One Step Beyond

Cult Films and Midnight Movies : "From High Art to Low Trash" Vol 1 By Tom Baker

I've been swept up lately in a few obscure old television shows. Well, two obscure, and one less so, but both dated. One, "One Step Beyond," almost qualifies as the OTHER "Twilight Zone," with its handsome, dapper, gentlemanly host, John Newland (who was also director), giving a similar take on opening monologues as the iconic Rod Serling. However, whereas "Zone" focused on metaphorical, allegorical sci-fi and fantasy (and sometimes horror) themes, the stories culled for the ninety-five or so episodes of "One Step Beyond" (which may qualify, right beside "In Search Of" with Leonard Nimoy, as my favorite show) were taken from the actual old annals of the unexplained, the famous psychic stories of yesteryear, some updated versions of hoary old world Victorian chestnuts.

"One Step" opens and closes, as does "Zone," with a monologue by Newland, who must have gone down in history as the first straight-laced, Post-War, Baby Boom Era television host to actually trip on magic mushrooms on television. (In a special episode of "One Step" where he traveled to Mexico to see a Bruja and take the 'shrooms in furtherance of an "experiment in psychic abilities"; later, Newland confessed that he had experienced nothing. How they got that on television in the early Sixties, is anyone's guess).

Newland, unlike the hard-bitten, cynical, and even somewhat snarky Serling, has a weird, soft-spoken, almost dreamy or trance-like quality to his opening monologues. He is poised against the shadows coming through a skylight or something, often, and he seems to have the countenance of a man looking into otherworldly spaces. He's a little sad, a little spooky. The episodes, though a little dated, are so good you'll be surprised that this show didn't attain the kind of mega fame that "Zone" did. Some of the great episodes are:

"Emergency Only": A man goes to a martini party and gets a reading from a medium that tells him all sorts of spooky shit about taking a train, a certain compartment, a woman with a snake ring, and a horrible accident. He pooh-poohs it all until circumstances turn about to where he's taking the train, and everything begins to eerily come true. I've seen this one multiple times. With Lin McCarthy, Jocelyn Brando, Paula Raymond.

One Step Beyond "Emergency Only" S1E3.

"The Haunting": A ski trip with two old buddies results in one out of jealousy, leaving his buddy to die an icy death. Unaccountably, a weird, cold "poltergeist" effect begins to do strange things around the house while the man is getting ready to marry the bride he was so jealous of, to begin with. Flowers freeze and doors grow cold. In the end, after the wedding, things don't go so well for the jealous man. With Ronald Howard, Christine White, Doris Lloyd.

One Step Beyond "The Haunting" S2E25

"The Ordeal on Locust Street": A very weird little episode, and one it is hard to believe that, as Newland says at the beginning of each show, "the real people, they believe it. They know!" A deformed Victorian man (shades of "John" Merrick) lives in an upstairs room, and is possessed of weird semi-aquatic features that make him look like "some sort of sea life." His sister is upset because she can't get a boyfriend to accept her as the sister of the "fish man." A hypnotist comes in, hypnotizes the boy, and makes him "normal." Very weird. With Augusta Dabney, David Lewis, Suzanne Lloyd.

One Step Beyond "The Ordeal on Locust Street" S2E2

"Where Are They?": A classic episode I've seen more than once. This consists of TWO stories back to back. The first one, a short period drama about a small California town experiencing a fall of stones from the air (see Charles Fort) is explained as the work of the "Avenger" (see Hitchcock's The Lodger) a mysterious personality that sends notes to the newspaper. The stones "float" down from the sky; it's determined they aren't thrown from some nearby height. They are, furthermore, warm to the touch. The Avenger disappears, and, presumably, the rain of poltergeist stones comes to an end.

The second story here involves the old saw about the man who approaches a politician about a means he's devised to make an engine run on water. After the politician or whatever takes him to a government lab, he demonstrates for astounded witnesses. He asks for an exorbitant amount of money (for the period). After being asked to wait out in the lobby, the scientists go out to find that the man has vanished without a trace. He is predictably never seen again. Was he a "walk-in" from some alternate dimension? With Phillip Pine, Richard Devon, Addison Richards.

One Step Beyond "Where Are They?" S3E12

"The Dark Room": This episode has Cloris Leachman as a photographer in Post-War France, who has a mysterious visitor who comes to be a model for her. He becomes unhinged and attacks her, and she goes to the police. Mysteriously, her photographs show no image. Later, she discovers the bizarre truth about her visitor.

This one is based on an old supposedly true ghost account, although we've been unable to unearth the details of it again. It's an obscure case, but one we've read of. With Marcel Dalio, Paul Dubov.

One Step Beyond "The Dark Room" S1E4

Undoubtedly one of the most interesting, if not one of the top five episodes of "One Step Beyond" I've seen is "The Burning Girl," one whose plot will seem eerily familiar to horror and thriller fans, as it bears a striking resemblance to a certain New York Times bestseller from forty-odd years ago, one written by a mega author whose work is known everywhere. The plot concerns a young girl who seems to be the focus of a poltergeist that starts fires whenever she's upset. Her father, who has lost jobs and has had to move because of her fire-starting, lives with her drunken old aunt who is a religious fanatic, strongly convinced the daughter is "possessed." The father just thinks she's a firebug. She goes out, dressed like a gypsy (going to a costume party), and fights with her alcoholic aunt. She passes a shack or shed, one she's dreamed of, and is accosted by a local boy that tries to rape her. She ends up, barely conscious, and begins to "channel" the voice of her dead mother. The symbolism of the dark, burning, abandoned wooden shack (budding sexuality?) suddenly catching fire when threatened with rape, and the fact that she's costumed as a gypsy--what can this subtext be implying? Her aunt is a nightmare stand-in for the dead mother. A gypsy, of course, or a gypsy girl, has all sorts of connotations depending on which way you read it. But that may all be a bit much for a simple television episode. With Olive Deering, Luana Anders, Edward Platt.

One Step Beyond "The Burning Girl" S1E16

Other great episodes of "One Step Beyond" covered the psychic occurrences surrounding the Titanic ("Night of April 14th" with Patrick McNee), the assassination of Lincoln, and even UFOs and the supposed "angel hair" they sent down from the 1950s flying saucers full of blonde Venusian sex kittens. It also featured a bevy of then-up-and-coming young television and movie stars, from Elizabeth Montgomery and Werner Klemperer to Joan Fontaine and even Warren Beatty.

The series was created by Merwin Gerard, produced and written by Gerard and Collier Young, as well as other writers. The theme music, by Harry Lubin, was, appropriately enough, called "Fear." And, indeed, it is one of the most haunting television shows ever produced. There is a certain theme, a kind of soft, Spielbergian, strummed angelic choir-like thing, that comes on whenever the "weird" or unknown rears its inscrutable head during the show. That theme is both beautiful and spectral, and this show, though sometimes a little stiff and undeniably dated in so many ways, is an "Evergreen"; like "Star Trek" or "Andy Griffith," it will be played until the end of time, and always find an audience, who may watch it simply out of nostalgia. Or, they may take a look at an old-fashioned world of just plain folks, all of whom found themselves crossing a road or turning a corner, and finding themselves in a world they couldn't understand. But, you may believe it or not. However, "the real people who lived this story, they believe it. They know. They took that...one step beyond."

Note: We're including one more video embed here, mainly because the title of this episode, "The Dead Part of the House," has to qualify as one of the best titles for a television episode we've ever come across.

One Step Beyond "The Dead Part of the House" S1E9