"The Return of Andrew Bentley" boasts an August Derleth story published in WEIRD TALES, adapted by Richard Matheson ("The Incredible Shrinking Man"), and directed by leading man John Newland, then current host of ONE STEP BEYOND, yet another promising beginning (like "Dark Legacy") dissipates into drawn out exposition and a rushed finale. Newland's Ellis Corbett is accompanied by wife Sheila (Antoinette Bower) to pay an urgent call upon wealthy uncle Amos Wilder (Terence de Marney), who insists that he will die and must exact a promise from his nephew that he keep watch over his grave so that it is not disturbed. By the following evening, the old man gives up the ghost during an organ recital, and after the door to his tomb has been secured we finally see that which he feared, Reggie Nalder as Andrew Bentley, a rival sorcerer who was killed by Amos two years before but now seeks to claim his corpse to walk the earth again. Newland was always better behind the camera, entirely too vacant and laid back on screen, setting a bad example for the entire cast, much hand wringing to comic effect, and a miscast Oscar Beregi totally out of his depth in a serious role, more often a figure of amusement. Nalder, previously seen in "The Terror in Teakwood," looks the part but remains silent and prone to squinting, poor Ken Renard from Newland's "Pigeons from Hell" required to expire in hysterical fashion once more. Apart from Terence de Marney, nothing seems to gel on this occasion, a pity since it was Matheson's only script for the Karloff series.
Review of The Return of Andrew Bentley
