Monthly Archives: July 2016

Fear Itself – Chance (01/10/09)

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fichance09First shot: man shaves in front of mirror. Second shot: man wakes up from nightmare and looks into a mirror. Gee, I wonder where this is going?

Chance Miller immediately comes off as a sad sack, even after waking up next to a woman who is far out of his league.  So, he’s probably happy in the sack.  After another mirror shot, Jackie reminds him that the rent is three months behind.  He says not to worry — no, he didn’t do anything crazy like get a job; but he has a “sure thing”.

He pulls an antique vase out from under the bed and takes it to Markham’s Antiques.  As Markham is examining the vase — I’ll be darned — there happens to be a mirror nearby. Chance looks at it and he fades out of the reflection.  OK, I guess this somehow instigates what is to come; or is the first symptom.  But why did the frame of the mirror also go out of focus in the shot?

Markham examines the vase but offers only a fraction of what Chance expected.  He is kind of whiny and pleads for the rest of the cash.  Just as he is walking out, he takes a swing at Markham.  In the ensuing fight, Chance gets lucky and Markham is accidentally killed by hitting his head on a table.

Looking around the shop, he encounters himself — another person who looks just like him. He doesn’t seem very shocked by this event.  The other him rolls his eyes at this loser version of himself and walks away.  Maybe if we had followed that guy, it would have been a better episode.

fichance30As in TZ60’s Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room and TZ80’s Shatterday [1] the other-him is less twitchy and more confident.  Also, he smokes, so we know he’s cool.  Too bad the series did not continue on Showtime so he could drop F-Bombs every third sentence. Then we’d know for sure he was cool.

Chance asks him to stick around, but Chance2 leaves him to clean up the crime scene. He goes for the cash in Markham’s wallet, but moves fearfully as if Markham had not been knocked unconscious and then further beat in the noggin with a silver-tipped cane. He screws around so long that the smoke from Chance2’s cigarette sets off the alarm. Strange that Markham’s cigarettes did not set it off in all the years he worked there, though.

The security company calls, but Chance doesn’t know the password.  Rather than leave, he makes a half-assed attempt to clean up and hide the body.  A few moments later, a guard from Primus Security shows up.[2]  Twitchy tries to wing a response, but that goes about as well as you might expect.  The admirably skeptical guard insists on entering to do an inspection.  This is all believable, but the scene is incredibly drawn out.

fichance99Finally the guard spots feet under the desk, but toes-up which is unusual.  Twitchy then kills him — I really didn’t think he had it in him, so that was a surprise.  He hears noises and finds Chance2 pouring them a couple of drinks — doubles, I imagine.  See, because they’re . . .

Chance2 helpfully suggests Twitchy wipe the place down for fingerprints, and maybe see if there is more swell loot lying around. He even helps toss Markham’s body in a dumpster behind the store, which is the last place the cops would look.

The 2 Chances then begin cleaning the office, still not wearing gloves.  Chance2 explains to Twitchy how this whole vase deal was a hustle to begin with, and that he is a sucker.  Chance2 picks up a couple of severed fingers and says, “You don’t want to leave these guys laying around.”  So where did they come from?  Markham hit his head, then was beat with a cane.  The guard was run through with a sword.

Twitchy stuffs them in his pocket just before Mrs. Markham walks in looking for her husband.  Chance2 tells Twitchy that he has got to finish this — he can’t go home to his out-of-his-league girl and tell him he screwed up again.  Twitchy refuses and runs home, leaving Chance2 to kill Mrs. Markham in the shower — another instance where Showtime might have saved the episode.

fichance41Then I have no idea what happens. Twitchy replays in his mind the events from having that morning, to the deal with Markham.  In this iteration, though, the deal went through as he expected and he pocketed $45,000 — literally, as he is ecstatic to unexpectedly find $45,000 in his pocket.  Jackie pops the cork on some champagne. When she enters the bedroom, Twitchy is proudly holding out the stacks of bills in his hands.  When she looks at his hands, however, all she sees are 12 fingers, 2 of them being cold, dead and severed.

Chance2 breaks their door down and Jackie is shocked to see both of them.  Chance2 then kills her.  The cops show up and haul Twitchy off in a squad car.  He looks in the rear view mirror; naturally.  Objects may appear crazier . . . . yada, yada.  The end.

Post-Post:

  • [1] Really, TZ60’s and TZ80’s — that’s what we’re calling them?
  • [2] Based on his hat.  Maybe he was just a fan of Primus.  BTW, their drummer just had his 2nd heart attack in 2 years.
  • Co-Written by Rick Dahl, brother of the director.  He is the Ivan Raimi of noir — of his 3 writing credits on IMDb, two were directed by his brother.  Maybe the 3rd one was directed by a step-brother.  To be fair though, Red Rock West was pretty darn good as I recall.
  • Rated dead last of the series in the increasingly credible IMDb ratings.
  • Sadly no opportunity to work in a Community Chest reference.
  • IMDb and YouTube.

