Act One

Scruffy Ernie Walters shuffles into the Department of State Revenue office. ^[1]  He worries that he might have shuffled into tomorrow’s Science Fiction Theatre when he sees a city employee working through lunch.

The clerk worries when Ernie pulls out a pistol.   He orders the clerk to clean out the cash drawer and the safe.  Sadly, unlike my favorite YouTube videos, the clerk does not take the gun from him and whip his ass.  Ernie takes the bag of cash and leaves peacefully.  He does not seem to be a professional since he does not have the classic round bag with a dollar sign on it, and also he drops a hotel key by the door.

He takes a cab and gives the driver a $10 spot for a $.90 fare.  Gee, that’s the kind of thing a cabbie might remember!  He goes to see his gal Florrie.  She does not recognize him until he removes his false teeth and facial appliances.  As he changes clothes, he says he was just released from prison today after serving 6 years for a robbery another man just confessed to. Only on 1960’s TV would this jailbird be more interested in putting on a man’s suit than taking off a woman’s clothes.

Ernie tells Florrie that they are going to Palma del Rio.  He will be joining her a week later, though.  He wants time to get even with Detective Cooper and the DA who put him away for the crime he didn’t commit.

Meanwhile, Cooper is elated that the Hotel Room matching that key has been found and the register was signed by Ernie Walters.  He goes to the room, kicks in the door and roughs Ernie up without a warrant.  Cooper taunts him about dropping the key.  However, Ernie shows him that he still has his key.  The manager confirms that he did not give out any duplicates.  Not only that, the manger vouches for Ernie’s honesty because no kale or Lucky Strikes are missing from the mini-bar (the mini-bar concept didn’t really take off until 1963 when Joe Snickers Jr. convinced his father that their product could also be enjoyed orally).

However, Ernie admits he has no alibi for the time of the robbery, so they still take him downtown.  The city worker, the cab driver, a biker, and an Indian chief are brought in to pick him out of a line-up.  They all pick Ernie out initially, but upon closer questioning, they aren’t so sure.  Finally, they refuse to identify him, but do helpfully suggest accommodations cheaper than the hotel.

Early heterosexual prototype of The Village People.

Cooper still wants to charge him, but the DA refuses.  The DA wants to cut a deal, but Ernie refuses.   The DA starts to wise up and realizes that Ernie is doing this to get back at them for the earlier false conviction.  Ernie mocks them for their lack of evidence and lack of reliable witnesses.  He dares them to go into court, especially since he will tell the jury about how these same 2 guys bungled his earlier case.  The DA tells him to get out of town and Ernie, with a smirk, says he can afford to.

Act Two

Uh, it must be here somewhere.  I feel like flipping the script over — like when you’re looking for cash in an empty birthday card, or looking for the continuation of the English instructions for setting up a new TV. ^[2]  But there is nothing.  That was it.

The concept is actually fine and self-contained, but it still feels unfinished.  Maybe because there were no real stakes for Cooper and the DA.  Sure, Ernie is getting away with $12,000 and taking Delores del Rio to Florida, but how are the lawmen suffering?  They have an unsolved case, but it’s not like the city will make them repay the loss.  And, yes, they are steamed at being hustled by Ernie.  But, they are unrepentant about the 6 years Ernie served, so I think they’ll get over this pretty quickly.

Two things to keep you entertained during this episode:  1) Try to make young Rip Torn look like old Rip Torn.  I just couldn’t do it; not even when he took off the disguise.  2)  Try not to picture the clerk’s head on a Jack-in-the Box.  I couldn’t do that either, but at least it got me to rewatch that great TZ episode on Netflix.

Verdict:  Some good stuff.  It was especially good at showing the evolution of the witnesses and Ernie nailing the ruse.  Good enough for me to get out the DVDs so I can get pictures that are not stretched out with a Book Television watermark?  Naaaaaaah.

Other Stuff

• [1]  It is hardly worth noting (which describes this entire post), but the papers on the wall behind Ernie are beautiful.  Not only are they perfectly spaced, they are full of different texts and charts.  Kudos for this extra effort before the invention of Word, Excel, HDTV, and Red Bull.
• [2]  I literally unplugged my TV when Lost went off the air.  After 11 years, I finally got a new one.  Can I just get a simple f***ing diagram of the cable layout?  Is the DVD Player before the cable box or just plugged directly to the TV?  But thanks for wasting ink covering the Angle button on the DVD Remote that I have not seen used once in my 500 DVDs.
• BTW, the novelty of a giant TV lasted about an hour.  Most of the current programing is shit.  For the last 10 years I have watched movies on a laptop sitting on my chest.  When the screen is 6 inches from your eyes, every movie is IMAX!

