This is a great example of how you can take a so-so story and use great performances, score and directing to make it fun.  Well, until the ending, at least.

The opening credits really set a tone even though they really have nothing to do with the story.  Bouncy tango music plays while the camera pans across small dolls, statues, tchotchkes, both bric and a-brac.  Hypnotic, yes.  Relevant, not sure.

Donald is a gun enthusiast who seems to also be something as an anglophile as he and his wife speak with English, or at least, patrician accents.  They have prints of fox hunts on the wall and Donald is even is wearing an ascot for God’s sake.

He heads out to the gun club leaving wife Judy (Carol Kane) at home.  An elderly  solicitor — OK, a witch — knocks at the door and Judy invites her in.  After Judy admires a hideous necklace she is wearing, the old lady gives it to her.  This enables her to switch bodies with Judy just like in Freaky Friday, and the remake of Freaky Friday, and the other remake of Freaky Friday, and all those other movies that ripped off Freaky Friday.

When Donald returns home, Judy in the old woman’s body jumps him.  She convinces Donald that it really is her and he goes looking for the witch in Judy’s body.  Before he leaves, he locks Judy in the old woman’s body in the closet.  It is not clear why he does this.  It turns out to be a good idea, but I really don’t credit his character with being that smart — even with the English accent.  It must be said that Frances Bay as the old woman is GREAT portraying Carol Kane in the much-older body.

Donald finds the witch in Judy’s body at the train station.  He tricks her into switching the bodies back.  Donald and Judy go back to their house and let the witch out of the closet.  But not before Donald kills her while firing wildly with his pistol.  He buries her in the basement.

Three months later, the decayed corpse arises and repossesses Judy.  Donald accidentally shoots the young Judy as they switch identities for the last time.  Young Judy dies in his arms.  Well, that’s a pisser.

There was a lot of scatter-shot greatness here until it fell apart at the end.  Judy didn’t deserve to die, and Donald didn’t deserve to lose his wife.  It is strange that the writer and director seemed to understand the show so well until this point.  They had a great score, over the top characters, interesting lighting palate, but then that ending — no irony, no comeuppance, just a a downer.

Post-Post:

• Scott Nimerfro is tied for most TFTC scripts at 11.
• Strange career for director Randa Haines.  She goes years between projects, but she has directed some big movies — at least big enough that I remember the titles 30 years later — and a very highly regarded TV movie.  Michael Convertino who scored this episode also scored all four of her movies.
• I always liked that one of Carol Kane’s first credits was in The Last Detail as Young Whore.
• Frances Bay was the old bag Jerry Seinfeld stole the marble rye from.

Don Rickles is the titular ventriloquist, onstage and getting big laughs.  After the show, he signs a photo for an admiring youngster who will grow up to be Bobcat Goldthwait.

That night, the hotel where he was performing burns down, and Rickles becomes a recluse for the next 15 years.

Bobcat tracks him down in his remote cabin.  He spots a newspaper clipping that says Rickles was injured in the fire; he shows the covered stump of his hand to Bobcat.  Bobcat asks him to come see his act that night and see if he’s got what it takes; other than a left hand.

Bobcat goes on during amateur night and is awful.  Rickles walks out.  Later, Bobcat finds him at the bar.  Rickles, being Rickles, tells him he was terrible.

Outside, Bobcat sees a woman who has just been murdered and realizes that Rickles killed her and also a showgirl 15 years ago, and also started the fire.  He confronts Rickles, but he blames Morty, his dummy.

Bobcat tells him it is just a dummy. Despite Rickles protests, he pulls Morty’s case off the shelf to show Rickles that it is just an object.  But he discovers it is an object without a head.

In the normal universe, Rickles would just tell Bobcat the head was out for cleaning or stored in another case, or destroyed in the fire.  Turns out Morty is Rickles twin brother conjoined at the wrist.  Morty’s head was really Rickle’s mutant brother.

Rickles / Morty attacks Bobcat, and Rickles chops his brother off at the wrist.  Morty rips Rickles throat out, killing him.

Bobcat goes after Morty with a baseball bat.  He launches him with a loose floor board, swats him with the bat, he lands in a meat grinder and Bobcat starts grinding.  Then stops.

Bobcat goes on stage using Morty in a mask.  They argue and Morty painfully grafts himself onto Bobcat’s wrist.

A good episode with great performances and a great twist.

Post-Post:

• Written by Frank Darabont of Shawshank, The Mist, and that season of The Walking Dead — you know, the good one.
• Don Rickles’ daughter is in the episode billed as “Girl at Bar.”  Her next TV role was in Herman’s Head as “Woman at Bar.”  I eagerly await her future turns as “Middle-Aged woman at Bar” and “Old Woman at Bar.”

