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- The Price of Fear, brought to you by Vincent Price. Hello. I know there are those amongst you who will consider the old adage every picture tells a story as debatable as it is familiar. As a lifelong art collector and enthusiast myself, I have often speculated that the story surrounding a picture, the human drama, can prove infinitely more fascinating than any story in paint trapped within the confines of a frame. And the tale I'm about to tell you, which I've called an eye for an Eye, will, I'm sure, convince you of the truth of this. Recently I went to an important sale of Impressionist paintings. The auction room, just off London's fashionable Saint James was packed to capacity with art speculators from the four corners of the globe. Lot twenty three August Renoir and Enemies oil on canvas thirty eight inches by fourteen an opening bid of twenty five thousand and five thirty thirty five, bidding at thirty five against you, sir, forty forty five. Thank you, now standing at forty five Renoir money Mannai de Gas. Each in their turn glowed briefly down at us from the auctioneer's easel, to be knocked down with almost indecent haste, and returned backstage for crating and shipping. Lot ninety seven Camille. The auctioneer's voice was tiring. Now the serious business of the day was over. Lot ninety eight Study of a Girl attributed to Pisaro, unsigned unauthenticated oil on canvas twenty inches by twelve from the estate of the Count Luigi de la Santa. Opening bid invited, I think, ladies and gentlemen, study of a girl. And there she was, smiling into the gloom of that near deserted auction room. My old friend, Luigi de la Santa, notorious acquisitor of yachts and palazzos and paintings and celebrities. Now here this is last prized acquisition study of a girl. As I consulted the catalog and smiled ruefully that even in death Luigi's steadfastly insisted on his beloved title of count, it seemed ironically appropriate that the pedigree of his beloved painting should now turn out to be as unauthenticated as his own. But how long ago it all seemed, how how long midsummer I'd just completed a long stint of filming in and around Naples. After the sweltering heat of those studio arts, Luigi's invitation to spend a few days with him on his yacht anchored off of Sorrento would have been eagerly accepted in any event, but I remembered, as the launch ferried me across the merest smoothness of that beautiful bay, that it was the prospect of at last viewing Luigi's recently acquired Pisaro, that made the invitation totally irresistible. Well, Cceenzio, you'll like it. Well, well, it's it's beautiful, quite beautiful, of course, you see contest. Didn't I tell you that my very good and wise friend would come and that he would like it? Didn't I? Yes, Luigi, you did. And now, Vicenzo, you must tell me how much you like it? Five thousand dollars worth, ten thousand dollars, Luigi, She's exquisite, exquisite, she is perfection, she is the perfection of perfection. She is the perfection of perfection. Spilling your wine, Carol. And yet would you believe it when I tell you, my friend, there are still those diletanties those ingreds, those horm angers who have the goal to insert the intelligence by saying that I cannot be the work of the Master Luigi. The Master did not think fit to sign it. What need for him to sign it? What every line makes a signature? I tell you this is not a pain, It is an experience. She is alive, vital, such passionate enthusiasm, Luigi, I shall begin to suspect I have acquired a rival, Vicenzo, if you will permit, it is not the wine of my country, But then it is not the wine of my choosing. The count prefers to import. So instead of wana fortuna, permit me to wish you bonchance Bochas. As she proposed the toast, the charms of Luigi's Contessa di Terre made those of the artist's model obvious calm place, and it was almost as though the contessa were reading my thoughts. But I feel sure you will forgive dear Luigi's schoolboy enthusiasm for this new acquisition, the Cento. As a lifelong friend, you will doubtless have witnessed many such enthusiasms. It isn't difficult to forgive. I so wholeheartedly share ha, bravo, my friend. Perhaps, but between you and Luigi, the appreciation has always been different. I think, oh, how different. Be warned, Viceenzo, it is not wise to encourage her, because watching you see the painting for the very first time, there was peace. It was not hard to tell that for you the appreciation was for the talent it contained, for the genius. You understood what had been attended and what had been achieved. And for me, is it not the same? For me? Crave Luigi, permit me to finish? You see, Vincienzo, before Luigi permits me the time to make a point, He is so perfectly demonstrating it. It is not what the painting does inside of him that makes him so determined to possess it. It is simply because there are others who might wish to possess it even more than he does. The price is all that is important for him. He asks how much you think it is worth? Five thousand dollars ten And when you refuse to give him the answer, I am unable to how prettily his sults. Oh, it's not his fault, you understand. It does not make me love him less, But everything in this so beautiful life is reduced to the level of price, status, possession, everything which is bad enough, but every one worse, much worse. But possession. Life cannot always be that simple people. Things cannot always be caught in the net of our understanding, just as it is not always possible to divorce the manner of our deaths from the manner of our lives, ah Dante. Much talk makes for much hunger. A schoose count like