One Step Beyond (TV Series) Anniversary of a Murder (1960) User Reviews

I cant see! I can't see! It's all Black!

[sol1218 · 6/10 · 31 May 2011]

***SPOILERS*** It's Friday May 6, 1960 and New York business executive Gerald Simms, Harry Townes, has no idea what the date means in his life, in him trying to forget it, until he turns on his office tape-recorder to make out a report. Out of the recorder comes the voice of a young man crying out "I can't see I Can't see! it's all Black!" is all that the tape-recorder recorded and the meaning of those words put Simms into a state of total shock! It was exactly a year to the day on Wednesday May 6, 1959 that Simms and his secret lover the also "happily married" Fran Hiller, Randy Stuart, whom Simms had been cheating on his wife Janet with drove into a young biker and left him to die in not calling the police for help.

With Simms quickly losing it in not being able to erase the cry for help on his tape-recorder he gets in touch with Fran so she could confirm that he was not going crazy but in fact hearing the cry for help that both he and Fran ignored. Sure enough Fran hears the same cry as he did that drives her just as loony as Simms is! Getting in his car and driving down the very same country road that he did a year ago that killed the young biker Simms trying to swerve out of the way of a biker in the darkness slams into a tree killing himself! As it turned out there was no one on the road for Simms to hit but there was a large oak tree off the road for him to smash into.

***SPOILERS*** As it turns out as were shown by the host John Newland there was no such massage on Simms tape recorder! It was only Simms and Fran who were the only ones who heard it! And it was their guilt of leaving the young boy to die that somehow invaded their minds and made them hear the cries for help that they,in saving their own necks and marriages,tried to put out of their minds all that time! Which in the end finally caught up with the two and finally brought them, Fran later turned herself over to the police, to final and ultimate justice!

Deadly Affair

[AaronCapenBanner · 7/10 · 17 April 2015]

Harry Townes & Randy Stuart play Gerald Simms & Frances Hiller, who are conducting a secret affair, as Gerald is a married businessman desperate to keep it from his wife. One night while returning from a restaurant, driver Gerald is distracted and accidentally hits and kills a young boy on his bicycle. Rather than report it, they both agree to cover up the death, which they succeed at, but a year to the day later, Simms gets a chilling message from the dead boy on his Dictaphone! How can this be, or is someone playing a game with him? Effective episode with two fine lead performances and fitting(if abrupt) end for them both, as John Newland sums it all up.

Pretty good, though I think most hit and run drivers are much more concerned about getting caught than feeling guilty for what they've done.

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 2 March 2014]

Gerald Simms (Harry Townes) is having an affair with Frances Hiller (Randy Stuart). They meet in dark, out of the way places and they both are worried about getting caught. One night, after seeing each other, they are in the car headed home when Gerald accidentally hits and kills a young man. Instead of contacting the police, weaselly Gerald insists he and Frances pretend it never happened--and they agree not to see each other for a year. A year passes and although Gerald seems pretty comfortable with his lies, something strange begins happening. He begins to hear the voice of the dying young man calling out for help from his dictaphone machine. Later, when he plays it for Frances, she, too, hears the voice. What the voice compels them to do, you can hear for yourself.

This is an interesting episode. I also loved how as the pair were meeting, the narrator popped back into the story and walked around them--a very strange and striking scene. Well worth seeing.

"I mean, there isn't gonna be any tomorrow."

[classicsoncall · 6/10 · 13 February 2015]

After hearing a strange yet recognizable voice on his dictaphone, businessman Gerald Simms (Harry Townes) has a panicked flashback to an event that occurred exactly one year earlier. Behind the wheel of his car with the woman (Frances Hiller) he was carrying on an affair with, Simms accidentally strikes a young man on his bicycle. The young man dies after pleading with Harry that he can't see with everything going black around him. Against his woman companion's better judgment, Harry leaves the scene of the accident and conspires with her to call things off for a year while waiting out the tragic events of the evening.

Back to present day and Harry's remorse and guilt are getting the better of him. Every time he attempts to use the dictaphone he hears the voice of the bicyclist calling out. What's even more remarkable is that Harry's girlfriend Fran also hears the voice once she joins him in his office.

'One Step Beyond' offered more than one episode dealing with apparitional manifestations (The Dark Room, The Explorer), but this one featured an auditory one. One theory offered by host John Newland relies on the idea of a guilty conscience creating it's own 'voice of doom'. The odder aspect of the story for me was how both parties managed to hear the same voice.

Thou Shall Not Murder; Thou Shall Not Commit Adultery

[wes-connors · 5/10 · 5 July 2011]

Successful businessman Harry Townes (as Gerald "Jerry" Simms) is disturbed upon hearing a mysterious voice on his Dictaphone. "I can't see! It's all black! I want to go home… please!" Mr. Townes realizes it's the "Anniversary of a Murder" and the voice belongs to the victim. However, it is not exactly a murder, as we see during a flashback… On the evening of the incident, Townes is out with attractive Randy Stewart (as Frances "Fran" Hiller). They are married to other people, and Ms. Stewart considers ending the affair. "I'm not a fickle fellow," replies Townes. After a few drinks, Townes is behind the when tragedy strikes… The moral of the story may be: A guilty conscience hits adultery. Hard.

***** Anniversary of a Murder (9/27/60) John Newland ~ Harry Townes, Randy Stewart, Amzie Strickland, Alexander Lockwood

The Ghost in the Dictaphone

[Goingbegging · 5/10 · 5 June 2022]

Contrived is the word for this one.

A married businessman and his married mistress are dining and dancing the night away, while debating some troublesome issue that will be forever unknown, partly because the latter's voice does not register clearly, and partly because the recording has weathered badly across sixty years.

But their disagreement seems to have been resolved, perhaps with the aid of the demon alcohol, by the time he drives her home, even canoodling with her at the wheel. Of course, the inevitable happens, and they find they've run over and killed a boy in the pitch-dark. Vaguely promising to report the accident, he drops her home, and then decides that as nobody witnessed the collision, he'll pretend it never happened. She feels, however, that they should stay apart for a year.

On the anniversary, he takes a call on his Dictaphone, and is startled to hear the boy's dying words, exactly as he heard them on the night. He becomes thoroughly distracted, as noticed by his refreshingly normal-looking secretary (Amzie Strickland), and sends for the mistress he hoped to spend the night with, who also hears the ghost-call. Yet when the tape is played to the police, they hear nothing. We can't reveal the ending, though we can promise you it isn't pretty, and it's as contrived as the rest of the plot.

Your eternally charming host John Newland gets away with his usual brand of blarney: "The conscience can create a voice of its own - the voice of doom, heard only by the guilty."