WATCHDOG NEWS


Beaumont’s Youthful Ward


While catching up with CBS DVD’s magnificently restored ONE STEP BEYOND (OFFICIAL FIRST SEASON 50th ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL EDITION) [reviewed VW 153:60], one of the eerie stories claimed by host John Newland to be “a matter of human record” stood out as strangely familiar.


In “The Captain’s Guests” (first broadcast May 26, 1959), Robert Webber and Nancy Hadley star as Andrew and Ellen Courtney, a modern-day married couple disillusioned with the New York rat race, who are looking for a place to live out- side the city. While driving through a New England suburb, Andrew spots the house of his dreams


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and the couple buy it from realtor Leach (Jon Lormer), despite a large asking-price meant to discourage anyone who might be interested. Al- most immediately after moving into the former domicile of sea captain Michael Clauson (1860- 1910), whose stern portrait dominates the husband’s study, Andrew develops a limp, a ten- dency to paranoia where his wife’s activities and loyalties are concerned, and an uncharacteristic reliance on alcohol, while his hair begins to turn gray, like the late captain’s. Ellen, terrified, turns to her husband’s best friend and former co-worker Bill Oker (Thomas Coley) for support, which


Robert Webber tries to extinguish the flames consuming the portrait that possesses him in the ONE STEP BEYOND episode “The Captain’s Guests.”

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