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Alfred Hitchcock Presents – Don’t Interrupt (10/12/58)

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ahpdontinterrupt03The opening shot is of a speeding train and it isn’t going into a tunnel, so we know Alfred Hitchcock did not direct this episode.

Uber-obnoxious kid Johnny Templeton is stalking the hallways of the train, opening doors where hot college girls could be having naked pillow fights, and just generally being a nuisance.  And just how bloody wide is this train that not only has a hallway, but turns in it?

Johnny and his parents Mary (hey, it’s TV’s Cloris Leachman!) and Larry (hey, it’s that guy who played Larry once on AHP!) [1] make their way to the club car which is staffed by Scatman Crothers — with hair!  They are just in time to hear on the radio that a patient has escaped from the state mental hospital.  I think even after 30 seconds, everyone watching this is hoping he goes after the kid.

Turns out that Johnny has been suspended from school so maybe he has issues.  One thing he definitely has is a cool toy pistol that shoots peanuts that I would have loved as a kid, and maybe even now.  He just continues with one antic after another (can antic be singular?).  He is yapping, mixing up drinking glasses, yapping, stealing Mary’s goofy dead-fox wrap, yapping and pouring milk into an ashtray.  Also, running his yap.

ahpdontinterrupt09Dad sends him back to their room, but before he leaves, another man named Kilmer (Chill Wills) enters the club car.  He doesn’t like drinking alone and asks if he can join the Templetons.  Like any family with a small child, they welcome the booze-hound to join them.  He just boarded the train back where that mental patient escaped.  Kilmer claims to have been a cowboy for 20 years. Suddenly the train stops.

The conductor tells Mary that the generator is on the fritz, this being one of them generator trains what replaced diesel and steam.  Could Kilmer be the mental patient?  When he asks the bartender to put a head on his scotch, it makes me wonder.

Larry bribes his son with a shiny silver dollar that he can’t keep his yap shut for ten minutes while Kilmer tells a story.  Johnny is mighty tempted as he sees fingers clawing at the glass behind his mother.

ahpdontinterrupt10Despite some lapses, Johnny’s indulgent father gives him the dollar. After being warned by Kilmer to keep the dollar in a safe place, Johnny stows it in between his belt and his pants where it falls down almost immediately.  Scatman puts his foot on the dollar and bogarts it after the Templetons leave.

Well, I am utterly baffled by what the story is supposed to be here.  There is a great suspenseful set-piece to be had with the scenario we are given, but this just makes no sense.  The escaped mental patient is clawing at the window, but so what?  It’s not like he’s a man on the wing of a plane.  The train is stopped, for crying out loud — just go to the steps in between the cars!  What are you, mentally cha . . . oh, yeah.

And why did they feel the need to end the episode by having the black steward stealing from the white kid?  The race thing doesn’t bother me as much as how much it is a total non-sequitur.  Focus, people!

Post-Post:

  • [1] In fairness, Biff McGuire had a great career.
  • AHP Deathwatch:  Biff McGuire and Cloris Leachman are still alive, sadly outliving their obnoxious TV son by 7 years so far.

Twilight Zone S4 – Miniature (02/21/63)

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tzminiature04Office drone Charley Parkes is slaving away with both hands working his adding machine which is the size of a Thanksgiving tenkey. On his lunch hour he heads over to the museum. Nothing like absorbing a little culture, refreshing your humanity and zest for life. Well, actually he was going to the museum cafeteria.  Since the cafeteria was closed he hit the shitter and took in an exhibit.

At the Victorian exhibition he is drawn, as any grown man would be, to a dollhouse. Peering inside he sees a tiny hot piece of ash seated at a piano.  As he turns to leave, he hears music.  Leaning down to look in the dollhouse again, he sees the doll inside is now actually playing the piano.  Fascinated, he asks the guard how they make the doll play the piano.  The guard doesn’t cotton to this kind of tomfoolery.

Arriving back to the office late, he finds a note to see the boss.  Charley is just too much of a loner, plus he now has this one-time-ever tardiness on his record.  So he is let go. Back at home, his mother is outraged.  Clearly, he is about as strong and independent as Buster Bluth.  His mother turns down his bed, fluffs up his pillows, unties his shoes, makes him cocoa.  This is a little strange — according to Alfred Hitchcock Presents, these are things his sister ought to be doing.

tzminiature07The next day, having plenty of time on his hands, he goes back to the museum.  He makes a beeline back to the dollhouse.  He is momentarily distraught when the doll is not sitting at the piano.  However, she makes a sweeping entrance down the staircase and is even met at the bottom by a snappy young maid who she begins to kiss.  No wait, now I’m imagining things.  As the doll begins playing the piano, the maid lets in a gentleman caller dressed in top hat and tails.  Arm in arm, they head out on a date.

