Post by trailboss on May 21, 2017 21:43:07 GMT -5
The wife and I ran across this on the Amazon app, I am not sure if prime membership is required for free viewing. It is pretty good, it was produced in 1958, and a year later The Twilight Zone aired...I couldn't help but wonder if Rod Serling capitalized on the fact that this was never to make it to television and made the show, at least to me the similarities are striking. Karloff has a part in every episode but one and he shows off his skill, in some of them he is smoking his pipe, but he loads from a leather pouch, and the billiards are undiscernible.
Referred to as “the greatest television series never seen”, this anthology series was hosted by the legendary Boris Karloff and it presented supernatural tales of horror that were allegedly based on actual reported events. Karloff also performed in most episodes, but the TV audience of the 1950’s never saw it because the show never made it to the air. The Veil went into production eying a syndication run, but studio troubles plus the falling out of a co-financing deal brought the show to a stop after ten episodes had been produced.
Since that was not enough to interest the syndication market or one of the networks, the series ended up just getting scrapped. It disappeared from the public eye until fortunately resurfacing about fifteen years back on DVD, giving curious onlookers the chance to finally see the series. And while not a classic, the show had its moments and at time invoked the 1960 series Thriller which Karloff would have much more success with. Interestingly, only ten episodes of the show were filmed during the initial production run, but there are actually twelve episodes associated with the series.
A pilot titled “The Vestris” was aired in 1958 on the anthology series Telephone Time, and the episode “Jack the Ripper” was produced by another studio but acquired as part of The Veil. These two additional episodes were included in the 2009 DVD release of the series (referred to as Tales of the Unexplained: From Behind The Veil). And since it is available now on home video, this one is definitely worth a look for Karloff fans and those who enjoyed the anthology shows from the early decades of television.
Since that was not enough to interest the syndication market or one of the networks, the series ended up just getting scrapped. It disappeared from the public eye until fortunately resurfacing about fifteen years back on DVD, giving curious onlookers the chance to finally see the series. And while not a classic, the show had its moments and at time invoked the 1960 series Thriller which Karloff would have much more success with. Interestingly, only ten episodes of the show were filmed during the initial production run, but there are actually twelve episodes associated with the series.
A pilot titled “The Vestris” was aired in 1958 on the anthology series Telephone Time, and the episode “Jack the Ripper” was produced by another studio but acquired as part of The Veil. These two additional episodes were included in the 2009 DVD release of the series (referred to as Tales of the Unexplained: From Behind The Veil). And since it is available now on home video, this one is definitely worth a look for Karloff fans and those who enjoyed the anthology shows from the early decades of television.