This is not their daughter — just a creepy doll.

Ralph and Jane Birdwell seem like a nice suburban couple.  He is a civil engineer and she is a civil mother.  Their daughter Eileen has just been sent off to school.  Ralph is getting ready for work when the doorbell rings.  Jane opens the door and a woman slurs, “Remember me?  Is the little girl home?”  I guess she doesn’t get the concept of going to school in the morning.  But to be fair, I think this is the first time this booze-monkey has been up before noon.

Ralph sees her and says, “You said you’d never bother us again.  What’s the big idea?”  Seven years ago, Mrs. Meade had given Eileen to the Birdwells for a few bucks and a pair of Beach Britches.  They could never track her down to formalize the adoption.  Although, if they didn’t post her picture on the back of a scotch bottle, how hard were they trying?  Now she wants the girl back.  But she’d be willing to accept $100/week payoff instead.  When Mrs. Meade threatens to sue, Ralph says the judge will see she is “a cheap, broken down drunk.”

Mrs. Meade does go to a lawyer — hey, it’s Mayberry’s Floyd the Barber. ^[1] He tells her that her plan amounts to nothing more than blackmail.  Mrs. Meade later gets a visit from Phil Ames.  The solicitous unsolicited solicitor is a former lawyer who also had bar trouble, but not the the same kind as Mrs. Meade.  He is now a private investigator who heard of her case down where the lawyers hang out.

He informs her that the Birdwells never legally adopted Eileen.  However, he also states he knows that Mrs. Meade never showed any interest in the child until now and that she has a criminal record.  He says they should go for the big payday and demand $25,000 from the Birdwells ($215,000 in 2020 bucks).

Ames proposes that Mrs. Meade kidnap Eileen.  He says it will not be a crime since she is “only repossessing her own property.”  This was before OJ tried to steal back his Heisman Trophy so case law was sketchy at the time. ^[2]

Ames and Mrs. Meade agree that his cut will be 20%.  Now keep in mind that this low-life disbarred shyster who elbowed his way into this case, conspired with a drunken sociopath, is willing to break up a happy family, and will callously tear a little girl away from the only parents she has ever known — even this scumbag isn’t charging the 30% to 40% cut that attorneys routinely milk out of clients.

Mrs. Meade meets Ames drunk and early a week later.  He has been watching the Birdwell home for 3 days and has cracked the algorithm that Eileen goes to school in the morning and returns in the afternoon.  Since Mrs. Meade has not seen her daughter in 7 years, they drive by the school and Ames is able to point her out at recess.

That afternoon, Mrs. Meade intercepts Eileen leaving school.  She says she is the new governess and that her mom wants them to go shopping for new dresses.  Instead they go to Mrs. Meade’s apartment.

Ames comes by with his partner Charlie Banks.  Banks asks Mrs. Meade if this is the little girl she snatched.  She says, “Sure I did.  Why not?  I’m her mother.”  Except the girl says her name is Margaret.  Ames brought Banks, who has connections at the FBI, to be a witness.  Mrs. Mead just confessed to kidnapping a girl she is not related to.

Ames forcefully tells Mrs. Meade that he is actually a friend of Ralph.  She is to stay away from the Birdwells, and allow them to legally adopt Eileen!  Mrs. Meade breaks down in tears with the same saline to alcohol ratio as a dirty martini.

Viewers in 1961 might have thought this was like Summer Shade last week — there is a happy ending, but an innocent young girl was hijacked in order to achieve it.  Well, no — in the hallway, Margaret smiles as she climbs into Ames’ arms.  We learn that Margaret is his daughter and she had a ball helping her dad with this ruse; way more fun than when they infiltrated Epstein Island. ^[3]

It was nice to see Mrs. Meade shut down by Phil Ames for multiple reasons.  Foremost, of course, she deserved it — using a little girl to blackmail a family.  Second, Biff Elliot was phenomenal in the role — he single-handedly redeemed the name Biff in the American arts.  Third, Biff played a father in The Day of the Bullet who profoundly disappointed his adoring son.  It was heart-warming to see him so loved by his daughter here.  Even after he let a drunk psycho put her in a taxi and go back to her apartment.

This was kind of a “soft” episode like director Ida Lupino’s previous AHP gig, Sybilla.  There are no murders and a woman was at the center.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that.  The story was thin, but the twist was sharp.  If you can stand Claire Trevor as Mrs. Meade, I rate it 70 proof.

