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Tales of Tomorrow – Time to Go (04/18/52)

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tttimetogo03It’s 11:30, do you know where your sofa, chair and bookcase are?  If you are Natalie, they are piled up in front of the door.  She next goes for the phone.  It is connected to the wall by some sort of cord, though, so she instead uses it to make a call looking for her husband Michael.  Even without Caller ID, he is able to avoid her call.  Shortly thereafter, Natalie does get a call from Michael.  He got a room at a hotel after they had a fight.

Natalie seems crazy as she says that someone is coming to get her.  And that he said he was going to “close her account” which seems a little too metaphorical even if she is being threatened by a rogue CPA.

Michael foolishly asks her what happened, when did it start, triggering a flashback. Seems like just 2 weeks ago . . .

Natalie gets a letter from a new bank in the neighborhood seeking “prompt, reliable depositors.”  They have no cash to spare, but apparently in the 1950’s people personally followed up on every piece of junk-mail, so she visits the bank.[1]

tttimetogo05She meets the temporally-named Mr. Tickton, the bank president, who assures her there has been no mistake.  This is a different kind of bank.  Besides actually being solvent, it takes deposits of time rather than money. For example, one customer found a new route to work so was able to bank a few extra minutes every day.  Many other male depositors cut their foreplay time in half.  Kudos to Tickton for being honest with Natalie, telling her that the bank staff is not of this world.

Their world is a million light years away with a civilization much like our own . . . except they are able to travel a million light years.  Their society has begun to crumble and decay; so I am starting to see the resemblance.  Their society needs this extra time to rebuild.  After depositing a minute here and an hour there over the years, Natalie would receive back her saved time plus interest at the end of her life in order to be a more prolonged burden on her children. It could be years!

tttimetogo09Natalie gets fanatic about saving time — doing her housework more quickly, skipping lunch, avoiding friends, getting rid of Michael’s dog. Natalie’s efficiency and dog-napping are too much for Michael — he walks out on Natalie.  After Michael drives off, Mr. Tickton makes a house-call.

He has come with bad news.  The transference of time back to his people is not going fast enough. Cosmic pressure and nebula gasses have made drastic action necessary.  Natalie’s account is being closed, and the fine print of the agreement allows them to “borrow” all the time remaining in her life.  She will die at midnight, but get to keep the toaster for opening her account.

Tickton shows up punctually that night to collect Natalie’s time.  There is some ambiguity in the way she is killed, but it was appropriately set-up . . . just not worth detailing.

tttimetogo18Kind of a goofy premise, but the kind of high-concept nonsense I like in my 1950’s sci-fi.  Tickton was suitably creepy and the bank was pretty surreal. For a change, the lack of budget was perfect for the stark set design.

I rate it 20 out of 24 hour.

Post-Post:

  • [1] To be fair, junk mail in the 1950’s would not have required a trip to Nigeria to meet the Prince.
  • Natalie (Sylvia Sidney) played Mama Carlson on WKRP.
  • Mr. Tickton was portrayed by Robert H. Harris, last seen in The Safe Place.
  • IMDb
  • YouTube

The Veil – Vision of Crime (1958)

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vvisionofcrime09

Hey, I’m over here!

Now this is what I like — 10 episodes, I’m in and out.  The Veil had studio trouble and was produced for only one partial season that never aired. [1]

Pharmacist Hart Bosworth has had a busy day at the apothecary and is closing up his shop when a woman enters with a gun — an Rx for disaster.  She puts two slugs into Bosworth.

At that same moment, aboard a ship 150 miles away, his brother George is preparing for bed.  As he goes to wash up, the water in the bowl begins swirling.  In the cloudy water, he sees a hand draw a pistol. As with every mystical entity from Gandalf to Obi-Wan, key information is withheld. Rather than the image identifying the shooter, he gets an over the shoulder view of a mystery figure shooting his brother.  He might as well have looked in the other bowl with swirling water.

He runs to the captain and asks him to turn the ship back to Dover.  That is quite impossible, but he does let Bosworth off at the next port and he catches another ship back.

vvisionofcrime11

No, right in front of you!

Sgt. Willmore (Boris Karloff) is inspecting the scene of the crime. Bosworth was shot through the heart and the cash drawer is empty.  He acts like it is a Holmesian act of deduction to rule this a robbery.  An ear-witness, Mrs. Klink, heard the shots at 9:45.[2]

Mrs. Klink finally gets around to saying she saw the shooter.  She saw Albert Ketch running from the shop.  The constable “rounds up” Ketch which I’m not sure you can do to a single person.  He claims he was just at the shop to collect on a bet.

