Not Rated | 30min | Drama, Fantasy, Mystery,TV Series | Episode aired 25 October 1960
A successful but driven businesswoman, Karen Wadsworth, is convinced that she can make her thoughts become reality. She soon begins to believe that she can use the power of suggestion and turn it into the power to kill.
Director: John Newland
Writers: Merwin Gerard, Charles Larson, Lawrence B. Marcus, David Pelt
Stars: Joanne Linville, John Kellogg, Linda Lawson
A successful but driven businesswoman, Karen Wadsworth, is convinced that she can make her thoughts become reality. She soon begins to believe that she can use the power of suggestion and turn it into the power to kill.
Director: John Newland
Writers: Merwin Gerard, Charles Larson, Lawrence B. Marcus, David Pelt
Stars: Joanne Linville, John Kellogg, Linda Lawson
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00Go see a psychiatrist! Go talk to Llewelyn! Llewelyn studies in Zurich! I can't stand it!
00:07What am I going to do? I'm in some kind of a nightmare! You've got to help me! Help me!
00:13Help me!
00:16Helen, call your mamatone.
00:19Help me! Help me! Help me!
00:24I can't...
00:27I can't...
00:39How complex is the human mind.
00:44It has been compared to the atom bomb, whose two elements, when kept apart, are perfectly harmless.
00:51So it is with the conscious and the subconscious of the human mind.
01:21Helen?
01:51Helen?
01:54Helen?
01:57Helen?
02:20Oh, my precious child.
02:28Welcome back.
02:33How long was I asleep?
02:37About 40 minutes.
02:41Someone locked me in.
02:44Not someone. You.
02:47You locked me in?
02:50Yes.
02:53You locked me in?
02:55Not someone. You.
03:00I don't remember that.
03:11Your subconscious didn't trust me.
03:14Sometimes even a sedative won't stop a reaction, a fear reaction.
03:20If you never become better acquainted with my subconscious than that, we're in trouble.
03:28Why? You weren't afraid?
03:32Not of you.
03:40If I can't be calm, I can at least be accurate.
03:43I mean, I wasn't afraid of you.
03:46And what does that mean?
03:50What does that mean?
03:51Oh, come on, doctor. We're a team, aren't we?
03:53You've got to pull a little too. If I'm not afraid of you, then what's left?
04:04Don't call the nurse. I'm all right, really.
04:07I wasn't going to.
04:11Pardon me.
04:18Tape recorder.
04:20Unless you mind.
04:23Do as you please. I don't care.
04:29So...
04:32If you weren't afraid of me, I...
04:35I suppose you were afraid for me. Is that right?
04:38I was in some kind of danger, in your opinion.
04:42Yes.
04:44Physical danger?
04:47Doctor...
04:52I've got to tell you something.
04:55And if you laugh at me, I don't know what I'll do.
04:58I wouldn't think of laughing.
05:01I was afraid I'd get so mad at you, I'd wish you dead and you'd die.
05:07Goodbye.
05:22Is it Miss Wadsworth or Mrs...?
05:24Come on, doctor. Do we have to go down that dreary road?
05:27I'm a normal, healthy woman. I love my mother and my father, and they love me.
05:32I get along very well with my employer.
05:35Mr. Alfred Ross. President of Alfred Ross Associates.
05:39He controls, oh, I don't know, eight or ten firms, including a fashion house.
05:43I'm the executive manager of that.
05:46There's an Alfred Ross who owns one of the major ball clubs.
05:50The same Ross.
05:53From dresses to baseball.
05:55Dresses, baseball,
05:58steel, real estate, motion pictures.
06:02Quite a range.
06:04Quite a man.
06:07Quite a man.
06:13I see you have a master's degree.
06:16Romance languages. I studied in Paris.
06:19Is that where you became interested in dress designing?
06:22No. I'd always liked it.
06:25Satisfying work, I imagine. Creative.
06:29It was.
06:33I haven't designed for years now.
06:36Is the executive end of the business less satisfying?
06:40No, I don't think so.
06:43More pressure, surely.
06:45More decisions.
06:48More chance to lose your temper?
06:52More chance, far less excuse.
06:58I had a terrible temper as a child.
07:01I've worked very hard to control it.
07:07In all the years I can remember, I've only lost my temper twice.
07:12Once here.
07:20Once three weeks ago.
07:22And what happened three weeks ago?
07:32Someone died.
07:34Tell me.
07:39Tell me.
08:01Tell me.
08:11It was a hot, sultry day.
08:17Like today.
08:21They were working on the air conditioning system.
08:25And we'd all brought fans to the office.
08:29I knew no one comes down on Saturday.
08:31That's why I was so surprised to find the fan on in my assistant's office.
08:36It aggravated me to find that someone else was there, too.
08:41I remember how the fan kept blowing some papers on her desk.
