User Reviews

Veteran stage actress Blanche Yurka only had one true movie classic role: Madame De Farge in the MGM classic version of Charles Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities" where she was a year too late to be nominated for the very first Supporting Actress Oscar. Unfortunately, she was either typecast or underused, although she has major parts in two guilty pleasures of mine, the very campy "Lady For a Night" and the moody "Curse of the Werewolf". As the Spanish spouting mother of Gilbert Roland in "The Furies", she was a hoot, and had delightful bits in a handful of other films. But it is her stage career that she is particularly remembered for, a fierce stage presence that made her a bit too big on the screen.

This is the first T. V. role that I have seen Blanche in, and once again, she dominates the screen with her fierce persona. As an elderly user of black magic, she abuses her female servant, ordering her to keep clear of the man she loves, even going as far as putting a curse on her and chanting incantations to at least scare off supposed victims. Whether or not if she is a real witch is up to the viewer to determine, but it is obvious that she thinks she is.

Using an assumed vampire bat as a scare tactic, she is definitely an evil woman, and being French, perhaps a descendant of Madame De Farge herself. As a result of her performance, she steals the scene from Darren McGavin who plays a disbelieving visitor, and certainly Annemarie Roussel as the terrorized servant girl. Franchot Tone hosts what looked like the pilot for an anthology series which may have been considered too graphic for the airwaves.