Author Archives: don

Ray Bradbury Theater – Fee Fie Foe Fum (10/28/92)

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rbtfeefifofum03Fee fi fo fum / I smell the blood of an Englishman / Be he live or be he dead / I’ll grind his bones to make my bread.

This always pissed me off.

If you’re going to make up nonsense words, why wouldn’t you make one up that actually rhymes with Englishman?  Or, as part of the evil conservative War on Women, you could smell the blood of an Englishmum.  I don’t guess I can blame Ray Bradbury for this since that little ditty is 500 years old.

A man pulls up to Edith Bunker‘s house.  It isn’t clear who he is, but he comes in and gives the much-younger Lucy Lawless — holy crap, Lucy Lawless! — a kiss on the lips. [UPDATE — he is revealed to be her husband, Tom].

He seems very excited that he has brought Lucy and grandma Edith a Mr. Muncher garbage disposal, Mr. Fusion having not yet been invented.  Whoever he is, he’s a better man than me — he is able to install a garbage disposal; and bag Lucy Lawless.  He gets an inordinate amount of joy feeding bones into his prized unit — the disposal, not Lucy.  Edith however, even all the way upstairs locked in her room, is terrified by the machine.

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Hmmm, how can we here at RBT best feature Lucy’s beautiful blue eyes? Let’s use a blue filter so they blend into the background!

The next morning after after bread-winner Lucy leaves for work to support them and Tom leaves to goof off — this guy is quickly becoming my hero.  Edith goes downstairs to inspect this new monster Tom has installed.  Hearing it gurgle, she finds a feather in the drain, and her pet bird is missing from its cage.  She suspects Tom will next feed her bones into the Mr. Muncher next and steal her money.

Edith thinks she hears Tom chopping up her cat and dog and feeding them into the disposal. After he leaves the house, she finds the disposal gurgling again and finds cat fur in the drain.

That night, Edith sneaks down to the kitchen and talks to the disposal.  Then she goes out to the garage where she has hidden her animals.  So the old woman is framing her son-in-law which doesn’t explain why she was so aghast when she thought he had pulverized her pets.

rbtfeefifofum08The next day, she gives Lucy & Tom $500 to go on a vacation.  Tom returns early, having forgotten his fishing lures.  Edith corners him with a hatchet and . . . and  . . . I don’t know what the hell happened.  At first I thought she was going to chop him up the old fashioned way and feed him into the disposal like the bones that brought him such pleasure.  Then there were hellish flashing lights and pictures of the disposal’s grinding teeth, so I thought he was going to somehow be dragged into it whole.

But in the next scene, Tom and Lucy are loading up the car to move away.  Lucy seems OK, but Tom is pretty twitchy.  Edith is now a big fan of the machine and even invites the mailman in to see it.  In a good show, she would have fed him into the Muncher.  Or something.  Anything.

rbtfeefifofum01Post-Post:

  • Finally a New Zealand episode that makes use of the country’s fabulous natural resources, namely Lucy Lawless.
  • Only 2 more episodes to go.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents – Listen, Listen! (05/11/58)

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ahplistenlisten02Things get off to a pretty fishy start as old man Jasper P. Smith walks into a police station; fishy because there is no Jasper P. Smith in the credits.  Mr.  Smith has come to explain to the police how their investigation of The Stocking Murders has gone awry.  This will go well because if there is anything the police love more than people who know their rights, it is people telling them how to do their jobs [1].

He believes the 3rd so-called Stocking Murder is merely a copycat.  Which is a sound theory — I would expect the Stocking Murderer to stop at a pair; or at least a multiple of two.  So maybe there is an odd number of murders to come.  The detective assures him that “it just so happens that the Stocking Murders are sewn up tight.”  Ha!  Good one!

