a remote area home for her "health." When Louise yet again takes another lover, this time the good-looking, local handyman, Frank plots an ingenious method from an Edgar Allen Poe tale to take care of the two lovers and rid himself of his unfaithful wife. There's a nice twist at the end that I won't give away here.

Well, apparently not everything. Like realizing that sometimes, even with the best laid plans, things don't always turn out the way they're intended. Edward Andrews always did a terrific job with portrayals of individuals like Frank Logan, a smarmy businessman type who could blend elements of comedy and terror into a single character. He appeared in a couple of Twilight Zone episodes, once as a nervous hit and run driver in the fifth season's 'You Drive' from 1964, and earlier using cryptic dialog the way he did here with wife Louise (Patricia Barry), in the first season TZ 'Third From the Sun'.

The basis of 'A Good Imagination' calls to mind the works of Edgar Allen Poe, most notably his stories 'The Cask of Amontillado' and 'The Black Cat'. The basic idea is that a man who's committed murder is tripped up by the unintended consequence of a visitor who inadvertently discovers the secret of something hidden behind a wall. The same idea was used in the middle story of a Vincent Price film that came out the year following this Thriller episode called "Tales of Terror". That one features another one of my favorite character actors, Peter Lorre.

Because of Andrews' performance, this is one of those stories where you almost find yourself rooting for the bad guy, but only because he's not quite as bad as the victims who've done him wrong, setting aside those nasty little murders for the moment. As a dealer in first edition rarities, and something of a bookworm himself, Frank Logan knows that "One can learn so much from the right books". The problem being, you can only learn just so much.

Veteran character actor Edward Andrews is having a delightful time here playing a sinister businessman and husband to sexpot Patricia Barry who murders a series of her lovers, private investigators and blackmailers, and murders them thanks to his knowledge of classic literature. Andrews' tongue in cheek performance is a shear delight, even though he's playing the most smarmy character of his career, among a career filled with smarmy characters.

This is Barry's second "Thriller" appearance in the first season, and she's a dizzy delight. Ed Nelson is sexy as the handyman she's involved with. As the walls begin to cave in on him, Andrews' performance goes from smug to desperately defeated, although there's no real conclusion. Still a pretty good episode for one with a comic theme in spite of its macabre plot.