Other Stuff:

• [1]  IMDb inexplicably states that Howard McNear is in the credits, but does not appear in the episode.  In fact, he has a prominent scene with Mrs. Meade.  How can you miss him?  C’mon, he’s Floyd the M*****f***ing Barber (as Gomer called him after he finished his hitch in the Marines).
• [2]  A fact-check indicates that OJ Simpson was convicted of stealing miscellaneous sports memorabilia, but not his Heisman Trophy.  Wow, could I be wrong about his previous legal issue too?
• [3]  I sincerely apologize for that disgusting reference.
• AHP Proximity Alert:  Robert Sampson (Ralph) was just in The Changing Heart two weeks ago.  Hey, give somebody else a chance!
• AHP Deathwatch:  Robert Sampson is also the only adult cast member still alive and even has a 2020 credit on IMDb.  Hey, give somebody else a chance!
• As always, Jack at bare*bones e-zine is all over the source and production of the episode.
• I don’t like categorizing people, but it is pretty cool that this was directed by a woman in 1961.  Ida Lupino directed dozens of other shows, including 9 Thrillers, a Twilight Zone, and 3 memorable Gilligan’s Islands.  Although, I guess if you saw them each 10 times as a kid, they’re all memorable.  Mary Anne was cute even playing Laertes; I heard as Caliban, she brought the hut down.

Ben & Phyllis Kendall are starting to get discouraged in their quest to find an affordable one hundred year old house in Salem with three bedrooms, a modern kitchen, a study, central heating, and a tree for young Kate’s swing.

Suddenly, Phyllis Kendall gets a premonition.  She tells her husband to take the next right.  They pull up in front of a house that has a sign that says: FOR SALE TO DISCRIMINATING BUYER.  Ben says “discriminating buyer” means it is expensive.  But in 1960, it might have meant something else.  On the plus side, there is a tree for Kate’s swing and it might already have a rope.

The owner, Amelia Gastell, appears and tells them the house is 107 years old.  The Kendalls buy the house even though it is far from any other kids for Kate to play with.  To their surprise, as they are unpacking, Kate mentions meeting a new friend named Lettie at the nearby creek.

Lettie told her about riding in a gig. ^[1] Kate’s father has to explain to her and to me that a gig is a horse-drawn carriage.  Phyllis says Lettie’s family sounds “like a religious sect — like those people who won’t wear buttons.”  Say, the Kendalls are discriminating buyers.

When Phyllis later sees Kate talking to no one at the nearby creek, she figures out that Lettie is an imaginary friend.  Her father asks if that is the case.  Kate insists Lettie is real.  She even has a picture that Lettie drew of her aunt Bridget Bishop who appears to be puritan.

During a house-call, Kate’s doctor recognizes the name Bridget Bishop.  Ben finds her name and picture in a book about Salem.  She was hung in 1692 for witchcraft.  A local preacher shows Phyllis the grave of Lauretta Bishop who died of the pox in 1694.

That night, Ben goes to Kate’s room to check her fever.  She is wearing a necklace of buzzard bones that she says Lettie gave her “to keep off the pox” and a No Pest Strip to keep off the flies.

Amelia is hired as a babysitter so the Kendalls can have a date-night.  She agrees that Kate needs a real friend to play with.  Ben says, “If you hear about an agency that rents out little girls, let us know.”  After the Kendalls leave, she looks for Jeffrey Epstein’s card.

The next morning at breakfast, Kate startles her parents by asking, “What is an exorcism?”  They are interrupted by Amelia who has brought over a girl Kate’s age.  It is Judy Davidson, the daughter of her milkman.  Today, Kate would ask, “What is a milkman?”

Upstairs, in Kate’s room, it is clear from Judy’s speech that she is possessed by Lettie.  She speaks such archaic sentences as:

• Twas a fine notion, mistress Kate.
• Would that we had started it sooner.
• I want to grow up to be an objective journalist.

Kate warns her to not talk “in that old-fashioned way” so she is not caught and exorcised or banned from Twitter.

Well, I’m glad Kate has a little friend, but what happened to the real Judy?  Did her soul disappear?  Is she stuck silently in that body?  Is she doomed to helplessly watch Lettie’s life the way the poor sap in Source Code was doomed to be stuck in Jake Gyllenhaal, helplessly banging Michelle Monaghan for the rest of his life?  Actually, that doesn’t sound so bad.  Actually, it sounds better than my life.

Not much going on here. No murder, and a dash of the supernatural make this a poor fit for AHP.  I rate it 65 in the shade.