The next day, he returns to the museum.  Now he begins talking to the doll.  The following day, he goes back yet again, this time tailed by his sister.  She busts Charlie gazing into the dollhouse.  She drags him to a coffee-shop and lays into him about being alone and acting like a child.

tzminiature10The next day, Charley is telling the doll about a blind date his sister set him up on.  The gentleman caller shows up again.  When the maid protests, he breaks his cane over her head.  Wait, what?  When the doll sees him, she faints and he carries her upstairs.  This is too much for Charley and he claws at the house trying to stop the assault. Finally, he grabs a statue and breaks the glass display case.

Charley’s next stop is at a psychiatrist’s office.  This is interesting for two points — the doctor begins by lighting up a cigarette, and Charley is there wearing a robe so he must have been committed.  Attempting to convince Charley that the doll is just made of wood, the doctor pulls a box out of his desk and takes out the doll.  Charley rubs the doll against his face as tears stream down his face.

tzminiature13The doctor tells Charley’s mother the the constant pressure of trying to be something he wasn’t contributed to his breakdown.  He was unable to cope with this world so his mind created another world.

Charley escapes out the window and heads back to the museum.  He hides in a sarcophagus until closing time then goes to see his sweetie in the dollhouse.

Really, there is only one way that this story was ever going to end, but that doesn’t make it bad.  In fact, it was another pretty good episode — where did all the scorn of the hour-long episodes come from?  Oh, yeah, sometimes from me in my ignorance.  Maybe Charley took one too many trips to the museum, but who cares.  It was beautifully written, engaging, and Duvall is always going to be great.

Most surprising were Barbara Barrie as his sister and Lennie Weinrib as his brother-in-law.  Both of them took very slight characters and through interesting line readings and minor physical business, created real characters.  You know . . . like acting.  I’m not usually one to compliment actors, but something about both of them really seemed special.

Post-Post:

  • Title Analysis:  Meh.  It is a miniature house, but not really a microcosm of anything. In fact, more of an anti-microcosm: a non-existent world where Charley is comfortable.
  • Nine years before Robert Duvall played Tom Hagen in the Godfather.
  • Written by Charles Beaumont  just 4 years before he died at only 38 years old. Christ, what this guy would have done with another 50 years.

Tales From the Crypt – Came the Dawn (11/17/93)

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tftccamedawn02The episode begins with a prolonged close-up of a nameless smoking hot blonde (interrupted by a pan to her rack).  Blonde, sophisticated, well-dressed and well-coiffed with a mischievous wink.  Then we see her in the shitter.

But that’s OK too, as she is using the alone-time to practice her “o-sounds” for later that night.  Someone enters the restroom and cuts off the light. When the blonde complains, the stall door flies open and she is attacked with an axe.

Roger is driving home and stops to help a woman whose pickup has broken down.  Because a) it is raining, b) the buses have stopped running for the night, c) Roger owns a nearby cabin, d) his marriage is on the rocks, and e) the stranded motorist is Brooke Shields, he offers his cabin to her. But mostly “e”.

tftccamedawn10Tipping his hand a little, Roger stops off at a small store in the mountains to buy some oysters.  This doesn’t strike me as a place that would have fresh seafood, so maybe he is going for mountain oysters.  Maybe they do stock oysters, because this log cabin of a store also carries Cristal Champagne.  The clerk — the always fun Michael J. Pollard — catches Roger up on the local news — a stolen truck and a woman hacked to bits in a restaurant.

At the cabin, Brooke puts on some fancy clothes.  Downstairs, Roger says he wants to put something on her that belonged the Catherine the Great.  I was thinking a saddle, but the kinky stuff comes later.  It is a necklace.

Over dinner, he asks her why she stole the truck.  She says she stole the truck to come looking for her cheating husband and that she “took care of” the bimbo.  Seconds later, Brooke is tying Roger’s wrists to the bedposts.  Darn the luck, his wife shows up before he can do any rogering, so he hustles Brook out onto the balcony.

tftccamedawn14The ending is a nice couple of twists and backed by soaring opera that gets crazier and the story gets crazier.  It is all over-the-top good fun as TFTC should be.  There is a minor quibble with some logistics involving the door, but why dwell on that?

Michael J. Pollard really has nothing to do, but just showing up makes the episode more fun.  Perry King starts off solid and ends up great.  And Brooke Shields has always been misunderestimated — she’s just great here as the flannel-wearing thief.

