Great Ghost Tales (TV Series 1961) Poster

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8/10
"The Wendigo"
mackjay227 October 2006
I think I only saw one or two episodes of this show, so long ago. But that episode was never forgotten: "The Wendigo", based on a story by Algernon Blackwood. The utter horror of this tale was something I had never encountered at that young age.

I found the story to read (it's easy to find) and it's even more horrific. A real nightmare.

Too bad, but the TV series was broadcast live, so few tapings of it are in existence. However, you never know when some archivist may turn up with unexpected copies that might be issued so we can all see this show again.
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9/10
Haunting series I've never forgotten
djholman200217 August 2006
I was but a lad of 9 years when this series was broadcast. The individual episodes were uneven in quality, but the best (including "Number 13," "The Wendigo" and "Mr. Arcularis") gave me delightful nightmares. They were live broadcasts and at their best had a stark, riveting quality. The source materials included classic stories by Poe, Algernon Blackwood and other masters of horror. In fact, I was introduced to dark fantasy literature through TV shows like this and "Thriller." It would be great if someone could issue these on DVD or video, because their subtlety would be a revelation and an object lesson for those viewers used to the overly-explicit horror of recent decades.
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Similarity
tomneiman6 June 2006
This show was remarkably similar to Way Out which aired on CBS from 3/31/61 to 7/14/61. They both were televised live on video in New York City. They focused on the ghostly, the unexplainable, the supernatural. Just as Way Out was short lived with 14 episodes so was Great Ghost Tales with 12 episodes. Great Ghost Tales aired on NBC from 7/6/61 to 9/21/61.

Because both were short lived and have become obscure with the passing of time, I doubt if any video company will place them on market to the public. Maybe CBS and NBC could work out a deal with people like myself and others whose heart was big over the episodes of Way Out and Great Ghost Tales.
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10/10
Scary, unforgettable performances
rkbaileypa25 January 2007
Having spent a great deal of time in the woods with my parents camping this performance was one of the most unforgettable shows I have ever watched. I can still see the man standing in the campfire trying to explain to his friends he is OK and nothing is wrong, when the wendigo flies over and calls him; "Oh my burning feet of fire". I would love to see it as an adult although I know it was performed live with little chance of any recording. I was 10 at the time it aired. The actors were unknown and to my best recollection I have not seen them in other works. This was one show in a series of great ghost tales we watched regularly. I can recall one other show as vividly Room 13 which explained why hotels/motels do not have a room thirteen and a numbered thirteenth floor.
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10/10
These stories haunted me for years!
berserkcoyote19 April 2017
I watched this show when I was 10 (I wasn't allowed to watch it, but my mom was at work so...). One episode concerned a mirror that held a lot more than one's reflection. For years afterwards I couldn't look in a mirror without real fear & a sense of dread. And The Monkey's Paw -- terrifying! I would love to watch them again & see if they were truly as scary as I remember. Maybe being "live" made them seem more real.
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10/10
The Wendigo
suctionmule-228494 January 2017
Warning: Spoilers
I checked the spoiler box to err on the side of caution, even though what I mention is not "the entire story." I'm sure many of you have had occasions in your lives when one or more movies, TV programs, music, book titles or story titles, etc. have eluded you at the time you initially discovered them, sometimes for decades. So it has been for me with my initial encounter with what proved to have its origin with Algernon Blackwood's haunting tale The Wendigo. I long thought (erroneously) that the TV program that aired the story was Masterpiece Theater. That was wrong, as you see; that honor goes to the TV series Great Ghost Tales. Perhaps I can be forgiven, because as it turns out the show aired in 1961, not the mid-1960's as I'd "remembered." The hauntingly eerie lines "Oh! Oh! My feet, my burning feet of fire," coupled with what had gone just before regarding certain tracks in the snow (and what happened TO those tracks) as observed by the protagonist were such that the mysterious, frightening tale was seared (no pun intended) into my mind as if with a branding iron. I did not discover Algernon Blackwoods tale The Wendigo until 1970, when I ordered a copy of the DAW paperback book Monster Mix; that book is quite possibly one of the best horror short story collections I've ever read, and if you can rustle up a copy of this long out of print horror gem, do so. Blackwood's The Wendigo is one of those rare tales that you can savor repeatedly and still feel that unsettling sense of cold, cosmic horror that is no less disturbing today than it was when written. Interestingly, Blackwood's The Wendigo was essentially a precursor to another author I "backed into" a bit later by the name of H.P. Lovecraft, and The Wendigo easily fits within Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos genre.
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I remember three of the episodes
breng31 March 2006
Strange to think these live TV shows are now lost (I've read that taped copies of two unnamed episodes were discovered a few years ago). I must have been only ten or eleven when I saw "The Monkey's Paw" and "Room 13". One show, the name of which I don't remember, took place aboard the Titanic and was not particularly scary (although I can remember parts of it, so it must have impressed me in some way). I know the others scared the stuffing out of me. I can still vividly remember the scene in "The Monkey's Paw" when the moonlight shadow of the boy who was mangled by farm machinery ripples across the front of his father's old house, or the hellish fate that awaited the unlucky hotel guest who stumbled into the supposedly non-existent "Room 13." I would love to view those shows again just to see if they live up to my childhood memories. Alas, they likely only exist in the minds and imaginations of those who saw them in 1961.
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Archives
ryanerin-7202815 March 2023
Do anybody have a copy of the monkeys paw episode??! Please if so give me some feedback asap. I been working on finding this show on YouTube but I cant find any episodes available unfortunately. I heard this show is a gem that is unheard of in the early periods of television so if anybody has a link that can show this particular show I would be so grateful cause I'm a fan of old modern shows like dark shadows and this show looks similar to the dark shadows and twilight zone. Please anyone that has access to these video recordings just send me a file so I can check this out and catch something different.
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