One Step Beyond (TV Series) The Sorcerer (1961) User Reviews

The young Christopher Lee makes his American TV debut

[kevinolzak · 6/10 · 8 June 2010]

This 1961 broadcast of ONE STEP BEYOND (one of the very last episodes) features a familiar British cast, most of whom were making their debuts on American television. The series supposedly based their scripts on actual unexplainable events, and this one was no exception. Christopher Lee stars as Wilhelm Reitlinger, German officer during the First World War, assigned to finish putting up telegraph poles to increase communications to Berlin in 1915. Martin Benson plays Klaus Karnak, a simple farmer who, it is said, can see into the future and make things happen. Reitlinger is distraught over a letter from his beloved Elsa, and visits Karnak to ask what can be done. Karnak hypnotically permits Reitlinger to instantly travel to Berlin to see her, only to discover her bidding goodbye to another officer. Apparently friendly to the entire regiment, and dismissive of her one-time lover, Elsa is shot down by the jealous Reitlinger, who confesses to the murder, but cannot find anyone to believe him, seeking vengeance against the 'sorcerer' Karnak. A brief, black and white half hour, depending on its cast to pull off a difficult story. As Elsa, lovely Gabriella Licudi had a short career in England, distinguished by a starring role in the forgotten gem "Unearthly Stranger" (1963), where she played the sympathetic alien bride of John Neville. Martin Benson would never again work with Christopher Lee, but would immediately co-star with Peter Cushing in Hammer's "Captain Clegg" (1962). He also appeared in "The Strange World of Planet X" (1957), "Goldfinger" (1964, as the gangster crushed in the trunk by Oddjob), and "The Omen" (1976). Christopher Lee made rare forays into Hollywood prior to his 1976 relocation to America, the first being THE ALFRED HITCHCOCK HOUR ("The Sign of Satan") in 1964, and "Poor Devil," a 1972 TV movie opposite Sammy Davis Jr., a longtime fan of his Hammer classics (in 1966, he turned down the Clock King role, designed to appeal to international audiences, on the popular BATMAN, being replaced by Walter Slezak). He had previously appeared in the 1954 "At Night All Cats Are Gray" episode of Boris Karloff's British-filmed teleseries COLONEL MARCH OF Scotland YARD, syndicated in the US. At this time in 1961, Lee had just married, moving from England to Switzerland, and embarked on a series of Continental productions, mostly in West Germany and Italy, returning to England in 1963, beckoned by Hammer to star back-to-back in "The Devil-Ship Pirates" and "The Gorgon." The multilingual actor adopted an effective German accent for this role, and would actually essay a German-speaking role in an English-language American comedy, "1941" (1979), for director Steven Spielberg.

ONE STEP BEYOND: THE SORCERER {Short; TV} (John Newland, 1961) ***

[Bunuel1976 · 7/10 · 16 June 2015]

For his first appearance on US TV, Christopher Lee chose this intriguing entry into the Sci-Fi series – which ran from 1959 to 1961 – that was a contemporary of (if somewhat lesser-known than) Rod Serling's THE TWILIGHT ZONE (1959-64). Again, this 31st episode of Season 3 (which proved to be the final one, before its being resurrected in 2005!) of the series, is my first encounter with it.

Lee (who was himself fairly modest about his serving in WWII) here plays a disgraced German officer during WWI who keeps insisting with his reluctant superiors to court-martial him for having murdered his philandering girlfriend (a debuting Gabriella Licudi); the only trouble is that, at the exact time the murder was committed in Berlin, he was actually engaged in installing telegraph poles at the front! As it turns out, Lee had previously tried to evict a local farmer (Martin Benson; also the writer of the story on which the episode was based) who was shunned by the populace for his alleged psychic powers; disturbed by a letter he had received from his beloved, the officer seeks the supernatural help of the sorcerer in checking up on his girl all those miles away. In fact, he is willed into the girl's apartment and, not only witnesses her bidding goodbye to a departing soldier but, in the ensuing confrontation learns that she had virtually been servicing the whole regiment during his absence! Needless to say, Lee shoots her…which is where we came in.

Apart from Lee's committed portrayal of the distraught protagonist and the atmospheric monochrome photography, the episode's trump card is the ingenious way in which the officer ensures that he is indeed punished for his crime after all…which I will not spoil here for any viewer which might decide to check this episode out – just like I did on "You Tube", following the death of its legendary star. Incidentally, that is director Newland acting as host at the episode's close.