Old School TV: Boris Karloff's Thriller- 'The Hungry Glass'

After re-watching Targets, I had a desire to see more Karloff and old-school stuff.  In lieu of watching The Terror, I picked his TV Show.

This is one of the random Episodes I just happen to have, so let's see what's going with...

A young couple- including a just 30-year old William Shatner!- buy a House that has a 'haunted history.'

 The place has a history of glass-related injuries and deaths, but they try to ignore.  To be fair, Goldberg stayed there once and nothing bad ever happened to him involving broken glass.

Shatner tries to act cool, but he starts to see things.

They eventually find all of the mirrors- which were hidden- in a locked room.  Nice and creepy stuff.

He shows a picture he took of a ghost to the seller- The Professor from Gilligan's Island!- but they both question their sanity a bit.

He tells Shatner the story about how the original owner 'lived in her mirrors' (seeing herself as young forever) until she died there decades later.

Shatner burns the picture, vowing to forget all of this...

...until he hears a scream from upstairs.  He goes into the Mirror Room and sees...the ghosts taking his wife away!

He rushes over to save her...by smashing up the mirror.  I'm not sure I follow your logic.

When he comes to, he finds that he had actually been smashing up his wife!

In a panicky and confused state, he sees the now-ghost of his wife by the bay windows and jumps to get her...

In the aftermath, the Professor takes his passed out wife and leaves.  Have fun with the Police!

A dark, interesting Story.  The people in it are very relatable, which is what a story like this needs.  They make sure to explain that the wife is 'suggestible' and Shatner has past issues with 'hallucinations.'  You get what would become a classic Shatner monologue as he talks about his past issues with hallucinations during his time in the Korean War/Conflict.  They even give him one of the 'turn your head back to the camera' moves to really show off his Shatner-ness.  This is 1961, mind you, so this is just something they did and it has nothing to do with what would become his big moves.  He does a really good job here being vulnerable, but also hamming it up a bit for the big monologues.  Honestly everyone is really good here, from both ladies to Russell Johnson playing straight and serious across from Shatner.  The effects are nice and subdued here.  The ghosts are usually pretty blurry, but, you know, they are ghosts.  When they show up, they are important.  It helps that the original Writer here is Robert Bloch, so you're starting with something good.  One day I'll watch one of these with Shatner and he'll survive.  Until then, I'll just wonder why they rear projected this GIANT MIRROR as the background for Karloff's Intro.

A classic Episode that you should definitely check out.  Kirk + The Professor + The Writer of Psycho = Win.