Thriller (TV Series) Papa Benjamin (1961) User Reviews

"He was killing me with voodoo."

[classicsoncall · 7/10 · 3 February 2012]

It almost goes without saying that an episode of Thriller should at some point deal with the topic of voodoo. This one finds a once famous band leader (John Ireland) down on his luck after taking an oath that he would never reveal what he'd seen as part of a ritual ceremony complete with native island music and dance. However when he adopts the rhythms of the voodoo sound for his signature composition, his health, both physical and mental take a turn for the worse.

The story utilizes some common symbols of voodoo legend, such as a chicken leg and a voodoo doll complete with stick-pin to torment an intended victim. Partly told in flashback, the story reveals that Eddie's luck goes South when he returns to the States from Santa Isabel, as his band gigs get canceled and his wife leaves him. Returning to the island and confronting Papa Benjamin (Jester Hairston) only makes matters worse, as the curse that affects him takes hold stronger than ever.

Most of the episode's intrigue lies in the power of suggestion and the idea that superstitious mumbo-jumbo can actually have a direct influence over one's mind and body. I'll tell you what though, you know what was really scary? In the scene at the New York office of Eddie's agent Jerry Roberts (Robert H. Harris), it was snowing outside of one window, and the weather was clear outside the window right next to it!

Goodby Dead Man

[sol1218 · 6/10 · 26 June 2013]

****SPOILERS**** Looking for a new sound for his band while doing a gig on the Caribbean island of Santa Isabala pianist and band leader Eddie Wilson, John Ireland, comes across his spaced out drummer Tommy Stats, Larry Scott, in what seemed like him being in a catatonic state banging out this strange voodoo like sound that he's been looking for since he'd been on the island. With Stats not willing to reveal when he learned to play that kind of strange music Wilson follows him to this house where a voodoo ritual was being held and conducted by this strange dude called Papa Benjamin, Jester Hairston. Caught red handing snooping around the place and threatened with death Wilson's life is speared when Papa Benjamin or Benji, as he's known to his followers, makes him promise not to reveal the music he heard or it's curtains, death, for him if it does.

You would think that Wilson learned his lesson in keeping his mouth or piano shut but no the guy want's to use Papa's music, without giving him any residuals for it, in his latest act naming it the "Voodoo Rhapsody". The song becomes an overnight hit in the night club circuit but at the same time Wilson starts to get splitting headaches and pains in his body that makes him unable to lead his band. It's Ol' Papa Benji from way out there on the island of Santa Isabala who's using his voodoo magic to slowly drive Wilson insane and eventually kill him for breaking his promise to him not to play the song!

***SPOILERS*** We all get the inside dope about Papa Benji and his music from Eddie Wilson himself in a number of flashback at the local Santa Isabala police station. Wilson in a state of total shock and confusion also tells the police chief Insp. Daniels, Peter Foster,that he in fact murdered Benji,that turned out to be a voodoo induced illusion of his, to get the curse off him. Now back in the states and fully recovered from the voodoo curse put on him Wilson plays the odds or music and loses. That's when he's asked at the request of the night club audience whom he's knocking em' dead for him and his band to play the famous "Voodoo Rhapsody" as a going away present. Grudgingly agreeing to play it, against his better judgment, it turned out to be the last thing that Eddie Wilson would even play or do.

Voodoo Hoodoo

[Hitchcoc · 7/10 · 20 November 2016]

This is an intriguing idea. A bored, though successful, musician finds a way to be inspired. While he is performing on an island (somewhere in the Caribbean), his drummer begins to act oddly. Our man follows him one night and sees that he is participating in a voodoo ceremony. He hears them playing music that is stuck in his head and he now has purpose. Unfortunately, he is captured while listening and made to promise, on his life, to not reveal anything he has heard. Of course, he ignore their wishes and that's that. He writes a piece called Voodoo Rhapsody which is immediately embraced. The problem is that he suddenly is beset with pain and angst and his career falls apart. I won't ruin the plot, but we don't need to think to much to understand how things play out. I've never really understood the whole voodoo thing, but from all the films and shows I've seen, I wouldn't mess with it.

A Less Engaging Thriller Episode

[OneView · 6/10 · 15 July 2020]

There seems to have been an awareness that this was not going to be a landmark episode of Thriller, even at the time of production. An on-set report from the time has the crew describing the script in unflattering terms and the difficulties of getting a good final product with only five shooting days available. Getting a solid ten minutes of footage a day is pretty ambitious on any single-camera filmed production but was pretty much the norm for this period. The episode was also shot early in the production schedule before being shunted to very late in the season. All of this speaks to a lack of confidence in the final product.

I thought this episode suffered a little from pacing problems, concentrating on the musical performances and composition sequences at the expense of the horror voodoo segments which might have given the episode some added frisson. As a viewer witnessing the brief voodoo ceremony left me hungry for more and John Ireland's confrontation with the title character, "Goodbye, dead man," is suitably chilling.

The adaption of the Cornell Woolrich story lacks for tension though and Ireland's suffering is never as intense as it needs to be for a horror story.

Ireland himself is fine if a little inexpressive as the main character, a band leader with a problem, but there is so much more that this episode could have been.

An unofficial remake exists in the form of a segment of the anthology film Dr. Terror's House of Horrors from 1964.

One of the less engaging Thriller episodes.

C'mon-- Play the damned thing and CROAK ALREADY!!

[lrrap · 3/10 · 28 March 2020]

When it comes to horror--- magazines, comics, tv, movies...Everybody's gotta have at least one venture into voodoo. Too bad for Thriller that this one is such a total bore. We were two minutes into the opening scene and I couldn't believe how the pace of the show was ALREADY at a dead standstill.

