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Suspense – Goodbye New York (01/06/49)

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Brought to you by Auto-Lite spark plugs!  You know why you never see commercials for spark plugs any more? [1]

Mrs. Gardner is slumped in her seat on the train and actually thinks, “Goodbye New York.”  She sees a man she believes is following her.  But why?  She thinks back to yesterday.

Returning from the grocery store, she is met outside her apartment door by the Building Superintendent, Mr. Mason.  Apparently the Gardners are behind on the rent.  He gruffly says, “You gotta pay me something or get out!”  People are so much more reasonable today.  Earlier tonight I saw a short film where a landlord worked out a deal with his young blonde tenant.  Although, to be honest, I totally lost interest after about 6 minutes and fell asleep.

Mrs. Gardner promises him they will have some cash soon.  Then she smells gas.  Mr. Mason seems strangely uninterested in this gas leak which could blow up his building,  his job, and his collection of Hummel Figurines.  She enters and finds her husband Ray on the floor.  Their apartment is even shabbier than the Kramden’s down in 3B.  At least the Kramden’s bed is in a bedroom; although, God knows I don’t want to think too much about what goes on in there.  Mrs. Gardner opens the windows and turns off the stove.  Ray wakes up.

After the commercial, Mrs. Gardner finds his suicide note, and adds spark plugs to her shopping list.  Ray lights a cigarette.  Dude, the room was full of gas like 1 minute ago!

He says his old boss Walton has him locked out everywhere.  Walton is telling everyone that Ray broke his contract, so he is toxic. Mrs. Gardner consoles her husband that he had good reason to break it.  If you want to know more about this Succession-like tale of corporate intrigue, too bad.  This is all the detail we get.

Ray says Walton wants him to come crawling back.  Working under the radar, he can’t raise the $500 he owes Walton.  Mrs. Gardner finally brings in the groceries.  Her husband asks how she paid for them, then notices her wedding ring is gone.

Ray grabs his coat, he says to go see someone about borrowing money.  His wife, suspecting he is going back to Walton, begs him not to.  He shoves her aside and bolts outside.  Mrs. Gardner follows him until she sees a sinister looking man on the sidewalk eying her. [2]

Six hours later, Ray returns with $500.  He doesn’t answer her questions about where he was and what is the capital North Dakota.  He just silently washes the blood and self-loathing off his hands.  Murder?  How ’bout some teamwork?  Mrs. Gardner could have picked up $500 that afternoon, and the sticky stuff on her hands wouldn’t be a man’s blood!  The next morning’s newspaper headline says:

Cripes, how big was the font on VJ Day (just 4 years earlier)?  Mrs. Gardner reads that police suspect a disgruntled employee, but dang if I can see anything on that page but the headline.  They get nervous when the police description of a white guy in a dark suit and felt hat narrows the suspects to about 5,000,000 guys in New York City.  Fearing Ray was seen, Mrs. Gardner takes some of the money to buy her husband a new dark suit.  And a new felt hat.

She nervously buys the suit and pays for it with a bloody bill.  As she is leaving, she sees the same creepy guy standing outside the shop.  He follows her back to the apartment.  She takes the suit upstairs and Ray puts it on.  But on the way out of town, he is wearing a trench coat, killing the point of the new suit.

They decide, for no good reason, to separate.  Both feel like all eyes are on them.  Because Ray doesn’t have 2 dimes for the train, it leaves without him.  I guess that’s back when turnstile jumping was illegal.  They meet up later at Grand Central Station.

Finally we are back where we began.  Ray joins his wife on the train.  The mystery man is seated a row in front of them.  They wonder if they will ever be safe, ever have to stop looking over their shoulders.  Well, ya know, he is a murderer.

When the conductor comes around for tickets, the mystery man flashes a badge.  OK, so what?  Is he ever going to confront the Gardners?  Don’t keep me in susp . . . oh,  yeah.

Testing the waters here with a new series.  Of course, it is primitive — it was made 70 years ago!  It is easy to laugh at the production, but it was a new medium and they had no budget.  There were some good signs, though.  The titular suspense is padded out by 2 more visits from Mr. Mason, a strange run-in with a cop, a bit with a piece of paper, and a subtle callback to the bloody bill.  So, they really did make the effort to inject suspense.  There were a couple of fun non-sequiturs that I appreciated.  A little girl was roller-skating outside their apartment, and a guy at the train station pocketed a newspaper.  These might seem like small things, but it shows me that someone cared.  I rate it: Deserves a second episode.

