Monthly Archives: December 2015

Tales of Tomorrow – What You Need (02/08/52)

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ttwhatyouneed01

Peter Talley of this episode: 4.

Brought to us this week by CH Masland & Sons, makers of Masland Beautiblend Broadlooms.

Peter Talley has a shingle outside his shop which states, “I have what you need.”  On the window, it specifies Curios although surely they also sell  knick knacks, bric-a-brac and give a dog a bone.  Is it possible to have a 2-for-1 sale on bric-a-brac? [1]

Reporter Tom Carmichael stands outside; as a customer leaves he makes notes.  This being the old days, the reporter a) wears a trench-coat, and b) actually exerts a few calories and confronts the shopkeeper.  While he is there, a dapper old man comes in to pick up “what he needs.”  Maybe this is set in Detroit because, in his case, it is a pistol.  He hands the shopkeeper $5,000 which is what I need.

While we all might occasionally need a pistol once, Carmichael notes that he has seen people leaving with an egg, rubber gloves and a test tube.  Presumably not all for the same guy unless he works at an in vitro fertilization clinic.  Getting nowhere, Carmichael takes a different approach and says that he would like to be a customer. Talley does hand him what he needs and asks that he not return to the shop.

Turns out, what Carmichael needed was a pair of scissors.  He shows it to his thoroughly unlikable, unsupportive, unattractive and uncreditted [2] girlfriend.  I think I know what he needs the scissors for.  While he is nagging his publisher for an advance to pursue the story, his necktie gets caught in the printing press.  He really needs a pair of . . . wait a minute!  His publisher grabs the scissors and cuts him loose.  Of course, had he not gone into the shop and gotten the story, he would not have needed the scissors.

ttwhatyouneed04At the end of Act I, we get a commercial from CH Masland, makers of carpets and now hunting gear.  The announcer shows off their new fishing vest which he points out has many pockets suitable for fishing gear and cigarettes.  He also points out the many rings for keeping your hands free to handle fishing gear and cigarettes.

After the break, Carmichael comes back to the shop.  Talley says that he was a scientist with an interest in astrology; maybe the only one.  That led him to invent the machine which gives people “what they want” — when the orgasmatron didn’t take off, he invented the What-You-Need machine.

Carmichael is not happy to just be alive, he plans to blackmail Talley into sharing his secrets with him.  Talley sends Carmichael a pair of shoes which cause him to slip and be hit by a car.  Overcome by guilt, Talley smashes his machine — the one that he earlier said had been responsible for the invention of the polio vaccine [3].  Sorry, kids.

So while Carmichael really was an asshole and a member of the media, Talley was ready to destroy a machine that stood to save millions of lives via a polio vaccine and who knows what else.  Who do you root for in that stand-off?

ttwhatyouneed07Post-Post:

  • [1] Basically the same gag as George Carlin observing that if you break a crumb in half, you have 2 crumbs. Except his got a laugh.
  • [2] Despite having significant speaking parts, Talley’s wife and Carmichael’s girlfriend are not credited.
  • [3] This episode aired 3 years before the polio vaccine was invented.
  • Based on a short story by Henry Kuttner, and also the basis for an episode of The Twilight Zone.

Ray Bradbury Theater – The Tombstone (10/30/92)

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Another director with RBT as his only directing credit.  Usually, the episode that follows makes this understandable.  In this case, however, the episode immediately got off to an interesting start.  The dust flying from the chiseling of the titular tombstone, then the car silently going across a bridge.  Mix in some interesting camerawork, and this had potential.

Walter and Leota Bean are in town looking for a hotel room in an unnamed city (presumably not Tombstone).  The first one they try has an inexplicably repulsive guy renting the rooms.  It is a little bizarre as Walter goes to what is clearly just a room at the hotel with the word OFFICE on it.  No front desk, no ledger, just a guy in a stained wife-beater with a Bud in his mitt.  Even at this dump, there is not a room.

