Tales of Tomorrow (TV Series) The Dark Angel (1951) User Reviews

This one is screaming for a re-make

[planktonrules · 6/10 · 3 September 2012]

This episode of "Tales of Tomorrow" is frustrating. The basic story is fantastic—but the production values are strictly bottom of the barrel. Even by early 50s TV standards, it's a shabby production—with cheesy organ music (like you'd hear on a radio soap opera) and bad acting—especially by the lead.

The episode is told through a flashback—a man is trying to explain his actions. It seems that the problem began when the family doctor was concerned about Joana. Her heart has shrunk, ribs healed inexplicably and her appendix is inexplicably missing! It's like it isn't her—and her husband (who's telling the story) confronts her about this. She says that she believes this, as she find her mind and body transforming—into something powerful and super-human. In fact, she announces that she's leaving her husband, as soon she'll have evolved so much that he'll be like a pet to her! What happens in the rest of the film is really creepy—and I would LOVE to see this remade. Much like a great "Twilight Zone" or "Outer Limits" episode but with a bargain basement budget!

Interesting Premise/Doesn't Quite Work

[Hitchcoc · 7/10 · 26 July 2013]

This offering is about a woman who is apparently some kind of alien presence. She knows that she is evolving into something that her husband won't be able to handle and leaves him. At the outset, the husband is confronted by what appears to be a lawman, because supposedly the wife was murdered by him. The story is told in flashback by the husband. He has a serious problem letting the wife go. In actuality, she gives him plenty of warning about who she is. He can't let go. Until, she kills a bartender for looking at her the wrong way. This doesn't have the spark that some of the earlier episodes have. Poor production value and pacing. Also, the husband is rally hard to swallow.

"There's something medically strange about Joanne."

[classicsoncall · 6/10 · 17 April 2023]

The quote in my summary line says it all about Joanne Hathaway (Meg Mundy), married to Sidney Blackmer's Tim Hathaway. The story opens with Mr. Hathaway admitting that he just shot his wife dead, as he goes on to explain why he felt he had to do it to a man named Will Jethroe (Donald Briggs), who for all intents appeared to be an authority about to arrest him. It seems that five years earlier, Mrs. Hathaway suffered a broken rib which X-rays revealed had healed over the course of a single weekend! Not only that, but her heart appeared to have shrunk to half its size and she no longer had an appendix! Taking her husband into confidence, Joanne stated how she felt she was evolving into a superior species, soon to grow beyond the constraints of her marriage and would have to leave him. During her absence, Laura gained prestige as a noted scientist under an assumed name with important discoveries to her credit. So then, when she just suddenly popped up in a local bar the couple used to frequent, it just didn't make sense to me. Nor did it make sense why she couldn't have done away with ex-husband Tim the way she did with the eavesdropping bartender. Instead, Tim got the drop on her, but she survived the shooting with her highly evolved anatomy, as the official looking Jethroe purposefully stated that "Our secret's got to be kept a little while longer".