Other Stuff:

  • Mrs. Gardner does not seem to have a first name.  She’s ahead of her husband, though, who is not even listed on IMDb.
  • Mrs. Gardner buys a train ticket from an uncredited Mr.  Hand.  Warning:  Clip includes Sean Penn.
  • [1]  Because not 1 man in 1,000 could change a spark plug today.
  • [2]  But why is this guy eyeballing her?  At this point, Ray has not killed Walton yet.  Is it her gams?

Tales of the Unexpected – The Way Up to Heaven (05/19/79)

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“All her life Mrs. Foster had had an almost pathological fear of missing the train, a plane, a boat, or even a theater curtain.  In other respects, she was not a particularly nervous woman. But the mere thought of being late would throw her into such a state that she would begin to twitch.” 

This is such a day, as she gets a twitchy eye from her late husband.  I mean literally late, as in not on schedule.  Although, at 25 years her senior, he might be the other literally late literally any day.

They are about to leave for six weeks vacation, or holiday, or summering in Balmoral, or whatever the hell rich English people do.  Actually, she is going to New York to see their grandchildren, and he is going to stay at “the club”.  The chauffer thinks Mr. Foster always keeps his wife waiting just to make her crazy.  The butler advises him to shut his gob, but that is good advice for most Brits given the condition of their teeth. [1] She is frantic, fearing she will miss her plane.  Finally, Mr. Foster descends in their elevator.  Told ya they were rich.

Mr. Foster slow-walks out of the elevator, but he is about 90, so maybe he just walks.  Possibly to further irritate his wife, he says he wants to wash his hands.  He says “wash my hands”, but I hear prostate.

They get the kind of break you never get when you’re late.  The flight is delayed while they pre-board the the Handicapped, the Handi-Capable, the Differently-Abled, one real old cripple guy, First Class, the Air Marshall, the Diamond Club, the Emerald Club, the Premier Club, the Admiral Club, the Sky Club, the Ham & Turkey Club, members of the Armed Forces, First Responders, Second Responders, COVID-era Grocery Store Clerks, Airline Credit Card Holders, Travelers with Small Children, Travelers with Support Animals . . .  The Fosters can see this is going to go on all night.  The next flight is 11:00 am, so the airline offers to put them up for the night.  Fearing it would be at a Hostel-6, they go back home.  

The next morning, Mr. Foster surprises his wife by actually being ready to leave early for the airport.  As they are about to leave, he mentions that they will have to stop by their bank which is nowhere near them, kinda like an open Bank of America.

Further infuriating her, he remembers he forgot a package and goes back into the house.  Mrs. Foster finds the package between the seat cushions, which makes no sense.  Mr. Foster was not just carrying it, and this is a different car than they used yesterday.

Anyhoo, she runs to the door, but before she opens it, she can hear Mr. Foster calling her name.  She looks through the letterslot, but doesn’t understand why there are black bars on each side.

She runs back to the car and tells the driver she can’t wait for her husband.  He can take an Uber to “the club”.  They take off for the airport.

Six weeks later, Mrs. Foster returns home.  There are letters all over the floor that have been put through the mail-slot, including weekly letters from her to her husband.  She also finds her husband dead in the elevator which is stuck between floors.  Cue TOTU’s secret weapon, the jaunty carnival-like closing theme.

As usual with TOTU, I hated the episode the first time I watched it.  Then, on a second viewing to fill in some notes, I liked it much more.  There is just one problem and it is a biggie.  No, not the mysterious appearance of Mr. Foster’s package.  [note to self: there must be a less Toobinesque way to say that]

Who am I to criticize the great Roald Dahl?  Fighter pilot, screenwriter, children’s author, Hitchcock fav, antisemite.  Wait, what?  OK, I feel a little better about it.  There was a huge misstep in this story.  Mr. Foster clearly irritated his wife with his lateness, but there were also signs throughout that she loved him.  So why make her a murderer?  A better solution would have been to have her leave for the airport without knowing he was trapped in the elevator.  It was already established that he would write her no letters, so that would not have been a clue.[2] When she returns home, only then she realizes her impetuous decision to race to the airport caused his death.  Maybe the answer is that Dahl (like Hitchcock) preferred straight-up murder to accidental death.  That’s how I want to go. [3]

So, another episode that I ended up liking, but would never recommend to anyone.