When he goes back to the car, he is berated by his wife Leota, who you would expect to be getting by on her personality.  As a funeral procession goes by, Walter says there ought to be at least one room free in the city [1].  I guess this is Hotelville where everyone lives alone in a hotel.

At the next hotel they try, Walter is nearly knocked over by a man running out.  They get the last vacant room, but when they are taken to it, they see a large, black, oddly phallic tombstone in the middle of the room.  It was left by the running man who was disconsolate over misspelling Whyte as White on the stone.  Why the man chose the 2nd floor of a hotel to chisel the 2,000 pound block of marble is not mentioned.

Leota is convinced the room is haunted, but they stay there anyway.  That night, the chiseler comes back to retrieve the tombstone.  As he chats with Walter and Leota, in the background we see the 60 year old clerk take the stone away on a handcart.  Either this ain’t a real tombstone, or this guy possesses the alien technology that enabled the building of the pyramids.

rbttombstone07Turns out that another person has croaked and just happens to have been named White.  As the Beans are checking out, Walter notices that Mr. White had the room below theirs.

The ending is kind of a mess.  So Mr. White had the room downstairs — so what?  The noises the Beans heard which Leota interpreted as haunting were clearly from the living Whites below.  The noises from above might have been questionable, but the Whites were not staying above.

Mrs. White takes possession of the tombstone locally.  Strangely, the hotel clerk is even on-hand, apparently having more jobs than Kirk on The Gilmore Girls.  So why was the local couple staying in a hotel?  And yeah, I watch The Gilmore Girls.

As the Beans get back on the road, Walter swerves to hit a black cat.  Hunh?

rbttombstone09There is a shot of a Maryland license plate clearly intended to trick the audience into thinking this was not another New Zealand production. However, the last shot of the episode has the car going past a big sign for NZ alt-band Bailterspace.

Thus endeth 6 seasons of Ray Bradbury Theater.

Post-Post:

  • [1] Walter Bean, portrayed by Ron White, is not as funny as the other Mr. Bean, but is funnier than the other Ron White.
  • Never considered:  Mrs. White murdered her husband!
  • If nothing else, I learned that epitaph and tombstone are not synonyms.  The epitaph is an inscription written on the tombstone.
  • Did you ever really think about the fact that there is an American city named Tombstone?  Most people have heard of it, but just think about that — weird.  Now it is no longer a thriving community, just a tourist attraction most famous because of the gunfighting.  Like Chicago.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents – The Safe Place (06/08/58)

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ahpsafeplace06There is a new manager at the bank. When a customer begins chatting with teller George Piper, he mentions that the source of his income is from playing cards and getting his opponents get drunk (just like casinos).  Piper tells Mr. Manett that he should keep that quiet because the new manager might not approve of such immorality and could close Manett’s account.  Of course, this was the old days before a bank could piss away billions and be bailed out by corrupt politicians and tax-paying suckers.

Piper goes out to lunch with a much younger girl in the bank.  He looks older than his 47 years, and Millie looks younger than her age of 30.  George, despite being a bald, pudgy, bow-tied bank teller is apparently quite a player.  Millie notes that he has asked out a lot of the girls at the bank, but nothing — I assume meaning marriage — ever comes of it.

That night, we see George on the phone with another girl, Barbara.  He is wearing a lovely smoking jacket over his still bow-tied shirt.  His brother Fred drops by — taller, thinner, hairier and wearing a straight tie. ahpsafeplace04 Fred has dropped by with an investment opportunity, and doesn’t seem too concerned over where the capital comes from.  That starts George thinking.  If he were to embezzle, steal or extort some cash, where would he hide it.

The next day, Manett comes into the bank to get $15,000 in cash out of his account.  That night, Piper goes to see Manett at his home.  Piper says he thinks he might have given Manett too much cash. To his credit, Manett seems to be a pretty nice guy.  He doesn’t question Piper coming to his home, and pulls out the cash to recount it.  When Manett produces the cash, George shoots him.

