Monthly Archives: February 2015

Alfred Hitchcock Presents – Enough Rope for Two (S3E7)

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ahpenoughrope13Maxie drops in on this dame Madge, see?  He tells her that Joe got out of the joint yesterday, but she’s already hip.

They had all been in on a robbery that got them $100,000.  Unfortunately, Joe was the only one who knew where the loot was.  Fearing — and justifiably — that Madge and Maxie would split the loot 50/50, he never revealed the hiding place.

They discuss whether Joe will even try to hook back up with them.  Madge does the math, “I’m not 22 anymore — I’m 32, and he’s got $100,000.”  That’s 2,000 20 year old hookers in 2015 dollars.  Nevertheless, she dolls herself up and Joe does ring her bell; well, is at the door.

Despite Joe having been in the slam for 10 years, and her apartment being lucky #7, she is not very accommodating.  She says she is going downstairs to get a pizza, then they can talk about where is is going to stay.  Just what a dude fresh out of prison wants to hear.

ahpenoughrope09When she gets back, Maxie drops in pretending he had no idea Joe would be there.  He asks Joe where the money was stashed and he says it is about 100 miles out in the Mojave Desert.  Maxie takes Joe home to bunk with him that night.  WTF, Madge?

On the way to the desert, they stop at a store to buy mining supplies — picks, rope, a pistol — wait, what?  They then drive 100 miles out into the Mojave.  As soon as they unload the tools, Joe shoots Maxie and socks Madge in the kisser.

Joe climbs down an abandoned mine and finds the loot he hid 10 years before.  Stupidly, he sends the bag of cash up before he goes.  Madge cuts the rope and Joe falls.  She tries to drive away, but Joe has the keys.

There are good give and takes about how to resolve the impasse.  Ultimately, Joe just taunt her.  They will both die, but at least he will be in a nice cool, shaded mineshaft.   Whereas she will have to make it 100 miles on foot through the blistering desert.

ahpenoughrope19Post-Post:

  • AHP Deathwatch: Steven Hill still hanging on.
  • Holy crap — The $100,000 would be $844,000 in 2015 dollars.
  • Everyone in this episode seems to have a sweaty forehead.  And not just in the Mojave, but even in Madge’s apartment.

Night Gallery – Green Fingers (S2E15)

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nggreenfingers02The only episode I ever remember seeing — it must be great!

Lydia Bowen (Else Lanchester) has not only a green thumb, but 10 green fingers — everything she plants seems to grow.  Unfortunately developer Michael Saunders (Cameron Mitchell) has his eye on her property to build a factory.

A couple of comments on his glasses:  First, they make him look very much like Burgess Meredith in Time Enough at Last. Second, for some reason, he wears the arms of the glasses on the outside of his ears rather than over the top.

Saunders has sent emissaries to buy the land, but Ms. Bowen simply refuses to sell. Saunders pays a visit himself, but she still refuses to sell.  She has lived here all her life, the last 10 years alone since her husband died.  When Saunders can’t budge her, he hires a fixer to get her her off the land.

nggreenfingers06The police show up the next day after someone hears screams coming from her house. They find her in the garden burying something — her fingers.  They get her to the hospital, but she dies from the loss of blood.  The elderly doctor says he remembers “the widow Bowen” from when he was a kid.  Hmmm, she said her husband died 10 years ago, so this guy would have been about a 55 year old kid.

That night, Saunders stops by the property.  He sees Ms. Bowen’s hands coming up through the soil and panics.  When he looks again, there is a hole in the ground which he inexplicably lowers himself into.  He hears her singing in the house.  Her green fingers have grown into a new Ms. Bowen.

nggreenfingers11He runs outside and breaks the fourth wall, addressing the camera.  I assume at that point he goes mad.

One of the best.