Other Stuff:

  • Title Analysis:  No idea.  One explanation I found online seems like horseshit.  The story is called “The Way Up to Heaven” because Mrs. Foster’s path to heaven on earth comes from killing her husband by leaving him trapped in an elevator heading up in their six-story New York [England in the episode] home. Her husband is a sadistic man, and she feels free with him gone.  1) Mr. Foster did not seem deliberately sadistic; just old and Bidenesque.  2) How is anyone’s path to Heaven secured by breaking one of the 10 Commandments?  And one of the big ones, not like coveting your neighbor’s sweet, sweet ass.  3)  A parallel is suggested of the “Up” in the title and the elevator going up.  That would only make sense if Mr. Foster were going to Heaven; but you just called him a sadistic monster.  I guess it does mean her personal Heaven on Earth.[4]  But the elevator going up did not free her.  In fact, the elevator not going up freed her.  I just don’t like the title.
  • [1]  Apparently this has improved since WWI.
  • [2]  Fun Fact:  There were no telephones in England in the 1970s.
  • [3]  The short story is online, but I’m not sure it should be.  It describes Mrs. Foster hearing something through the door, but doesn’t specify what.  
  • [4]  Learned tonight:  It is Ooooh Heaven, not Blue Heaven.

Science Fiction Theatre – Sun Gold (12/14/56)

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What happened this week?  Was there a substitute teacher?  This episode is relatively awesome!   Relatively.

  • Truman Bradley actually names the location of the first scene rather than giving the usual generic description:  He says “The Smithsonian Museum” rather than “a large east coast museum built on former swampland in the most corrupt city in America.”
  • We meet archaeologist Dr. Susan Calvin.  To be fair, SFT has often been progressive about featuring women as scientists.  The interesting thing here is an actual literary allusion!  This has got to be a reference to Isaac Asimov’s recurring character Susan Calvin in his robot stories.  She wasn’t an archaeologist, but it’s progress.  
  • Explosions
  • Stunts
  • International locations (well, some inserts from Machu Picchu).
  • Ancient Astronauts

Howard Evans enters Susan Calvin’s lab expecting to find a man.  She lets him dangle for a few questions before admitting she is Dr. Calvin.  He reaches in his pocket and grabs two stones.  With his other hand, he shows her two glassy green rocks.  She tells him they aren’t emeralds, but he already knows that.

She says they were created by a nuclear explosion, but he knows that too.  He adds that this is sand from Peru that has been fused together.  Dr. Calvin is surprised that the glass came from Peru.  Evans says they were found “high in the Andes.”  Wait, there is sand high in the Andes?  Why didn’t those Uruguayan soccer players eat the sand which is there?  Sandwiches there?  Anybody?  Is this thing on? [1]

He asks to use her “dating machine”, but it doesn’t find any hot matches 20 years younger than him.  It does, however, determine that the glass is 2,000 years old.  Dr. Calvin says, “You can hardly expect me to believe such a fantastic assumption!”  She knows Peru did not have nuclear power 2,000 years ago, and has her doubts about electricity in 1956. 

Evans tells her a top secret expedition is going to Peru to find where this glass came from, find how a nuclear explosion was set off, find who could have done it, and find lodging with indoor plumbing.  And guess what? You’re on it!  The expedition, not the plumbing.

They travel to Cusca, capital of the ancient Inca Empire.  To go up into the Andes, they must travel by mule.  At a remote monastery, Padre Xavier welcomes them to the Inca Empire, but says they have no throne.  He warns them not to go to Red Ghost Valley.  “It is a place of landslides and evil forces.”  Xavier’s student Sallah Tawa joins them as a guide.

