Monthly Archives: May 2016

Twilight Zone S4 – I Dream of Genie (03/21/63)

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tzdreamofgenie01A couple of antique store hustlers spot George Hanley at the door immediately after mentioning an “unsuspecting sucker.”  They manage to high-pressure the rube Hanley into buying a brass lamp for $20 which is worth millions if properly used.

Of course Hanley, like every other character in a story like this, does not use the lamp to its fullest potential.  He plans to give the lamp to Ann, a floozy in his office, for her birthday.

Oxymoronic alpha-bookkeeper Roger beats Hanley to the punch by giving Ann his present first.  It is an entirely inappropriate gift of lingerie which one of the beta-bookkeepers suggests she try on in the office.  This being the 60’s, it is all in good fun and not the basis for a lawsuit.  Ann rewards Roger with a big ol’ kiss on the lips.  Hanley is embarrassed at his gift, so takes it home.

tzdreamofgenie03He is greeted at home by his motley (or muttley) dog Attila.  He opens up the brass lamp he bought for Ann. As he begins rubbing it white stuff suddenly shoots out of the tip causing a Genie to appear.  This is a different kind of Genie.  He is wearing contemporary clothing (although, that of a contemporary used car salesman) except for the velveteen Tinkerbell shoes.  Also, sadly, he is not a hot blonde.  The Genie also reduced the number of wishes from three to one as the 3-hour Twilight Zone has mercifully not been suggested yet.

The Genie offers Hanley his wish, but warns him against wishing for love, riches or a 10-inch pianist.  He advises Hanley to sleep on it and let him know his decision the next day.

Hanley considers being the first man on the moon, a scientist, a general, or . . . what if Ann was a movie actress [1] and they were married!  He fantasizes about them being America’s sweethearts.  Unfortunately, Ann is so busy with her career, that she has put off their honeymoon for 6 months.  I think we are supposed to believe this includes any sort of romance beyond a kiss on the forehead.  Strangely, in this scenario, Attila has become a frou-frou little poodle.

tzdreamofgenie04Hanley sits at a piano and mopes. He spots a girl hiding beneath the piano who claims she is too young too drink.  “In the years, I am a child.  But I think I am mature.” This potentially interesting — and felonious — interlude is cut short when the girl discovers that Hanley is not a producer, just a stage-husband.  Hanley discovers Ann is having an affair with her leading man Unable to get the girl even in a fantasy, he is yanked back to reality.

Further ignoring the Genie, his next fantasy is to be a rich bastard.  I don’t know what kind of dog Attila has morphed into in this scenario, but the son-of-a-bitch is about 5 feet tall on his hind legs.  He slips a newspaper urchin $100 for a paper and later donates $1.2 Million to a college.  He is criticized by the ingrate college president for being ostentatious in his generosity.  He finds having money is no fun once he can easily buy everything he wants.  This insane fantasy also crumbles before the urchin has a chance to berate him for his $99.95 tip.[2]

He snaps back to reality to find that Roger has gotten a promotion that Hanley had hoped for.  He decides that maybe power is what would really make him happy.  He imagines himself as the president, being feted with a ticker-tape parade.  This time Attila is a Scottish Terrier which seems a little un-American.  Hanley gets to make all sorts of humanitarian gestures — meeting with scouts, giving electricity to the masses, pardoning a young soldier from the firing squad.  It’s all fun and games until the earth is attacked by aliens and Hanley is faced with the destruction of humanity.

Back in reality, Hanley finally comes to a decision about what to wish for. We next see the brass lamp being retrieved from the garbage by a hobo-American.  When he rubs it, out comes the Genie formally known as George Hanley.  He has not only increased the Genie unemployment figures by one, he has diluted the wish-value by going back to three, and has embraced the Genie stereotype by dressing like Sinbad and wearing a turban.

The estimable Twilight Zone Companion takes a rare misstep on this episode.  It suggests the episode is a failure partly because the Genie had already warned George that his dreams of riches and love would end badly.  I think that is predicted, or at least 100% anticipated, every time we see a tale such as this, from The Monkey’s Paw to No Time Like the Past.  Knowing things will end badly is not a weakness.  Exhibit A:

Taylor:  A planet where apes evolved from men?  There’s got to be an answer.

Dr. Zaius:  Don’t look for it, Taylor.  You might not like what you find.