Elliot Grey has come to see his sweetie Enid.  We know they did not meet via a personal ad because her name is Enid . . . too risky.  She is ready to go out on the town, but Elliot wants to stay in and they can drink the wine he brought.

He is getting angry that Enid does not want to stay in.  He says, “Come on Enid, for the 2 months we’ve known each other, we’ve rushed around like every show was going to close and every restaurant was going to run out of food.”  So I guess they met in January 2020.  Elliot also confronts her on why he can’t see her on Saturday nights.  Enid confesses that there is another man.  His name is Cyril Hardeen and she describes him as very kind and gentle as if Elliot might want to be pals with the guy himself.  She also reveals that he is 54, which sounds entirely appropriate to me since Enid is 24.

Elliot is understandably angry that Enid has been jerking him around, but not off.  She accuses him, “You’re not even trying to understand!”  Well, I’m trying, and I don’t get it either.  The sap is willing to listen to her side of the story, so he is clearly no Alpha Man.  Maybe not even a Beta Man.  He gets about as much action as Omega Man.  

Enid says she met Cyril 4 years ago.  When she met Elliot, she tried to break it off with Cyril, but just couldn’t.  She says if Elliot could see how Cyril treated her, he would understand.  Elliot finally shows some spine and says, “It’s him or me!”

Enid: Say the magic words.  You know what they are.

Elliot:  Alright, I love you.  Is that what you want to hear?

Enid:  The words are alright, but the tone’s not so hot.

That was pretty good.  He relents and gives her a real I Love You and a kiss.  She says she will dump Cyril.  After the dumping, Cyril invites Elliot to his palatial home.   This episode was so tedious and unbelievable, that I was ready to bail at the half-way mark.

However, it gets interesting again when Cyril describes himself as the titular throwback and says it is necessary for he and Elliot to literally fight it out for Enid.  Because of the age difference, like Louis XIV, Cyril is going to engage another man’s services.  Unlike Louis XIV, it will not be a Pi Man.  He describes how historical dicks like Louis XIV and Napoleon used surrogates to fight their duals the same way rich Medieval Catholics used Indulgences, US Civil War Draftees used the Enrollment Act, and John Kerry uses Carbon Offsets. ^[1]

Fortuitously, Cyril has a surrogate standing by.  He calls Joseph in to join them.  Holy crap — this guy is the American Oddjob! ^[2]  

Elliot can read the writing on the wall, or could if there was a big sign on the wall that said, “You’re going to get your ass kicked.”  As he excuses himself to leave, Joseph socks him in the jaw.  Elliot gets in a couple of shots, but Joseph gives him a good beat down.  After Elliot leaves, Cyril and Joseph put on boxing gloves.

At home, as Elliot is tending to his wounds, two cops show up.  They take him to Cyril’s house.  Elliot sees Cyril battered from Joseph’s punches.  Enid is by his side.  She accuses Elliot of using this stunt to prove he was younger and stronger than Cyril.  She refuses to believe he was framed.  

Like every episode of Columbo, this case would have probably unraveled in court.  Cyril’s mistake was wimping out and using boxing gloves for his own beating.  

The twist was fun, but it was a slog getting there.  Scott Marlowe as Elliot had no presence at all.  Joyce Meadows as Enid was barely adequate.  She certainly did not seem likely to inspire men to fight over her.  My beef with Murray Matheson as Cyril is stated below.

So, not a great week, but at least it wasn’t The Throwback.

Other Stuff:

• [1] Could also have mentioned corrupt politicians of both parties sending young people into endless bullshit wars.
• [2] Yes, of course, an American could be of Korean or other POC heritage, but this was 1950’s TV.  Also, Oddjob was already a Korean character played by a Japanese actor, so let’s not be pedantic.
• AHP Deathwatch:  Joyce Meadows, who I always think was on the Honeymooners, is still with us.  Among the dead:  Bert Remsen who I confuse with Fred Rumsen from Mad Men, and Murray Matheson who I am always disappointed is not Murray Hamilton.  Maybe 54 is pretty old.
• Cheers for Elliot pronouncing the word PAY-tronizing instead of PATT-ronizing.  I have never once heard the PATT version in real life, but you never hear the PAY version on TV.  OK, I think I remember once on, ironically, the TV show Cheers.  God, the amount of my brain cells wasted on TV.
• Jeers for Cyril saying Louis Quatorze rather than Louis the Fourteenth.  
• As always, a more coherent recap and background can be found at bare*bones e-zine.