But even more importantly to the detective, the 3rd murder took place in a different precinct.  He sends the alleged Jasper to see Lt. King at the 51st precinct.  Smith goes to the 51st and introduces himself as Cyrus Morgan — I knew it!  Morgan tells Lt. King his take on the case.

ahplistenlisten04“Three girls, all very young, all living in walk-up apartments.”  And all three were super-models (although that is an assumption on my part).  “Three weeks ago, the first girl was found by the cleaning woman in her pajamas.” Although how she got in the cleaning woman’s pajamas, he doesn’t know. She was strangled with the titular stockings and had an “A” scrawled on her forehead with lipstick.  As was the 2nd girl, as was the third.

Smith/Morgan suggests that once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, and three times is enemy action.  [2]  After seeing the pattern of the first two murders, a killer would count on the police to assume the third was the same killer.  The lieutenant repeatedly tells the old man not to waste his time as he is 30 and will be retiring with a lifetime pension shortly.

ahplistenlisten06After being ejected from the police station, Smith / Morgan goes to the newspaper.  He is informed that there are no reporters in the building.  They are all off-duty and hanging at Ace’s Bar & Grill; this still being the era when journalists wrapped their lips around a bottle of hooch rather than a politician’s ass.

He finds Mr. Beekman of The Chronicle.  Smith/Morgan introduces himself as Ralph Reid, being the first person in history to change their to Ralph. Beekman introduces a dame at the bar who gives her name as Slats.  Smith / Morgan / Reid gets flustered at the woman (and the 2 sherries in his tea-totaling system) and bails from the bar.

He next tries a church, which apparently investigated murders in the 1950’s (child abuse, not so much).  He gives his name this time as Herbert Johnson.  He tells his theory to the priest.  The priest also dismisses him; he is an old man, after all.

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A jarringly cinematic shot in a visually blah episode. Not least of which, because the scene is set at night.

Smith / Morgan / Reid / Johnson goes home to his wife.  There is a twist, but not the one I had been dreading for the previous 20 minutes; that’s the good news. The bad news is that the twist used is inadequate in two ways.  First, while it is certainly unexpected, it has absolutely zero foreshadowing.  Second, it is not even clear what happened.

Mrs. Johnson washes her hands and reaches for a towel.  The actual washing goes on a couple of beats too long, and is dwelt upon like it should have some significance. She then goes to get the towel with hands that are deliberately held as gnarled or arthritic even though she had no trouble lathering up.  She opens a drawer and removes a towel revealing lipstick and stockings hidden beneath.

Herbert says he can’t go back and tell the truth now, “no one would believe that a mother could do such a thing.”  Well, maybe if he had mentioned the mother angle to anyone.  The camera pans up to Mrs. Johnson sporting a big smile.

So, Johnson is right that the 3rd murder was a copycat.  But was it done by the girl’s mother or by the grinning Mrs. Johnson?  There is always the possibility that I am dumb as a post (or this post), but I really had to work through this to figure out what happened. Ultimately, it was a good twist, just maybe needed to be set up a little better.

UPDATE: I rewatched the episode in 2018, and reread this post.  Holy crap was I totally wrong on some things.  For the real story, as always, go to barebones ezine.

Post-Post:

  • [1] Actually, this blog is pro-police.  This is just an example of how easy it is to take cheap shots.
  • [2] Actually, looking at this 3 years later, he suggested no such thing.
  • AHP Deathwatch: Jackie Loughery and James Westmoreland are still with us.
  • Jackie Loughery (the awesomely-named Slats) was not only Miss USA in 1952, she was married to Jack Webb.
  • Hulu sucks.

Twilight Zone S4 – The Thirty-Fathom Grave (01/10/63)

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South Pacific Ocean, 1963.  The number on the Destroyer’s bow is 944, but a life preserver shows the number 946.  Guess if you’re drowning it wouldn’t make much difference to you.

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The bridge crew is kind of an all-star cast depending on how you define star — The Incredible Hulk (not him . . . no, the other guy . . . no, the other other guy . . . no, before him), Kolchak‘s editor, Panicky Pete from The Corbomite Maneuver and Gomer Pyle’s commanding officer.

