For today's episode of Lights Out I bring you "Mungahra" from October 27, 1942. It's a pretty familiar set up - man murders someone then sees his face everywhere. It definitely puts one to mind of H. G. Wells' "Pollack and the Poorah Man." But this program works because of the manner in which Arch Oboler tells it - the strong audio devices which get across how haunted the protagonist is. It also succeeds thanks to a great performance by Elliott Lewis, who was not one of Oboler's usual stars (his wife Cathy Lewis also appears briefly).
Strangely, this story was adapted for television twice but Arch Oboler wasn't credited. The first adaptation was in 1952 on Chevron Theatre and the second time in 1954 for the Pepsi-Cola Playhouse. The scripts for these programs were credited to "Peter Ogden." I wonder if this was an alias of Arch Oboler; it's well-known that Oboler didn't like television. Perhaps he had a substitute name so that his own wouldn't appear in the medium he disliked.
You can stream or download this episode from the Internet Archive here.
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