Post-Post:

  • Twilight Zone Legacy:  George Keymas was in Eye of the Beholder.  Bill Quinn was in the TZ Movie, but that doesn’t count.
  • Else Lanchester played the Bride of Frankenstein.
  • Greensleeves plays throughout the episode.
  • Skipped Segment #1: The Funeral.  The second and final of Richard Matheson’s contributions to Night Gallery.  Neither were of the quality of his TZ work.
  • Skipped Segment #2: The Tune in Dan’s Cafe.  Meh.

nggreenfingers13

Tales From the Crypt – Undertaking Palor (S3E9)

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tftcundertaking05A group of 14 (?) year old boys emerge from a theater swearing in the way teenage boys do — having no more concept of how to effectively use the words than most screenwriters.

They are joined by their video-camera wielding pal who, by the rules of 1980’s stereotypes, is Asian.  They head down to the Esbrook Mortuary to film a “real” horror movie.  They break in and find the body of Mrs. Groves, the librarian.

The boys hide in various nooks, crannies and coffins as the undertaker enters with his dinner.  He has conveniently built the traditional “slab” into a 3D contraption so he can spin Mrs. Groves to a vertical position.  He whacks her in the face with a mallet so he can form a smile.  He then jams a hose into her to Hoover out her insides.

The doorbell rings and all of the boys except Norm are able to escape.  From his position under the casket, he can only see a man in snake-skin shoes who is “expediting” the flow of bodies to the undertaker.

tftcundertaking07They identify the pharmacist Mr. Grundy as the other man.  Breaking into the mortuary again, they discover the undertaker has been swindling Grundy.  They secretly let Grundy know, so Grundy comes to kill the undertaker, but the undertaker kills him first.

The boys come out from hiding and each has a camera on him.  They jam the Hoover into him and start sucking his insides out.

One of the boys notes that the librarian now has a smile on her face.  This is a little confusing since the undertaker had already used the mallet to put a smile on her face — removing the suggestion of a supernatural element form the story.  However, we only got a look at the mallet-induced smile from the side, so maybe she ended up with a bigger smile.  Either way, the muddled writing kills the ending.

tftcundertaking12Really nothing more than that.  Blah.

Post-Post:

  • Title Analysis:  Just a mess — they could have at least gone with “Funeral Palor?” And did they mean pallor or parlor?  Palor isn’t even a word.
  • The movie the boys come out of is Radio Flyer.  It is unlikely to draw a lot of teenage boys, but was directed by one of the producers, which I guess is more important.
  • Second appearance of Zemeckis Pizza.

Outer Limits – Inconstant Moon (S2E12)

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olinconstant01Let’s just get this out of the way right up front:  Incontinent Moon.

There, now we can continue like civilized adults.  Professor Stanley Hurst is grading papers when he notices something strange going on with the moon; it is far too bright. He tries to make a phone call, but is told all long distance circuits are down.

He makes a call to the owner of the local book store, somehow thinking she might have more insight into this phenomena than he does as a professor of physics.  He explains that her store has the largest astronomy section in the town.  Amazingly, this has not qualified her to render an opinion.

olinconstant03He notices that the TV has gone to static when he gets a visit from his neighbor Henry. He reasonably suggests that the super-bright moon implies that something has happened with the sun.  For a professor of physics, Stanley is fairly dense not to have thought of this immediately.

Stanley is taking it pretty well.  He calculates that they have about 5 hours before the shock-wave makes it to them.  Henry goes home to pray, because that will make everything OK.

Leslie, the bookstore owner, calls Stanley to thank him for waking her to see the moon. With hours to live, he does the reasonable thing and turns it into a booty call, even though she ain’t no Meg Ryan.  He goes to her place, and they go for a walk in the bright moonlight.

olinconstant10Stanley asks Leslie to marry him, and she says yes.  They go window-shopping for a ring.  He tosses a trash can through the jewelry store window and steals the ring.  She realizes from Stanley’s strange behavior and the bright moon that something has happened.  She then screams at him for not telling her and for monopolizing her last hours alive, making a lot of good points.

She finally accepts his sincerity.  They buy some champagne and head back to her place.  Just as they arrive, the storms start.  When they aren’t instantly incinerated, Stanley starts to think he might have been wrong; maybe it was only a solar flare, and they can survive.

