Tales of Tomorrow

The classic January 18, 1952 live TV broadcast of "Frankenstein" with Lon Chaney, Jr. is finally available on DVD!

I had never even heard of this program until I was browsing in my local dollar store and happened to flip through their bin of dollar DVD's and saw a black and orange package bearing the title Tales of Tomorrow with a picture of three men in space suits staring at me.

I picked it up and immediately spotted Thomas Mitchell on the back cover photo. Any television appearance with Thomas Mitchell is worth seeing, but when I saw that the first episode was "Frankenstein," I knew I had a genuine find on my hands!

The three episodes are as follows:

Frankenstein (1-18-52) Starring John Newland and Lon Chaney, Jr. This, of course,is the prize of the lot. Chaney's performance (drunk or not) still hints at the sensitivity and greatness he was capable of. I'm left wondering what he might have done during an "actual" performance.

The Crystal Egg (2-29-52)Stars Thomas Mitchell and is based on a story by H G Wells. Mitchell sees Mars inside the titular crystal egg -which promptly goes missing and there's dirty work afoot!

Appointment on Mars (6-22-52) Leslie Nielsen (looking unusually young and virile) appears as one of a trio of space explorers in this weirdly disturbing drama which comes across as a low-rent adaptation of The Martian Chronicals.

I was lucky enough to see this series in first run! Fortunately, the episodes are still available on videotape. (I salute those who preserved the films.) This was in many ways more experimental than "Twilight Zone" and similar programs. And here's an example: I recall the episode where the program opened with a typical and excellent Tales Of Tomorrow science-fiction storyline. Just as the audience got into the live action, the entire play and its cast and even its crew were disrupted by an actual on-stage emergency! (This, of course, was a play-within-a-play, but the "reality" of it was stunning!) Seek out taped episodes, and learn what television once, long ago, could do, and how creative it could be, and what it wasn't afraid to try.

The episode titled "A Child is Crying" provides a striking example of what can be achieved by good writing. "A Child is Crying" guest-starred Robin Morgan of "Mama" in a "Children of the Damned" style Cold War message story. There were maybe four actors in the cast and a single set. In the words of my best buddy: "It scared the Hell out of me!"

Tales Of Tomorrow.... I have watched this whole series on Tubi TV. These are like the Twilight Zone and Outer Limits. They were 8 years before Twilight Zone. I don't think Rod Serling is the originator of this style. The only thing that made T-Zone different was the unique hosting. The stories in Tales of Tomorrow will stand up to any T-Zone episode. The episode Ice From Space.... I think theres a young, Paul Newman in it.

Well before "The Twilight Zone" and "The Outer Limits", there was a similar anthology series on ABC, "Tales of Tomorrow". The show generally was written very well but unfortunately its budget was practically nothing. As a result, some of the shows were just awful (such as "Read To Me, Herr Doktor") because the 'monsters' were just hilariously bad and some were brilliant ("The Window") because these episodes did NOT rely on special effects or aliens. It's a shame, however, that the show has been mostly forgotten--as these later series sure owe it a debt of thanks for paving the way for horror/sci-fi/fantasy anthology shows.

Fortunately, if you want to see the show, you can! Yep, following the links on IMDb or by going straight to archive.org you can download the shows or watch them online for free, as they are in the public domain. Give them a try, you'll likely enjoy them despite their limitations.