Alfred Hitchcock - Stories They Wouldn't Let Me Do On TV (Pan, 1960: Reinhardt , 1957)
Ghost-edited by
Robert ArthurPreface - Alfred Hitchcock
Arthur Williams - Being A Murderer Myself
Edward Lucas White - Lukundoo
William Sansom - A Woman Seldom Found
Margaret St. Clair - The Perfectionist
John Russell - The Price Of The Head
Q. Patrick - Love Comes To Miss Lucy
Saki - Srendi Vashtar
Philip MacDonald - Love Lies Bleeding
Jerome K. Jerome - The Dancing Partner
M. R. James - Casting The Runes
William Hope Hodgson - The Voice In The Night
Robert S. Hichens - How Love Came To Professor Guildea
Stanley Ellen - The Moment Of Decision
James Francis Dwyer - A Jungle Graduate
C. P. Donnel, jr. - Recipe For Murder
Roald Dahl - Nunc Dimittus
Richard Connell - The Most Dangerous Game
John Collier - The Lady On The Grey
A. M. Burrage - The Waxwork
Thomas Burke - The Dumb Wife
D. K. Broster - Couching At The Door
Ray Bradbury - The October Game
Robert Bloch - Water's Edge
Robert Arthur - The Jokester
Leonid Andreyev - The Abyss In my experience, the 'Hitchcock's ghost-edited by Robert Arthur are excellent and
Stories They Wouldn't Let Me Do On TV is in with a strong shout for series best, although the title may not be strictly accurate - I'm pretty sure the opening story was featured as an episode in one of his shows. As Hitchcock (?) is honest enough to stress in his too-short Preface, it wasn't always a case of them all being banned, more that "actors are only human" and would've had a time of it trying to depict certain sequences in
Lukundoo and the like. Always thought this book would make a marvellous gift to somebody who fancied reading some horror stories but didn't know where to begin. A good mix of classics and some excellent lesser known works like
The Dumb Wife and
A Jungle Graduate.
You'd probably get away with adaptations of any of these today, and I wish somebody would put it to the test. The TV potential of say, Arthur's mortuary shocker
The Jokester, Thomas Burke's grim as Hell offering and Bloch's adventure in a rat-infested death-trap is enormous - and has there ever been a faithful screen adaptation of
The October Game?
I bought the above hardback this morning for £1.50 in Frinton-on-Sea. Max Reinhardt Limited (1957). Book in reasonable condition. Dustwrapper as seen below.
SteveYou're quite right. 'Being A Murderer Myself' by "Arthur Williams" did appear as an episode of Hitchcock's TV show. The episode was called 'Arthur' and was first broadcast in 1959. Laurence Harvey played the title role.
'The Jokester' had already been an episode of 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents' in 1958.
'Water's Edge' also later appeared on the 'Alfred Hitchcock Hour' in 1964 with John Cassavetes.
A few more of these stories have had small or big screen adaptations too, either before or after this book came out
The best known is probably M. R. James' 'Casting The Runes' which became Jacques Tourneur's Fifties B-movie classic 'Night of the Demon' (Incidentally, on the subject of Aleister Crowley - as I have been elsewhere on this board - guess who the character of evil cultist, Julian Karswell is supposed to be based on... yeah, that's right. Him.)
H. H. Munro's 'Sredni Vashtar' has been filmed at least three times to my knowledge - most recently in 2003 by the BBC (It's also been made into a Czech cartoon which isn't something you see every day...).
William Hope Hodgson's 'The Voice In The Night' was adapted twice. Once as an episode of the late 1950s TV series 'Suspicion', and later in 1963 by the great Ishiro 'Godzilla' Honda (he also worked with Kurosawa) as the not-quite-so-great 'Matango, Fungus of Terror' AKA 'Attack of the Mushroom People'.
'The Most Dangerous Game' by Richard Connell was first filmed back in 1932 with Leslie Banks as Count Zaroff (General Zaroff in the original story) and Fay Wray & Robert Armstrong who would appear together again the following year in 'King Kong'. It's been remade about half a dozen times since.
I don't know of any adaptations of 'The October Game'.
KillercrabThe best known is probably M. R. James' 'Casting The Runes' which became Jacques Tourneur's Fifties B-movie classic 'Night of the Demon' (Incidentally, on the subject of Aleister Crowley - as I have been elsewhere on this board - guess who the character of evil cultist, Julian Karswell is supposed to be based on... yeah, that's right. Him.Absolutely right about Karswell being supposedly based on Crowley .
Apparently there was a 1979 tv adaption of RUNES but I've not seen it. I read the short story last year after watching NIGHT OF THE DEMON - the film is *bigger* in feel - more dramatic - but the short story has an uneasy edge and arguably a better ending.
In some quarters M. R. James isn't seen as that good a writer - but I've enjoyed what I've read - particularly the very short LOST HEARTS which got a BBC Christmas Ghost stories adaption - myth and long memories say it was creepy - love to see this one sometime!
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Illustrated Man This is one of my all time best anthologies, as it contains so many of my favourites- How Love Came To Prof Guildea, still gives me the creeps, no matter how many times I read it, Casting The Runes, Lukundoo, Price Of The Head and The Voice In The Night. I've always liked the cover art as well for some reason, very similar to that of the original cover of Pan Horror #2. And yes The Jungle Graduate is excellent.