THRILLER
"The Cheaters" (1960; d. John Brahm, tp. Donald S Sanford)

Begins, like source-story writer Rbt Bloch’s "Grim Reaper" + "Man of Mystery" Thrillers, w/ creator dying after finishing work (art=life): 18th Century scientist Dirk van Prinn (frightwigged Henry Daniell, who discovered dead son in "GR" prolog), whose new specs inscribed VERITAS (truth: author as seer of same + creation as vehicle for + enabler of right-seeing), hangs self (à la "GR" painter) on looking in mirror (shock of knowing self, easy insight title "cheat" on lifelong deliberation/introspection), drama to follow dissolution of his consciousness into final sleep/death.

Glasses found 200 yrs later (archaic/archetypal nature of prolog: no one can stand to see themselves) by inarticulate, down-on-his-luck "salvage" merchant (unconscious retriever of castoff psychic material) Joe Henshaw, who takes long shot on "blind lot" (own lack of vision) yielding only disintegrating books (verbal inadequacy + dreamer/deceased's deteriorating store of knowledge) in attic (arcane, unreachable wisdom), kicking writing desk (frustration at expressive limitations: long-dormant scientist-consciousness grappling twd articulation following silent prolog) dislodging secret compartment containing specs (hidden inner vision); realizes nagging wife Maggie (scientist’s hectoring conscience over own inadequacy: "he made the Cheaters to find out if he was one of the Great Ones. Evidently, he was disappointed") plotting w/ employee Charlie (repeatedly called "the kid": oedipal threat, everyone’s apparent childlessness stunted personality/society unable to "communicate" into next, healthy, regenerative stage of development: the Bloch universe) to kill him for property (fear of repressed libido taking over personality, and recognition that he/lunky Body obsolete, i.e. dead), for which he tire-irons them (van Prinn refusing fact of own expiration), screams bringing cop (conscience/consciousness, 1/2 of whose mouth paralyzed: still struggling to "speak") who shoots him as he lunges for "cheaters" (specs, or infidels: own "unfaithful" vision + fatal shortcut to justice).

Next found at lot sale by kleptomaniac (glasses also finding people/flaws, she Soul corrupt from disuse, hoarding pathology mind’s refusal to acknowledge loss of physical being) widow "Mother" (not-the-mother to scheming apparent niece + nephew Olive + Edward in avaricious world devoid of nurturing family relations; childlessness also dead van P’s inability to regenerate any longer) Miriam Olcott, who discovers family friend (whom she phoning at start of episode, he invisible - as psychic - presence until made flesh on discovery of glasses: Conscience) + husband’s executor (acting out "will" of expired not-the-father Self/van Prinn) Clarence in on plot (similar betrayal as last episode, repetition insistence of subconscious material 2B acknowledged: again, that self is obsolete), killing him before passing out extinguishing of ego permitting self-retributive fire to finish job.

At costume party (dream full-tilt, when ego assumes/reveals its various guises; in van Prinn’s period dress, ca. 1776: roots of country’s scheming + avarice) next yr, "kids" Olive + Edward (mistakenly called Percy by host Boris Karloff?) Dean find specs to complete social-climbing Ed’s Ben Franklin drag (creator of bifocals: reconfigured inventor van P): from cuckold Joe H to childless widow Miriam O to lisping, rotund Jack Weston (down slope of regeneracy); men w/draw into study to play cards (skillful manipulation of chance, outrage at card-cheat as at own underhanded expedience), where Ed hears everyone’s thots, even non-conspiratorial ones (influence of specs widening thru course of drama à la human cognitive development), lashing out homicidally at hoped-for sponsor into Gentry Club (not-the-father shepherding not-the-son into maturity) Thorgenson (camp vision of framer of Declaration of Independence + supporter of Constitution throttling poker pal) in presence of Judge/conscience Pfluger + "unpublished author" (frustrated ambition + own latent moral sense, he issuing humiliating castigation) + "dissident bounder" (truth-teller à la specs) Sebastian Grimm (one of Bloch’s frequent sardonic self-portraits, he later writing hoped-for career-making work called - "The Cheaters"!), who clobbers him to stop attack (killed again by Truth).

Grimm ventures to van P house to research final chapter of book (shared titles story writing self, describing own creation; glasses à la TV screen, by which viewer gains [ultimately useless + self-destructive] omniscience) on specs by replicating prolog epiphany (as show reiterates story, dream replaying daytime action in order to resolve), leaving wife Ellen (body + soul) downstairs while he ascends to attic (heaven of higher consciousness; cf climax of "Mystery," man similarly leaving lover below while he goes to confront "self" upstairs [male facing own unalloyed masculinity]), he not-scientist (writer at polar opposite of intellectual spectrum, using facts to produce imaginative interp of reality) articulator of vP’s speechless revelation in Dorian Gray final vision, rotted flesh literal analysis ("to break up," also revealing vP to self as truly Dead): Bloch’s verdict on (mostly male) world, film ending w/ Wm Wyleresque hysterical wmn pounding on door, unable to reach obsessed, self-destructive man w/i.