By 1949, Boris Karloff had had a lot of practice at projecting vague, creepy, menace -- and that's essentially what he's called on to do here. In fact, the whole episode is basically an excuse for him to do that without much reason given.
The half-hour running time of the radio series of "Suspense" worked well, but when the logistics of very early television have to be worked in as well, "The Yellow Scarf" suffers for time to explain why characters are doing what they're doing (though the only noticeable technical problem is one big camera jostle).
There's some suggestion Karloff's character is a science-fictional mad scientist type, but in the end it seems he's just an unpleasant, controlling fellow who happens to live with a hunchback servant and have a laboratory for "clients" right off a poor London street.
There's clumsy suggestion of sexual abuse -- I think -- as he offers Hettie a money and a room as long as she doesn't go out alone, planning to marry her if that plot doesn't work. After a fade-out they are unhappily married with no suggestion of how he got her to agree.
One thinks the suspense will be around explaining this situation and the mystery of the laboratory, but that's left unexplained. So when Hettie takes revenge by poisoning Bronson using the same chemical-infused scarf that he over-elaborately used to kill Tom, one wonders why she hadn't escaped the situation long before. Felicia Montealegre and Douglass Watson, unfortunately, are only alright and give performances that veer into overwrought too often.
The half-hour running time of the radio series of "Suspense" worked well, but when the logistics of very early television have to be worked in as well, "The Yellow Scarf" suffers for time to explain why characters are doing what they're doing (though the only noticeable technical problem is one big camera jostle).
There's some suggestion Karloff's character is a science-fictional mad scientist type, but in the end it seems he's just an unpleasant, controlling fellow who happens to live with a hunchback servant and have a laboratory for "clients" right off a poor London street.
There's clumsy suggestion of sexual abuse -- I think -- as he offers Hettie a money and a room as long as she doesn't go out alone, planning to marry her if that plot doesn't work. After a fade-out they are unhappily married with no suggestion of how he got her to agree.
One thinks the suspense will be around explaining this situation and the mystery of the laboratory, but that's left unexplained. So when Hettie takes revenge by poisoning Bronson using the same chemical-infused scarf that he over-elaborately used to kill Tom, one wonders why she hadn't escaped the situation long before. Felicia Montealegre and Douglass Watson, unfortunately, are only alright and give performances that veer into overwrought too often.
