Monthly Archives: January 2015

Outer Limits – First Anniversary (S2E7)

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olfirstanniversary01aI was not looking forward to watching this one.  The short story was only 7 pages and kind of a one-joke piece.  Bulking it up to fill a one hour slot seemed a little 4th-Season Twilight Zoney to me.

Luckily, it was fleshed out with additional characters and featured some interesting performers.  I’m sure a lot of care was taken in the adaptation as it was co-written by Richard Matheson’s daughter.

Dorky accountant Matt Frewer is visited by a hot blonde client who is shown to his office.  Before he gets there, she notices his dead wife’s picture on the desk and morphs into a brunette (Michelle Johnson) more his type.  Although, her original incarnation seemed to be the universal every-guy’s type.  It clearly works, because about 100 frames later, they are a married couple.

olfirstanniversary17They are having dinner with another couple to celebrate the first anniversary of both marriages and it is immediately evident that something is amiss.  The other man is Clint Howard — it is not going too far out on a limb to say these two guys are . . . er, that is to say . . . uh, their faces have a lot of character.  It is clear that the couples were cast so that the women would appear to be out of the guys’ league.

That night at 3:04, Frewer awakens to find his wife typing away downstairs.  He sneaks up behind her and kisses her neck, but recoils saying she tastes like something dead.   She runs to the shower and begins roughly scrubbing down.  Frewer enters the bathroom and we sadly get just a backal view of Michelle.  When he looks at her reflection in the mirror, however, he sees a monster.

olfirstanniversary39Frewer goes to a doctor to check his sense of taste.  Now he can’t taste his wife at all. He swings by Howard’s house and learns that he has left his wife Barbara.  As Frewer drives off, Michelle strangely appears.  They are realizing that their marriages can only last about a year.

Howard calls Frewer and they meet in the park.  A disheveled Howard says that he began seeing and smelling strange things about Barbara.  Having morphed into a different body (for no good reason), Barbara confronts him, but he runs away and is hit by a car.

Soon, Johnson can’t keep up the illusion any more and Frewer begins to see her for the disgusting alien that she is.  Maintaining the illusion for more than one year is just not possible.  She confesses that she and Barbara crashed on earth.

Sure, now we get the frontal shot.olfirstanniversary51

Post-Post:

  • The mystery here is why Michelle Johnson didn’t have a bigger career.  At least the Matheson family liked her — she is also in an upcoming Tales From the Crypt episode written by Richard Christian Matheson.
  • Cost of Canadian-release DVD: $20.  Not having to deal with Hulu: Priceless!
  • But Hulu, as I recall, still sucks.

Ray Bradbury Theater – Usher II (S4E5)

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Almost a triple-spin.  I tried to re-read the original The Fall of the House of Usher, but just couldn’t get through it.  I did give it a skim while waiting in line at Comcast, though. Sadly, I did not have War and Peace or Moby Dick handy.

rbtusherii04The episode starts off with a nice self-referential joke.  Two men — in Bradbury’s universe, presumably firemen  — shovel books into an incinerator.  It is then set to Fahrenheit 451.  Sadly it is all downhill from there.

Stendahl (Patrick Macnee) is reading aloud from Poe’s short story.  I would guess much to his architect’s relief, he stops after the first interminable sentence and shuts the book. The architect, Bigelow, has just built “the 2nd House of Usher” for Stendahl.  By his design it is desolate and terrible and bleak.

bradbury02The names Usher and Poe mean nothing to Bigelow as all Poe’s books were banned and burned 20 years earlier.  Hawthorne, Steinbeck, Vonnegut are all cited as being burned, but one of those things is not like the others.  Tales of fantasy and horror were forbidden — not sure that applies to Steinbeck; unless you are a rabbit.  Or an Okie.

Macnee has filled Usher II with forbidden films and forbidden books.  This draws a visit from Inspector Garrett of the Division of Moral Climates.  They can’t allow Stendahl’s “haunted house” to stand — any sort of horror or fantasy or departure from realism has been outlawed.  Garrett says the house will have to be torn down.  Macnee kills the inspector and replaces him with a robot.

Inspector Gadget — er Garrett — goes back to his office and invites the rest of the Division of Moral Climates to enjoy a fantastical going-away party at Usher II before they tear it down.  Even in the future year of 2005, rules are for little people.  Turns out the Inspector had sent an android to Usher II — so the human Inspector is still alive.  At the party, he witnesses, what I assume is a Masque of the Red Death costume ball.  Also a Pit.  Also a Pendulum.  Also a Premature Burial.  Also etc.  All based on Poe works burned by the Mortal Climates people.

rbtusherii11Stendahl leads Garrett to the basement. Unfortunately for the Inspector, Stendahl is carrying an Amontillado, and he is walled-in just as in Poe’s story.  Macnee jabs him for not having read the story and thus knowing that this was coming, telling him “goose-stepping morons like yourself should try reading books instead of burning them.”  OK, that was Indiana Jones’ father, but the sentiment is the same.