Ahhhh . . . it’s nice to be back in a safe space after disastrous outings with Tales of the Unexpected and One Step Beyond.   You can always count on Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

Oh bloody hell!  Can’t we have a nice simple murder in America?  Just to further rub 2020 in my face, the episode stars Dean Stockwell.  He might be interesting in small doses, but he is on the Mount Rushmore of stunningly bad, but successful, actors with Elliott Gould and Bill Paxton.  Here he plays — as always — Dean Stockwell.  Even this is beyond his grasp as he is required to speak with an English accent.

The episode is somewhat redeemed when the first face we see is 77 year old Burt Mustin playing a 100 year old man as he did throughout his entire career.  Those unfamiliar with Burt might appreciate the realistic British makeup; but no, those are his real teeth.  He is given nothing to do here, but it’s always good to see Burt Mustin.^[1]

Four chaps in a pub are discussing some local burglaries when Dean Stockwell comes in.  He is just off the train and orders a sandwich and beer.  When the bartender has trouble opening the register, Stockwell is able to open it with his Swiss Army Knife.  The chaps think this incriminates him as the local burglar.

Stockwell then goes to rent a room from the titular landlady.   When he signs the register, the two previous guests’ names sound familiar to him.  

Speaking of familiar names, the credits contain a couple.  The screenplay is by the great Robert Bloch.  The original short story was written by the great Roald Dahl.  The mystery of this episode is how two such esteemed writers came up with such a mediocrity. 

Reviews on multiple sites rave about the episode so, as always, I will assume I’m missing something.  It is so vacuous that I can’t even continue.

Hmm . . . written by Roald Dahl.  I wonder if it will show up on Tales of the Unexpected?  Oh my God, it’s in the house!  The TOTU adaptation of The Landlady is up next in rotation.  Given how TOTU botched the great Lamb to the Slaughter, I am not optimistic about what they will do with this.

See you tomorrow after I watch it.  And by “tomorrow”, I mean 2 weeks.

Other Stuff:

• [1]  Just to emphasize how old he is, Wiki says he used to be a salesman for Oakland Motor Cars.  
• His minute role here is strange given that he was already established as a character actor.  In fact, the same month this aired, he reprised his seminal role as Gus the Fireman on Leave it to Beaver for the 11th time.
• A more positive review is available at bare*bones.

Movie producer Hal Ballew is looking through a book on entomology to get ideas for a new monster movie.  He and his screenwriter Fred Logan are unable to come up with a bug that hasn’t been used before.  The crafty Ballew switches gears and tells Logan, “Think you can come up with a high school background?  All those kidddds, full of liiiife!”  Before Ballew can suggest Cuties, Logan blurts out, “Ernst von Croft, the [titular] greatest monster of them all!”  And that’s how Cuties spent 59 years in Development Hell.

Ernst von Croft was an actor in 1930s movies who appeared as hideous, nightmare-inducing characters on-screen just like Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, and Bette Davis.

Ballew brings von Croft into the office and introduces him to his director Morty Lenton.  The actor is perfectly cast — an old cadaverous gent that would have fit right in with the Universal monster classics.  Lenton warns him that this is only a low budget joint.  Von Croft tells him that it can still be a very good picture. “Great films are not made with money.  They are made with love, with care, with integrity.”  I hope the hacks in Hollywood get that because most screenings I’ve seen on Fandango have sold zero tickets lately.

Von Croft still believes they can make a great picture, even after Ballew tells him the writer is no Edgar Albert Poe.  He goes into character, draping his jacket over his shoulders like a cape, wrestling Lenton to the ground, and going for his neck.  Just finding a neck on the tubby Lenton was a feat in itself.  Ballew gives him the job and von Croft even volunteers to do his own make-up.

Blah, blah, blah.  The rest of the episode is confusing and tedious.