08:47I don't know why. I'm not usually so curious.
08:52But I wanted to see what she was working on.
08:56So I picked up one of the papers.
08:59And I read it.
09:02It was a letter from Ross.
09:05This assistant, tell me a little about her.
09:09Joyce?
09:12Oh, not very attractive.
09:16Well.
09:19Well, well.
09:23You're keeping a big, bright eye at the keyhole, isn't it?
09:29I want to congratulate you on your splendid ideas.
09:35For our new fall line.
09:37What ideas?
09:40Why don't you read the rest of it?
09:44I didn't see any new ideas from you.
09:47You weren't available.
09:49Stop it.
09:50You weren't available.
09:53You've never paid any attention to my suggestions.
09:56If I had sent them to you, you'd have thrown them in the wastebasket like every other modern notion that crosses your desk.
10:02Well, this time I went over your head.
10:07Clear up to Al's penthouse?
10:13It's a lovely penthouse.
10:21As I told you last week, we've been contemplating a change in executive authority for some time.
10:32I wonder if you would be available for luncheon on the 31st.
10:38Soon we can go into this matter at greater length.
10:45The world turns, dear.
10:48If you can't hang on, then step off gracefully.
10:51Why, you vicious little slug.
10:55Get out.
10:56Right now.
10:59My thick-legged little campus queen.
11:02Who do you think you're playing games with?
11:04Some child off the street?
11:06Get out.
11:07I picked you up by the scruff of your dirty neck and I can drop you again.
11:12You've never seen the day when you can replace me around here and you never will.
11:17You know, Karen, you're very unattractive when you lose your temper.
11:31Luncheon on the 31st.
11:33I hope you die before you get there.
11:39I hope you die.
11:41Die.
11:42Die.
11:43Die.
11:44Die.
11:45Die.
11:46No.
12:02No.
12:10No.
12:21I wonder what our man Freud would have to say about this.
12:26I think he'd be most interested and sympathetic.
12:32He'd say I'd lost my mind.
12:34Not in the least.
12:36But it happened.
12:38What happened?
12:39I killed Joyce Chapman.
12:41No.
12:44What happened was that Joyce Chapman died coincidentally with a desire on your part to see her dead.
12:53You've constructed a guilt bridge between two unconnected events in order to punish yourself.
13:03I don't see that they're unconnected at all.
13:11Karen, suppose you were a little girl and I knew that an eclipse was due.
13:22And I told you to take a deep breath and try to blow out the sun.
13:28And you found you could.
13:31Wouldn't those two unconnected events make you feel guilty?
13:45I just feel like I'm in some kind of a nightmare.
13:55The autopsy indicated she was probably dead before she hit the street.
13:58How?
14:00We found a ruptured cerebral aneurysm at the base of the brain, the circle of Willis.
14:05It so happened that the skull was almost untouched.
14:09Of course, the aneurysm was indicated in her past history.
14:13Well, no.
14:17May I see this?
14:23The artery just doesn't suddenly dilate.
14:28Apparently, this one did.
14:32A sign of prior injury or disease?
14:36I'm just telling you what we found, doctor.
14:43Well, it makes my job a little more difficult.
14:47Why?
14:49My patient believes she will, Miss Chapman did.
14:52What's this woman's background? General hysteria?
14:55No, no. Just the opposite. Intelligent, alert.
15:00Executive manager of a dress firm here.
15:03Alfred Ross Associates.
15:05Alfred Ross?
15:07Yes, why?
15:08Oh, nothing. Only I've known Al Ross for 20 years, I guess.
15:11He was a fine man.
15:13He was?
15:15Yes, he keeled over on the golf course last night at 6 o'clock.
15:18Tragic. 49.
15:21That's too young.
15:23You're sure you're the right man.
15:26Read in the paper a day and Alfred Ross was on TV last night.
15:30They taped that program a week ago.
15:33Oh.
15:35Coronary?
15:37I don't know. He'd never shown any indication.
15:42Maybe your woman's been practicing her voodoo again, doctor.
15:47Yes.
15:49Maybe.
15:52How do you feel?
15:54How do I feel? Like dancing.
15:57I spent the weekend in the country.
15:59I haven't heard a telephone ring or read a newspaper.
16:03Oh, I forgot.
16:07I did see a television show, though.
16:11You'll never guess who I saw.
16:14Who?
16:16Ross.
16:19I can't escape him. He's like big brother, you know?
16:23There he was, holding forth in his usual assured way.
16:28All about fashions, all wrong.
16:32I suddenly realized...
16:35that it wasn't just Joyce that was trying to put the knife in me.
16:43And I got madder and madder.
16:49Then I saw that funny little smile.
16:52Like a little boy, like a cruel little boy.
16:59I suddenly said,
17:01The wrong one died.
17:05And I got so scared that I couldn't look.