Carlos. Come, my friends, we are to take luncheon on the deck. Besides, after so much play acting in the darky Cienzo, it is now necessary but turn the color to your cheeks. It's nothing I'd like better. Also, the most important Luigi has yet another treat in stuff for you another see to mark the private viewing of his so beautiful painting. The great Luigi, master chef of all the Italians, has himself created a unique gastronomic masterpiece. Emil worthy of a gourme. Have such international repute as you, oh, my dear Luigi, is such flattery. At this rate, the color will be returned to my cheeks much sooner than you anticipate. We shall see the Cenzo, We shall contessa we shall see. Our lunch party looked like being a jolly affair to begin with. Anyway, the wine and the son went straight to our heads, and the contessa's affectionate baiting of Luigi continued good humoredly. As the first course was served. The question of Luigi's title provided her readiest target of attack As to his true origins, well, there were many who insisted that his father could still be found running a small tratterier in that straggling, impoverished town we now viewed across the bay. So why doesn't he admit it? Be proud to admit it, you see, it is always so, But he refuses to accept. He laughs away, Is that not so? I think I'll just concentrate. Done this excellent while. Oh but you disappoint me. What you tell me that you too are afraid to burst this ridiculous balloon, Perhaps because Vicenzo has the good sense to realize it is not a balloon, and that it certainly is not ridiculous. It is it is? What is it? What is it? It is an insert? It is a double insult of my lineage and breeding. Oh I'm sorry, Luigian, don't be my friend. It's good to laugh at such archaic distinct has seen the papers? Is that not true? I have seen papers. Papers are for the forging. So has Visienzo seen my papers? Of course he has not, And why has he not? Because he doesn't need to. He has only to use his eyes to realize. I am of the line, just as you are of the gut. And why does the contessa just honor her line by sitting at my table? Because even a penniless contessa has to eat somewhere. And like his cook of a father and his cook of a grandfather before him, Count de Luig, she still makes the best fish soup in the whole of Italy. Throw my father and his father before him made the best soup caught carol. Ha ha ha. The Contessa's high praise for Luigi's culinary skills were justified, certainly, whether inherited or not. After a lifetime of experience, I've come to the conclusion that there are only really two kinds of master chef, those who have spent long years perfecting their skills, and those who have added to this a simple flare an ability to transform the sin blissed meal into something near approaching a work of art. But Now, my good friends, your attention, your undivided attention, if you please. It is with the greatest pride and pleasure Luigi himself presents to you his own original creation, Oh speciality of the house. Vicenzo Luigi waited as I peered into the deep serving turen he sat in front of me. I remember thinking that after the great build up had given it his specialty of the house turned out to be something of an anticlimax. The ingredients were certainly commonplace enough, served on a bed of rice, a veritable hotchpotch of well of all the kinds of fish native to the locality, something I'd frequently enjoyed with a bottle of ordinary veno at any harborside track. So you like it, But now, why don't you look even closer? My friend? He was waiting again, So simply to oblige him, I did look closer, and then I saw it. A large octopus sat squarely upon its bed of lobster pieces and king sized prawns. To my best recollection. I'd never seen one cooked whole before, so perhaps this was the special touch my Italian friend had in mind. And then it happened, the creature's great saucer, eyes opened and gazed balefully into mine. I got it was alive. Ha ha ha ha. Now he sees. So how do you like, my little bethy. I'm not sure, but I have created a new delicacy, a lie alive Vicenzo. Between us, we will set a new gastronomic trend. You see. Oh, purists like the contest. I may at first condemn it, a return to marine cannibalism perhaps, But I tell you, Vicenzo, and you will agree for yourself that in the gastronomic stakes, a live lobster boat screaming to the boil will prove strictly for the peasant. Now, please, well, tasty, I'm sorry at first, well, at first I just thought it was some kind of a joke, a joke. But as a matter of fact, I'm still not sure. If you but it it isn't, is it? No? I'm sorry, Lucci. You object, well, simply let's say, decline. But why I can't explain, Try for Luigi's sake, Why don't you try, even for Luigi's sake. Well, I'm just not sure I can. It's something to do with the very aliveness of the thing, of course, but more than that it's it's the eyes, a sort of watchfulness in the eyes. You disappoint me, my friend, You know that you disappoint me. I I'm sorry you object, but you do not even begin to explain why. Luigi, please, the chance is your guest, for which I'm sorry because not only does he show a singular lack of adventure, but because he stupidly finds the dish somehow objectionable on humanitarian grounds. True or not true? But why the oysters you love are they not live? A well known scientific fact, all sea creatures are impervious to pain. Any ten year old angler will tell you, my friend, they have no brain, no mind, no nervous system, let alone this so called the finer feelings, which you and the contests would seem to attribute to them. Apart from which the pathetic specimen you see before you is itself possessed of those same cannibal