Thriller on DVD

The old television horror series Thriller is about to be released on DVD, every episode remastered along with the obligatory "special features" that have become de rigueur for DVD boxed sets. The rights to the series, which aired on NBC from 1960 to 1962 and featured Boris Karloff as host, were acquired by Image Entertainment, Inc. last year and the announcement of their pending release was made on October 30. Early this month the actual release date of August 31, 2010 was announced.

Although it is primarily remembered as a horror show, Thriller actually presented a mix of both horror and suspense and featured adaptations of works by such well-known mystery authors as Cornell Woolrich, Charlotte Armstrong, Margaret Millar and Fredric Brown. The eleventh episode of the first season featured an adaptation of John D MacDonald's 1955 novella "The Impulse," retitled "The Fatal Impulse," and starred Robert Lansing, Whitney Blake, Steve Brodie and a 23-year old Mary Tyler Moore, a year before she became Laura Petrie on The Dick Van Dyke Show. I have never read the "The Impulse" and don't own a copy of the magazine it originally appeared in, so I have to rely on the one-sentence synopsis from the IMDb to get an idea of its plot.

"A man fleeing from an attempt to assassinate a political candidate puts a small bomb in the bag of a woman in an elevator. The police spend the evening looking for the mystery girl and the bomb."

The list price for this 14-disc set is $149.98, although I assume it will be made available on Netflix should all one wish to do is view the JDM episode.

Here's the most recent Press Release.


January 2020 Update:

My friend Doug Krentzlin informed me that this episode is now available to watch for free on YouTube. Here's the link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1fs4iyPomg