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Twilight Zone S4 – He’s Alive (01/24/63)

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tzhesalive02Neo-Nazi Peter Vollmer (Dennis Hopper) is ranting on a street corner about the usual suspects — the Palestinian, the black man, the yellow man.  He later refers to them as Izzy, Rastus and Pancho, so I guess Mexicans are yellow in his world.  Palestinian doesn’t really seem to fit, but maybe you couldn’t single out Jews on TV in 1963, even to make a point about bigotry.

The neighborhood is not particularly receptive to his rant, one man pelting him with a tomato.  A fight breaks out and a citizen who does not agree to disagree belts him.  The citizen might be a fan of diversity, but his grasp of the 1st amendment is a little shaky.  The police show up to save their ass, and suddenly the neo-Nazis aren’t too worried about being hassled by the man anymore.

Vollmer slinks back to the apartment of his friend, an old man named Ernst.  Naturally, this being a Serling script, Ernst spent 9 years in Dachau.  He says he was put there by men like Vollmer which begs the question of why they are friends, and why Ernst is letting him crash there like it’s Herr-bnb.

tzhesalive07That night, Vollmer awakens on the couch and looks out the window.  He sees a man down on the street in the shadows.  He goes down to meet the man whose face miraculous remains shadowed.  He gives Vollmer some much-needed tips on public speaking.

The titular “He” in the street does help.  Whereas Vollmer had been a bumbling speaker, worse than Al Sharpton without a teleprompter (although, to be fair, not as bad as Al Sharpton with a teleprompter), he now is speaking in a hall.  His words flow and he exhibits a new confidence in his fiery tirade against minorities.  His mysterious benefactor even picks up the tab for the hall.

At the man’s request, Vollmer has his lackeys kill off one of their own boys, making him a martyr.  This goes over well with some in the community, and attendance at his next speech increases.  At the rally, his friend Ernst goes on stage and denounces him. Later that night, the man emerges from the shadows to reveal himself as Adolf Hitler.

tzhesalive12Hitler commands Vollmer to kill Ernst and gives him a pistol.  Ernst will not give him the satisfaction of cowering and begging.  So Vollmer kills him. Sadly, Serling isn’t through typing yet and gives Ernst another page of dialogue.

The police go to arrest Vollmer for murder.  He runs and they kill him.

It’s a fine line between been ham-handed and making a good point.  Maybe it isn’t even a line, there can be some overlap. There are valid points here, and Dennis Hopper is good as the Nazi.  Making the holocaust survivor and the neo-Nazi be friends just seemed too convenient.  The Hitler reveal didn’t really work, though.  It is clear from the start who this character is going to be.  To the script’s credit, that is somewhat recognized as the reveal is not done as a final twist, but earlier in the episode.

Overall, another enjoyable outing for the much maligned 4th Season  I give it 2 Reichs.

Post-Post:

  • This hit close to home as my grandfather died in a concentration camp — he fell out of a guard tower.  It’s an oldie but just about perfect.
  • According to Serling’s interminable closing monologue, Hitler is like Spock — he’s not really dead as long as we remember him.
  • Director Stuart Rosenberg went on to direct Cool Hand Luke, The Amityville Horror, Brubaker and The Pope of Greenwich Village.

Tales From the Crypt – Two for the Show (10/20/93)

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tftctwofor03Beautiful trophy wife Traci Lords is picking at her food — good thing, too: broccoli, potatoes and rice — the carbs, my God, the carbs!  She is bored to death listening to her much older husband talking about some business affairs.  I think we can all agree, we’d rather hear Traci talk about her old business affairs.

Finally, Traci tells her husband Andy that she is leaving him; not only that, she was having an affair.  He does not take it well, and after a struggle Andy stabs her. A neighbor calls the police after hearing screams from their condo — unusual because her husband is at home this time.  One of the cops hanging around the station after his shift ended volunteers to respond.

He shows up as Andy is stuffing Traci in a trunk.  There is a great scene as the officer searches the condo.  Traci is dead in the tub, covered by water and Mr. Bubble, but her face is exposed through a gap in the suds.  Andy block’s the officer’s view and brushes more bubbles over her face.  Suspenseful and visually interesting.  Kudos.

tftctwofor05After getting rid of the cop, Andy begins hacking Traci into more manageable pieces.  We see him pulling bloody arms and legs out of the tub.  Finally he pulls out a severed Traci-head with her mouth agape.  Actually, she could probably sell a latex model online and make some serious coin.

He loads up a suitcase and takes her to the train station.  He tells the baggage clerk he wants to check the bag through to Chicago.  Inexplicably, the clerk hands him a baggage tag marked CRP — Corpus Christi.  I’d really like to think this was a sly corpus joke.  However, in my heart, I suspect it was just a mistake.

As luck would have it, the officer is at the train station about to leave on vacation.  Andy can’t just dump the bag with a phony name and go home.  He must get on the train — again, as luck would have it, in a seat right across from the officer.

tftctwofor11Andy tries to get away by going to the dining car.  The officer follows him and says that he is working on a case that will require every bag on the train to be searched.  Andy goes to the luggage car, switches tags with another bag and tosses Traci’s Samsonite coffin off the train.