This is a good one.

Post-Post:

  • Title Analysis:  Good episode, but another pathetic title — unless the girl practicing her orgasms in the restaurant bathroom was named Dawn.

Tales of Tomorrow – World of Water (05/23/52)

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ttworldwater01Last week we began at the Bureau of Scientific Investigation; this week we begin at the similarly generic Department of Agricultural Research.  As they both seem to be located in the Capitol, we can assume they are up to no good.

Lane is studying a map of the 48 United States.  He calls Les Nelson in to have a chat about the search for Dr. Kramer.  They flash back to their last encounter.  In his boarding room, Kramer is ladling sand into a beaker testing his discovery to turn to sand to water, or else making the world’s driest martini.

His much younger neighbor Nicki stops by to pick up tickets he promised her.  She complains about how hard waitressing is on her feet.  Kramer suggests “someday you will not have to be a waitress.  Maybe  someday it will be somebody who will be serving you.  Somebody who will be happy to do things for you.”  Yeah, that’s the vibe I get at Arby’s.  They’re f***ing thrilled to serve me. [1]

ttworldwater08Nicki thinks that is unlikely and complains about the seats Kramer got — not near enough to the front for her.  She is clearly using the old fool for the gifts, but is at least honest enough to say this to his face.

Nelson knocks, breaking up the loveless-fest.  He is trying to recruit Kramer to make “murder weapons.”  To be fair, in his old country, the government took his work, used it kill thousands and threw him in a concentration camp.  So I can understand him being leery of getting involved in a criminal enterprise like the US Government.

Nelson looks over Kramer’s bucket of sand and tub of water.  He asks if this is related to Kramer’s theory on diatomic water even though Occam’s Razor would have suggested sand castles.  Nelson has heard that the diatomic water could dissolve any substance on earth, so maybe inventing something to store it in should have been the first step.

ttworldwater12Nicki returns and tells Kramer he was crazy not to go to work with Nelson.  After all, she says to his face, it would enable him to buy her more gifts.  He asks Nicki to travel with him, maybe even get married.  She warns him that anyone marrying her would have to have a lot of money as she has expensive tastes.  She continues to taunt Kramer about his age, his lack of employment, his experiments — at this point, I was wishing this was an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

He gets angry with her, telling that a “counter-girl” should be thrilled to marry Dr. Franz Kramer.  He is giving this cocktease a little too much credit as she hasn’t worked her way up from waitress to counter-girl yet.  He shows her his miracle solvent that could make him financially solvent if he just sold it.  He tosses in lab equipment — which in the 1950’s naturally included an ashtray — which she watches dissolve in the liquid.  To be fair, he does mention that the giant beaker is made of the only substance immune to diatomic water, and only he knows the secret.

ttworldwater04Lane and Nelson learn that Boston, New Haven, Baltimore and now Philadelphia are now underwater, and not just from corruption and lavish government pensions.  They can’t quite figure out what connects them.  I wonder . . .

When Kramer learns his niece has been killed in an atomic blast, he cracks up.  He promises “they are going to pay!”  Then he vanished.  Like Nicki.  I wonder . . .

Lane and Nelson get an update that new pools have formed in Atlantic City, Wilmington and Scranton.  This leads Lane to proclaim that the floods are moving inland!  Well, I’ll give you Scranton, but Wilmington is pretty close to the ocean and Atlantic City has a bloody boardwalk on the ocean.  Christ, did no one on this show own an atlas?  Or finish 6th grade?

They find Dr. Kramer sitting outside Lane’s office.  Inexplicably Lane just goes on his merry way; well, as merry as possible, given the destruction of 5 great cities and Baltimore.  Kramer takes responsibility for the disasters, but has a demand, which he doesn’t ever actually demand.

ttworldwater13The police interview anyone who knew him.  Sadly, they begin with Nicki who I  hoped had been liquefied.  His landlady correctly speculates that the death of his niece set him off.  Lane rants that Kramer must be found or we risk the entire earth being submerged. “This is a manhunt that must be successful!  Our world is drowning!”  The episode closes with stock footage from various floods.

So, like a Batman villain, Kramer is creating floods all along the east coast.  However, even by the end of the episode, he never reveals what his demand is.  Some men just want to watch the world flood.

Another lackluster episode.  A little more science-fictiony than last week, but that’s not saying much.

Post-Post:

  • [1] In fact, my last two visits there were so disgusting I will never go back.  But I digress.
  • Kramer’s discovery was the anti-Ice-Nine.
  • Capital vs Capitol.
  • How can anyone not like Waterworld?