The next morning, George places the money in the safest place he can think of — the bank.  Not in the vault, but hidden in a drawer.  A detective shows up investigating Manett’s murder.  He asks George if they know the serial numbers on the $15,000 he withdrew.  The branch manager is concerned that having such a shady customer will hurt his chances at becoming a vice-president at the bank — this isn’t HSBC, after all.  So not only as this a time when banks were honest, this was apparently a time when 75% of the employees were not vice-presidents.

ahpsafeplace02The branch manager fires George for not telling him where Manett’s money came from.  He brings in another man and gives him a field promotion to head teller.  He won’t even let George balance out his drawer — which now contains an extra 15 large.

I’m not a stickler for logic or even reality.  In fact, the old bald guy getting all the young chicks is sounding better and better to me.  But there was just too much bizarre in this episode to give it much grounding.  I don’t know that banks ever cared where their customers got their cash.  Having a customer murdered would certainly bring no disrepute to a bank — we’re not talking about drug dealers and terrorists here.

There really is no through-line of suspense or dread or anticipation as there usually is in AHP episodes.  And why would anyone — especially a teller with 30 years experience — ever think the best place to hide money was in the bank?

Really just a lazy outing.  Still, I’m sure it is better than what is coming tomorrow.

Post-Post:

  • AHP Deathwatch:  Only Joanna Linville (Millie) survives.  She also played a Romulan Commander on Star Trek.
  • Phillip Pine (Manett) was also on an episode of Star Trek.

Twilight Zone S4 – He’s Alive (01/24/63)

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tzhesalive02Neo-Nazi Peter Vollmer (Dennis Hopper) is ranting on a street corner about the usual suspects — the Palestinian, the black man, the yellow man.  He later refers to them as Izzy, Rastus and Pancho, so I guess Mexicans are yellow in his world.  Palestinian doesn’t really seem to fit, but maybe you couldn’t single out Jews on TV in 1963, even to make a point about bigotry.

The neighborhood is not particularly receptive to his rant, one man pelting him with a tomato.  A fight breaks out and a citizen who does not agree to disagree belts him.  The citizen might be a fan of diversity, but his grasp of the 1st amendment is a little shaky.  The police show up to save their ass, and suddenly the neo-Nazis aren’t too worried about being hassled by the man anymore.

Vollmer slinks back to the apartment of his friend, an old man named Ernst.  Naturally, this being a Serling script, Ernst spent 9 years in Dachau.  He says he was put there by men like Vollmer which begs the question of why they are friends, and why Ernst is letting him crash there like it’s Herr-bnb.

tzhesalive07That night, Vollmer awakens on the couch and looks out the window.  He sees a man down on the street in the shadows.  He goes down to meet the man whose face miraculous remains shadowed.  He gives Vollmer some much-needed tips on public speaking.

The titular “He” in the street does help.  Whereas Vollmer had been a bumbling speaker, worse than Al Sharpton without a teleprompter (although, to be fair, not as bad as Al Sharpton with a teleprompter), he now is speaking in a hall.  His words flow and he exhibits a new confidence in his fiery tirade against minorities.  His mysterious benefactor even picks up the tab for the hall.

At the man’s request, Vollmer has his lackeys kill off one of their own boys, making him a martyr.  This goes over well with some in the community, and attendance at his next speech increases.  At the rally, his friend Ernst goes on stage and denounces him. Later that night, the man emerges from the shadows to reveal himself as Adolf Hitler.

tzhesalive12Hitler commands Vollmer to kill Ernst and gives him a pistol.  Ernst will not give him the satisfaction of cowering and begging.  So Vollmer kills him. Sadly, Serling isn’t through typing yet and gives Ernst another page of dialogue.

The police go to arrest Vollmer for murder.  He runs and they kill him.

