Dr. Violet

Neither Collection 1 or 2 of Suspense: The Lost Episodes includes episodes about ventriloquist's dummies or evil dolls, but it does include one about a wax museum.  Even better, it is about a seedy wax museum at an amusement park. It's called "Dr. Violet." Is it scary? Not in the least. Its value is in its weirdness.

The story revolves around the "only animated waxworks in the universe," which is located in an amusement park somewhere in Los Angeles. For seventy-five cents, Dr. Violet will give you a "personally conducted murder tour" of his wax chamber of horrors. His wife is the barker and ticket taker at the front entrance. The sound quality in the first few minutes of this episode isn't good so we only hear some of the gems of her sales pitch. According to her, Dr. Violet is the "foremost expert on criminal psychology in Southern California or anywhere else." Wow! Those are impressive credentials for a wax museum tour guide in an amusement park.

On this day, a nice young couple appears at her booth. They want to see Dr. Violet's museum, but the price is steep. The girl, Lois, is a college student taking a class in abnormal psychology. Mrs. Violet tells her that she can learn more about abnormal psychology from Dr. Violet than she can from college. As we will see, Mrs. Violet is right about that, but not in the way that Lois thinks. Nevertheless, Lois is convinced that his brilliant lecture will help her in school and insists on going in. Her fiance, Art, would rather eat clams and drink beer. They quarrel and she enters the museum of Dr. Violet alone.

Lois joins a tour group that is already in progress. Art then has a change of heart and joins her. Dr. Violet brings the tour to a close, but is then asked about the murderer Clarence Trevor. The exhibit profiling his crimes hasn't been discussed. Dr. Violet explains that Clarence Trevor is a sadomasochist, still at large, who preys on virgins who are just about to be married. He then gives Lois a long, creepy look. Dr. Violet tells the crowd that the criminal justice system is to blame for allowing so many evil deeds to go unpunished, and that society is to blame for that failure.

Earlier in the episode, we saw the police go into the museum but now we find out why. A young woman was murdered in the museum and her body was put into one of the displays. It was so realistic that no one noticed her for five days. The police now tell Dr. Violet that they have to close his museum down for a week.

Meanwhile, Lois and her fiance get into another quarrel. She wants to stay and see Dr. Violet's lecture from the beginning. He leaves and Dr. Violet appears. He begins his lecture, but Lois stops him because she isn't comfortable being the only person on the tour. Dr. Violet goes to the front to see if there are more patrons waiting for the tour. There aren't. The museum has been closed down and the police have padlocked the front entrance, with Lois still inside!

Mrs. Violet then talks Mr. Violet into taking a rest at a local hospital. They seem to be familiar with the staff at this local hospital, but not because Dr. Violet is really a doctor. Mrs. Violet leaves to have her hair done and that means Dr. Violet has some time to kill.

Now, Dr. Violet has young, tender Lois all to himself. He goes back into the museum to show her his favorite exhibit. From that point on, Lois learns a valuable lesson about abnormal psychology, but not the kind that you learn in school.

Dr. Violet, (episode #21) aired on October 4, 1949, and was written by Halsted Welles. His most recent work is the screenplay for the movie 3:10 to Yuma, which is currently in theaters.

Anne Francis, in her only appearance on Suspense, played Lois. You may recognize her from the famous Twilight Zone episode "The After-Hours" (1960), in which she plays a department store patron who runs into trouble with the store's mannequins.

Art was played by Frankie Thomas, Evelyn Varden played Mrs. Violet, and Hume Cronyn starred as Dr. Violet.