OVERLOOKED TELEVISION: TALES OF FRANKENSTEIN

Tales of Frankenstein:  The Face in the Tombstone Mirror (1958)

Just as Victor and Igor did when cherry-picking body parts for their monster, so too did Hammer Studios and Columbia Pictures did when they partnered to produce this failed television pilot, taking a standard Hammer plot and throwing in stock scenes from several Universal pictures.

British actor Anton Diffring (The Man Who Could Cheat Death, The Beast Must Die) plays Baron Frankenstein to Don McGowan's (The Creature Walks Among Us, Tarzan and the Valley of Gold) Monster.  Also featured in the half-hour pilot are Helen Westcott (Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Monster on the Campus), Ludwig Stossell (Ramar of the Jungle, From the Earth to the Moon), Richard Bull ("Nels Oleson" on Little House on the Prairie; he passed away last month at age 89), Raymond Greenleaf (Pinky, All the King's Men), Peter Brocco (Radar Men from the Moon, Johnny Got His Gun), and Sidney Mason ("Inspector J. J. Burke" in the 1952 series Craig Kennedy, Criminologist).

The show was directed by Curt Siodmak, brother of director Robert Siodmak and the screenwriter of many classic horror movies:  Donovan's Brain, The Wolfman, Black Friday, I Walked with a Zombie, House of Frankenstein, Son of Dracula, The Beast with Five Fingers, Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman, Bride of the Gorilla, The Magnetic Monster, and the list goes on and on.  Siodmak also acted as associate producer and provided the story for Tales of Frankenstein:  The Face in the Tombstone Mirror.  The actual scripting duties went to Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore, legendary names in the SF and mystery fields.  According to IMDb, Jerome Bixby, the SF writer/editor whose story "It's a Good Life" was one of the most memorable The Twilight Zone episodes, had an uncredited hand in the teleplay as well.

Enjoy.

https://archive.org/details/TalesOfFrankensteintheFaceInTheTombstoneMirror-Pilot