The haggard Luisa Yates comes down looking for her coffee and finds servant girl Mary Jo still in bed. Luisa whacks her with her cane and chases her out to get the eggs.

Luisa’s husband farmer George, working on the truck, watches her go into the barn.  He continues watching through a knothole in the wall.  Not condoning his voyeurism, but it is understandable as Mary Jo is young, cute, and not a fan of the bra.  She is coquettishly played by 22-year old Patricia Arquette, 3 years before her breakout in True Romance (back when she was Rosanna’s sister, not the other way around).

When she comes out with the eggs, he sends her back in to milk the cow.  George and Luisa figure they got themselves some free help as they hold Mary Jo hostage on the farm threatening to tell the police that she robbed the Stop & Go.

When George begins awkwardly hitting on her, she tosses a bucket of milk at him. Luisa hears a commotion in the barn, so George whacks Mary Jo in the head with a bottle to shut her up.  Whiskey bottles have the same effect on her noggin as on mine and she staggers out of the barn.

Mary Jo manages to escape into the cornfield, but leaves a trail of blood.  She collapses in front of a scarecrow with a clown mask and hallucinates him reaching down for her.  She passes out and the Yates find her.

The blow to the head seems to have knocked about 50 IQ points out of her as she suddenly seems two cans short of a six-pack, and still two cups short of a bra.  She keeps talking worshipfully about her man who is so big and strong and will make love to her.

That night, George dreams of her, wakes up to hear her laughing and dancing outside.  He sneaks out and follows her into the cornfield.  She starts flirting with the scarecrow.  George again tries to make his move, but she brushes him off.

The next day, she is dressed more girlishly and says she has a date with her fella that night.  That night she goes to the scarecrow again.  This time, his eyes open and he really does respond to her caresses.

He who boinks behind the rows.

Luisa catches Mary Jo making out with the scarecrow, who has returned to his pole.  Luisa repeatedly runs him through with a pitchfork to prove to Mary Jo that he is made of straw.  She is surprised to see real blood pouring out of his chest.  Then she is surprised to see real blood pouring out of her own chest as Mary Jo impales her on the pitchfork.

Mary Jo runs off into the cornfield singing.

The actors all pull off their parts very well, but the writing was a little off.  For example, it is never clear if Mary Jo became so child-like after the bottle to the head, or was she always like that?  It would have been interesting if that was an act to lure George & Luisa to their deaths, but there is no sign of that as she skips into the cornfield still acting like a 9 year old girl.  A hot, hot . . . no, I can’t even finish it.

Post-Post:

• This is James Tugend’s only writing credit.  He had some producing credits 25 years before.  So what was he doing for the time in between?
• Tom Holland also directed the dreadful Lover Come Hack to Me.  He both wrote and directed the major guilty pleasure The Langoliers.

Lee Arenberg living out Al Bundy’s fantasy

Marty Slash is so anxious to get in the electric chair, he runs ahead of the guards and slips into it as quick as Mike Moffitt into George Costanza’s parking space — which makes sense as both characters are played by Lee Arenberg.

Iggy Pop appears as himself showing how cool, hip and edgy he is by dropping about — yawn — 15 F-bombs in 30 seconds.  Between him and anticipating the vastly over-rated Sam Kinison later in the episode, I was ready to jump into Old Sparky myself.

Slash is Iggy Pop’s manager and has been running a scam of benefit concerts to save the Amazon rain forest while pocketing the donations himself.  Now that the receipts have hit $1 million, it is time for him to take off.  He opens up a wall safe hidden behind an Alice Cooper poster and his conscience speaks up in the voice of Sam Kinison.

Katey Sagal shows up dressed a goth chick — a 36 year old goth chick.  If Chloe O’Brien couldn’t pull it off, no way Peg Bundy can.  Turns out that was just disguise to enter the club.  She is really a banker — Miss Kielbasa, named after her father no doubt — who is on to Marty’s scam.  She saw Marty withdraw the $1 million that morning and wants half.  As Katey counts out her half, he goes all Pete Townsend on her head and stuffs her in a drum case.  Whether it was a stunt-woman or rubber legs, they looked pretty convincing being stuffed into that case.

As his conscience yells at him, he rebels by pouring medicine in his ear and reaming it out with a giant Q-Tip.  When the Q-Tips don’t work, he threatens to stab his conscience with a sharpened pencil.  He wises up just before puncturing his eardrum.

As he goes out in the club, his conscience, doing what Sam Kinison does best, begins screaming.  It screams to the waitress that Marty killed his banker and taunts Marty that she heard him.  He is so sweaty and manic that their reaction to him makes him wonder if they really did hear his “confession.”

He turns the music up in the club to drown out his conscience.  That brings in the cops.  Convinced that his conscience has screamed his secret, he busts the sound system and says, “I didn’t mean to kill my banker.”  He opens his briefcase, spilling the money into the crowd which is strangely subdued at the sight of $1 million cash.