Captain Beecham goes below to have a chat with the Chief Bos’n’s Mate about the missing letters in his title.  If I ever had a opportunity to use the word fo’c’sle, this would be it.  But I got nothing.

Beacham is sympathetic toward the CBM, which is surprising as Simon Oakland usually portrays hotheads.  Chief Bell is distracted for reasons tied to a mysterious object that the ship’s sonar has located the titular 30 fathoms below.  Even more strange, is a metallic clanging that seems to be coming from the object.  Even more stranger, it is audible to other crew-members who are not listening to the sonar.  This is too much for Chief Bell who passes out on the deck.

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Bell is not the only one affected. The rapping causes the other sailors to gaze lovingly into their crew-mates’ eyes.

Beacham orders diver McClure to go down to investigate.  McClure is lowered over the side in a suit that looks like Captain Nemo would have used it (I don’t know, maybe it was state of the art in 1963).  While on the ocean floor, McClure hears the rapping which sounds like a retired New York City cop banging on the inside of the hull near the propeller shaft.

McClure reports back that he bets his life there is someone inside that sub.  He says the sub seems to be — tee hee — stuck in deep, but not tight.  In some blatant padding that the hour-long Thriller seemed not to resort to, Beacham orders McClure to dive again.  McClure sees a 714 on the hull and the Captain finds it registered as a sub which sank in the area 20 years earlier.

30fathomgrave06This is the most offensive rapping Bell has heard from a vehicle without spinning rims.  At first it just causes a restlessness in him, and later he is actually seeing ghostly images of crewmates who died when he was the sole survivor of a sinking ship. They seem to be beckoning him to join them.

Beacham still thinks there might be someone in the sub.  He proposes “kicking the door in” apparent forgetting that it is under water, under great pressure, and metal.  One of his officers reminds him of these facts and he opts to radio the fleet for a rescue vehicle instead.  This is really a bonehead comment by the otherwise intelligent Captain.  I suspect it was more padding to get this episode up to an hour.

Still running short, Serling — I mean, Beacham — sends McClure down for a third time to investigate the rapping.  If only there were some sort of code that could be used to communicate through the sounds.  McClure surfaces and shows the captain a set of dogtags that he found below — with Chief Bell’s name on them.

30fathomgrave09Beacham confronts Bell with the tags.  Bell says he lost them 20 years ago when his sub sank — the one now below them.  He made a mistake with a light filter and the Japs sank the sub, leaving only Bell as the survivor. Now the crew is calling him to join them.  Wracked with guilt, he escapes the sick bay and dives into the ocean.

Rather than anyone diving in after him, or even tossing out the mis-numbered life preserver, the ship seems to scramble everyone in the crew and at a glacier’s pace lowers a boat full of men to pursue him . . . very sloooowly lowers them.

McClure takes a forth trip down and actually enters the sub.  There was a loose piece of equipment that could have made the clanging.  Or maybe it was the sailor who died with a hammer in his hand.

This was a fine episode that would have made a great 30-minute Twilight Zone.  Or, dare I say it, the variable Night Gallery length would have served it well.  It looks great, being filmed on an actually ship instead of the cardboard sets we sometimes get.  The performances are uniformly — ha! — great, especially from the surprisingly compassionate Captain and the tortured Chief.

Despite the bloat, I give it 25 fathoms.

Post-Post:

  • This one reminds me of one of the all-time great concepts for a movie.  In Goliath Awaits, a ship sinks and somehow the passengers manage to seal out the water, manufacture oxygen and survive under the sea for years.  I’ve admired this plot for decades, but somehow never got around to watching the movie.  There’s no way it could live up to my expectations.  Oh crap, all 3 hours of it are on YouTube.
  • I saw the credit for Lee Helmsman and thought it was the character’s name, or maybe a reversal of e.g. Helmsman Sulu; or like Minnie Driver.  But apparently it is a thing.
  • Coincidence that the Chief’s name is Bell, and the rescue equipment would be a bell.  There is no real point, so it is just an unnecessary distraction.

