Thriller – The Watcher (11/01/60)

twatcher04A really — to be charitable — unattractive man is holding down a blonde girl’s head, and not in the good way.  He drowns the the girl and washes the blood from his hands.

Freitag, the titular watcher, is spying on a couple in a car in front of his house as the indulge in some 1950’s style necking, perhaps even heavy petting.  As Larry gets out of the car, and Beth drives away, Freitag typewrites a threatening letter to Sheriff Matthews:

IS THERE ANOTHER CORRUPTOR ABROAD?

I MUST BE SURE BEFORE I KILL AGAIN.

The next night, Freitag sees Larry leave the house, probably to see that hussy Beth. Freitag puts on a suit, tie and hat and takes off following Larry.  Surely he is disappointed to see that Larry just went in for a little OT at the boat shop where he works.  Freitag goes in and tells him what a great boy he is for taking care of his aunt.

twatcher05He tells Larry “a good-looking young man like you doesn’t have any trouble finding female companionship . . . it must be a problem for you.  I mean, avoiding unwelcome attention.”  Well, maybe it was annoying for Richard Chamberlain, but I personally never felt burdened by hot babes calling me at all hours.

He continues, “I’d really like to help you.  An older man can sometimes help keep a boy straight.”  Ahem.  He does everything but start massaging Larry’s shoulders.  Larry says if he ever need’s Freitag’s advice, he knows where to find him.  Down by the elementary school would be the first place to look, I imagine.

Beth leaves her house after getting chewed out by her mother by going out totally nude — no wait, she’s wearing blue-jeans, which was apparently equally taboo back then.  She goes to see Larry.  Standing out in the rain, Freitag sees the silhouettes of them stripping off their wet clothes.

twatcher06Later on a picnic in the woods, Larry asks Beth to elope, but she wants everything out in the open.  Which it kind of would be after they came back from eloping.  They think they see someone watching them from the rocks above but find no one.  When they get back to the car, however, it has a flat tire.

Not having a spare, Larry wheels it back to a gas station until he is given a lift.  Freitag suspensively creeps up on the car where she is now sitting.  When she spots him, she lays on the horn for so long that he cleverly pops the hood and disconnects the battery. Beth helpfully faints, but Freitag does nothing with her.

Back at the filling station, which is apparently do-it-yourself, Larry is working on the tire. Freitag knocks him out and lowers the car lift onto him.  The police take Beth home where her mother is so relieved to see her alive that she calls her a tramp.  Luckily Larry survived due to a tire rim blocking the lift.

twatcher07Larry is taken back to his boarding house to recover, where the owner also calls Beth a tramp.  Freitag has a good vantage point of all the activity from his room across the street.

When the landlady goes out to the drugstore to pick up a prescription for Larry (luckily the neighbors have not burned it down like in Baltimore), Freitag sneaks upstairs.  Beth catches him and brains him with a ceramic pitcher.  This is apparently enough for him to stagger around until he falls from the window and beaks his neck.

A decent episode carried by the casting and performances of the actors.  An extra layer of entertainment is found in the clearly homo-erotic overture in the boat shop.

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