I went back and forth on how I expected it to end, so I was destined to be surprised; or disappointed.  Ultimately, Outer Limits just couldn’t go dark enough to burn the earth to a cinder.  Alien invasions are one thing, but they seem to draw the line at total annihilation.

Another good episode.

olinconstant18Post-Post:

  • Based on a short story by Larry Niven.
  • Joanna Gleason (Leslie) is the daughter of Monty Hall, and married to Chris Sarandon.
  • The physics paper being graded by the professor is “prepared by Darla Nathorst.” Nathorst is credited as Transportation Coordinator on many Outer Limits Episodes, though strangely not this one.
  • And he gave her a C — bastard!

Ray Bradbury Theater – The Exorcism (S4E9)

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rbtexorcism06Postman Sam Brown is making his rounds and is stopped by Clara Goodwater (Sally Kellerman).  Clara catches him by surprise and he stuffs a book he was reading into his bag.  She asks if he has her book of Albertus Magnus like the other occult books she has been receiving.  He makes a poor decision of lying to a witch and says no.

Young Tom is mowing the Brown’s yard when he hears Elmira Brown screaming in the kitchen.  She has somehow managed to cut herself while slicing a cake.  Being a good civil servant, Sam stops by his house for a piece of cake while making his rounds and shows Elmira the book he should have given to Clara — “Albertus Magnus: White & Black Arts for Man and Beast, Revealing the Forbidden Knowledge and Mysteries of Ancient Philosophers.”  That mouthful is the title, not the first chapter, and it is a real book.

Elmira goes to see Clara and recruits Tom for moral support.  At this point, there is evidence that Tom is a) her son, or b) a neighbor who mows their lawn, and c) an Indians fan as he always wears their cap.  On the way over, Elmira face-plants in the yard and blames Clara’s magic.

After Elmira accuses Clara of being a witch, Clara invites her in for a cup of tea, leaving Tom on the porch.  Elmira accuses Clara of using her magic each year to be elected president of the Ladies Honeysuckle Harmony Lodge.  She reels off her misfortunes every year around election time — being sick, breaking a leg, and various clumsy accidents.

rbtexorcism36What is strange is that during this entire exchange, Tom can be seen through the window, and seems to be taking notes.  My first thought was that he represented the author, but I don’t know of a Bradbury-Cleveland Indians connection.

Leaving Clara’s house, she is nearly hit by a car.  At least we are told at that point, that Tom is not her son.  That night she continues her list of screw-ups that she attributes to Clara’s magic.  The morning of the election, she adds one more as she has a giant zit in the middle of her forehead.

For some reason, she drags Tom to the election with her.  Current president Clara introduces Elmira who has asked for the chance to say a few words.  She accuses the members of voting for Clara every year to avoid the same problems she has had.  She plans the titular exorcism.

The vote goes as usual with the the entire membership giving an angelic “aye.”  Elmira runs out and emergency exit and falls two stories.  Clara uses her powers, and tells Clara that if she comes back to life, Clara will pass the presidency to her.

rbtexorcism51That does the trick, and she marches back up the stairs with then club singing “For She’s a Jolly Good Fellow.”  But it is clear Clara is just setting her up for another fall.

Just a strangely unappealing episode.  It wasn’t clear who Tom was until he referred to his parents; it still isn’t clear why Elmira drags him everywhere and why he goes along.  I’m assuming Sam and Elmira are married, but she seems quite a bit older, so could be mother and son — certainly a postman son living with is mother is not unheard of.

And, sorry but the presidency of a club of women in their 50’s just isn’t going to grab my interest.  A club of 20 year old strippers threatening to unionize — then you got something.

Post-Post:

  • Clara introduces Elmira as being the wife of the local graphologist (one who studies handwriting).  All we know about Sam is that he is a mailman, reads people’s mail, and seems to have married a woman 10 years older than him — so I don’t get the graphologist reference.
  • OK, I guess it refers to reading people’s postcards, but it’s a stretch.
  • Dead last in IMDb’s always-suspect ratings.