Tales of Tomorrow – Red Dust (05/02/52)

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totreddust1

This is about as visually interesting as this episode gets.

In this science-fiction tale, America still has a space program. Four men have just lifted off from Alpha Centauri where they were apparently the first to land on the entire star system. Sadly, they left 2 of their crew-mates “buried in the red dust.” They only needed to go as far as Mars to accomplish that.  Or Sedona if they were really on a budget.  Off-season.

The Captain tells them not to grieve over Kelly and Schwartz.  “It’s a log way to Earth.  You might need those tears for yourself.” On Alpha Centauri, they found a culture hundreds of years more advanced than ours.[1]  Dr. Davidson is excited at how much mankind will gain from this appropriation.  The weird thing is that the cities were all deserted, and covered in pink dust.

They notice that some of the red dust is now in the ship.  As the days pass, the crew notices the dust is growing.  Davidson examines a sample under his microscope and discovers it is radioactive; or something.  I’d like to think there was some alien influence warping their minds, but I think it was just lousy writing:

  • Kelly & Schwartz died because they did not take their radiation shots, saying they were allergic.  You might think that would disqualify you from being an astronaut.
  • Charlie says it should have been OK because they detected no radiation before landing.  The doc now says the radiation is “in the dust!”  Hmmm . . . the same dust that covered the planet?
  • Meanwhile, Duncan and Kurt are lounging around the cabin remarking on the successful mission.  “When we signed up for this thing who would have thought we would have made it there and back without a hitch.”  Yeah, except for 1/3 of the crew being killed.

The doc determines that the dust “is a weird sort of radioactive life.  A virus that attacks any living matter that comes near it.”  Unfortunately, he tells the crew that the radiation shots can’t stop it, only slow it down.  He expects them all to be dead in 10 years. Charlie freaks out and throws himself out of the airlock.  I don’t expect an Aliens-caliber decompression, but couldn’t they at least have used a electric fan to simulate the change in pressure?  This was like opening a screen door.

totreddust2The doc realizes that Charlie’s rantings were correct — they are taking death back to Earth!

After the commercial, the writing becomes weird again.  Kurt says, “Look doc, start at the beginning and go back.  Why can’t we return?” The doc answer, “That should be obvious, Kurt.  Kelly, Schwartz, Charlie, Duncan, you, even the doctor — if we landed, do you think the red dust would stop with us?”  Was the doctor referring to himself in the 3rd person?

The doc says that once they are in contact with Earth, they will radio their discoveries, then they must self-destruct.  Kurt isn’t on-board with the whole suicide thing.  In the action portion of our show, Kurt pulls a gun on Charlie and the doc.  Duncan is able to conk Kurt on the head, the the doc shoots Duncan.  Kurt wakes up and Duncan shoots him.

Slipping for the third time into this alternate reality of shifting perspectives and pretzel logic, as Duncan is dying, he begs the doc not to take the ship back to earth.  “I know you’re a scientist, but give them a chance!”  Well, that was Doc’s position all along.

Just as in last week’s The Plague from Space, the decision is made to sacrifice everyone to save the planet.  The doc reads the mission’s findings over the radio, then blows up the ship.

Post-Post:

  • [1] It seems absurd that on an astronomical timescale, we would find a culture within 100 years of our own.  But then, that was the case with most of the planets on Star Trek.
  • Also seen today:  The Boy, not to be confused with The Boy.  It somehow takes a pretty flimsy premise and makes it both intriguing and suspenseful for most of its run time.  As always, the questions are more interesting than the answers, but that does not diminish the result.  Also, Lauren Cohan.

The Veil – Food on the Table (1958)

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veilfood15Strange things afoot:

  • This was the third episode blogged, but first watched because Amazon screwed up the episode order and descriptions.
  • Boris Karloff had a mustache in the introduction, but did not in the episode.
  • Karloff is credited as Capt. John Elwood on IMDb, but when his first mate enters his cabin, Karloff addresses him as Mr. Elwood.

As he is packing for the end of this trip, we see a snake slither into Karloff’s suitcase.  I would have expected a Captain to have a duffel bag or steamer trunk, but I guess he knows luggage like only a man who has been to sea can.  He asks the crewman — who he now calls Logan — to take the suitcase to his house as he has to stop by the office to file a report.

veilfood25Elwood’s wife had heard that the ship had been struck with the plague. Logan assures her that it was no plague, merely a hurricane and an infestation of poisonous snakes that both came aboard in Florida.  Two men died and 3 others survived being bitten.

