I know I\'ve mentioned it before, but this is my all-time favorite episode! I\'m prejudiced, though, \'cause this was the first episode I ever taped off the radio. It was Christmas night 1979, I was 12 years old and I\'d just received my first tape recorder, which I had been asking for-- for almost a year--with the express idea of taping RMT.

This episode has such a creepy atmosphere...the House--\"High over the Pacific\"--with no electricity and at the top of a treacherous winding road. And first-rate acting by Bob Dryden and Gordon Heath (his performance is right up there with his portrayal of the professor in \"The Dominant Personality\"). Heath\'s slow, methodical depiction of a character we come to realize isn\'t just eccentric, but downright insane (the monologue where he describes the sea\'s relentess and slow, but ultimately victorious triumph over the rocks, paints a picture of something akin to Chinese water torture and reveals to us his own slow descent into madness) and even homicidal(if passively-- after all, he steers his two \"friends\" down a path he knows will prove fatal) is chilling.

And the dialogue! (Talk about living up to E.G.\'s invtation to join him in an \"Adventure in the Macabre!)

Chalmers: (after his guests have \"departed\") \"Now I\'ll have to have that railing repaired.\"

Chalmers: \"They left... Thay left right in the middle of luncheon.\"

AND....
Jenson: \"Mr. Blaine and Mr. Whitehead....I hope they left on good terms with each other.\" Chalmers: \"I can\'t really say that they did.\"

This episode operates on so many different levels....A Bizarre love triangle or is that square or (counting Jenson) a pentagon?........A horrifying plan of deception, manipulation and revenge (and revenge for what? Because they never sent him any Christmas cards? Of course, this man is quite mad!)....and the supernatural overtures of a \"talking\" painting. I think it\'s absolutely clever-- how we never get to hear the painting speak ourselves or for that matter (And I know it\'s radio) \"see\" the painting. None of the scenes take place in the bedroom. Like Evelyn, the painting is kept \"Off-Camera\". This would have worked as a great stage play (In a very minimialist approach-- like \"Rope\").

I know some of Elspeth Eric\'s scripts aren\'t the greatest, but this one is absolutely superb. Especially, the fact the ending is left entirely for the listener to decide what happens next........

One final note (I can hear the cheers!) being only twelve when I first heard this-- I completely missed any homosexual aspects in this tale. They\'re definately there.....though Chalmers description of his painting-- leads me to believe that\'s his one, true love. Also, was it because Evelyn was the only woman for him (And he obviously wanted nothing to do with her) that he shunned all women from then on...or was he just never interested in the female species from the very beginning? <br>