'Sidney Stuart' - The Night Walker

[dem bones]

'Sidney Stuart' [Michael Avallone, from Robert Bloch's screen-play] - The Night Walker (Award, 1964)

Blurb:

She had dreams about a strange lover. One night the dream came true. But after the love came violence. And after the violence, terror. For her lover was …. The Night Walker.

Nobody ever accused Michael Avallone of being a fussy author and this 138 page novelisation - which makes it into this section on the strength of the Bloch connection: he even contributes a three page introduction, I Confess - reads like something he probably turned out in less time than it will take me to "review" it.

"Howard was dressed as she had last seen him. The smoking jacket. His hands were now encased in black gloves, one of them curled about the white cane. But he had changed. Oh, how he had changed!
The entire left side of his face was a horror mask. Burned, scarred tissue freshly puckered from forehead to chin .... His face was set in a ghastly grin. The terrible damage of thee left side of his face shone wetly in the gloom ...."

Howard Trent, a brilliant mad scientist of enormous wealth, believes his wife, Irene, several years his junior, is cheating on him under his own roof as he is forever hearing cries of an "Oh darling! Give it to me!" nature emanating from her room during the night. Her explanation - that she just has the most vivid dreams during which she's visited by some kind of incubus - doesn't wash with Mr. Trent at all: he suspects she's having it away with his dashing lawyer, Barry Morland.

Surely he should have found evidence to support his strong suspicion by now?

But Howard Trent is blind.

And so, he hires private detective George Fuller to spy on his wife, see if he can catch her at it with her alleged "dream lover".

But then - Howard Trent dies when his home laboratory goes up in flames, and now Irene is haunted by two phantoms: the dream, and her hideously charred late husband tap-tap-tapping after her with his cane. Only Barry Morland believes her when she confides the increasingly strange and terrible events that are driving her out of her mind and he resolves to settle the mystery (if mystery there is) once and for all .....

[sadako]

Wow, didn't clock that this wasn't written by Bloch when i read it.

It's a great little black and white movie directed by the poor man's Hitchcock, gimmick-prone William Castle. Twisty plot and an extremely catchy soundtrack by Vic Mizzy (The Addams Family)

[mushroomcollector]

I was lucky enought to be able to get my copy signed by both Mike Avallone and Robert Bloch. Mike signed at the bottom of the copyright page: "Bob, sign at the top where you belong, Michael Avallone" When I got Robert Bloch to sign it, he signed at the top "For my pal Mike! Robert Bloch" Definately two of my favorite authors. Sorry they are no longer with us.

[dem bones]

that's a lovely stort, mc - thanks for sharing and also for putting us onto the Aus Spiderweb on the Bibliography in progress thread (yes, any additions are most welcome). i was going to attempt a list of the short stories too, but couldn't figure a way of doing it without ripping off Graeme Flanagan, whose invaluable Robert Bloch: A Bio-Bibliography lists them all through to May 1979 and Freak Show. i guess it wouldn't do any harm to pick it up from there, have a stab at listing all the later ones.

thanks for joining us, and i hope you enjoy your time with black vault - you sound like a fun-gi.

*i know, i know. i was hating myself to death even as i typed it*