Girl on the Road

I like being surprised as I watch a TV show--and "Girl on the Road" is just that. While I thought the show was going one direction, it abruptly went a different one and I really appreciate that.

This show begins with a creepy guy, John Prescott, stopping by to help Lila with her broken down car. I say creepy because he comes on very strong and seems almost like a potential sex offender. I really expected this would be where the show would go. However, he turned out to be a nice guy--despite his initial demeanor.

The problem turns out to be Lila herself. She's in some sort of trouble and Prescott thinks that a local rich guy, Morgan Debs (Boris Karloff) is behind it all. And, when she disappears, he is convinced Debs is responsible. What's next? See the show for yourself--it's worth it, as it's well written and exciting...and probably not one bit true despite the narrator (also Karloff) insisting that it is.

As a great fan of Classic Horror, I was immediately highly interested in "The Veil", a 1958 TV series of 10 episodes, when I stumbled upon it, mainly since this highly entertaining show was hosted by none other than the great Boris Karloff. A mysterious story about the 'unexplainable, which lies behind the veil' is narrated in each episode. The episodes differ in quality, but they are entirely entertaining. (For more information, read my review of the complete series). This second episode, "Girl On The Road" is one of the eeriest and best in the series, mainly because it maintains a remarkably gloomy atmosphere from the beginning to the end. A man sees a beautiful young woman whose car has broken down, and is determined to help her... I will not give away more, but I can assure that this episode is more than worth a look. It has an amazingly uncanny atmosphere, which sometimes reminded me of Horror Classics such as Herk Harvey's 1962 masterpiece "Carnival Of Souls". Karloff himself has a great role, and the rest of the performances are good too. Overall, this is one of the best and creepiest episodes of the series, and highly recommendable to my fellow Classic Horror buffs.

This was an OK offering from a lost treasure. But it is merely a rehash of an old ghost story. Remember the song where the teenage boy meets the girl and falls in love. He gives her his sweater and then she disappears. Eventually, he finds the sweater on her grave. There are some questions here, but things play out pretty realistically. There is one question, however. What's with the bartender. Did he actually see the daughter? Anyway, this is one of the better adaptations of the story, and I would imagine that if I were a teenager, growing up in the Twilight Zone era, I would have been quite taken with this. The acting is good and the characters interesting.

Hitch hikers topics are not unusual in.anthology series from the fifties, and even later. This one is not Ida Lupino's THE HITCH HIKER, nor Edgar Ulmer's DETOUR, not a crime short flick, no, an efficient little tale, very strange, that could remind some mystery stories from Lewis Allen's early films, and taking place in old mansions. Many questions will remain after seeing this short story. But that's the purpose after all, the DNA of this TV show, very close to another series from this same period: ONE STEP BEYOND. THE VEIL was a too short anthology show, so shame, because there would have been more stories to tell.

A fist of clues , eerie story, nice acting of Boris Karloff and a surnatural case not so surprising for amateurs of genre. In short, just a correct story , well crafted, inspiring waves of expectations and state, starting as presumed romance, continuing as a sort of policier and proposing, to the end, a touching case of impossibility of the rest for a dead young woman.

Not extraordinary but with potential to be a real - real case , and the performance of Karloff becomes the key of the nuances from mafioso to the poor uncle.

Two young men, her car in trouble, his help , a meeting in evening and fragments of newspaper about a terrible accident. And the first meeting as end of circle.

A nice episode , a fair answer to the chain of suppositions.