We see that Elwood has made time to drop by The Captain’s Harbor Inn before going home to Mrs. Elwood.  As he is regaling the other old salts with the story of the snakes and hurricane, lovely serving wench Bessie enters with a tray of drinks.  He says he missed her most of all and smacks her on the ass, which seems pretty racy for 1950’s TV (although not so titillating when performed by Boris Karloff).

veilfood1Things get frosty pretty quickly when Ruth Elwood comes to the Inn to purchase a bottle of wine.  Bessie tells her the Captain might be late as he is hanging out with the guys. Ruth can tell by the long table set up for a party that he won’t be home for dinner.  When Elwood spots her, he accuses her of spying on him and tells her, “to expect me when you see me.”  He closes the door on her like Michael Corleone.  She responds by angrily yanking off the tablecloth, sending all the dishes crashing to the floor.

Back at casa de Elwood, he tears into his wife for humiliating him in front of his friends. She apologizes, but Elwood says he is “sick of your apologies, sick of your excuses, sick of you, Ruth!”  He says he’s felt trapped since marrying her, and that he only married her to get money for a ship.  She gets very emotional, and it really is kind of heartbreaking.  She did love him even though her friends laughed at her for being duped.  She is worried now about “drying up into a bitter old woman.” [1] She begs for them to start fresh.  “Help me,” she pleads.

veilfood2Oh my God.  How could this get any more tragic for her?  Oh yeah, she reaches into his suitcase, a snake bites her, and she dies.

Correction — surprisingly, Ruth is still alive after the commercial.  Even she is surprised that John did not let her die so that he could be free.  She takes it as a sign that they can have a fresh start.  In his face, you can see, “WTF was I thinking?”

He heads down to the Inn where he hears the Widow Smith had an uncle die and leave her £20,000.  Back at home, he is suddenly very attentive to Ruth, even asking her to come along on his next voyage.  She does come with him, but soon is sea-sick, and later, sea-dead. [2]

veilfood3After a respectable year, Elwood feels he can get on with his life.  The Widow Smith has been dropping by, and tonight he is attending a dinner for his former first mate who is now a captain.  As the group is preparing to go to the table, all the dishes crash to the floor just as when Ruth had done it a year ago.  Bessie is suspected, but resets the table.  This time, as the group watches, the dishes are again flung to the floor.

All the men turn to Elwood, suspecting that this is the work of the ghost of his dead wife and that he must have killed her.  His next ship sinks with one casualty — Capt. John Elwood.

Post-Post:

  • [1] Note that, by the actors’ ages, Ruth is 32 years younger than her husband.  If this were remade in the 21st Century, she would be playing his mother.
  • [2] In a moment of blatant exposition, Elwood opens a drawer and pulls out a bottle for no other reason than to show the viewer.  Even better, the bottle has a skull & crossbones and the label just says POISON.  Who would buy this product?  When exactly do you think, “Need me some poison.”
  • IMDb and YouTube.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents – A Personal Matter (01/18/59)

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After two Twilight Zones that weren’t very Twilight Zoney, we have an Alfred Hitchcock Presents that isn’t very Alfred Hitchcock Presentable. It’s more like Trans-Atlantic Tunnel with Richard Dix or The Naked Jungle with Charlton Heston.  Or maybe it’s nothing like them since I’ve seen neither.  What it ain’t is AHP.

South of the Border, down Mexico way, Joe Philips is digging a tunnel for Rodriguez Construction.  We open with an odd but nice first-person-minecar shot of the mine [1].  Philips is trying to shore up the ceiling, but dirt begins falling.  His crew flees like tunnel-rats from a sinking ship.  They have dug 82 feet in six days, but just lost 20 to the cave-in.

Rodriguez visits the camp and brings Bret Johnson to assist Philips.  He is ready to bail out and let Johnson do the job.  While Philips is packing, Johnson convinces him to stay.  Rodriguez just took off in his plane, and there is no other way to the city.

ahppersonalmatter16They continue the job together and make good progress the first day. There is a fiesta that night with the camp’s only guitar and the camp’s only senorita.

That night, Philips hears about a manhunt in Mexico for the murder of an engineer in Colorado over a dispute of safety regulations.  Philips searches Johnson’s bunk and finds a pistol.  Johnson enters and has the gun in his hand.

Philips says he knew the murdered man but that the man cared more about making a buck than about the lives of his men.  And that he deserved what he got, and it would suit him fine if they never caught the killer.

The men are stuck with each other for another five weeks, so they decide to work together on the tunnel.  They get lucky and hit an deposit of rock.  Apparently that is better news than it sounds in tunneling as it enables them to blast.

ahppersonalmatter42The next day a boulder falls on a worker.  While Philips helps him, Johnson single-handedly shores another another boulder from falling. It seems the job is not impossible to complete on schedule.  The men have a respect for each other, though, and decide to give it a try.

Four days later, they decide to blast through the last remaining rock.  It is a success and they prepare to leave the camp the next day.