Outside, Stendahl reads aloud the last sentence of Poe’s story and a carriage carries him away from Usher II.

The episode is pretty faithful to the short story except, oh yeah, it takes place on MARS!  It is included in The Martian Chronicles.  The short story is set in 2005 whereas the episode is set in 2125.  I understand it had to be post-dated since the “future” date of 2005 was getting pretty close, but why was it pushed back so far?  Living to see speech codes and political correctness, surely Bradbury didn’t see things getting better.

Strangely, in 2005 on Mars, the story ends with Stendahl leaving Usher II in a helicopter. In 2125 on Earth, he leaves in a horse-drawn carriage.  Maybe the Moral Climate Change people showed up too.

Post-Post:

  • First published in the April 1950 issue of Thrilling Wonder stories as Carmnival of Madness.  I suspect it did not originally take place on Mars, and Bradbury added a few words to shoe-horn it into da Chronicles.
  • It seems pretty obvious that the main character was named after Stendhal, a founder of the realism movement in literature.  But why change the spelling? That’s not very realistic.

Palate Cleanser – What’s Up Doc? (1972)

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There is no way that this should be as great as it is.  Director Peter Bogdanovich was coming off The Last Picture Show — great, but no yuks.  I can’t name one other Ryan O’Neal movie that I can sit through (OK, Paper Moon).  And having Barbra Streisand as the star does not bode well.

But not only does it work, it is easily a top 10 of all time comedy despite the AFI’s absurdly ranking it at #61.  O’Neal is perfect as a befuddled Cary Grant knock-off completely out of his element, Streisand is not only funny but actually kind of hot and Madeline Kahn takes a thankless role and elevates it to perfection.  Much of the supporting cast is recognizable to anyone who has seen a lot of 1970s TV or movies.

At its most basic level, it is the story of 4 travel bags that get mixed up, and Barbra Streisand as a free spirit who takes a liking to stuffy Ryan O’Neal.  I am not capable of explaining how that simple story explodes on the screen.  Just about any random 4 minute clip would be great.

Sadly, the clip stops just before the attack of the garbage cans, but anywhere it stopped would have left out something great in the next minute.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents – Mail Order Prophet (S3E2)

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ahpmailorderprophet08This one is based on a fairly well known stock scam, but maybe it was fresh in 1957. Since the synopsis gives it away, it is really up to the performances and surprise ending to carry the episode — and they do.

Jack Klugman and EG Marshall are drones in an insurance company.  After 17 years, they are still sitting at the same desks they started at.

One morning, Marshall gets a letter from a J. Cristiani marked “personal.”  In the letter, Mr. Cristiani claims to have supernatural powers and want to share the fruits of his powers with Marshall, a complete stranger.  Even the Obama press corp would question something this fishy.

Cristiani predicts the outcome of a local political race, favoring the underdog.  Marshall believes the letter to be some sleazy plot by the candidate, and really who could say a politician was above any sleazy trick?  But the predicted candidate does prevail.

Another letter arrives predicting the winner of a championship fight.  Cristiani again favors the underdog and is proven correct.

Having squandered the opportunity on the first 2 predictions, Marshall places bets based on the next 3 letters and wins every time.  Klugman tries to convince him that it is just a lucky run, but EG Marshall is convinced that Cristiani can see the future.

The next letter suggests that Marshall might be interested in kicking a few bucks back to the oracle.  Since, he is up $1,000 at this point, it seems reasonable.  In exchange, Cristiani says he will provide a stock market tip and which will return Marshall’s money ten-fold.  So Marshall writes him a $200 check (misspelling his name, for no reason I can detect).

Seeing the fool-proof opportunity for a major score, Marshall makes a big stock purchase on margin backed with bonds he has “borrowed” from work.  He is not 100% confident, though, because in the next scene, we hear him reading back a suicide note he has prepared just in case the stock takes a dive.

Klugman is astounded at how far Marshall has extended himself, helpfully calling him a “poor, stupid slob.”  Marshall has a bottle labeled POISON in his coat pocket just in case.  When the stock market closes, Marshall is stunned to learn that he has made $140,000.