Other Stuff

• AHP Deathwatch:  Veronica and Angela Cartwright are still with us.  Strangely, on IMDb, Veronica is credited as Kate; Angela is credited as Lettie (uncredited), who we never see.  Sadly, the writer of the original short story died this year of COVID-19.
• [1] The fact that Kate is torturing a frog at the time seems coincidental to their mention of gigs.
• For more information about the source material and production, check out bare*bones e-zine.
• Pictures are of Julie Adams (Phyllis) in Creature from the Black Lagoon because it is 1:09 am.

Dane Ross enters Klemm’s watch shop and is taken aback by the overwhelming sound of ticks and tocks and clicks and clacks of a hundred clocks stacked chockablock like knick-knacks and bric-a-brac on the shelves. He should be wary of this place as it would be impossible to work here without going insane.

Ulrich Klemm comes out and greets Ross. He hands Klemm a watch that can’t count steps, can’t check heart-rates, can’t display texts, and can’t give GPS directions.  The bloody thing just tells time.  Klemm is none-the-less impressed at the time-piece.  He has not seen one since he left the old country, but thinks he can fix it.

Ross admires the clocks in the shop.  Klemm says he brought them from the old country.  Sadly, he was not able to bring his famous automatons — clockwork figures.  On the hour, the figures — birds, angels, policemen, construction workers, Indian chiefs, bikers — would appear and give little performances.

With admirable precision, all the clocks in the shop strike 6:00 in unison.  Klemm’s beautiful grand-daughter Lisa comes through the door, which is pretty clever when you think back on it.  She asks Ross to stay for dinner.  He accepts under the pretense that he wants to see more of Klemm’s work (i.e. any other hot grand-daughters).

In the rear, Klemm displays figures which play the piano, shine shoes, and some mechanical birds in a cage.  Lisa says these are just simple versions of the work he did for kings in the old country and queens in the village.^[1]  Ooops, she cuts her finger preparing dinner and Klemm bandages it.

After dinner, Lisa walks Ross to the door, and he asks her out.  She says she can’t because her grand-father is so protective.  However, the next time we see them, they are at a German restaurant where, it is safe to say, they are not there for the food.  Ross has been promoted and asks Lisa to move with him to Seattle, which was part of the USA at the time. But she won’t leave her grandfather.

They go back to the shop.  Ross tells Klemm that he is taking Lisa to Seattle whether he likes it or not.  Klemm seems to hypnotize Lisa so that she agrees that she cannot go and will never leave Klemm.  Staring blankly at him she says, “I will never leave you.”  Klemm tells her to go to her room.  She complies without any acknowledgment of Ross as she exits. 

Ross accuses Klemm of turning his grand-daughter into an automaton.  Klemm says he is protecting the one thing he loves.  “The one thing I rescued from my old life and brought to this new world. She’s my masterpiece and no one will take her from me!”  Klemm pulls out a knife.  Fearful that he is going to be served more German cuisine, Ross leaves.

Three months later, Ross is living in Seattle.  He sends his friend Jack to the clock store.  Klemm says the watch will be ready Tuesday. 

No wait, Jack wants to know why Ross’s letters to Lisa have not been answered.  Klemm says Lisa is sick and Ross made her that way.  He scoffs at the Amerikanische Doktors and the heartpills they give her.  He insists, “I will not let her die!”

Alarmed by Jack’s report and the newly proposed $.05 postage rate, Ross returns to Klemm’s shop, to find it boarded up.   He busts in and finds Klemm slumped dead at his desk just like I expect to go.  He has left a note that says he was willing to give his life for Lisa to live.  Ross goes into the back room and finds Lisa sitting in a wheelchair.  Ross is thrilled to see her there, eyes wide open.  But she is lifeless as a mannequin.    He hears a ticking and puts his ear to her chest.  There he clearly hears the clockwork ticking in her chest.

First off, let me be clear that this was a great episode and the final shot was awesome.   That said, I do feel like the writer ^[2] came close to cheating with some of the dialogue and stage direction in the first half as to whether Lisa was an automaton from the start.  But the proof that Lisa was not an automaton is pretty clear.  If Klemm could make a device that looked like the 22 year old Lisa, would he have made her his grand-daughter?

Also, I’m not clear how Klemm saved Lisa.  Yes, she has a ticking heart, but she is glass-eyed, silent, and perfectly still.  This is life?  At the top of the hour does she do a table dance?

