Climax! (TV Series) A Promise to Murder (1955) User Reviews

pretty interesting....

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 28 August 2012]

"Climax!" was a suspense anthology series of the 1950s brought to America by Chrysler. While I am pretty sure most of the episodes are gone forever, a few are available for download at archive.org--a site very frequently linked to IMDb.

"A Promise to Murder" stars Louis Hayward, Ann Harding and Peter Lorre. Harding plays a rich older woman who is Hayward's aunt. When she brings a psychic (Lorre) to one of her parties, Hayward is angered--as he thinks the man is just a huckster wanting to rob Harding. But the psychic seems sincere--and sincerely worried when he warns Hayward--saying several bad things would occur with him--including a murder! Through most of the show, Hayward seems a bit on edge--ready to snap. That's because most of the prophecies have come to pass---except for the murder. What's the strange twist to follow? Tune in and see.

While this isn't a brilliant episode, it is quite good--and well worth your time. The acting (particularly Lorre's) is very nice and the story engaging. I sure wish they had some shows like this now, as "Climax!" holds up pretty well each time I see it.

Casting will give you no clue

[bkoganbing · 6/10 · 17 January 2017]

Louis Hayward, Peter Lorre and Ann Harding co-star in this Climax production of A Promise To Murder. It's based on an Oscar Wilde story, but the production looks updated to the present of 1955. Wilde's story is a timeless one so it worked here.

Both Hayward and Lorre have portrayed sinister figures and both have been good guys, Hayward certainly a lot more than Lorre on the big screen. Casting will give you no tip off as to is up to some villainy here.

Lorre is a psychic who has entertained and amused the widow Harding, but not Hayward who may or may not have his own designs on her money. Certain things that Lorre said in psychic readings have come true as far as Harding and Hayward.

Hayward in fact moves in with his aunt even showing friendliness to Lorre. Is it true or is it feigned?

All I will say is that in a twisted way worthy of the Twilight Zone Lorre's predictions all come true about Hayward.

Climax was sponsored by Chrysler and we also get to see the 1955 Chrysler Corporation's new model cars. Host Bill Lundigan hawked the product the way Ronald Reagan did for General Electric. Didn't do quite as much for Lundigan as it did for Reagan.

And this was live back in 1955. Don't do that any more.

An Oscar Wilde short story filmed for CBS-TV's CLIMAX! Series in the fifties

[robert-temple-1 · 5/10 · 29 October 2013]

This is interesting, if rather mediocre. An expert at palmistry (expertly played by Peter Lorre) reads people's futures in their hands. His predictions come true. Is he a clever fake or does he have some occult knowledge? He foretells the future of a character played by Louis Hayward, an arch-sceptic with a troubled past, and this results in confrontations and violence. Ann Harding plays Hayward's elderly aunt, a performance pleasantly twinkling in imitation of Ethel Barrymore. She invites Lorre to move into her house, causing Hayward to become enraged and threatening towards Lorre. There are some twists in the story. The Chevrolet Corporation's ads for their 1956 range of cars (Chrysler, Plymouth, Buick, Desoto, and 'the exclusive Imperial' to use the constantly repeated slogan for that long-forgotten high end product) are as interesting and bizarre as the film itself, especially as they give the original sales pitch behind the notorious rear car 'fins' which became a national mania shortly thereafter, comparing them with jet planes and insisting that they embody 'power' and 'moving forward'. These ads are extremely interesting to any car designers or historians of advertising or of commercial design. As for the film, all those fifties people behaving in perfect fifties fashion, it is such a time capsule. Watching things like this helps one appreciate just how uniformly the entire population of America copied the mannered behaviours of the people they saw on TV and movie screens. 'Fifties homogenization' began on the screen and was too precious and artificial for words, helping to cause the backlash of sixties youth.