Tales From the Crypt – Food for Thought (10/06/93)

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tftcfoodthought12Tales From the Crypt’s visits to the carny have not been very successful for me.  From Lower Berth to Dig that Cat, they just fall flat.  Maybe that’s because carnivals have too much natural overlap with the cruel, campy narrative that a good episode should have.  You can go over the top, but you can’t go over the big-top.

Or maybe I am uncharacteristically on the fence over the exploitation of people who are different.  Say what you will about society’s treatment of the bearded lady, she ain’t laying on a couch collecting unemployment and becoming the fat lady.  The market has spoken.

Under the opening credits, we get a great unbroken shot of a midget with a withered arm, a midget playing an accordion, a giant, a gorilla in a dress, coupla topless floozies, a clown, a strongman, a tattooed guy, more midgets, a bearded lady and finally ending up 2 minutes later on the very interesting pixie-haired noggin of Carnie Connie (Joan Chen).

tftcfoodthought04Zambini is yelling at Connie to let him into her mind for a little light reading. She can read his mind, but he wants to liven up the act.  After frying up a flaming dinner and chowing down, Zambini tells her he wants some “desert, the kind that only Connie can give.”  It is a little disconcerting that while she is hearing his lurid thought, his Gene Simmonsesque tongue is licking his plate.  More disconcerting, he is salaciously licking the china while psychically broadcasting his desires — is this a subtle un-PC joke on the Chinese Ms. Chen?  If so, I kind of have to say kudos.  Anyhoo, he gets his wish and we see that she doubles as a sword-swallower.

In the next show, she demonstrates that she is genuinely psychic.  She should be playing the bigger rooms; or at least the bigger tents.  After the show she wants to hang out with the other acts, but Zambini orders her back to his wagon.  Things get a little too melodramatic as the fire-eater stands up for her.  She sneaks out to hook up with him, but her orgasmic thoughts are broadcast back to Zambini, who hears her thoughts for the first time.

tftcfoodthought14We are treated to the Siamese Twins in the shower and see that they are joined at the breasts.  Interesting, but frankly they took the trouble to cast sisters and talked them into getting naked.  Mucking up their naughty bits with hokey make-up was not a good use of that resource; the hip would have been fine.  However it is a nice bit as one of the midgets sneaks under the door.  More kudos for the sound effect was he wipes his goggles clean (see, it really doesn’t take much to make me happy).

Connie has decided to escape with the fire-eater.  Zambini psychically hears her plan. That night, he dowses the fire-eater with gasoline and lights him up.  Connie sees the burnt body and runs back to the wagon to pack.

That night, Zambini gets boozed up and tries to psychically summon Connie back to the wagon. He hears, “I hear you, I’m coming.”  Then he hears up on the rooftop, click click click [1].  He sees movement through the skylight, then a body drops through the glass to the floor — it is the gorilla.  It is the gorilla’s inside voice saying, “this is for you, Johnny Fire-eater.”  In no time, he has the top of Zambini’s head off like Ray Liotta in Hannibal and is chowing down on brains.

tftcfoodthought19It was the gorilla’s mind that Zambini had been reading.  Johnny Fire-Eater had been nice to the gorilla, so she was jealous of Connie and fur-ious when Zambini killed him.

There is a great idea here, and the performers and sets are all pretty great.  The direction and an overly melodramatic score, however, brutally undermine the episode. Even at about 20 minutes (excluding the Cryptkeeper, as I do) it drags despite its many assets.

Post-Post:

  • [1] What exactly was making that click click click noise?  Is there an alternate ending where Herbie wants to be a tap-dancer?
  • Title Analysis: It really only makes sense in the last few seconds of the episode, and even then it would be more on-target if reversed.
  • I enjoyed seeing Kathryn Howell and Margaret Howell in the opening credits.  I’ve never heard of them, but I deduced immediately that they would play Siamese Twins.  It made me feel smart, like Sherlock Holmes.  The game is a 3rd foot, Watson!
  • Sadly unable to work in a Zamboni reference.