Half-Time Report:  This episode has already distinguished itself as one of SFT’s best.  The dialogue has been snappier than usual.  The writer was no Tarantino, but it is definitely an improvement.  There have also been fun ideas such as a poison arrow booby trap. [3] We get actual stunt work as both performers appear to take a fall down a rock chute.  At one point, there was a rumbling and I expected a giant boulder to chase them.  It’s not Raiders of the Lost Ark, but it might be Crystal Skull.  Next, they find a mysterious metal mirror.  When they move it, a giant plume of fire shoots out of the rocks.  Bravo!  Just great stuff compared to past episodes.In Red Ghost Valley, using the hieroglyphics on a stone tablet, they begin solving the mystery.  Dr. Calvin translates, “Four stars make up a sun on earth.  One star on the 15th step of the big staircase.  One star on the yellow peak.  The third star on the block below.  And the fourth star right where we’re standing.”  They are finally able to figure out the cryptic locations, especially the “right where we’re standing” one.

They position reflectors at the four spots and aim them at the ancient mirror.  An intense fire appears a few feet from them and uncovers a cave.  When the area cools, they find more green glass, although part of it is an old Heineken’s bottle.  This means the fire was as hot as an atomic bomb.  Dr. Calvin, also hot as an atomic bomb, is astounded because Peruvians 2,000 years ago could never have designed this system.

They drop into a cave (another stunt!) and find a fortune in Incan gold.  Hieroglyphics describe how the reflectors can form a beam to turn rock into gold.  The tablet also says this technology came from people from the sky.  They find a skull that is too large to be from a human, even Leonardo DiCaprio.[4] Dr. Calvin suggests, “Do you think they came from outer space, leaving the Incans this gift of progress?”  Holy crap, did SFT just invent Ancient Astronauts?

In the 2nd half, the fun continued with stunts, explosions, and actual ideas.  Even the shortcomings work in its favor.  Howard Evans is not developed much as a character. [2] But that is largely because Marilyn Erskine as Susan Calvin blows him off the screen (but that is none of our business). Not only is she beautiful, but she drives much of the detective work solving this mystery.  Another example is some wind noise in the Andes scenes.  I suspect it is a technical error (not Hollywoody enough), but it totally works in establishing the harsh environment.

I can’t express how much I love this episode.  It might be objectively terrible, but compared to the previous 70 episodes — I never imagined this would happen with SFT — I have to give it an A. [5]

Other Stuff:

  • Who to credit for this masterpiece?  Writer Peter Brooke?  His career is almost entirely packed into four years.  Then, presumably, his wife told him to get a real job.  Thirteen years after a story credit on a 1964 The Fugitive, he rebounded with one episode of The Six Million Dollar Man.  I didn’t even know she was sick.  He did manage to parlay this early effort into six Sugarfoots (or Sugarfeet).
  • This was director Eddie Davis’s 9th SFT, but I don’t remember any others being standouts.  I see on IMDb he also directed 16 episodes of The Unexpected which looks pretty good.  Sadly it seems it be lost forever.  
  • [1]  Joe Miller Jokebook circa 1739.
  • [1]  They were rugby players.  Why does everyone always call them soccer players?
  • [1]  But all seriousness aside, would there be sand in the Andes?
  • [2]  Dr. Calvin is more developed, but it’s hard to tell in that lab coat.  Heyoooo!
  • [3]  As in Raiders, I wonder who resets these ancient booby traps?
  • [4]  Would also have accepted: Ted Kennedy.  That had to be a 30-poundah.
  • [5]  I’ve watched 70 of these things?  

Alfred Hitchcock Presents – Incident in a Small Jail (03/21/61)

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Hey, it’s uber- “That Guy” . . . or rather, uber- “That Dead Guy” John Fiedler!  Alas, where are the John Fiedlers, the Richard Stahls, the Charles Lanes of today?  Maybe driving for Uber.  Would network TV even allow these unattractive, old, bald(ing) white guys on the screen today?  I’m thinking of their heydays [1] when they converged on The Odd Couple.  And HTF does The Odd Couple (1970) not appear first when you search IMDb for “odd couple”?  Ain’t nothing but the best show ever.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, this is another one of those AHP episodes that is so good, I really have nothing to complain about.  Ray Bradbury Theatre, I miss you.