• When Lenton suggests von Croft play the vampire with no teeth, what does that even mean?
• How is the movie playing in theaters without the producer ever having seen it?
• But wait, Ballew tells Logan that Lenton did a great job.  So did he see it?  Did he approve of the changes?  Surely not, because he would not have risked damaging the film’s success.
• Von Croft and Logan are in the theater.  The young audience is digging the suspense and horror.  However, when von Croft’s character speaks for the first time, the audience begins laughing bigly.  Lenton has dubbed in a voice that is identical to Bugs Bunny.  Why?  Was it because von Croft knocked him down?  If so, there was zero indication of his desire for revenge.
• Von Croft and Logan are humiliated.  Logan gets drunk that night and visits von Croft.  VC (because I’m tired of typing von Croft) angrily makes a point that the director kept insisting on close-ups and that Logan was complicit.  What do close-ups have to do with the cartoon voice?  If anything, wouldn’t you want long shots so the dubbing as less obvious?
• Later that night, at the studio, the writer finds Lenton dead with two puncture marks in his neck.  But when we see VC, he has a knife.  Did he bite Lenton or stab him?  The bite was not bloody enough to kill him, so maybe it was both.
• VC dies leaping from some scaffolding.  Did he actually think he was a vampire?  Did he always, or did the humiliation of the film and paying $8 for popcorn trigger him?
• Logan finds Ballew injured but alive.  Logan explains VC’s actions, “We should have remembered . . . he was the greatest monster of them all.”  Hunh?  There was no history of violence with the actor.  He seemed like a good guy.  Is Logan confusing the actor with his roles?

So I am just baffled by the motivations and some of the dialog.  Jack at bare*bones seems to like this episode, which always makes me conclude that I’ve missed something.

Really an off night for AHP.  I rate this episode a Phantom of the Opera out of the Universal Classic Monsters box set. ^[1]

Other Stuff:

• [1]  Actually, Phantom might be great, I just haven’t gotten around to watching it . . . in the 6 years I’ve owned the box set.
• The appearance of Robert H. Harris here is jarring.  I have previously pointed out how this bald, dumpy, middle-aged guy always seemed to be a hit with the ladies in other AHP episodes.  Typically, he would be in a suit with a bow-tie, and a snazzy hat.  Here, however, he is wearing a golf shirt.  Whether this is due to him being a care-free Hollywood producer or due to the general degradation of society in the early 1960’s, I couldn’t say.  But I think we know the answer.
• One bright spot is Meri Welles. Her brief performance is an aloof dimwit actress is fun.  She was last seen playing another dimwit actress in Madame Mystery.  Not so funny, she died at 36.
• William Redfield went on to 2 noted roles:  Felix’s brother in one episode of The Odd Couple ^[2] and Harding in One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest ^[3] (great, now I have to stay up and watch that on Netflix).
• [2]  He only gets a mention in that episode.  But, holy crap, has there ever been a better written and acted show?
• [3]  Wow, now that I’m older, Nurse Ratched was actually pretty hot.  No, I’m not watching the series.
• Why are the AHP aspect ratios always screwed up on dailymotion?  That means I have to walk alllllll the way across the room and put a disk in the DVD player to get some pictures.  No wonder COVID has turned me into Robert H. Harris.

Keenan Wynn is struggling in a strait jacket.  No, his fellow actors did not have him committed for voting for Nixon last year.  He is playing the self-titled Great Ferlini, a member of the only modern profession other than Russian Empress or actor to exalt themselves that way — Escape Artist. ^[1] His assistant Wanda brings out a screen to block the audience’s view which, frankly, is not usually required in this stunt.  C’mon man, Harry Houdini did it hanging upside down from a crane.  Martin Riggs did it in a Police Station.  A few seconds later Ferlini emerges holding the strait jacket and blows Wanda a kiss.

In the dressing room, Wanda says his agent Harry is taking them to dinner.  She asks Ferlini not to bring up the “water trick”, in which he drinks a glass of water and a waiter actually returns to refill it before the check comes.  She says it is dangerous at his age, which enrages him.  He says, “I seen 10 new wrinkles on your face in the past week, sugar!”  He roughly grabs her head and shouts, “Who you calling an old man, hunh?”  He berates her for not keeping in shape like him.

At dinner, Ferlini tries to convince Harry that the water trick will work.  Even though it’s old, the new generation has not seen it.  Harry finally relents and asks how Ferlini would do it.  He maps out a strategy including controlled breathing, ropes, chains, a skeleton key, hand-cuffs, razor blades, and a sack — all stuff he fortuitously picked up from the kink.com auction.

