Previously on genresnaps:

• After a promising series premiere, Tales of the Unexpected massacred the classic Lamb to the Slaughter by Roald Dahl.
• Alfred Hitchcock Presents had a very lackluster adaptation of The Landlady, also by Roald Dahl.
• 2020 got in a, hopefully, last cruel shot and made the next TOTU in rotation be its own adaption of The Landlady.
• Little Joe was bitten by a rattlesnake while Ben and Hoss whored it up in Virginia City.

In an odd directorial choice, we open with an 8-second exterior shot of some decaying English public housing.  An unseen person closes the curtains in a 3rd floor window.  That’s it.

We cut to Billy Weaver who is “traveling down from London on the slow afternoon train” to the Guinness World Records office to apply for biggest necktie knot.  He jealously eyes the simple white band of the priest across from him — economical, ecumenical, bio-degradable. They chat until reaching Bath.  Before going their separate ways, the priest recommends a local B&B whose amenities include a landlady, kippers, and a nearby playground.

The titular Landlady is just hanging the Bed & Breakfast sign in her window.  Billy walks to the B&B, and rings the bell.  He is startled by her immediately opening the door.  He tells her he is actually on his way to the Bell and Dragon Hotel.  Well, wait — he did hesitate on the street in front of the B&B, but he then went to the door and rang the bell.  So how is he on the way to . . . nevermind.

The Landlady takes him to a room on the 3rd floor.  Somehow, not knowing anyone was coming, she has put a hot water bottle in his bed. ^[1]    She says, “It is such a comfort, don’t you think, to find a hot water bottle in a strange bed?”  Well, yes, if you happened to have felt a wet spot.  She reminds him to come back down and sign the register.

After she leaves, he writes a letter to his parents.  It is just very poor direction that as we see a close up of his hand signing the letter, there is a cut to a close up of his hand signing the register.  The voiceover of him signing the letter (” . . . Love, Billy”) even extends over the close up of his hand signing the register.  It is just jarring and accomplishes nothing.

Just as in the AHP version yesterday, he recognizes the previous names in the register — Gregory Temple and Christopher Mulholland — and they are a year or two old.  The Landlady comments how handsome they were, invites Billy to “sit right by me” for tea, and puts a hand on his knee.  As they drink, she recalls how Temple was a handsome 17 year old prodigy at Cambridge, and Mulholland “had not a blemish on his body”.  Billy notices the Landlady’s parrot and dog are both stuffed.  He gets drowsy and realizes she Bill Cosby’d him. ^[3]

I had hoped for the best after the previous TOTU, and The Landlady as presented by AHP, but expected the worst.  TOTU did let me down initially.  Again, that droll first TOTU episode seems to be an aberration.  There was nothing clever here, and a couple of technical glitches.  However, at this point, things got better.  In the AHP version, after drinking the tea, Dean Stockwell just went dizzy and glassy eyed — frankly not that different from his earlier performance, minus the over-enunciation of every word — and that was the end.  But here . . .

The Landlady manages to help Billy back up to the third floor and strip him.  She goes into the room next door and we see the stuffed Temple reading and the stuffed Mulholland asleep in bed.  The Landlady says goodnight, gives them a kiss and turns out the lights.  Back in Billy’s room, she dons a butcher’s apron over her white surgical smock and pulls on some rubber gloves.  There is a tray of shiny surgical instruments ready to work on Billy.

It is a beautiful ending.  Maybe the censors in 1961 wouldn’t allow AHP to air this last scene, but it makes the whole episode.  That is why AHP’s version fell so flat.  The build-up is a little dull in both episodes, but at least there is a pay-off here.  That would also explain that non-sequitur of a scene AHP set in the bar — they needed the padding.  TOTU also gave the Landlady a little more creepy reason to keep these — dare I say — stiffs around.

It even closes nicely, as the camera draws back and we again see the exterior of the apartment.  This is enhanced as TOTU’s carnival-like theme begins playing — just wonderfully nasty.

If I were the type to nitpick, I would point out that the lights in the windows make no sense in the exterior shot.  There are 3 windows with #2 and #3 lit.  But, the Landlady turned off the lights in the room to the right of Billy, which would have been #3. ^[2]

No matter.  It was a great ending and redeemed some of the perfunctory work before it.  I just wish the nastiness had not all skewed to the last 2 minutes.

Other Stuff:

• [1]  The only other hot water bottle I’ve seen in 20 years happened to also appear this week — in the very entertaining Hunt for the Wilderpeople.
• [2]  Upon further examination, I’ll bet my subscription to Architectural Digest that the interior does not match the exterior.
• [3] Or, as Jill Biden would say, Dr. William H. Cosby’d him.
• Also airing this night in 1979: Fantasy Island which would be made into a terrible movie, CHiPS which would be made into a terrible movie, and Apple Pie — a sitcom so terrible that it was cancelled after 2 episodes.  And these people want to tell me how to run the country.
• Congratulations to the usually fine actor Michael Peña for surviving 2 of the 3.
• Actually, by April, the Apple Pie slot was occupied by Welcome Back Kotter.  We never got a terrible WBK movie, but it did foist John Travolta on us for the next 40 years.
• BTW, Gotti: Not as awful as you would think.