It’s a fine line between been ham-handed and making a good point.  Maybe it isn’t even a line, there can be some overlap. There are valid points here, and Dennis Hopper is good as the Nazi.  Making the holocaust survivor and the neo-Nazi be friends just seemed too convenient.  The Hitler reveal didn’t really work, though.  It is clear from the start who this character is going to be.  To the script’s credit, that is somewhat recognized as the reveal is not done as a final twist, but earlier in the episode.

Overall, another enjoyable outing for the much maligned 4th Season  I give it 2 Reichs.

Post-Post:

  • This hit close to home as my grandfather died in a concentration camp — he fell out of a guard tower.  It’s an oldie but just about perfect.
  • According to Serling’s interminable closing monologue, Hitler is like Spock — he’s not really dead as long as we remember him.
  • Director Stuart Rosenberg went on to direct Cool Hand Luke, The Amityville Horror, Brubaker and The Pope of Greenwich Village.

Tales From the Crypt – Two for the Show (10/20/93)

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tftctwofor03Beautiful trophy wife Traci Lords is picking at her food — good thing, too: broccoli, potatoes and rice — the carbs, my God, the carbs!  She is bored to death listening to her much older husband talking about some business affairs.  I think we can all agree, we’d rather hear Traci talk about her old business affairs.

Finally, Traci tells her husband Andy that she is leaving him; not only that, she was having an affair.  He does not take it well, and after a struggle Andy stabs her. A neighbor calls the police after hearing screams from their condo — unusual because her husband is at home this time.  One of the cops hanging around the station after his shift ended volunteers to respond.

He shows up as Andy is stuffing Traci in a trunk.  There is a great scene as the officer searches the condo.  Traci is dead in the tub, covered by water and Mr. Bubble, but her face is exposed through a gap in the suds.  Andy block’s the officer’s view and brushes more bubbles over her face.  Suspenseful and visually interesting.  Kudos.

tftctwofor05After getting rid of the cop, Andy begins hacking Traci into more manageable pieces.  We see him pulling bloody arms and legs out of the tub.  Finally he pulls out a severed Traci-head with her mouth agape.  Actually, she could probably sell a latex model online and make some serious coin.

He loads up a suitcase and takes her to the train station.  He tells the baggage clerk he wants to check the bag through to Chicago.  Inexplicably, the clerk hands him a baggage tag marked CRP — Corpus Christi.  I’d really like to think this was a sly corpus joke.  However, in my heart, I suspect it was just a mistake.

As luck would have it, the officer is at the train station about to leave on vacation.  Andy can’t just dump the bag with a phony name and go home.  He must get on the train — again, as luck would have it, in a seat right across from the officer.

tftctwofor11Andy tries to get away by going to the dining car.  The officer follows him and says that he is working on a case that will require every bag on the train to be searched.  Andy goes to the luggage car, switches tags with another bag and tosses Traci’s Samsonite coffin off the train.

Naturally the officer was lying about investigating a case, and suspected Andy of murder the whole time. Once things begin to unfold, the episode really stunned me.  There were some fun switches, and the score — iffy up to this point — really kicked in and heightened the suspense.

Sadly, Traci Lords is killed off very early in the episode — I think the Cryptkeeper got more airtime.  It wasn’t a likable role, but I always enjoy seeing her. David Paymer and Vincent Spano were also great as Andy and the cop.  The episode’s tone was a little spotty in the beginning, but then it just soared, easily redeeming the whole thing.  The ending does fall apart if you think about it for 2 seconds, but it doesn’t even matter.

I give it 1.8 for the show.

Post-Post:

  • Traci Lords is always awesome; I saw her at a show in Dallas, and she was awesome off the screen too.  She doesn’t seem to work much — I don’t know if it is by choice or if Hollywood is really that stupid.
  • Title Analysis: 2nd consecutive episode to have a pathetic title.  I would create a “pathetic” tag, but I already have one called Ray Bradbury Theater.  I am baffled by “Two for the Show.”  I get the reference, but what two?  What show?  I would have even settled for the not-entirely-accurate homage, “Stranglers on a Train.”