User Reviews

This is a role made for Hume Cronyn, it is even surprising that he did not hace this kind of character in long length features. it is also a shame that this story was not a little longer. You think of the Warner movies from the thirties and fifties such as MYSTERY AT THE WAX MUSEUM, or Andre de Toth's HOUSE OF WAX, its remake. Yes, this episode is a highlight of the show, with Hume Cronyn as a maniac on the loose in a wax museum.

This amazing artifact - a kinescope from 1949, has Anne Francis perfectly cast as a blonde damsel in distress who ends up in bondage, all tied up in a Sideshow pageant surrounded by animatronic characters in a classic "Suspense" live TV episode.

Hume Cronyn is Dr. Violet, the crazy guide through the show with his wife Evelyn Varden as the barker outside selling admission tickets for 75 cents a pop. Ray Walston plays a groupie called Mousey who likes to sneak in to see the show, sort of a heckler too, while Mike Kellin is Johnny the cop who ends up sort of saving the day.

This over-the-top, tongue-in-cheek horror show benefits from such an outstanding cast, but surprised me in showing how an effective "thriller" bondage video could be fashioned, as opposed to those (ongoing) thousands of idiotic, static sexploitation fetish videos being cranked out since the 1990s.

Anne Francis, minus her famous beauty mark, is terrific as the heroine, who gets tied up on-screen by Cronyn and nearly offed by him. She would go on to star in one of "Twilight Zone"'s best and most famous segments about a department store mannequin, eerily and similarly creepy to watch.