After seeing his Ripper story adapted by Barre Lyndon, Robert Bloch did the teleplay this time around, resulting in one of the very best episodes. We open in a pawnshop where the miserly owner (Robert Cornthwaite) delights in counting his cash reserves, nervously awaiting the arrival of an unwelcome visitor. The terrified man cannot disobey when a powerful voice issues instructions unseen behind a closed door; we never see him again. When a starving artist, Hector Vane (Macdonald Carey), calls on the sinister new pawnbroker (John Emery), the stranger casually dismisses Hector's attempted cash-in to offer a special bargain: in exchange for one year of fame and fortune, the beleaguered painter must deliver a portrait of a human soul. On the way, he must contend with a seductive temptress (Patricia Medina, Mrs. Joseph Cotten) while keeping the fearful truth from his trusting wife (Joan Tetzel, Mrs. Oscar Homolka). The only man who ever married the unconventional Tallulah Bankhead, John Emery effortlessly steals the show, with a brief appearance as a psychiatrist from Hayden Rorke, best known as Dr. Bellows on I DREAM OF JEANNIE. The attractive Joan Tetzel would later appear in "An Attractive Family" (pun intended) while Patricia Medina would star opposite Boris Karloff himself in "The Premature Burial."