Other Stuff:

• [1] The dictionary labels this merely informal, so I’m keeping it in
• [2] Robert Bloch, so who am I question him?
• AHP Deathwatch:  Anne and Ross are still with us.  Jack passed away in January.
• Oddly, Bloch’s previous script for AHP also involved a clock.
• Nice bit of trivia from bare*bones:  Anne Helm went on to be in an Elvis movie, and moved in with him after filming ended.  It’s good to be the king.

Are the stories getting thinner or did I just get fatter during the COVID-19 lock-down?  Yesterday’s One Step Beyond seemed pretty slight, but today’s Alfred Hitchcock Presents is like me going back to my old elementary school to vote and seeing my 747 hangar-sized cafeteria has shrunk to the size of an airport Bojangles.

William Benson is enjoying a weekend at the Pinto Casino in Las Vegas.  Or maybe not enjoying at this particular moment, because his chips are being depleted faster than the Ozone.  Hey, whatever happened to that crazy Ozone?  It was going to kill us all, now it never even calls.  In a move that seems reckless to a non-gambler like me, he puts his remaining chips on Black 11 ^[1] at the roulette table.  The ball lands on Red 25.

Benson takes it like a man, and leaves while he still has a few bucks in his pocket; so not really like most men.  He walks back to his room.  In the parking lot, he nearly trips over a huge money clip holding $92,000.  He looks around to see if anyone dropped it if anyone saw him.  Smoothly, he kneels, picks up the loot, and stuffs it in his pocket.  He goes back to his room alone with the $92,000.  Whereas, I would not have been alone and only had $91,000.

He counts out the cash, then looks for a place to hide it.  After trying a few locations, he decides on the brand new concept of stuffing the money in his mattress.  But ultimately, he sits in a chair with it in his hands from 3:50 am until he goes to the bank the next morning.  He rents a Safe Deposit Box for $1.75.  He pockets the other $.25 change to get a steak dinner and some back pills later.

Like a good citizen, he reports the found cash to the police.  He is shown in to see Captain Bone, which was my nickname in college.  Bone already knows about the cash, but he says $102,000 was reported missing!  He is dubious that Benson did not take the other $10k for expensive scotch or hookers or worse — waste it.  There are tense accusations and denials before Bone calls the owner of the cash.

Another upright citizen comes to meet Benson — Mr. Newsome, owner of the Pinto Casino.  Newsome, and even Bone in a reversal, could not be nicer.  They say the missing $10k will show up somewhere.  The 3 men go to the bank to pick up the cash.  Newsome is so pleased to have it, that he tells Benson to fly his wife Joyce in for a week to stay at the Pinto, all expenses paid!

Everything is cool.  Newsome drops Bone at the Police Station, and takes Benson to the Pinto.  Benson is set up with free drinks, and told the house will stake him at any game he wishes to play.  A few cigarettes later, Newsome calls him into his office and hands him the phone.  Benson’s wife Joyce says, “There are 2 awful men here”, then Newsome snatches the phone.  He says menacingly, “You fooled the police, but you didn’t fool me.  I don’t believe in holding grudges.  Be straight with me now, or something will happen to her.  It won’t be pretty.  Now let’s have my $10k you stole!”  Dunh dunh dunh.

I felt cheated when I watched the episode — it felt more like an act break than a real ending.  In reviewing it, however, I see I was wrong.  This is a masterful surprise ending, and a subverting of the usual AHP tropes.  Innocent people often get the shaft on AHP, but they aren’t usually the protagonist.  Benson has been nothing but honest and honorable for the entire episode.  That’ll teach him.

Other Stuff:

• [1] I was going to make a possibly racist reference to a player wearing #11 in the NFL.  Since I can’t name a single active player of any color or number, I went to Google.  The first few pages of football players were all soccer players, so I guess I’m possibly a nationalist too.  Finally, a site offered the best NFL player by jersey number.  They selected Larry Fitzgerald for the honor.  His blurb also mentioned he was an 11-time Pro-Bowler, and I actually thought, “Wow, he bowls too!”  What a maroon!  I have no idea if he is black or white, but isn’t that how it should be?
• Sadly I never got to reference the vice scene in Casino.  Just watching it again on You Tube, I don’t think I even want to link it.

Executive James Barrett barks at his secretary to book him a flight to Toronto.  He is leaving the Muldoon merger in the hands of young Philip Weaver.  After handing off the file, Barrett calls his dimwit, baby-talking, still-in-bed trophy wife who thinks Canada is overseas.  What could such a mature, educated titan of industry see in this numbskull?  Oh, she’s 29 years younger than him.  Not quite the 37 year difference we saw in yesterday’s OSB, but he’s got time to put another trophy on his shelf.  It just might not be a participation trophy by that time.