Due to my continued refusal to walk all the way across the room to load the DVD player, I am again watching on dailymotion.  I suspect the provenance of this video is about like that Picasso I bought, that not only was sold to me out of a car trunk, but was signed by Van Gogh.

In an effort to throw off copyright sleuths, the perps have uploaded the video backwards and zoomed-in.  However, the more Holmesian among you will note that they have helpfully tagged the video with the correctly spelled series name and episode title.

Well, might as well get this over with.

John Fiedler pulls into a gas station, launching a series of archaic events.

  1. An attendant fills the gas tank for him. [2]
  2. He tells Fiedler he can get a drink at the drugstore across the street. [3]
  3. Fiedler is arrested for jaywalking.

To be fair, even though the cop is a dick, Fiedler is actually arrested for then attempting to bribe a government official who is not in Congress.  Officer Carly [7] takes Fiedler to the jailhouse, oddly transporting him in the front seat.  The Sheriff seems a little more sane, but has bigger problems since a local girl was just found murdered.

Luckily a hitchhiker was found nearby and just brought to the jail.  Fiedler is ignored as he continually pleads to see the judge.  He even offers the same bribe to the Sheriff.  Again, Fiedler is lost in the shuffle as another Officer enters and says the men in town are forming a lynch-mob.

Hearing that the mob is heading this way, the  alleged killer demands to be set free, even though he is in the safest possible place — a locked iron cage.  Fiedler also whines to be released, but he is again the least of their worries.  Besides, he just did the impossible; he committed another crime while alone in a jail cell.  Bloody recidivist!

Incredibly, the dim-witted Sheriff agrees to transport the accused killer to another location.  Fiedler begs to also be taken.  “Shut up!”, the Sheriff explains.  But the distraction allows the killer to knock him out.  The killer then unlocks Fiedler’s cell and says, “Take off your clothes, buddy!”  Not what you want to hear in prison.

After putting on Fiedler’s suit, the killer locks him in his (the killer’s) cell as if the lynch-mob would know what cell the killer was in. Wouldn’t it maybe be the ONLY guy in the jail?  The mob shows up and drags Fiedler out of the cell.  They beat him unconscious, but the Officer shows up and runs them off.  I guess it would have been too much to arrest a couple.  Sixty years later, the Officer became Mayor of Portland. [4]

The next morning, when the bloodied Fiedler awakens, the Officer says the city will drop the charges and buy him a new suit.  Fair compensation for being overcharged, detained and beaten senseless.

As Fiedler is driving from town, he checks his briefcase.  Yep, his big knife is still in there.  Then he sees something never once witnessed in the USA, a pretty young blonde hitchhiker who is not on drugs or just escaped from a sex manic.  [6]

Another just about perfect episode.  Well told and well cast.  Fiedler is the perfect pusillanimous, high-pitched, panicky dweeb to sucker us in. [5]   It also plays on Hitchcock’s familiar theme of being falsely arrested.  The beautiful irony is that he was almost lynched for the crime he actually committed.

Other Stuff:

  • The title is a blatant rip-off of Incident in a Small Town which aired 30 years later.  Wait, what?  The title feels much older than that, but 30 seconds of research revealed no earlier source.  Maybe I’m thinking of Tragedy in a Temporary Town (1956) which I saw recently.
  • As always, a better write-up about the episode can be found at bare*bones ezine.
  • [1]  I would have bet money it was hayday, like “making hay”.  What does hey have to do with it?
  • [2]  This might not seem so strange if you are in Oregon or New Jersey where it is still illegal to pump your own gas.  Free country, pfft!
  • [3]  Long ago, most drug stores had soda fountains.  Mercifully, I deleted a dopey reference about Evel Knivel jumping the fountain at Caesar’s Palace, but here is the famous video.  Not deleted or in any way relevant, here is the Agony of Defeat clip.  And Bad Romance accompanied by tap-dancing because it is a hoot.
  • [4]  Would also have accepted:  Seattle.
  • [5]  35 years later, he had not changed a bit in the late, great Buffalo Bill
  • [6]  Upon review, she was not hitchhiking, but just walking along the road.  But you never see that either.
  • [7]  Myron Healey (Officer Carly) went on to star in The Incredible Melting Man.