User Reviews

Conrad's short story was very short, and deliberately unspecific in order to avoid lawsuits.

This 90-minute telecast features writer Stewart Stern's free variations on Conrad's story skeleton, filling out the narrative in a way that is wholly inadequate when compared to Michael Herr's Vietnam fantasy in "Apocalypse Now."

Roddy McDowell gets most of the screen time, and wears out his welcome quickly. The rest of the cast looks great on paper, but they're at far from their best and are pretty much wasted. Karloff completists will be frustrated by a brief appearance as Mr. Kurtz that is wholly lacking in power or magic. Overall, the studio-bound production strains to a poetic level that is more embarrassing than inspiring.

Sterling Hayden's introductions are stiff and uncomfortable, and the commercials included in the version I saw were far more engaging than the show itself.

Not one of Playhouse 90's better evenings.

I totally disagree with the review above. This in my humble opinion was a terrific production. Although I'm not sure how closely it stuck to the source material. Roddy McDowell was in my mind a very underrated actor, and this features him at his best, He did not wear out his welcome at all. As for the rest of the cast, I think Richard Haydn came off the best. It seemed to have been a very offbeat role for him. Karloff did not make much of an impression as Kurtz. As For the great Sterling Hayden. Yes, he did seem rather uncomfortable. He probably would have preferred to be be out sailing somewhere. For me, this can stand beside such classics as Marty, Requiem for a heavyweight, and The Comedian.

I should point out up front that although I LOVE "Playhouse 90", I also thoroughly hate Joseph Conrad's novel, "Heart of Darkness". I was forced to read it in college and wish I could erase it from my brain so I can remember better things--such as interesting and well written stories!

As for the show, "Playhouse 90" was one of several American anthology shows that featured live made for TV plays each week. While relatively common in the 1950s, such events are no longer done--they're just too expensive and too much trouble. Imagine...doing one of these play LIVE each week--think of the logistical nightmare!! However, despite this, many great directors and writers were created and, for a time, the best and most talented folks worked on television, not in Hollywood.

As I mentioned above, this story is based on the old Joseph Conrad story of the same name. It was altered significantly and made into "Apocalypse Now" (a great film) and my only hope as I watched would be that the writer who adapted the stupid story would change it enough to make it interesting!

Apparently, the person who wrote the teleplay for this decided that "Heart of Darkness" sucks also. After all, they write all sorts of back story and spend a lot of time on things not in the original story. This might not have been bad had this new material been relevant or interesting. Instead, it managed to be even WORSE than Conrad's own tedious writing!! With lines like 'you're not a cub any more...you're a panther' and too much exposition and a terrible back story, the episode manages to be hellishly bad. Sadly, Boris Karloff (as Kurtz) is barely in the show and it's something I would hate to see again.

The music is nice...hence a 2 instead of a 1.

Poor Joseph Conrad. So many have taken his simple horror story and tried unsuccessfully to convert it into several variations. One was Apocolypse Now, which at least was entertaining, another was a cop variation in South America; another failure, and then there was this abomination that was unintentionally hilarious. Actors were acting like it was Hamlet and they had to emote to make sure the person in the last row could hear them. Poor Roddy McDowell and Boris Karloff, both fine actors in their own right, having to embarrass themselves in this amateurish treatment by a slick hack TV writer whose name does not deserve to be mentioned. Roddy gets to play Queen for a Day with his daddy in the middle of nowhere. Black characters are mimimalized and stereotyped, and the message designed by Conrad is lost in about 70 of the 90 needless minutes of plot development that fails miserably. This film had more ham than a German deli. Don't bother.