The obsessed guy who dabbles in the sacred religion and ends up paying the price, the concerned, caring wife, the concerned caring manager...etc,..all the stock characters and situations are here, but with NOTHING special to recommend.

But the voodoo ceremony scene is very cool; certainly the highpoint of this otherwise pathetically drab episode. And where's the credit for the show's best performance---that of Jester Hairston as the title character? He was only a part-time actor, and yet his powerful presence dominates the proceedings. Hairston, a remarkably talented guy, was a composer and choral director; he was revered as the father/guru of American choral music--- as a composer (he wrote the lovely Christmas Carol "Mary's Little Boy Child", among others), arranger and spokesman for the black spiritual/choral tradition in the U.S. Fascinating guy (I used to see him interviewed by Johnny Carson on "Tonite Show.") But how did the dancers, who were raising an incredible ruckus with their rituals, manage to hear the box that John Ireland accidentally knocked over in the next room, I wonder---or should I bother?

Big Steve Mitchell's DVD interview with director ted Post reveals that this episode was the EIGHTH Thriller to be produced, though delayed until the 26th spot for airing; that would certainly explain a lot of its problems, since the series was in turmoil during its early months. Post also mentions that star John Ireland insisted on playing his role in a mind-numbing, semi-comatose state--- which helps explain a lot that's wrong with this show. He's supposed to be a big time, charismatic performer. The most he can accomplish, it sees, is a limp, half-hearted attempt at beating time, just prior to his patented COLLAPSE to the stage floor. What an act!!

Since there's so little of interest in this episode, here's some TRIVIA: at 27:28', during the first big nightclub scene, the mature woman in the lower right-hand corner of the screen is Bess Flowers, known as the "Queen of the Hollywood Dress Extras"; she probably appeared in more films than anyone in history, usually doing exactly what she does here (she did, however, have a couple of prominent roles with the 3 Stooges in the late '30s).

Alas, during the final nightclub scene (during which Ms. Flowers was re-positioned over on the extreme right hand of the screen close to the stage), I admit that I joined in with the audience's shouts of "Voodoo Rhapsody"---c'mon, play the damned thing and CROAK ALREADY!!!

Just say no to voodoo!

[planktonrules · 3/10 · 22 October 2018]

When the story begins, Eddie (John Ireland) adimts to the police that he killed the voodoo priest, Papa Benjamin. What follows is a lengthy flashback where you learn about Eddie and how he went from being a successful band leader to a crazed killer....all due his creation of the Voodoo Rhapsody. How it all relates to voodoo on some fictional Caribbean island...you'll have to see for yourself.

How much you like or dislike this episode of "Thriller" is highly dependent on what you think of the voodoo angle. I thought it was pretty silly. The show also feels HEAVILY padded...with very lengthy musical numbers that are frankly too long and detract from any suspense. Overall, not an especially inspired or interesting episode...which is a shame as I normally love John Ireland.

They didn't do the voodoo they usually do so well.

[mark.waltz · 4/10 · 15 October 2019]

This could have been an interesting mixture of secret ceremonies and terror based upon rituals most of the world doesn't understand. It takes place through flashback as composer and conductor John Ireland tells the authorities of a murder he just committed.....of the man whose voodoo curse he claims was slowly killing him. Ireland gives a sincere portrayal of a man nearly D.O.A., suffering physical effects that no doctor can detect, and even his confession to murder can't be proven.

Rather slow and boring, this is strange and moody but not in the way that makes it entertaining. Is is supposed to be a warning to stay away from cultural traditions or rituals you don't understand, or one man's constant paranoia that has taken over his sensabilities. This is interrupted by some pointless musical interludes that grinds it to a hault. We're supposed to believe that his interest in voodoo music compositions is what caused his being cursed, leading to the twist at the end when his latest composition is being introduced. Utterly ridiculous.

Producer Maxwell Shane bows out of the series

[kevinolzak · 3/10 · 19 October 2008]

Producer Maxwell Shane bowed out with this eighth crime entry, "Papa Benjamin," a Cornell Woolrich story familiar to anyone who has viewed the 1964 anthology feature "Dr. Terror's House of Horrors," starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. In that film, the story (titled "Voodoo") is whittled down to about 25 minutes, and is played for humor by real life musician/actor Roy Castle. Shane's predictable THRILLER episode stars John Ireland as the bandleader who decides to use a voodoo chant in his act despite a warning of death from the title character (Jester Hairston), a revered voodoo priest. Director Ted Post ("Beneath the Planet of the Apes," "Magnum Force") nails this episode's problems in his incisive commentary on the DVD release. Cast as Ireland's attractive wife is Jeanne Bal, best known for playing Nancy Crater in the initial STAR TREK broadcast "The Man Trap," while in the sympathetic role of the manager is Robert H. Harris, remembered for his starring role as the crazed makeup artist in 1958's "How to Make a Monster."

Don't Fool With Voodoo

[AaronCapenBanner · 5/10 · 30 October 2014]

John Ireland plays successful composer named Eddie Wilson, who also plays his music in a popular nightclub band. One day, he overhears one of the band members humming some unusual music that intrigues him, so he later follows the man to a voodoo ceremony where he is discovered, and forced to join the group, and if he betrays it, will die horribly. Of course, Eddie doesn't listen, and when he plays the forbidden music in public, brings the wrathful curse down on his head, forcing him to take drastic action... Disappointing tale is utterly predictable and trite, falling short despite the best efforts of the actors and director Ted Post.