User Reviews

This time, Barbara Stanwyck plays a psychiatrist who must determine if a young musician, who was sent to a mental hospital after attacking an older woman, is eligible for release. After an interview with him, she decides that he requires further hospitalization, but her colleagues (including her fiancé) don't agree, and he is released. Soon afterwards, he starts to terrorize her, even going as far as breaking into her apartment and killing her pet canary. Or does he? What's intriguing about "Out Of The Shadows" is that it gets the viewer wondering if Stanwyck is 100% sane or memories of a traumatic event in her past are clouding her judgement, and if the young man (convincingly played by William Stephens, who inexplicably disappeared after this role) is dangerously crazy or merely creepy! One of the better episodes in the series, although the budget seems to be even lower than usual. *** out of 4.

Psychiatrist Barbara Stanwyck has a patient who truly gives her the creeps, a violent musician played by William Stephens. He's been put into a mental hospital after an attack on another woman, and his mixed up mind makes him become obsessed with a sick, twisted revenge, violent and sexual in nature. When the hospital director releases Stephenson prematurely, Stanwyck becomes certain that he's going out of his way to continue his evil plots but her colleagues continue to question her rationality.

Having experienced the horrifying attempts of sinister manipulation like she thinks that she's experiencing, this episode is truly frightening. Cigarettes with tips that somehow change to untipped, dead canaries who come back to life somehow and saxophone music driving her crazy (which is obviously his goal), mixed with the possibility that she's completely wrong. Stanwyck gives a performance similar to roles she played in "Sorry Wrong Number", "The Lady Gambles" and "Witness to Murder", and is phenomenal.