Original title
One Step Beyond
Released
1/20/1959
Origin country
US
Genre
Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi & Fantasy
Production companies
Joseph L. Schenck Enterprises
Status
Cancelled
Number of seasons
3
Number of episodes
97
Alcoa Presents: One Step Beyond is an American anthology series created by Merwin Gerard. The original series ran for three seasons on ABC from January 1959 to July 1961.
Matt Conroy is startled when on their honeymoon his wide-eyed, Louisiana-drawling wife Sally suddenly becomes a determined and demanding woman with no accent who denies even knowing him.
A young Englishwoman is suddenly wracked by dreams of drowning in the ocean. She is stunned when her fiancée tells her that he has prepared a surprise honeymoon trip for them--they're sailing to New York on the passenger liner Titanic.
A set of circumstances outside the norm.
A female photojournalist on assignment in France takes an apartment and begins to work with a somewhat mysterious male model. Thngs come to a head when she has a brush with the supernatural that could well mean her death.
Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
A recovering alcoholic returns to his family from an extended stay in rehabilitation. His sobriety is put to the test, as are his beliefs in the supernatural, when his son is trapped in a cave-in.
In 1940, a fearful Britain awaits invasion by Nazi forces. A husband and his wife, separated by their wartime assignments, suddenly dream that each is in danger, and both try frantically to see if their dream has come true.
Forewarned is forearmed.
A young girl moves into a new house with her father and aunt, and before long, she makes friends with the ghosts of three girls who reside in an upstairs nursery -- though the adults assume that her new "friends" are her three new dolls.
In the trenches in WWI, soldiers as usual are dying like flies as expected. All of a sudden the French troops drop their arms and walk very serenely away from the front. Hearing of this the generals bring them up on charges of dissertion, a capital crime. Tremaine is the advocate for their case. They don't seem to want to defend themselves for their inexplicable behavior, not in a way that makes sense. While waiting for the fateful morn, he seeks out a bottle of something special that they request as a last toast. Beckoned to the cottage of a little French boy's family, they are set upon by a German who recounts similar stories of walking away from the front all at the same time on the German side. Rushing back to HQ, Tremaine succeeds in staying the sentence at the last moment, as the officers confirm the veracity of the stories, a mystical event.
The condemned man's not for hanging.
A man is known by everyone on a Caribbean island he has never visited before. Soon he too remembers, but he was in the hospital at the time of the supposed visit...
The crew of a nineteenth century sailing ship find that somebody has altered its course before catching a stowaway, a mute, soaking wet Oriental whom they clap in irons. The alteration in course leads them to rescue survivors of a ship sunk by an ice berg, though that ship's navigator is dead and is the spitting image of the Oriental, who has mysteriously disappeared.
Is she, or is she not, unfaithful?
An argument between two trapeze artists results in an accident in which one is paralyzed. The other is torn by guilt and depression, until supernatural forces began to change his world.
Everywhere she goes, you need a fire hose.
While on patrol during WWII, a German U-boat attempts to evade detection from the sonar of the American and British ships. But their location is repeatedly betrayed by the noise of a rhythmic banging sound caused by someone . . . or something . . . on board the submarine.
""Let her paint an inch thick...""
The Captain and Mr. & Mrs. Courtney.
A man is found innocent of his wife's murder. Her brother arrives from New Zealand and precipitates the real culprit's capture.
A jockey plays foul, and finally is brought up short.
An irrational hatred in an American tourist on the Bombay-Calcutta Mail is considered in terms of metempsychosis.
A man with a rare blood type is asked to save a young lady's life by donating blood. He refuses, claiming that each time he has given blood to someone in the past, he became psychically connected to them. After relenting and saving the young lady's life, he foresees her death and becomes obsessed with protecting her.
A turn-of-the-century English family hides a dark secret: a son who was born part human and part aquatic creature. A discredited doctor attempts to use his controversial ""mind force"" (a powerful hypnotic technique) to physically transform the unfortunate young man.
