Brad Meredith (Ross Martin) returns to the office after a cruise with the missus. Maybe it is a forgotten 70’s custom, but he is welcomed back to the office with a huge vase of roses. I just returned after a few days off and didn’t get shit.
His oddly hot secretary (could have been Kitty’s mother on Arrested Development) is catching him up on mail and hands him a strange hand-written note suggesting that he might find something of interest on Page 5 of the March 14th newspaper. He is startled to see an article titled “Go-Go Dancer Mysteriously Slain”. 23 year old Marilou Doubleday, a dancer at a local topless bar has been found dead.
At the golf club, he finds that another letter has surreptitiously been slipped into his coat pocket. This one instructs him that full instructions can be found in his glove compartment. The valet gets his Caddy . . . or did the caddy get his valet? No, the valet gets his Caddy. Sure enough, in the glove compartment, there is more information. And isn’t it about time we found a new name for the glove compartment / glove box? Is anyone still storing their Dick Dastardly goggles and gloves in these things? Of course, maybe the goofy concept of measuring the engine by the number of horses it equals should be the first step into the 21st century.
Someone has left a picture of the topless girl — sadly only a head-shot — and a map. He is instructed to bring the money at 11 pm or “tardiness will produce lamentable results.” Who wrote this thing, William F. Buckley? Stating the amount of money might have been helpful, but maybe it’s like an interview — never limit yourself by saying how much you can earn in a year.
Also, the map is utterly useless. He is presumably starting from San Bernardino, then is to veer off to the right onto an unnamed road. That road shows an X at the 7-mile mark for no discernible reason. Then the maps says “To Hesperia 11 Mi.” It then shows the unnamed road meandering to a T junction labelled Hesperia. On the other hand, it is easy to refold and takes up little room in the glove compartment (means nothing to the GPS generation, I know).
That night, he heads out to Hisperia (in blatant disregard for Hesperia as mentioned in the letter). He stops at a sign that says Hisperia 11 Mi. — just as was indicated on the map — to check his briefcase, cash, and gun. After resuming, he swerves to avoid a fallen telephone pole and runs aground, requiring him to hoof it the rest of the way.
He finds a house with the lights on. Getting no answer at the door, he lets himself him; as you do. He is startled by Burl Ives who tells him the phone is out — hey, foreshadowing! — and he can’t loan out the car without consulting Sonny who is at the movies.
He is shocked when Ives locks him in a room. Even more so when he sees several pictures with the faces cut out. The head-shot he found in his glove compartment perfectly fits one of them. Ives re-enters with a shotgun and says that was his grand-daughter, Sonny’s sister in the picture.
Meredith attempts to escape, but Ives’ wild dogs keep him in the house. He managed to shoot several of them, but only has one bullet left. And Ive’s ominously reminds him that Sonny is on the way. He does, however, taunt Meredith that there is the titular “one way out.”
There are two twists. Neither are original, but both are always fun tropes, so no hard feelings. Pretty good episode marred only by the absolute-zero performance of Sonny. He could have been hammy, campy, horrific, comedic, almost anything. Sadly he was an absolute nothing. Still, he played a certain part and left Meredith wimpering in horror, so ya gotta respect that.
Post-Post:
- Twilight Zone Legacy: Ross Martin was in 2 episodes.
- $10,000 in 1972 dollars would be $57,000 in 2015.
Is there a source story available to read?
exactly what i was thinking when I watched this.
I dunno where to start with this one. The anomalies/clichés abound: he conveniently has a run-in with a felled pole, so Meredith has to hoof it to some strange, eerie house in the middle of nowhere…..at night, no less; Meredith attempts escape, only to be chased by a pack of wild dogs (where were they when he originally arrived?); he’s armed with both a gun and a baseball bat, but can’t defend himself?
Any idiot knows that if you whack a dog, any dog, on their schnozzola, they will retreat. Maybe the plot should have explored a more interesting path, ie: even if he escaped from the property, how would he return to the city? His vehicle is out of commission, the house is located off a deserted road, nobody knows his whereabouts, etc.
This may be a tale of vengeance, but we find out early on that Meredith wasn’t the only businessman involved in the (accidental) death of a stripper, so why did he respond to the extortionist’s demand? Could it be that Meredith has been silently tormenting himself all this time? Old Man Doubleday admits he sent the blackmail letter out to all men involved, but only Meredith responded.
Yes, it’s sad that the stripper left behind a small (and possibly autistic) child, but again, it was an ACCIDENTAL DEATH, not a premeditated homicide. Ives’s character isn’t merely content with doling out justice: he appears to take sadistic glee in torturing the poor man, before leaving him alone with a broken leg in the cellar to die of starvation – the “other way out” being a bullet Ives tosses down.
I felt sorrow and compassion for Meredith – and a simmering anger toward the old man. In my screenplay, we would discover that he wanted to kill the businessman to assuage his own guilt over having sexually abused Sonny’s mother in years past. It would also provide a rationale as to why a single mother with a young son would go into such a sleazy profession.
Meredith responded to the letter because he was the killer. Bringing the money confirmed this. Besides the dogs not there when he arrived, the old man could have released them later; he did disappear after he locked Merideth in. I thought it was a flawless story line.
Great episode of night Gallery.