Philips pulls his gun on Johnson.  Turns out Johnson is a cop.  He made a deal with Rodriguez to get the tunnel finished before hauling Philips in.  I think it was supposed to be a big reversal that Philips was the murderer and not Johnson.  Unfortunately, the episode did not go far enough in making us believe Johnson was the murderer, so the ending was a failure.

Except for the way in which it was awesome.  Joe Maross (Philips) and Wayne Morris (Johnson) were amazing in this episode.  Both were strong, smart, industrious, confident men of the type you don’t see on TV anymore.  They had a job to do and weren’t going to let little things like cave-ins or a murder charge stop them.

Even as each had reason to believe the other might kill him, they worked together to complete that tunnel.  Like Colonel Nicholson working with the Japanese[2] or Johnny Utah working with the Ex-Presidents[3], it makes no sense.  But there is such a drive for accomplishment in the men that they will do anything to build that bridge or rob that bank or dig that tunnel.

Maybe it is that same logic-free drive for accomplishment that drove otherwise sane people to remake Point Break.  Or The In-Laws, which is kind of a non-sequitur here but still offends me.

At the end, there is a mutual respect.  Philips says he was justified in the killing. Johnson says optimistically maybe they can get a jury to believe that too.

ahppersonalmatter15Post-Post:

  • [1] Meaning the camera is affixed to the mine-car as it goes down the tracks.
  • [2] Although less treasony.
  • [3] Although less felony.
  • AHP Deathwatch:  No survivors.
  • Title Analysis:  No idea what they were going for.

Twilight Zone – Chameleon (10/04/85)

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tzchameleon19I have said before that if you stick a couple of guys in space suits, and I’m on board for just about anything.  Apollo 18 — not great, but OK. Europa Report — a little slow, but it kept me awake.  Prometheus — well, there is a limit.

This episode got off to an immediate good start with me by being so mundane.  We get a couple of minutes of stock footage of the Space Shuttle and astronauts doing EVAs.  It was this simple beginning that reeled me in.  As much as I liked Gravity, George Clooney wasting fuel doing dangerous circle jerks around the ship and running his yap nonstop while Sandra Bullock was trying to work just took me out of the movie.

Here we get simple dialogue, and the kind of simple joshing that astronauts always put on to keep the funding coming.  Astronaut Becky sees a blue light flash from her EVA. Nothing comes of it, and the shuttle lands safely.

tzchameleon05After the shuttle is back on the ground and up on the rack, the technicians start tearing it apart. Camera #2 seems to have had a problem, going haywire just like NASA cameras do when the UFOs show up.

As Chief Simmons is taking it away for analysis, it begins glowing purple. Simmons disappears and the camera falls to the ground.  I suppose this is the same light the astronaut reported.  Maybe purple just looked better than blue in post-production.

His assistant Tyson declares a Code F emergency.  Really, this happens so often there is a code assigned?  And not even like Code ZAGH, but the 6th code in the book?  The camera is taken to a secure isolation room to be analyzed.  While four scientists are looking on, the camera glows again and Simmons reappears in the isolation room.  They note that the camera is gone which doesn’t make much sense.  Did the camera turn into the man?  When the man first disappeared, the camera was left behind.

tzchameleon08Simmons demands to be let out. Director Heilman shows up and begins questioning him.  Soon, Simmons disappears and it is Simmons’ wife in the isolation room. When Simmons reappears, he gets even more belligerent, destroying equipment in the room.  When he passes out, Heilman goes in with a gas-mask.  Turns out he was only playing possum.  He grabs Heilman and turns blue again.  This time both men disappear and an atomic bomb appears in the room.  Its countdown clock is at 2 minutes.

One of the scientists goes into the room and tries to reason with it.  He actually talks to the device, which makes sense but is a little odd looking.  It is suspenseful as the machine just continues counting down as the man talks to it.  At 1 second to go, it transforms into Heiland and walks out the door.

One of the scientists finds him outside and asks why he came here.  He replies, “Just curious.”  Then turns into a little ball of light and zips away.

tzchameleon14Well, this was like finding out Wallyworld was closed.  I loved every minute of the trip . . . then, a big nothing.  Like Wordplay yesterday, it lacks the features of a 1960s TZ episode:  irony, a twist, come-uppance, self-realization; most of all, closure.  I guess this is the new & improved TZ, although 30 years old now — but closer to the original than to present day.  Both segments were very well-made but seemed to be lacking something at their core.

Nonetheless, another fun outing.

Post-Post:

  • Skipped segment:  Sweet Dreams is an 8-minute segment which would have been right at home as one of Night Gallery’s filler bits — and that’s not a good thing.  It is an OK little short, fine effects and Meg Foster is entrancing.  Just not much original here.  BTW, way to spoil the twist on the menu picture!