During WWII, a drunken pharmacist's mate must operate on the injured captain of his ship. The chief medical officer on a near-by ship assists the terrified young man perform the operation by providing instructions over the ship's radio. But at a crucial moment in the operation, the young man needs much more than this . . . and he receives it from an unearthly source . . .
A Scottish earl executes his son's lover for being a suspected witch, and with her last words the doomed young women places a curse on the earl's family. Hundreds of years later, the current earl of the family lives in fear of this curse – because every elder son in the past has been a victim of it . . . and his time is approaching . . .
Under cover of darkness.
A wealthy but cruel woman torments her gigolo boyfriend and her timid maid. But a demoniacally possessed diamond necklace inflicts a horrible punishment on the women who try to wear it.
On a hot summer night, a disillusioned artist sits by the open window of his New York apartment and witnesses an attempted suicide by a young woman in the adjacent building. He rushes next door to save her . . . but he finds the apartment empty! Later, when the exact same vision is repeated, he begins to doubt his sanity.
An English instructor teaching immigrants finds herself writing at the blackboard in a language she doesn't understand. It turns out to be a warning against one of her students.
Investigation of a double premonition: two strangers who knew death would find them at the end of the day.
World War II fliers' gathering takes an unusual turn.
A turn-of-the-century newlywed claims that her evil twin sister is responsible for a series of fires set in orphanages. When her husband has the claim investigated, he learns that his wife's sister died years ago -- in a fire at the orphanage where the sisters lived . . .
A tombstone carver has a very strange revelation.
Daniel Gardner's father has left him some property, including an old boarded-up burlesque house. No-one can understand why he never sold the place, until an accident causes Dan to go back in time and discover the reason.
A young girl living on a farm acquires the ability to read people's minds. Her gift proves instrumental in the rescue of two children.
""These five kings."" (D. Thomas)
Matters of life and death.
The bellhop who foretold The Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906.
A Chinese fortune leads to an Ovidian transformation.
Don't call us, we'll call you.
""I'm nobody."" (Dickinson)
In 1865 President Abraham Lincoln has a dream in which he foresees his own death. His wife Mary has a similarly fatalistic vision but other, ordinary Americans who have never met Lincoln, also experience psychic phenomena. The next evening the president goes to Ford's Theatre where his killer is waiting.
Ghosts are smitten with a smooch.
Mrs. Fred Graham entered her house one day and was never seen again. When her husband asks the police to help him find his missing wife, he's accused of murdering her.
""It seemed as if an enormous giant, or a Titan, had sculptured his own likeness on the precipice."" Hawthorne, ""The Great Stone Face""
The bridegroom kills the best man.
An archaeological team becomes lost in the desert, but they encounter a young explorer who possesses life-saving knowledge of the region's ancient history. However, months later the leader of the expedition discovers that the young man he met in the dessert could not possibly be who he claimed to be . . . or could he?
A mute carnival clown witnesses the abusive relationship between a beautiful young lady and her cruel husband. After fleeing from her husband, the young lady seeks refuge in the clown's trailer. The husband burst in, commits an act of violence, and then flees – only to find the spectral presence of the clown haunting his every step.
""There is no new thing under the sun."" Proverbs
Without a plane, a pilot appears.
Peter Hurkos, a resistance fighter in Denmark during World War II, awakens from a coma and discovers that he not only has psychic powers, but that he can see the good or evil in someone simply by touching them. Soon he is using his powers to help track down a crazed killer.
Following his experiences Hurkos begins to work with parapsychologist Dr Lindsteom and the police and is credited with assisting in the capture of real-life serial killers. Hurkos himself finally appears on screen.
While vacationing at a tropical resort, a cynical and unhappy young man meets a beautiful young lady who speaks cryptically about the many times they've met before. The two fall instantly in love -- but the next day he cannot find her . . . and the other resort guests claim he spent the evening alone.
A man returns to his past.
A prisoner's encounter with the supernatural is recounted.
A hands-on approach.