The next day, George returns to see his fiancee Julie.  She confirms George’s vision that his brother was murdered.  She tells him Ketch has been arrested, but he seems strangely confident that Ketch didn’t do it.  When she asks how he knows that, he refuses to tell her; or us.  Julie wisely advises him to pipe down with the magic water bowl talk lest people think he is crazy.

vvisionofcrime16

We’re back here!  Follow my voice!

George goes back to the shop where Willmore and the constable are still investigating.  He tells them Ketch had nothing to do with it, but they are also skeptical.  The constable believes George is behind his brother’s murder as he is the sole heir to his estate.

At a local pub, Mrs. Klink tells George that she also saw his fiancee Julie go to the shop before the gunshots.  You might think think that would have come up in talking to the police.  She describes Julie as a scheming social climber.

Julie finally confesses to George that she killed his brother.  Now that he has inherited the apothecary, they can afford get married, and also score some Oxy.  She felt that the other women were laughing at her for not being married, that she might get another chance.  BTW, the actress was an elderly 26 in this episode.

vvisionofcrime18

Turn around, dumbass!

Maybe she’s right.  With his new-found wealth, George turns her in; then probably goes after a younger woman.

A fairly dull outing which does not leave me excited about nine more episodes.  There were highlights, though.  Karloff played gave a good comedic performance that I did not know he was capable of. The supporting cast was all good, except Robert Hardy as George. He had a very strange style where he rarely looked people in the eye as they spoke — no wonder he was a suspect.  In conversations, he would usually look up and to the side or stand with his back to the other person.

I also question whether it was a good choice to reveal to the audience who the killer was. It was a little bit of a giveaway anyhow because the killer’s dainty little hand in the vision indicated either a woman or Donald Trump.  I guess this is how he was so sure that Ketch was not the killer.  If that is the case, though, why didn’t he tell the police the killer was a woman?

Post-Post:

  • [1] Something I don’t like: Amazon screwed up the episode titles and descriptions so I had to watch a second episode tonight.
  • [2] I defy anyone to watch this scene and not conclude that John Cleese is the bastard son of Boris Karloff.
  • IMDb and YouTube.

L to R: John Cleese, Eric Idle, Michael Palin, Terry Jones

Alfred Hitchcock Presents – Six People, No Music (01/04/59)

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Oh my God.  I am really growing to hate John McGiver.  He was a very memorable character actor, but a little goes a long way.  I remember liking him on an episode of Gilligan’s Island when I was a kid.  Then decades later, I saw him in AHP’s Fatal Figures.  That pace seems about right.

Unfortunately, he was just in The Bard yesterday, and is now in this episode.  That incessant, crabby whining and moaning is killing me.  Out of 268 episodes, this one is 263rd in IMDb’s newly-respected, formerly always-suspect ratings. [1]

McGiver’s insufferable presence might have been forgivable in service of a decent story, but this ain’t it.  The good news is, this is his final appearance on AHP.  Oh well, let’s get this over with . . .

Arthur Motherwell comes home from his job at the funeral parlor and goes straight for the liquor cabinet, beating the viewers by about 5 minutes.  After his third shot, his wife Rhoda asks him what the problem is.  He pulls a note out of his pocket — department store magnate Stanton C. Barryvale has croaked. The only thing that could make this episode worse is a flashback.

ahpsixpeople09Oh, crap.

That morning, Arthur goes to work at the funeral parlor about 9 am.  There he meets an attorney who is sadly not a client.  He represents the Barryvale estate and wants Arthur to take care of the funeral.

Barryvale is wheeled in for his final layaway and Arthur is excited to work on such a local celebrity.  He actually has a smile as he prepares to dig in.  The attorney calls to inform Arthur of the requirements for the funeral — 30 limousines, a string quartet, a choir, orchids, accommodations for 300 guests, etc.

ahpsixpeople10As Arthur is washing his hands, Barryvale clears his throat and sits up on the slab. [2] Arthur explains that he is in the funeral parlor, having died the night before.  Barryvale believes he was brought back from the dead to assure that his estate is not wasted on a lavish funeral.

Wait — he really thinks his heirs are going to squander the money on a lavish funeral rather than bury him in a pine box and head for the Porshche dealership after the service?