Turns out the looks people were giving him were not reactions to the screams of his conscience, but to the bloody pencil still protruding from his ear.  A more reasonable reaction might have been to say, “Dude there’s a bloody pencil in your ear.”  His conscience taunts him that if he had kept his mouth shut, he could have gotten away with it.  For 2 years on death row, his conscience torments him until he is begging for the chair.

Lee Arenberg was made for TFTC.  His hammy, over-the-top acting and rubber face brought campy humor back to the series.  Sam Kinison was great in the small dose and, as a bonus, we didn’t have to look at him.  Iggy Pop just came off as an asshole.  The Stooges were strangely absent.

Post-Post:

• One of the jive-taking dudes from Airplane! plays a cop.
• In an unusual event, Costanza’s is actually in the right.

This episode immediately struck fear in my heart as I got a Three’s a Crowd vibe from the music.

Insurance salesman James Reed boards an elevator with a hot babe.  He makes an effort at small talk but doesn’t get far, thus by TV rules guaranteeing she is married to the man he is going to see.  He is meeting client Sebastian Fleming in his penthouse.  Reed figures a $9 million policy will cover his home and contents which include about half a flock of parrots.

Fielding is an boorish, obnoxious dick, and expects a kickback of 30% of Reed’s commission on the policy.  Reed agrees rather than lose it all to a competitor.  As they are shaking hands, the woman walks in.  She turns out to be Gloria Fielding, clearly in it for the money or a lost bet.

The next day, she comes to visit Reed on his houseboat.  He and Gloria end up in the sack and he suggests they might get rid of Mr. Fielding to be together.

That night at Fleming’s penthouse, he suggests they have a glass of champagne to celebrate.  Never has an insurance policy been treated with such festivity — well, the payout, maybe.  Reed throws the obnoxious Fleming off the balcony, which does make me feel a little more festive.

Mrs. Fleming learns that her husband had planned to take out a $10 million life insurance policy, but had not signed the papers.  She and Reed are actually happy about this as it takes away an obvious motive for the murder — because the penthouse which was just established to be worth $9M and his other holdings would certainly not have been a motive.

Then Michael Ironside comes calling, which is never a good sign.  Gloria is not happy to see him and tells him to get the hell out.  He has been obsessed with her and bought a condo right across the street to keep an eye on her.  He also happens to be Reed’s boss who gave him the lead on Fleming, and has pictures of Reed throwing Fleming over the balcony.

He doesn’t want money, he wants to time-share Gloria, taking her from dusk to dawn.  Reed, being a poor negotiator, gets the 12 hours a day she runs her yap.  Ironside moves in immediately, taking her that night.  In the mornings, she stumbles back to Reed.  This goes on for three months.

Soon, she finds Reed on his houseboat where he has overdosed. He wrote a confession letter clearing Gloria.  She burns the letter, strolls down the dock, and gets into a car with Ironside.  They are clearly a happy couple who planned this whole thing.  She tells Ironside she burned Jim’s confession and he says, “Now no one will ever know he was murdered.”  Well yes, with the letter the authorities would have known Fielding was murdered . . . but it would have implicated Reed — wouldn’t that have been beneficial?

Cut to one of Fielding’s parrots squawking, “Hello, Jim.  Help me, Gloria.”  If this is supposed to indicate they will not get away with the murder, it fails.  1) The squawk implicates Reed, and sounds like Fleming was calling to Gloria for help — whether he fell or was pushed off the balcony can’t be determined, 2) The parrot could have picked up this phrase any time in the past 3 months.  It could have been Reed saying, “Gloria, help me open this can of tuna, 3) Birds can’t testify in court — see landmark People v. Toucan-Sam.

This is a strange episode for Tales from the Crypt.  It really would have worked better as an Alfred Hitchcock Presents.  There is no supernatural element.  No one comes back from the dead.  The performances are good, and even the bit with the birds works if you don’t think about it —  although it would have really helped the entire episode if this 5-second bit had been shot and scripted better.  The directing was a little leaden, though, and the score was just deadly.  The melodramatic wailing saxophone does not have a good track record in this series.  What this really needed was a non-director’s cut.

Post-Post:

• This is Richard Greenberg’s only TV directing credit.  It wasn’t bad, but it didn’t really fit the tone of the series.
• Not a lot of star-power here except for Michael Ironside.  The star of the episode is the poor-man’s Puddy, David Kilner from Inside.  Despite a couple of mediocre showcases, I can imagine him being great in the right role.
• Reed overdoses on Pentobarbital, a drug used in executions.  When the manufacturer heard of this, they were shocked, shocked!  They decided not to sell the drug for use in executions.  Boy, those pharmaceutical companies are just swell!