Scatman Crothers

This tribute to the beloved supernatural TV show has four episodes. In the first, racist Bill Connor (Vic Morrow) is transformed into a Jew in World War II. Next, Mr. Bloom (Scatman Crothers) comes to a retirement home to teach the residents that they are only as young as they feel. In the third, teacher Helen Foley (Kathleen Quinlan) meets Antony (Jeremy Licht), a boy who is not what he seems. Finally, panicky plane passenger John Valentine (John Lithgow) sees gremlins attacking his flight.

Despite the presence of hack director Arthur Hiller, this hybrid comedy-thriller works most of the time as pleasant faux Hitchcock. Gene Wilder is a book editor who is relaxing by taking a cross-country train ride. Then he gets caught up in a murder--and becomes a suspect. It's up to him to prove his own innocence. As noted, the script, by Colin Higgins, owes a big debt to Alfred Hitchcock; but the mystery isn't all that mysterious and the comedy isn't all that hilarious--at least not until Richard Pryor shows up, which is at least halfway through the film.

Think of the greatest terror imaginable. Is it a monstrous alien? A lethal epidemic? Or, as in this harrowing masterpiece from Stanley Kubrick, is it fear of murder by someone who should love and protect you - a member of your own family? From a script he co-adapted from the Stephen King novel, Kubrick melds vivid performances, menacing settings, dreamlike tracking shots and shock after shock into a milestone of the macabre.