Naturally the officer was lying about investigating a case, and suspected Andy of murder the whole time. Once things begin to unfold, the episode really stunned me.  There were some fun switches, and the score — iffy up to this point — really kicked in and heightened the suspense.

Sadly, Traci Lords is killed off very early in the episode — I think the Cryptkeeper got more airtime.  It wasn’t a likable role, but I always enjoy seeing her. David Paymer and Vincent Spano were also great as Andy and the cop.  The episode’s tone was a little spotty in the beginning, but then it just soared, easily redeeming the whole thing.  The ending does fall apart if you think about it for 2 seconds, but it doesn’t even matter.

I give it 1.8 for the show.

Post-Post:

  • Traci Lords is always awesome; I saw her at a show in Dallas, and she was awesome off the screen too.  She doesn’t seem to work much — I don’t know if it is by choice or if Hollywood is really that stupid.
  • Title Analysis: 2nd consecutive episode to have a pathetic title.  I would create a “pathetic” tag, but I already have one called Ray Bradbury Theater.  I am baffled by “Two for the Show.”  I get the reference, but what two?  What show?  I would have even settled for the not-entirely-accurate homage, “Stranglers on a Train.”

Tales of Tomorrow – Frankenstein (01/18/52)

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ttfrankenstein01Once again, I have to applaud Tales of Tomorrow for going for the long ball.  In the first 2 episodes, they destroyed the earth twice.  This week, they are presenting a novel (or, at least, a novella) in a 25 minute episode, inviting comparisons to a classic adaptation, and working without the copyrighted make-up that everyone associates with the monster.

A group is sitting around a dinner table discussing the perfect human being.  I assumed that this was going to be the alleged party where Mary Shelley came up with the idea for her book.  But the time allowed allows no time for almost anything in the book, never-mind outside the book.  Elizabeth suggests, “The perfect human being should be giant in size, strong as a gorilla, disease-proof, durable and quick to learn.”  Victor Frankenstein opines that not only should Mr. Perfect be those things, he will be all those things.

Unbeknownst to Elizabeth, Victor is working on such a dreamboat.  Much is made over Dr. F. throwing a few switches and hovering over a sheet draped over a figure on the slab.  It’s amazing how much padding is required when shrinking a 166 page book down tttfrankenstein02o 25 minutes.  The shape begins moving and a grotesque figure arises.

The brute gets up off the slab and bounds around the laboratory.  Despite Victor and Elizabeth’s predictions, he seems to be about 4 inches shorter than Victor.  Vic ties him down, but naturally that doesn’t last long.  The brute finds his way to the dining room, sending the help into hysterics.

A little boy handles his appearance a little better, but makes the mistake of saying he’s ugly.  He finds a mirror and sees the kid is right.  In his rage, the brute picks up a chair like he’s going to smash it, then gently places it back on the floor.  This is actually the 3rd time this move has been used with a chair.  I assume it’s because busting chairs was not in the budget, and they had to get them back to the Ozzie & Harriett set before sunrise[1].

After the commercial, the brute breaks into the lab where Victor and his butler are waiting.  Victor shoots him several times, inexplicably, in the dick.  He falls out the window, 200 feet into the water.  Naturally, he comes back Jason-style.  Victor is able to ttfrankenstein03kill him with electricity.

Well, what did I expect?  It just wasn’t possible to do much justice to the great novella in 25 minutes.  The whole episode is really nothing but the brute ambling around and people screaming.

At least it was a lesson well-learned by the Tales of Tomorrow producers. You just can’t adapt a book into a 25-minute episode.  Next week:  20,000 Leagues Under the Sea . . . oh, crap.[2]

Post-Post:

  • [1] Further reading suggests that Chaney’s delicate handling of the chairs was due to his being drunk and not realizing this was the live performance rather than a rehearsal.
  • [2] The next episode to air was indeed 20k Leagues < the C, but sadly it is not included in the collection I am watching.
  • John Newland (Victor Frankenstein) was the host of another genre series, The Next Step Beyond.
  • The brute was played by Lon Chaney Jr. who played The Wolf Man.
  • Not sure why I latched onto the word “brute.”  It does appear in the original Frankenstein, but only once.

Ray Bradbury Theater – Great Wide World Over There (10/29/92)

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rbtgreatwide01Two more to go — I think I can, I think I can.

I guess we’re going to finish up the series in New Zealand as the opening shot bears a strong resemblance to The Shire.  Rolling hills, farms, farmhouses, cows, chickens, a Hobbitt — wait, that’s Tyne Daly as Cora.

Her neighbor is checking her mailbox and is overjoyed to find a letter from her uncle.  The shrew taunts Cora about her empty mailbox, “It’s certainly nice getting mail!”  Further hammering her, she continues, “and reading it!”