Then, POW, the best ending in movie history . . . you know, if it had not been spoiled a thousand times before anyone ever sees the movie as a kid by pop culture, The Simpsons, or the bloody movie poster and DVD case.

tzdreamofgenie14Post-Post:

  • [1] Ouch, kind of a shot at mere TV actress Patricia Berry portraying Ann.
  • [2] The real horror is that Hanley was in a 90% tax bracket at the time.
  • I enjoyed the way people from Hanley’s life portray different characters in his various fantasies.
  • Writer John Furia has 2 movie credits.  Oddly, both are stories about nuns — Change of Habit and The Singing Nun.
  • One month later, Howard Morris would make his first appearance as Ernest T. Bass.

Fear Itself – The Sacrifice (06/07/08)

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In place of the increasingly tedious Tales From the Crypt, I selected the one-and-done season of Fear Itself that I had always intended to watch.  Technically, it is season 3 of the Masters of Horror series which had aired on Showtime.  Showtime opted to dump MOH as prettier girls such as Dexter and Weeds [1] began actually making people aware of the network’s existence.  NBC then picked up the series as a companion to their other fictional horror show, MSNBC.

fearitselfsacrifice03Little things matter.  Usually little things matter correspondingly little; but you never know. Thus, it was not taken as a good omen that the packaging for the series was among the worst in history, or at least since the Homer’s Head season of the Simpsons.  Or, really, any season of Herman’s Head.[2]  But, I digress.

The Outside:  The probably-sounded-good-at-the-4:30-on-Friday-meeting case consists of a rounded 3D plastic tombstone with a 3D skeleton molded into it.  This slides down into a little cardboard sleeve which has the episodes listed on the inside.  Some probably like this design, but I like my DVD cases like my women — flat on top.  No, wait.

fearitselfsacrifice04The Inside:  Opening the case creates two disappointments.  The first is immediate as a little black rubber ring falls out onto your lap and rolls under the desk behind the power-strip where it is difficult to reach and you realize how long it has been since you vacuumed (your yardage may vary).  This is used to protect the the facing DVDs from scratching each other — that would be the double-sided flipper DVDs with no listing of the Titles on them.

The Content:  Again, a couple of issues.  First, the menu screen loads and runs for an interminable 45 seconds before listing the episodes.  First, why are these animated screens on DVDs even a thing, much less often touted as a feature?  For our 45 second investment, we get a wet window with FEAR ITSELF fingered into the condensation, and not much else.  Second, when you see the titles, ya might think the episodes would be in the order aired.  But no — remove disc one, flip it to play side 2 for the premiere.  And WTF — 2 episodes per side?  They could have gone for 4 per side and actually put snazzy episode listings on one side.  Based on the crummy resolution, they had plenty giga-acres of space available.  However, credit where it is due — this is the rare horror series to instill me with a sense of dread even before it started.

On the other hand, I must say the first episode is pretty awesome.

fearitselfsacrifice09The very first shot is simple but feels perfect — a nicely composed muddy road with the remains of a snowstorm still piled on the sides.  An SUV roars by carrying the brain-trust of Point, Lemon, Diego and Navarro.  Lemon is taking care of the injured Navarro in the back seat.  Telling Diego to stop smoking like a chimney might have helped.  We are left to put the pieces together, but it is pretty clear that they had a Reservoir Dog Day Afternoon — just with a lot more flannel.

The SUV jolts and grinds to a stop.  Point and Diego get out and see what appears to be the vehicle’s drive shaft lying in the mud a few yards back.  They see smoke on the horizon, so begin walking across a large snowy field to seek help.  As Navarro can’t walk, they pack him into a canoe and drag it with them — sadly, there is no scene of them running the rapids in a travois.  This is forgivable, however, as we get some great Fargo-esque shots of them trekking through the snow.  The camera draws back to show a figure with a rifle watching them.

fearitselfsacrifice14After a few interesting shots of Lemon dragging the canoe across the snow, they arrive at an old fort.  Again, the show exceeds expectations — this is not only a great, substantial wooden fort, it has an unsettling array of animal horns and antlers plastered across its face.  As with every show I’ve watched for this blog, the men have no hesitation in opening the door and walking right in.

They find 3 hot blonde sisters living at the fort.  Chelsea stitches up Navarro’s wound; also his mouth.  The smoking hot Virginia lures Diego into a barn where she promptly tricks him into falling down a well — but one o’ them wells with an iron door which she closes against his protests.