He wants the money to go to his various charities and foundations.  Oh, OK — they might as well have a nice party if the rest of the loot is just going to be wasted on sick kids.  That makes more sense.  He tells Arthur to plan the cheapest possible burial — the titular six people and no music. [3]

Arthur is distressed to hear this as he apparently would have made a tidy profit on the previous plan with the limousines and singers.  Barryvale writes out instructions for his more austere funeral.  Then he lays back down and dies again, conveniently on the slab.
Dull story short, Arthur destroys Barryvale’s instructions and puts on the lavish funeral. Arthur and Rhoda go out to the theater.

Which is what I should have done tonight.

Post-Post:

  • [1] I posted about 2 of the 5 episodes rated even lower than this one — The Legacy and The Hidden Thing.  I don’t remember them being nearly this awful.
  • [2] For a more pleasurable take on a stiff regaining consciousness on the slab, I direct you to After.Life.  Christina Ricci awakens during her autopsy and, as I recall, was naked for about half the movie.  Not be confused with the Night Visions episode After Life.  And thank God, because Randy Quaid was the corpse in that one.
  • [3] Six people and no music — Describe Mike Huckabee’s inevitable 2020 presidential announcement rally.
  • Heyyoooo — I got a Carnac chill there.
  • AHP Deathwatch:  Joby Baker (Thor) is still with us.
  • Teleplay by Richard Berg.  His son is the author of several well-received books, A. Scott Berg.  I can vouch for Lindbergh, which was great.  But what’s with the “A”? E. Howard Hunt, G. Gordon Liddy, J. Edgar Hoover, L. Ron Hubbard, J. Fred Muggs — are these people (or a sub-human in at least one case) you want to be associated with?

Twilight Zone S4 – The Bard (05/23/63)

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notpictured01

Not worth the bandwidth

I am at a complete loss to explain why the otherwise excellent Twilight Zone Companion has such high regard for this episode.  I thought I had met the most obnoxious citizen of The Twilight Zone in Of Late I Think of Cliffordville.  Jack Weston matches the grating personality of William Featherstone in his portrayal of Julius Moomer.

The 5 minute prologue seemed so long, I actually did a time-check because I thought I had skipped Serling’s intro.  It, and several other scenes, are so overloaded with musical stings that they seem like parody.  At times, literally every line is followed by a quick musical cue or sound effect.

This would be insufferable enough, but the antics of Moomer are like fingernails on a blackboard.  The man-boy Moomer . . . well, it doesn’t even matter what he is doing.

The episode is a satire of television.  I have no doubt that Serling had a ball writing it, but his job is to put on a play for us, not play with himself.

Yeah, John Williams was great as Shakespeare, and it was fun to see a young Burt Reynolds doing his Brando spoof.  Beyond that lies pain.

Maybe the time is better spent wrapping up the fourth season.  I have owned the box set for years, but always skipped the hour long episodes of the fourth season.  The purpose of this blog was to force me to watch things like this and Ray Bradbury Theater which I bought but never watched.

Unlike Ray Bradbury Theater, TZ4 was actually a pleasurable viewing experience.  At least until the end of the season — Passage on the Lady Anne and The Bard were brutal. For the most part, the other episodes were solid, and a few ranked among the best of the series.  They might not have all had the traditional TZ stinger at the end, but this was a different show.  Charles Beaumont especially adapted well to the new format.

They were probably wise to return to the 30-minute format the next season.  This experiment can’t be considered a failure, though.

Next week, I’ll begin considering whether the 1980’s TZ reboot was a failure.

Gee, my refusal to admit I wasted a few bucks buying DVDs I never watched has turned into a years-long waste of time.  Sorry to have cluttered Google search results with stream of consciousness musings on these shows.  I feel like I’ve devalued the whole internet.

Post-Post:

  • It’s hard to imagine John McGiver was in an episode where he was not the most irritating character.  He was bad in his couple of TZs, but saved his most insufferable performances for Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
  • Howard McNear (Bramhoff) went on to play Floyd the Barber on The Andy Griffith Show.
  • Even more impressive, Judy Strangis (Cora) would grow up to be ridiculously cute on Room 222 and Electra Woman and Dyna Girl.
  • 10/28/16 update: Just noticed that the guys are watching this in one of the last episodes of The Sopranos.  That’s an ouroboros of TV episodes right there.