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Title

The Serpent's Tooth

Plot

An art dealer tries to help out a talented but half crazy artist. He later finds out he did history a disservice. After trying to assist an eccentric but gifted artist, an art dealer later discovers that he did history a disservice by actually doing so.

Episode

0384

Air Dates

  • First Run - November 24, 1975
  • Repeat - May 5, 1976

Actors

Writer

Listen

Rating

70
53     17


11 Responses to Episode 0384

In the early twentieth century in Vienna, a liberal-minded art dealer finds a strange young man in the streets and decides to take him into his home. The young man is sick with pneumonia and the art dealer and his wife nurse him back to health over the next few weeks. The young man says strange things and exhibits unusual behavior but the gentleman who took him in sees nothing but good in him. His wife, however, sees something totally different. This is a program that will keep you in suspense to the very end.

Sharon A.

An art dealer tries to help out a talented, but half crazy artist. He later finds out he died history a disservice.

Fred Marduk

A couple take in an out-of-luck artist to exercise their religious obligations of charity. He, an art dealer, believes the young man, though eccentric, is destined for great things. She is less certain and, in fact has visions that cause her to fear for her life. Who is this young man? Almost a 10!

Agnes C.

SPOILER ALERT: Addy the mad Viennese artist with delusions of grandeur is Adolf Hitler.

Karen

Figured out the twist early on, but still enjoyable.

Mike

An okay listen with an ending I didn't expect. However, some people take charity MUCH too far - I would've kicked him out much sooner.

Alec

In pre–World War I Vienna, art critic Jacob Kohn and his wife Rachel take in a young, homeless artist named Addie. Rachel is frightened by Addie who, delirious from a fever, has violent nightmares about red, white and black insignias, which she feels are premonitions of death. After he recovers, Addie leaves and the Kohns never hear from him again. But they — and the rest of the world — hear about him as he rises to dictatorial power in Germany.

Adam

The question I keep asking myself is, what is the point of this story? Are they trying to say that if you help somebody, they may turn out to be a dictator, so therefore you shouldn't help someone? I would be really interested to learn if this story has any basis in historical fact or if it's just a fanciful tale, designed to teach some kind of unknown lesson to the audience about being careful with strangers, lol! I know that CBSRMT often does take stories based on real history to dramatize, but in this case, I don't know what to think. I am inclinded to think they just made it up. Also, the acting was overblown, imo, and how many times have we got to hear the wife of the husband say how evil Addy is?!?!? Okay, we get it! He's Hitler, lol! But it was so overdone that I find the whole thing really hard to listen to, not because it's so horrifying, but because the acting is hammy, lol, imo!

Amy

Also, did I mention how repetitious the dialogue is, lol? I would expect better than this from Sam Dann, who wrote some really great episodes.

Amy

I realized who it was early in the first act. Starving artist in 1900's Vienna by the name of Addy, mentions of red, black, and white...

Joe Mama

I agree with everything Amy said about the dialog and the acting. It did seem over the top. It seemed to me to be a surprise ending in search of a story. Don't get me wrong, I love surprise endings but this one seemed a little contrived. The payoff wasn't worth the long winded set up.

Dave


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