Mrs. Barrett meets Phillip for lunch.  This being AHP, they discuss their plan to kill off Mr. Barrett during his Toronto trip.  Phillip says he will mail her the details of their murder plan.  Wait, what?  He’s putting it in writing and mailing it to the victim’s home?  God help Mr. Muldoon if Phillip is really this dense.

The next morning, the doorman comes up to their apartment to drop off the mail and pick up Mr. Barrett’s luggage.  After her husband leaves for the airport, Mrs. Barrett rifles through the mail until she finds Phillip’s letter.  She reads, “By this time, my sweet, your adoring husband is on his way to the airport.”  Phillip is pretty trusting that the USPS would get that letter there on the right day.  Even more-so that it would be only be delivered after Barrett left, although he did improve his odds by mailing it the same day as the Monkey Ward catalog.

The letter continues on, instructing her to “write James a good, smarmy letter, leaving nothing to the imagination.”  She is to mail it to Toronto so the police find it in his room.  “That’s all you have to do,” he assures her.  Then he suggests that she throw a cocktail party that very afternoon as an alibi, which seems more complicated than writing a dirty letter.  Finally, he does show a slight bit of brains as he reminds her to destroy the incriminating letter.  Although, inexplicably, he does add a PS that he just recruited a sap named Oswald to be a patsy in assassinating the president in 3 years, includes a sketch of the grassy knoll, a copy of a $10,000 check signed by LBJ, and a clean set of fingerprints.

Mrs. Barrett . . . she doesn’t seem to have a first name.  Let’s just call this treacherous, cheating ninny Helen.  No reason at all.  Just seems like a Helen.^[1]  So Helen immediately addresses an envelope to her husband’s hotel in Canada.  After getting stuck because she doesn’t know what “smarmy” means — no, seriously — she pulls a picture of Phillip out of the desk drawer for inspiration.  Wait a minute — she keeps a photo of the guy she is cheating with in her desk at home?  And this is not a wallet size photo, this is an 8 x 10 glamour shot.  It is even framed!  These are the dumbest criminals ever.

Helen begins the letter, “Dearest James, you might think I am a feather-brain for writing to you so quickly”  Yada yada.  “Your adoring wife, Poopsie.”  She stuffs the letter into the envelope and goes downstairs to mail it.  

Back in their apartment, Helen begins calling people to attend her cocktail party.  I have to give her credit, though, she remembers more phone numbers than I can.  Suddenly this brainiac remembers that she left Phillip’s framed picture on her desk where Gladys might find it.  She puts it back in the drawer.  Then she remembers she also left his murder-instruction letter on the desk.  Uh oh, she realizes she accidentally mailed the murder instructions to her husband.  She runs back to the mailbox hoping to catch the mail man picking up, but just misses him.  

Back in her apartment, she is mortified.  I really felt for her, sitting on the sofa, almost catatonic with anxiety. Although in my case, it would have been because I had to attend a cocktail party.  On the other hand, she does look pretty snappy in her little black cocktail dress.  Gladys suggests that she go to the Post Office and see if she can retrieve the letter.  She does, but again just misses the letter as it is sent out.

As the guests begin to arrive, she calls her husband.  His office says he never checked into his hotel, so Phillip must have already whacked him.  She is distraught that her husband is dead and their plan will be discovered.  Just then, the doorman arrives with a delivery from the liquor store and good news, but I repeat myself.  He tells her the postman returned her letter because she had forgotten to put a stamp on it.  The doorman then proudly tells her that he added the postage and sent the letter back out.

Of course, AHP’s sheer professionalism makes this better than most of the crap that airs then or now.  However, it did not completely seem to gel.  I felt like Helen’s pursuit of the letter at the mailbox and post office should have had a more farcical tone.  Maybe an hour episode could have pulled that off.  Also, while I did appreciate her stoic reaction to the pressure she was under, it should have been better used at the end to emphasize the twist.  If she had finally come alive with excitement upon hearing the the letter was returned, she would have lit up the screen.  Then the zinger that the doorman re-mailed it would have been devastating in contrast.  As played, it was just too flat to evoke any reaction in the viewer.

Other Stuff:

• [1] I only realized later that the housekeeper in this episode is coincidentally also named Helen.  Just doesn’t seem like a name of someone who keeps things tidy.  Let’s call her Gladys and keep Helen for the evil pea-brain slob.
• Sarah Marshall (Helen) was the mother in Twilight Zone’s classic Little Girl Lost.