The next day when Ferlini is swimming in the lake, Harry goes to see Wanda.  She says every day is getting worse.  She even saw a psychiatrist in Louisville for a while, but then Ferlini got a gig in Vegas working for Moe Greene at the Tropicana.  Wanda is in tears because Ferlini thinks about nothing but his work, even while asleep.  She says he sometimes throws off the covers and takes a bow.  C’mon man, who among us . . . anyhoo, she spots Ferlini’s hand-cuffs and gets an idea about switching the keys. ^[3]

Harry announces the event.  He has Police Chief Wallace put hand-cuffs on Ferlini.  A couple of locals get the honor of tying him up.  He is then placed in the sack like a bottle of Crown Royal.  The men are directed to put Ferlini into a trunk.  The trunk has many holes in it which Harry says are to help it sink; or are maybe collateral damage from the Moe Greene hit.  Chief Wallace locks the trunk and it is tossed in the middle of the lake.  After 38 seconds, it is clear Ferlini is not going to resurface; even though David Blaine can hold his breath 17 minutes.

We join Ferlini’s funeral as the pall-bearers set down his coffin.  The preacher says, “Who is to say that Joseph Ferlini, in his last moment of earthly glory, was not happy in this choice that was made for him by the almighty arbiter of life.”  I don’t know . . . drowning seems like a brutal, horrific way to go.  I say that based only on Kurt Russell’s death in the Poseidon Adventure remake.  And I know from brutal, horrific pain because I sat through the Poseidon Adventure remake.

A man interrupts the preacher and asks if this is the Ferlini funeral despite the water leaking out of the coffin.  He tells the crowd he is from the Coroner’s Office and his daughter is selling Girl Scout Cookies.  Also, he has orders to collect the body because the Coroner wants a second examination.  Hmmm, underwater for 30 minutes, bound by ropes, chains, hand-cuffs, stuffed in a sack, and locked in a trunk.  Yeah, let’s take a second look there, Quincy.  If they are in Florida, it will be listed as a COVID death.

The pall-bearers, luckily not union men, are called into service a second time to carry the coffin to the caretaker’s cottage.  The Deputy Coroner opens the casket and it is empty.  Wanda shrieks in horror at the cash she wasted on the casket.

Later, in the Coroner’s Office, Harry explains.  Ferlini had made him promise that if he died, Harry would abduct the body.  Harry slipped the Undertaker $50, and hired an actor to play the Deputy Coroner.  That way, Ferlini figured, he would be remembered forever . . . longer than Houdini.  Yes, his years of toiling away in Dinner Theater would obscure Houdini’s innovations in magic and escape, international stunt performances, movies, books, and pioneering the debunking of seances and mediums.

Unfortunately, they didn’t quite nail the ending.  The final shot is of Wanda in a strait-jacket.  Done right, this could have had the same jaw-dropping impact as the last shot of The Changing Heart; especially knowing how Wanda might be treated in an asylum 60 years ago.  They lobotomized a Kennedy ^[2], what do you think they’ll do to her?

Ironically, both episodes endings fall apart if you think too much about their last shots.  Why is Wanda in the strait-jacket?  She must know Ferlini is dead — that was the plan all along.  I guess we are supposed to believe the Coroner didn’t go public with the disposition of Ferlini’s body, so she is waiting for him to return like Ted Danson in Creepshow.  Maybe Harry came up with another $50.

Hey, maybe Harry can recoup the cash by going on tour with Wanda.  You know, if she can wriggle out of that strait-jacket like Ferlini did.  Even better, if she can take off her bra without removing the strait-jacket, like Jennifer Beals in Flashdance.  What a feeling!

There were missed opportunities with the final shot and, as Jack notes at  bare*bones, a flatness to Ferlini’s escape and the coffin reveal.  However, Keenan Wynn was a powerhouse as always, and the lake location was almost worthy of One Step Beyond.  Reworking the final shot in my head, I can get this up to a 7.0.

Other Stuff:

• [1]  See also famed stunt-thing Gonzo the Great.
• [2]  Referring to Rosemary, not Ted.
• [3]  Come on, man.  Houdini didn’t use no keys.
• Born in 1874, Houdini could have maaaaaybe been alive when this aired, if some punk had not sucker-punched him.  Proof that the séances were fake:  He didn’t come back and whip that kid’s ass.