Time Capsule: 1979

It’s hard to believe but thirty years ago The House with a Clock in its Walls made it to television.

Six years after John Bellairs's classic story of Lewis Barnavelt was first published, the VideoGems group chose it for inclusion as part of the program, Once Upon a Midnight Scary.

Released in 1979, the special featured Vincent Price lounging a random, gloomy mansion and introducing spooky yet entertaining tales that also included Richard Peck's The Ghost Belonged to Me and Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. While the program more-or-less follows the plot of Bellairs' book, viewers have commented over the years how Lewis (Michael Brick) doesn’t quite match his literary origins, Jonathan (Severn Darden) seems a bit off his rocker, Tarby (Pat Petersen) is a dolt, and Mrs. Zimmermann is conspicuously absent.

But don't take our word for it, read some reviews (and contribute your own).