Klugman wants to track down Cristiani, but the Postal Inspector tells him that he has been put in the slammer for mail fraud.  Cristiani had sent out thousands of letters to strangers offering to make them rich (since the letters were handwritten, this was quite an undertaking).  Half of the letters would predict A is the winner, and half would predict B as the winner.  The winners would then get letters again predicting A or B as the winner in the next contest.  And so one until a small group of consistent winners could be hit up for a commission.

ahpmailorderprophet12Marshall just got lucky.  And now that he has big money (at least in 1957 dollars) and is relaxing on a yacht, I think he will be getting lucky quite a bit.

Meanwhile, Klugman is forced to share an apartment with a childhood friend who was asked to remove himself from his place of residence; that request came from his wife.

Post-Post:

  • AHP Deathwatch:  No survivors.
  • E.G. Marshall was last seen in A Death in the Family.
  • There is a strange bit of business when Marshall is placing his stock order.  Klugman takes a paper bag from his desk and carries it to a door marked MEN.  So is he eating lunch in the Men’s Room?  Is that a men-only lunchroom?
  • Why is Marshall translucent when pictured aboard the yacht?

Night Gallery – Keep in Touch, We’ll Think of Something (S2E10)

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From Rod Serling’s Intro:  “I presume that most of you, in moments of weakness or spasms of compassion, have picked up a hitchhiker.”

Really?  Was it that common?  This episode was aired in 1971, a year after the Charles Manson trial.  Not that his shenanigans were related to hitchhiking, but I would think it might have put people off the idea of inviting strangers into their cars for a while.  Maybe it was Texas Chainsaw Massacre that 3 years later made hitchhiking less attractive.  It certainly did no favors for the perception of people in wheelchairs.

Pianist Eric Sutton comes into the police station to report his car stolen.  He was driving around 2 in the morning and picked up a female hitchhiker.  When he stopped at a store to by a newspaper, the woman stole his car.

ngkeepintouch21Three days later, he is out driving again.  He goes for a stroll at the San Francisco Bay, and the same woman hits him in the head with a pistol and “cops the car” again.  The police show him a few mugshot books which are no help.  He insists the detective have the sketch artist create her likeness so she can be picked up.  The resulting sketch is of a hottie that the detective says should be hanging in the “Loover”.

The woman is out shopping and her chauffeur is getting a parking ticket.  Wait, what? The cop recognizes the woman from her Wanted (and I mean, wanted!) Poster and hauls her in.

Sutton is brought in to pick her out of a line-up.  Before they come out, the detective tells Sutton the woman’s name is Claire Foster and her husband is in construction.  She claims to have been with her husband on both nights, but he is in Venezuela where they apparently do not have phones.  Sutton does not nail her in the line-up, but seems interested in doing so later.

ngkeepintouch11Turns out the only fingerprints in Sutton’s car are his own.  The detective tells Claire she might have a civil case against Sutton.  She wants to talk to him and somehow finds him in  a bar.  He says he has been dreaming of her for years.  Because a private detective was too expensive, he came up with the idea of filing a bogus police reports to get them to look for her for free.

She says she has been married “contentedly” for 3 years.  Her husband also has recurring dreams — in his case, it is of a man strangling him; a man with a long scar on the back of his hand.  There is a suspenseful moment when Sutton turns over his hand, but no scar is revealed.  He is not only a pianist but a player — he tells her she is afraid, but doesn’t know how to get out of her marriage.  They kiss in the bar.  He asks her to go on tour with him, she asks him to stay with her.

As they embrace, she deftly reaches behind him for a knife and slices a long scar on the back of his hand, paving the way for her husband’s dreams to come true.  She says she is sure things will work out for them now.

ngkeepintouch32Damaging the hand of a pianist is a clumsy way for the script to close the circle.  Clearly, she intended no injury to him; just to give him the requisite scar.  However, a micron too deep, and he would be doomed to a one-song repertoire.  Surely a career less hand-centric could have been used.

It felt like the rest of the script could also have used one more pass, but it was a better than average segment, completing one of the better episodes.

Post-Post:

  • Twilight Zone Legacy:  None.
  • Title Analysis:  I can make no sense out of it.  But it’s still better than Edge of Tomorrow.
  • Claire was played by Joanna Pettet, last seen in The House.  She was very stylish and hot in both, although her hair is just way too long — maybe that was a 70’s thing.
  • Two notes on Richard O’Brien who played the detective:  I was disappointed because I was expecting the other Richard O’Brien who played Riff-Raff in The Rocky Horror Picture Show.  Also, his voice sounds exactly like William Windom.