instincts which you now accuse me of possessing. I accuse you of nothing. Luigi all is sucking into the disgusting chasmos stomach a million tiny sea creatures to first digest and then spew out the remains which are neither palatable or necessary. To its uniquely selfishing system. Except that you have overlooked one thing, Luigi, we have no way of knowing, In spite of the sworn word of any ten year old angler, we have no way of really knowing whether the creature we see squirming in front of us is capable of feeling or not knowing, my dear concessor what is there to know everything? Anything? Simply because perhaps it chooses to reveal nothing, we shall never know, not unless it were possible for one of us to take its place at this very moment, to be on the receiving end, permit me to produce the evidence. With a single deft, circular movement of his knife, Luigi removed one of those enormous eyes. The creature attempted vaguely to scale the deep sides of the but at last, realizing the kupino escape, floundered back stoneily, regarding Luigi with its one remaining eye, The mucus from its socket, mingled now with the rich madeira of the sauce that replaced its natural element. Luigi regarded it dispassionately, then flicked the eye on the heavy silver of its embossed plate. That evening over after dinner brand is my squeamishness turned to embarrassment. An apology seemed in order, and I was happy to provide it. But my dear Vichenzo, there is nothing to be forgiven unless it is the weather brand. Oh thank you. I had planned on taking the launch to show you a few of the night spots across the bay, but I'm afraid until the storm besides to blow itself, I would think no more of it. I'm really perfectly happy, which is a good deal more than can be said for the Contessa. I think, isn't that so, Kyle? If you say so, Luigi, then I suppose it must be. But you've hardly said a word since lunch, haven't I you know you haven't. Then I can only blame the storm, unless it is that it's late and I'm tired. I really would like to retire for the night so soon, Contesse. The night is young, No, dear Luigi, the night is never young. It is the same age at its birth as at its death. It is we who must inhabit the bright lights of day. We grow old as old as we are allowed to grow. Good night, good night, Contes, it's cigar. Perhaps I'm sorry Luigi, I wasn't. Now you're doing it again, my friend, apologizing for one thing and overreacting for another. Yes, you're overreacting to my contest, but then you have been all day. Well then, I'm I certainly didn't intend to but found it impossible. Not well, it is late, Luigi. You see, my friend. The effect she has, honest is infectious. Oh please, I only met It's been rather a long day. But if you'd rather know, I insist. Whatever our mysterious lady claims to the country, tomorrow is another day. We shall welcome it together. Well, good night, Luigi. By the way, it's Maca brought me. I know. But what did you want to know? What happened to our one eyed sea monster? Yes, for an overboard with the rest of the garbage. Oh not out of any finer sense of returning it to its own I do show you. Its remains will attract the other seacreatures. The cycle of cannibalism perpetuates itself. Besides, it makes for excellent fishing. If you promise to get up before noon, I'll get one of the crew to fix us up with a couple of lines. Good Night, I lay in my cabin listening to the storm. It was strange how deeply Luigi's mood of the evening had disturbed me, the extrovert, arrogant Luigi. And it had been a long day. So sleep now, gently gratefully into sleep, Sleep, sleep, m m m mmmm. Isabella, Isabella, manna, murray, ye, sell you, he's a fella done. No, please don't, Isabella, my god, no no. It was the steward Klos who found him, but having seen what he had seen, he would not again venture into the cabin. Straddled grotesquely across the bed in a splatter of torn flesh and blood was the thing that had been Luigi. There were the marks of giant tentacles about the dull, snapped head, the tongue rolled gigantic from between those swollen purple lips. But over all there was the unmistakable evidence that the whole head had been somehow inexplicably pulped outwards, as though it had first been sucked in under some enormous unnatural pressure, fed upon, and the remains spewed out again under the fine linen of those monogrammed pillows. But not all spewed back, not all totally discarded. For when I could bring myself to look at the thing again, there was no mistaking the fact. Only one of Luigi's eyes stared back at me. The other's socket lay seeping empty. The Contessa was standing at my side. How do we know they have no feeling? How do we know they are not capable of understanding? And of revolt? And if revolt, why not revenge? A revenge to be fearfully enacted by others their own kind, larger, stronger, more terrifying than anything we dare imagine. There is no evidence such monsters do exist, But is there any proof that they do not? I looked away from that single cyclop's eye, and leading from what remained a trail of slime, much like the slime of some enormous slug, I followed its course. It climbed the French brocade wallpaper, shattered the high chromium finish of the porthole, crossed the deep teak polish of the deck beyond, and from thence it slimed down the hull. The spume of it still floated out there, oil like are the calm waters of that beautiful Italian day. Then it descended eternally into the dark depths that lay beneath that was vincent price, bringing you the price of fear, with Roger Snowden and Jemson and Christopher Bidmead. An Eye for an Eye was first recounted and dramatized by William Ingram and produced by John Dash