17:10But then he went right on talking, and when I did look,
17:13he was right there, alive as ever.
17:19And I knew it was all in my head.
17:25Now do you know why I feel like dancing?
17:29When did this happen?
17:33Around six.
17:36Have you ever been hypnotized, Karen?
17:39Yes, I tell you, I am the best subject in the world.
17:42Fine, fine. You lie down there.
17:47All right.
17:57Karen, concentrate on this pen.
18:01Think of nothing but the pen.
18:05Now close your eyes.
18:09Relax. Relax.
18:14Go to sleep.
18:19Karen, you told me that you've always been afraid of losing your temper.
18:27Tell me the first time you lost your temper.
18:34Karen, how old are you?
18:37Seven.
18:39Where are you?
18:44Attic.
18:46Are you alone?
18:48Donna.
18:50What are you and Donna doing?
18:53I let Donna try on the clothes in the trunk,
18:58but they were mine.
19:01You mean your mother's?
19:03Yes.
19:05It's my attic.
19:08She always has to have her own way.
19:12But I found the hat first.
19:15Why should she take it? It's my hat.
19:19I hate you.
19:21I wish you were dead.
19:25I wish you were dead, dead, dead.
19:30And she was dead.
19:37And she was dead.
19:47I'm sorry I had to put you through that.
19:50But we found the link we needed.
19:59Poor little girl.
20:01Which one?
20:03Can't you see that both of them were to be pitied?
20:07All your life you've believed subconsciously that you caused Donna's death.
20:12You didn't.
20:15Look at it now through adult eyes.
20:20You didn't shout her dead or will her dead.
20:24It was an accident.
20:27You say that.
20:30It was an accident.
20:33It was.
20:35It was an accident.
20:37Nothing happened to Al Ross, did it?
20:40Did it?
20:41Karen.
20:46I'm going to tell you something because
20:48I don't want you to walk out of here and discover it yourself.
20:52Tell me what?
20:55Alfred Ross apparently had a heart condition.
20:58That's not true.
21:01Had a heart condition.
21:03He died last night.
21:06But I saw him afterwards on the television show.
21:09The program was taped.
21:12Oh, then it was my fault.
21:14It was, it was my fault.
21:16They were unconnected events.
21:18You can't still believe that.
21:20I can prove it.
21:22Karen.
21:23Listen to me.
21:25Wish me dead.
21:26No.
21:27Wish me dead.
21:28No, leave me alone.
21:29Why won't you try?
21:30Are you afraid to try?
21:31Are you afraid it won't work?
21:33That you'll have to give up this fantastic superstition?
21:36No.
21:37No.
21:38No.
21:39It gives you a great ego gratification, doesn't it?
21:41It makes you feel like a god, doesn't it?
21:43It makes you feel great, doesn't it?
21:45That's why you won't test it.
21:48Karen.
21:49You've got to give up this crutch.
21:51Now.
21:52Karen, listen to me.
21:54Think of loyalty.
21:56Why is it always a one-way street for you?
21:58Why can't you return it to your friends, your doctor, anybody?
22:02Oh, I know what you're trying to do.
22:04Listen to me.
22:05Look at me.
22:06I am not going to hate you.
22:08Say it.
22:09No.
22:10Wish me dead.
22:11No.
22:12No.
22:13Be quiet.
22:14Or what?
22:15You'll buy a wax doll and stick pins in it?
22:17You'll utter your abracadabra at me like a 20th century witch?
22:20Stop it.
22:21Say it yourself and stop me!
22:23Say it!
22:26I'm so tired.
22:27I wish I were dead.
22:51Karen.
22:55Cause of death blank.
22:57I'm not going to write voodoo in that space, Mr. Newland.
23:00I'm a medical doctor.
23:02What are you going to write?
23:03Undetermined causes.
23:05You don't suppose it's possible that it could have been a psychic phenomenon?
23:08I mean, death by auto-suggestion.
23:11I'm a scientist.
23:12So was Louis Pasteur, who very nearly died of the same thing.
23:16Death by suggestion.
23:17Also caused by a tragically disturbed woman.
23:19It's in the record.
23:20Yes, yes.
23:21I've heard of the case.
23:24We have a lot to learn, Mr. Newland.
23:29A lot to learn, indeed.
23:32What really happened to Karen Wadsworth?
23:35A series of cruel and bewildering coincidences?
23:39Or a few moments of hate and despair so enormous
23:43they could actually be felt by others?
23:46In the April 13th, 1959 issue of Time magazine,
23:50a curious experiment was reported.
23:53Two rows of seeds were planted.
23:56The seeds were chosen from the same package,
23:59planted in the same earth by the same people,
24:02and cared for and tended equally.
24:06With one exception.
24:08The first row was prayed over.
24:12The second was cursed.
24:15The first row flourished.
24:18The second withered.
24:38The End