Product Details

• Actors: Vic Perrin, Bob Johnson, Ben Wright, Robert Culp, Robert Duvall
• Format: Black & White, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
• VHS Release Date: September 1, 1998
• Run Time: 51 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6301967364
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #392,039 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Claustrophobic Classic, March 27, 2002

By 

Bruce Rux (Aurora, CO) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Outer Limits: Bellero Shield [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Probably the quintessential OL episode. An all-star cast of five, a single claustrophobic Gothic setting, a benevolent alien, and malevolent humans out to exploit him. Superior in every department. The script is polished, the suspense is intense, the story fascinating, the characters fully realized, and the finale a haunting spine-chiller.

The radiant Sally Kellerman is cast against type in her best role ever, as the Lady Macbeth wife of Martin Landau, a genuinely good man whose genius is exploited by his venal and emotionally distant father, Neil Hamilton. Chita Rivera is Kellerman's vicious maid, who has already killed a man in her past. Rivera helps Kellerman murder and conceal the body of an accidental alien visitor (John Hoyt) into Kellerman and Landau's house, in order that Kellerman may steal its technologically advanced "anti-weapon" in her husband's name for the sake of power. Unfortunately, Kellerman failed to learn one thing about the anti-weapon, before stealing it from her victim - she doesn't know how to turn it off, and becomes an eternal prisoner inside it.

There's a great deal more to the story than that, but any more would ruin it. Astute viewers will recognize the "anti-weapon" spiel used twenty years later by Ronald Reagan to sell Star Wars to the electorate.

This episode is flawless. The cast couldn't be better. The performances seethe and sparkle. The script is poetic without becoming cloying. The cinematography and the music are perfect.

Don't miss this one. It's a winner, in every way.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Kinky and a Ton of Fun!, April 15, 2000

By 

Reginald D. Garrard "the G-man" (Camilla, GA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Outer Limits: Bellero Shield [VHS] (VHS Tape)

A young Sally Kellerman is delightfully wicked as a wife determined to help her husband get ahead. Chita Rivera is equally riveting as the housekeeper who may or may not be more than just the mistress's "maid." A little Freud is evident in the unexplained closeness between the two women. Neil Hamilton, famous as Commissioner Gordon on "Batman" a few years later, makes a thoroughly despicable tyrant of a father to weak scientist Martin Landau in an early pre-"Mission Impossible" role. John Hoyt as the abducted alien brings a quiet dignity to his heavily-disguised role. Magnificent is this episode!

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars vulgar ambition is the sin for which the angels fell, July 11, 2001

By 

Peter Shelley "petershelley" (Sydney, New South Wales Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Outer Limits: Bellero Shield [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Another seminal episode in the series, like the Zanti Misfits, but this time featuring a benevolent alien. The title device is brought by the alien who arrives in much the same way as the alien in The Galaxy Being ie by accident, little knowing that it has fallen into a house of family powerplay. Written by Joseph Stefano and directed by John Brahm who also directed ZZZZZ, the episode is described in The Official Companion as a "combination of Shakespeare, ancient mythology, pulp science fiction, quasireligion, and legitimate theatre". Stefano is quoted as wanting to write a `haircut' of Macbeth for Sally Kellerman, as the wife of Martin Landau's scientist and the Lady Macbeth analogy is made clear from a line about "Your ambition is singularly the most active form of violence I've ever encountered". Occasionally Stefano goes overboard eg Kellerman replies to her description with "Lust is what becomes of an aspiration when it is allowed to grow and become ambition". Brahm's experience in theatre is evident in the playing of the actors, with a choice part for a barefooted Chita Rivera witch with a vaguely lesbian air, and Brahm even manages to pull back that notorious ham Neil Hamilton. Tears aren't often seen in The Outer Limits so it's testiment to the sensitivity of Rivera and Landau when their tears fall, plus Kellerman gets a great scream in closeup. Brahm also provides a funny cut from the shield to the array of utensils used to break it. DOP Conrad Hall has fun in having the alien out of focus to allow for it's vasoline-on-the-lens inner light illumination when it is circled by others, and also posing the women in darkness.