Young Henri Lamont, shy and desperate for a girlfriend, is staggered to find that when he goes into a certain room and looks out of the window he sees himself walking down the street with a beautiful young girl and decides to investigate how this could have come about.
A British army officer stationed in Hong Kong frantically searches for his missing Oriental wife before his scheduled return to the US. In desperation he seeks the help of an old Chinese man . . . who writes a cryptic message on paper and tells him to look for his wife in the ""House of the Dead"" . . .
An old railroad man keeps his promise.
no sooner out the hermit-dorm I found the calm that follows storm Beckett
As a tidal wave approaches the Hawaiian Islands, the wheelchair-bound wife of a Naval engineer desperately tries to find someone to help her evacuate the doomed area. Nothing can save the poor young women – accept perhaps the strange and illusive phenomenon known as . . . telepathy.
In the midst of an adulterous relationship, a successful business man and his mistress are driving home one night when they accidentally cause the death of young bicyclists on a lonely road. They desperately try to cover up the tragedy . . . but the dead man has other ideas . . .
The Merry Widow?
These were the swift to harry...
Her brother dies, and she is blamed, so she departs.
A woman believes she has the power to cause death by wishing it, and is placed under a psychiatrist's care.
...is to cure the suspense; a woman envisions her husband transformed.
Just before he falls asleep, a man is suddenly aware that there is another life that seems to be in direct conflict with his own. He is astounded to discover that he has stumbled upon what seems to be a parallel universe--one in which he also exists. but in not quite the same way he does in this one.
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter. Keats
But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep. Frost
An expectant mother envisions a plane crash with startling clarity.
Stones fall on Chico, California; a man goes to Washington, D.C with effervescent tablets that turn water into fuel for automobiles.
A romance of past and present.
A wife is notified that her husband, a Marine, has been lost at sea. However, she refuses to believe that he is dead and knows that he will return to her. Soon afterwards she is walking alone through a park when a would-be mugger approaches her, but he is scared off by the sudden appearance of what looks to be some sort of spirit.
A Confederate soldier lost behind Union lines is framed for spying. His dog saves him even after death.
A former heavyweight champion appears to save a boxing match during the blitz.
A reporter makes a find in the Yukon.
Andrija Puharich's expedition in search of the sacred mushroom, with the help of a brujo, and ESP tests before and after.
Neither shadow of turning.
In Mexico, an escaped convict hides out in a monastery. Unfortunately, it is on the night when the ghost of an Aztec warrior is said to roam the halls. When a murder is discovered later that night, he must prove that he not only didn't commit the murder, but that it was in fact committed by the ghostly warrior.
General Washington doubts, but is saved.
In a disaster, he comforts the survivors, and afterward is found to have died in prison some time before.
Its long arm finally resolves an eyewitness and an alibi.
Persistence of evil vision.
A Londoner hears a child crying for help.
On HMS Hood, ""England expects every man will do his duty.""
The prosecution rests badly after an innocent man gets it.
How the past determines the future.
The survivor of a concentration camp receives a visit from a German officer who is dead.
Flores, flores para los muertos.
An army officer is acquitted of a murder he insists he committed.
A room with a view.
While walking across a fog-covered London Bridge one night, a struggling writer falls in love with a beautiful woman he meets there. Howewver, she isn't quite what she seems to be, and he stands a good chance of succumbing--literally--to her charms.
A stringent governess finds her charge cultivating an imaginary pet.
Paul Roland keeps painting the image of a woman from his nightmares to the dismay of his fiancee. Six days before their wedding he is compelled to drive with her to Cornwall for a vacation, at the encouragement of his friend Geoffrey, with him stopping abruptly at the door of one cottage within which a woman dwells, one who has grieved the loss of her own fiance lost in the World War of '16, two days before their wedding was to have been. Apparently, Paul is his reincarnation since he was born when her fiance died as Paul instantly understands when he spies his likeness in that photograph on the mantle, the engagement picture. Now closure seems to happen for them all.
A reportorial account of a distant disaster. Assez vu, assez connu.
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