Point and Lemon are treated to a meal by the Chelsea and the mute Tara.  Things start going off the rails as Point discovers Navarro’s body which now also features a stake through the heart.  Also, he finds a man chained in the same room as bait for a creature.  The creature then finds Diego in the well.

fearitselfsacrifice20Virginia, quite the little Rambo, then manages to whack Lemon in the head and string him up by his feet.  Point finds a room full of license plates hanging by strings.  The girls have been luring men, and not in the good way.  What appeared to be pieces that had fallen off the truck were actually junk left in the road by the girls to force stranded travelers to their fort.  As long as they feed the creature, it will stay within the fort and not go out into the world.  That is the titular sacrifice the girls have made.

There are a few problems with the story.  The production is so well-designed and some of the performances are so good, though, that it doesn’t matter.  Guns, a vampire, rolling heads, fire, and a heartbreaking twist.  What more could you want?

No time was sacrificed in the viewing of this episode.

fearitselfsacrifice22Post-Post:

  • [1] To be fair, Stargate was also in its 27th season at the time.
  • [2] Again, to be fair, I recall Herman’s Head being a pretty good show.  I just couldn’t think of any other shows with Head in the title.
  • Lemon went on to play Todd on Breaking Bad.
  • Filmed at Fort Edmonton Park in Canada.
  • Based on The Lost Herd which is available here.  The episode follows the short story in only the most superficial ways.  There is a fort occupied by three women, and some dudes show up.  The names of 2 men — cowboys in the story — are the same; Joplin is inexplicably changed to Navarro.  Maybe screenwriter Mick Garris prefers alternative rock to ragtime.  Whatever he was listening to when he did the adaptation, it worked because he made an iffy story into a very good episode.

The short story pales in comparison to the episode, but even standing alone it has problems. If I dare indulge in some kettle-shaming, the writing just isn’t very good.

  • A 30-year old woman is described a “a girl with the experience of a woman.”  Upon seeing her, one of the cowboys “wrapped his hands around his saddle horn.”
  • Virginia is described as “thin” but later is said to be built for comfort rather than speed.  That is a jarringly anachronistic phrase to use in a story set in the old west.  But then, as speed at the time was represented by a horse, maybe comfort would equal thin.
  • Chelsea is described as heavier than her sister, but later Ray’s hand “could almost wrap itself completely around the soft top of her leg.”  And even for the thin sister, that would be anorexically thin.
  • Chelsea reaches inside Ray’s pants and says, “If you loosen my pistols, I’ll loosen yours.”  What could that even mean?
  • Ray rips open Chelsea’s shirt and “her skin was cleaner under the clothesline, as if the material had protected her from the dirt.”  That does seem to fall within the job description of clothing.  And the use of clothesline as if it were like timberline is distracting.
  • I keep rereading the last 3 lines of the story and can’t make sense of them.  But then I never could figure out the last line of Stephen King’s version of The Mist either.  Maybe it’s just me.

Tales of Tomorrow – Ice From Space (08/08/52)

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ttice03The Arrow B76 took off 2 days ago. Radar tracked it for 76,200 miles then it disappeared.

For 48 hours there has been no sign of the AR-76 (which apparently is what we’re calling it now, 30 seconds later). Major Dozier tells Congress-man Burns perhaps he can figure out who repealed the law of what goes up must come down. As it was tracked 76,200 miles, the officer would have been better off heeding Newton’s 1st Law of Motion rather than the drug-addled musings of a 60’s pop song that had not been written yet.  

Congressman Burns says they are past the point where they can laugh at the waste of millions of dollars of taxpayer money.  After all, a graft-mine like that doesn’t come along every day.

Inexplicably, he says their calculations indicate it should fall to Earth within 50 miles of where it was launched.  He is interested to see what happened to the passengers, some mice which the men have nicknamed the Flying Mice Brothers[1], even though the obvious gag would have been The Wrat Brothers.

ttice06Out of the blue, Burns zings the officer by saying his father would have known how much it cost. They get word that the rocket has came down nearby at the ol’ Baker Ranch.  We don’t get to see the spacecraft, but it returned containing a block of ice large enough to contain a thing from another world.

Sgt Paul Newman runs in and tells Dozier and Burns that a man has died from exposure to the block of ice.  Burns complains that in 3 days, the block of ice has turned 75 miles of desert into the Arctic.  Not to nitpick, but the Arctic technically is a desert.  His complaints are understandable, however, as congressional fact-finding missions tend more toward Hawaii than the Arctic Rim.

The block of ice is impervious to any attempt to melt or destroy it.  The military even believes it could be attempting to send a signal to outer space.  They are concerned that the effects of this giant ice cube could extend to other farms and cities around the world.

ttice10Dozier secretly sends the AR-76 up again, taking the ice back to outer space.  To be sure it is destroyed in space, Dozier went up with the rocket.  Burns regrets that two Doziers have given their lives for their country.

