Alfred Hitchcock Presents – Reward to Finder (S3E6)

ahprewardto01Carl Kaminsky is like one of those guys with a metal detector on the beach; except he has no metal detector, no straw hat, isn’t wearing shorts and is on a city street.  OK, not so similar — but he is keeping his eyes down looking for anything of interest.

On a grate, he picks up a soaking wet newspaper for reasons I can’t imagine.  Then he spots a wallet and picks it up.  He spends about the same amount of time looking for owner as OJ did looking for the real killers — then pockets the wallet.

He goes home to a very humble apartment and his wife Anna (Jo Van Fleet).  Fleet was last seen as a thoroughly repulsive shrew in Dangerous People.  Here, she is not as insane, but despite being abused by her brutish husband, she is no more likable or sympathetic a character.

Carl is in, what apparently for him, is a good mood even though he is still cruel to Anna.  And he’s not mentioning the wallet to her.  She asks what he is so happy about, he tells her to “shut up with the questions.”  Christ, what is this guy like on a bad day?

Finally he does whip out the wallet and shows her that it contains 52 $100 bills, and there is no name in the wallet.  Anna’s plan is to return the wallet in anticipation of a big reward.  Carl has a slightly different plan.

The next day, Anna sees an ad in the paper offering a generous reward for the wallet.  Anna wants to call, but Carl says he will return the wallet to the owner.  He comes home furious, telling Anna that there was no reward.  He then heads up to the attic to hide the wallet.

ahprewardto10Two weeks later, Anna is still pissed about being stiffed on the reward. She sees that the ad is still running in the paper, then she is really pissed and catches Carl counting the Bejamins in the attic.

Soon, Anna is buying new furniture, a new dress, and a mink coat.  When Carl demands that she return it, she threatens to call the owner of the wallet.  After a screaming match where Anna smacks Carl and dares her to hit her back, he retreats to the attic.

She brings him a poisoned cup of coffee while he is counting the money yet again.  He clubs her to death with a statuette, then drinks the coffee.

ahprewardto16It’s a great story, but the leads are so repulsive that it is impossible to have any empathy for them.

Post-Post:

  • AHP Deathwatch:  No survivors among those with data on IMDb.

Night Gallery – Tell David (S2E14)

ngtelldavid03On a dark and stormy night, Ann Bolt is driving through the rain.  After a nasty bolt of lightning, the radio starts playing some awful music and it seems to be daylight — or at least, dusk — I’m not sure if this was a story point or a mistake.  The rain continuing, and the radio going crazy, I can see happening; but time reversing is going to get a reaction from me.

She pulls into the garage of the first house she sees, and rings the bell. The owner, Pat Blessington, invites her in, and Ann is confused by the krazee electronics.  There is a closed circuit security monitor which she mistakes for modern art, a one-way window, and a telephone which is very unfuturistically built into a casserole console.

ngtelldavid15Pat is very accommodating, offering her a cigarette of a type she’s never seen before — non-lethal.  Pat’s husband David comes downstairs to show off his new gadget — a mapping computer about the size of a suitcase.  He is able to show her the way home, but they invite Ann back some time when she can stay longer.

When Anne arrives home, she notices her husband’s car is dry and there isn’t a cloud in the sky.  For some reason, Ann’s husband Tony is waiting for her dressed as an old hag and begins screaming at her.  Supposedly he is acting out the way she treats him, reducing her to tears.

ngtelldavid12I supposed the hag mask was an excuse to make something of the reveal that the same actor is playing David and Tony.  It was wasted on me as he is such an average looking guy that I still couldn’t make them look alike the second time I watched it. Add completely different temperaments, hair and mustache, and it seems pointless.

After a lot of screaming, they go upstairs to check on their child, also named David — hey, you don’t think . . . Tony makes eyes at the Nanny as he passes.

The next day at the Blessington’s house, it is clear that David realizes that Ann is his mother, has somehow traveled from the past, and — oh yeah — isn’t dead.  He is pretty nonchalant about this miracle.  He talks about how he got the name Blessington from a relative who took him in as an orphan, but never mentions his prior name.  He is also pretty obtuse in vaguely telling a story about a woman who killed her husband and later herself.  Ach du lieber, just tell her and save her life, you idiot — she’s your mother!

ngtelldavid21Back at home, Tony mentions — apparently for the first time in their relationship — a cousin named Jane Blessington. That, combined with an incident older David mentioned about his 4th birthday finally clues Ann into what is happening.

None-the-less, after catching Tony making out with the Nanny, she shoots him and plans on killing herself before the trial.  This is the sacrifice she is willing to make after seeing what a good man David grew up to be.

Post-Post:

  • Twilight Zone Legacy:  None.
  • Swapping spit is apparently pretty casual in the future, so it is lucky David recognized his mother early on, or we could have had a reverse Back to the Future moment.
  • Skipped segment: Logoda’s Heads, because two was enough.  Although, Vigoda’s Head — that, I would have checked out.  A rare misfire by Robert Bloch.

Night Gallery – The Different Ones (S2E14)

ngdifferent05A 17 year old boy, Vic, is sitting alone in his bedroom as kids outside yell at his window calling him ugly and a freak.  We’re in kind of a tough position to judge since he has a sack over his head.  In any event, I think we can agree the kids are assholes.

His father says that after a lot of thought, he has decided to send Vic to live among others like him.  Somewhere he can be himself and walk in the sun.  Vic asks where this utopia is, but his father really has no ideas.

The father calls the government on a swell video-phone, asking for the department that deals with deformed kids.  He is referred to The Department of Special Urban Problems.  When they ask the nature of the deformity, Vic tears off the sack and photobombs his dad’s call.

ngdifferent08Shockingly, the government is of no help.  Their only solutions are 1) Vic lives with his father for the rest of his life, or 2) Vic is put to sleep (OK’d by the Conformity Act of 1993).  At the last second, a position opens up in an exchange program with another planet.

Vic’s father watches with tears in his eyes as a rocket takes off carrying away his son.  Then we are treated to a lot of NASA stock footage, which is OK with me — I could watch that stuff all day..  He meets a very human looking man in the jet-way and learns that he is the exchange for Vic.

Bottom line, the freak on the other planet is handsome by human standards, and Vic is handsome by their standards.  Everybody’s a winner.

ngdifferent18A pretty light-weight segment, but I’m a sucker for a happy ending.

Post-Post:

  • Twilight Zone Legacy:  Mary Gregory was in three episodes, and Dana Andrews was in one.
  • Also, I was getting Eye of the Beholder deja vu.