Grazing — I mean gazing out over the hills — Cora sees a figure running toward the farm. She is able to identify him as her sister’s son Benjy.  The energetic fellow runs to the farmhouse (maybe all the way from Auckland given his energy), hops the fence, clicks his heels and dances with his aunt.  Something tells me if The Shire doesn’t have a theater, he’s going to build one and put on a show.

rbtgreatwide04She takes Benjy inside and excitedly asks him if he has seen cities, the ocean.  Given that I don’t think you can ever be more that a couple hours from the ocean in New Zealand, she is really trapped on that farm like veal.

OK, my theory falls apart as Benjy starts reeling off American locations he has been to — Chicago, Niagara Falls, Death Valley, the Blue Ridge Mountains (just referred to as the Blue Ridge here).  Cora is also impressed that he pulls books out of his backpack.  Her neighbor might have been a bitch, but she was on to something.

Of course!  What was I thinking?  This isn’t supposed to be set in New Zealand (even though filmed there).  If a TV show is going to make its characters look backward and  ignorant, they are going to make them southerners, not Kiwis.  I’ll be disappointed if there isn’t a picture of Reagan hanging on the mud wall.

rbtgreatwide05Cora decides to put Benjy’s edukashun to work writing some letters for her, so she can finally get some mail.  Sadly, when they sit down to commence a-writing, she realizes she doesn’t know anyone. Benjy saves the day by bringing out a magazine with lots of ads where she can write for free samples.  She enlists her husband to build her a mailbox, bigger than her neighbor’s.

When Benjy mentions that the mail is delivered by a postman, Cora realizes that she’s never seen a postman delivering mail to her big-shot neighbor.  Once Cora starts getting mail back, it is a little auckward that the postman never even rings once for her neighbor.

Eventually, Benjy has to move on, leaving Cora to receive mail she can’t read.  There is an obvious ending which would have brought Cora and her neighbor together.  I’m not sure if it is good that the obvious path was not taken, or if that would would have been too trite. Honestly, for this simple tale, lacking any kind of mystery or supernatural element, the obvious ending might have been best.  Have Cora teach her neighbor the trick to receiving mail, and have the neighbor teach Cora how to read the mail she is receiving.

A fine little episode, just not what I was looking for.

Post-Post:

  • The first book Benjy pulls out is an excellent choice — Catch-22.
  • The director was born in Auckland, which I take as confirmation that I was correct calling this a New Zealand episode.  He also went on to act in something called Topless Women Talk about their Lives, which sounds great except for the talking part.
  • And of course, the New Zealand full employment project, Lord of the Rings.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents – The Crocodile Case (05/25/58)

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ahpcroccase01Jack Lyons (a 30-year old Denholm Elliott (Marcus Brody from  every prime-numbered Indiana Jones movie)) stops on a deserted road, blocking the car behind him.  As the other driver gets out of his car to investigate, Lyons kills him.  Lyons looks in the other car.  He sees the titular crocodile dressing-case with the dreaded initials P.C. but leaves it in the car.

That night at a party, Phyllis Chaundry is wondering where her husband is.  Lyons gallantly offers to drive her and her sister home.  When Lyons and Phyllis reach the Chaundry estate — literally an estate at this point — Phyllis sees that her husband is not home and we see that she and Lyons are having an affair.  Lyons quickly tells Phyllis that he killed her husband; wow, he is gallant!  He insinuates incorrectly that her asking her husband to pick her up makes her an accessory.  Kind of a goofus thing to do, really.

ahpcroccase02The police show up and Phyllis makes a good show of feigning distress over her husband’s death. However, she does suspiciously seem a little more concerned when she learns that the crocodile case has gone missing.

After the murder is officially ruled a murder, Lyons wisely keeps his distance from Phyllis; actually if she had any sense, it would be the other way around.  Phyllis is upset that they aren’t going out and that he hasn’t called.  She drags her sister to a restaurant where it is likely they will bump into Lyons.

Patricia Hitchcock is cast as the sister, once again in her standard “homely girl” niche. Note the picture below where she is deliberately framed between two attractive specimens of greater stature.  I wish I had something clever to say about nepotism; or anything else.

Sending her sister off to their table, she begins complaining to Lyons again.  He finally convinces her to take a trip and not to write him.  She is still fixated on the dressing-case, even having her sister write a letter to the police chiding them for their failure to crack the crocodile case; or the crocodile case case.

ahpcroccase05Later, after they are married, she takes the problem to Scotland Yard. The local police find the case, though, and determine that the case was stolen by an employee of Lyons. Through a clever twist, Lyons implicates himself.

Great story and performances.

 

Post-Post:

  • AHP Deathwatch:  Only Patricia Hitchcock is hanging in there.
  • Hulu, which charges me by forcing commercials into my eyeballs, deemed episode 33 to be unstreamable for some reason.  Why can’t I have a problem like that with Ray Bradbury Theater?
  • 30 seconds of commercials . . . Hitchcock’s introduction . . . another 130 seconds of commercials.  You Tube is brilliant in making their commercials skippable after a few seconds.  I actually see the products there; on Hulu, I just go to another window and do some surfing.
  • Hulu sucks.