Kind of a simplistic tale.  Spacecraft returns a block of ice, it is bad, so it is sent back to space.  It really baffles me why this series is so infantile.  People weren’t stupid back then.  To the contrary, this is when the foundation for space exploration was just starting. I guess the powers that be at the network just weren’t ready for anything challenging.  This aired an hour after Ozzie and Harriet and opposite Our Miss Brooks.  But 60 years before The Kardashians and Real Housewives of Yada Yada.

I give this one 16 out of 32 degrees.

Post-Post:

  • [1] Worst title since Billy and the Cloneasaurus.
  • See also Ice-Nine.
  • Paul Newman had a small role; sadly too small for me to work in puns on Sting, Hustler, Butch, Hombre, Nobody’s Fool, Verdict, Absence of Malice, Exodus, Newman’s Own, etc.
  • The rocket program is headed by Dr. Meshkoff who has a heavy accent — I’m no expert, but he sounds like a Russki. Of course, had the producers been prescient, he would have been a German.  As everyone knows, our Germans were better than their Germans.
  • The sponsor is again Maslin Carpets.  They are humping their new Cantata which is shown available in the following colors.  They knew this was B&W, right?

Night Visions – Neighborhood Watch (08/16/01)

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nvneighborhood1Rollins’ Intro:  A monster has moved into 2460 Terrell Street.  Family man Jim Osgoode must now battle the beast.

The Osgoodes (Apt 207) receive a letter informing them that a convicted sex offender has moved into their condo complex (Apt 221).  Sally’s husband Jim isn’t too concerned, thinking a parole officer or someone must be keeping an eye on him.  Or he suggests that maybe the guy did something not-so-bad, like being a flasher.  Just when ya have Jim pegged as an idiot, he states that he is a lawyer; so asshole is probably more accurate.

Sally expects him to “do something,” but his natural inclination to protect the criminal kicks in.  OK, to be fair, I think he is concerned, but at a loss over what can be done . . . thanks to a system corrupted by people like him.  So I still don’t let him off the hook.

Some neighbors drop by after receiving the same warning letter.  They get out the binoculars and check out the perv through a window across the courtyard.  It would be easy to get sanctimonious about quick they are to indulge in some creepy behavior . . . but they do see the childless man unpacking some toys.

nvneighborhood3It pains me to say it, but the lawyer is the voice of reason here.  He counters that his uncle collected race cars.  Probably his unmarried uncle, but still.  When the mob is just about ready to do a drive-by shooting from the Welcome Wagon, Jim talks them back down to sanity.

The next day, Sally is watching over the kids at the Condo’s playground. Unfortunately, the new neighbor comes down and sits on a bench near the kids.  We can tell he is evil because he is kept out-of-focus in the background.  Of course, with this lousy YouTube transfer, the foreground looks equally evil.  Sally gathers the kids up and hustles them back home.

The Osgoodes install bars on the windows and are looking into motion detectors.  As Sally is talking to the contractor, their daughter Janey goes outside alone.  Sally catches a glimpse of her daughter as the elevator door closes in front of her and the perv.  Sally runs down the stairs to meet the elevator.  When it opens, her daughter gets out and says the man just went to the basement to throw out some boxes.

nvneighborhood6The grown-up mob reconvenes and they agree it is time to send this guy a message.  The kiddie mob convenes at a sleepover and the girls dare Janey to go to the man’s unit, er condo, and bring back proof that she was there.

The menfolk man-up, get their testosterone flowing and react like alpha male brutes — they go to the parking lot and key the man’s car, break a window and start whacking it with a hammer.

Janey climbs up a trellis and into the man’s window.  She selects a toy to steal, but the man comes back home at that second.  As she tries to escape, the man rips a handful of her pajamas.  When the police can’t help, the neighbors agree it is time to stop him for good.  Jim is chosen to pay him a visit.

Jim kills him with one shot.  His neighbors provide an alibi for each other.  Unfortunately, the next day, the Osgoodes receive a letter stating that the previous letter contained an error — the sex offender actually moved into 212 rather than 221.  D’oh!

Post-Post:

  • Rollins’ Closing:  There’s still a monster living at 2460 Terrell Street and every time he looks in the mirror, Jim Osgoode will see it.  I really wanted this to be an error, but the complex is at 2460, and units were indeed different numbers.
  • Although that 2nd floor seems to be a cesspool of perversion, voyeurism and murder.