Category Archives: TV

Ray Bradbury Theater – Downwind from Gettysburg (10/17/92)

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bradbury02We open with a small crew assembling the face and hair to a robot that is revealed to be a likeness of Abraham Lincoln.  This is quite an astounding feat of technology — no wait, it isn’t.  Disney had debuted their anamatronic Lincoln 30 years earlier at the 1964 World’s Fair.

The short story was first published in Playboy in 1969, so this was old technology even by that time.  Frankly, Playboy  would have been better advised devoting their robot stories to someone like Anita from Humans or Ava from Ex Machina.  Or Valerie 23.

Sitting in a huge chair similar to the uncomfortable one in the Lincoln Memorial, Lincoln begins reciting the Gettysburg address.  Disney’s earlier model could even stand up, but this marvel of technology just sits there like an animatronic FDR.  Apparently this is to be a huge media rbtdownwind06event in an auditorium, and covered live by the network; or at least the Weekly Shopper.

Chief Engineer Bayes has wisely embargoed any view of Abe.  In reality, this ought to be about as ground-breaking as someone unveiling the creation of  Windows 95 today.

Bayes tells his assistant Phipps that his great-grandfather was actually on the battlefield to hear the speech.  Phipps says, “He must have been a young boy.”  Bayes confirms that the boy was 9 years old.  OK, Bayes is 52, and the speech was given 129 years ago.  That means the average age at which the women in this family gave birth was about 28.  I was hoping for some embarrassing mathematical anomaly.  I guess 28 is slightly high for the times, but not crazy.  But I digress.

rbtdownwind16While the crowd is being seated for this extravaganza, a man rushes in the entrance, asks where the restroom is and heads straight for the head.  He changes into 19th century clothing and affixes a fake mustache, wisely, beneath his nose.

As the lights come up, Robo-Lincoln begins reciting the Gettysburg Address.  In the wings, the mustached man loads a Derringer.  In a repeat of history — as any public school graduate can tell you — Lincoln is once again assassinated during the Gettysburg Address.  He must have had a critical circuit hit as he slumps over and his words whir to a stop.

This time the assassin does not make a dramatic getaway.  Phipps and the security team hustle him back into the empty auditorium as Lincoln lies slumped to the side of his chair, oil dripping from his mouth.  The shooter says his name is Norman Llewellyn Booth, rbtdownwind13although the invitation does not say Booth.  Phipps brings in Booth’s forged invitation, saying that is how he got in.  Well, no, actually he got in be claiming he needed to go to the bathroom, but that wouldn’t look good in the history books.

Why did he do it?  We are given several options:  1) Booth wants the fame that will come from being arrested, 2) the permanence and perfection of machines which he can never achieve infuriates him, and 3) Booth / Lincoln . . . it was just destiny, too good to pass up.  He envisions the news scrolling across Times Square: “Booth Shoots Lincoln . . . again!”  or 20 years later, being posted to Salon.com:  “Tea Partier shoots Robot-American.”

When the police arrive, Bayes refuses to allow Booth the notoriety he craves — he will not press charges.  He tells Booth, “This assassination never happened.  You can tell your rbtdownwind23story, but we will deny it — you were never here.  No shot, no gun, no computer data processor assassination, no mob.”  Well, except for the shot, the gun and the assassination witnessed by the mob in the audience.

Bayes is quite happy at denying Booth his fame and infamy.  He grabs Booth by his snazzy vest and tells him that he ever dares tell anyone what occurred that night (presumably other than the audience, crew, security team and coupon clippers), he will do something to Booth “so terrible that he will wish he had never been born.”  Bayes throws him out a side exit where no one is waiting for him.

The anachronism of the robot sinks the entire production.  No one would care about this event — the robot or the shooting.  Also, the make-up is abysmal, sometimes looking like leftover scraps from Planet of the Apes. The beard — completely wrong.

rbtdownwind25Sadly some good points are lost among the carnage.  Howard Hesseman (Bayes) and Robert Joy (Booth) are both excellent.  This is probably one of the earliest shows to show fame-seeking as a motive.  The idea of throwing him out to an empty street is great, but the speech leading up to it was horribly cliched.

If Bayes wanted to make an effective threat, he should have threatened to break his leg, just as John Wilkes Booth had done.

Rating:  Stay upwind from Downwind from Gettysburg.

Post-Post:

  • Robert Joy (Booth) played another feckless assassin in the excellent but largely forgotten historical movie Ragtime.  Harry Thaw was famous only for shooting Stanford White.  White was famous for being shot by Harry Thaw.  OK, both had other accomplishments, but nobody cares now, and that’s not going to change as more time passes.
  • Sady, no references to Hot Rod Lincoln.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents – Disappearing Trick (04/06/58)

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ahpdisappearingact08Usually an oasis among some of the other shows and movies, this outing has dull performances (but by beautiful people) and a fairly dull story.  It is a sad commentary to say that this episode is barely worthy to share the week with the last few 20-for-$7.50 movies.

Bookie Walter Richmond — one of them suave, handsome, stylish  suit-wearing, coiffed, tennis-playing bookies you always hear about — strolls into the office just in time to get a call.  His weekend plans in La Jolla are ruined by his boss who wants him to check on an old client who has suddenly stopped making bets.  Also by his inability to find “Lahoya” on the map.  He gets some expense money and sets out to find this mysterious Herbert Gild.

ahpdisappearingact10In La Jolla, Richmond drops by the fabulous casa de Gild and rings the bell.  The girl answering the door — his wife Laura — kind of rings my bell.  She is an exotic blonde who looks like she was all dolled up in a cat-woman suit waiting for someone to drop by.  She invites Richmond in and tells him her much-older husband has been dead for six months — if only there were some sort of notice in the newspapers about that sort of thing.

Back in the office, Richmond learns that Gild last placed a bet 3 months ago; 3 months after his supposed death.  He finally does think of checking the newspapers, and the obit is there just as Laura said.  Body count:  Herbert’s was mysteriously never found, and Laura’s is simply unbelievable.

ahpdisappearingact28Richmond makes another unannounced call on Laura.  He tells her his theory that she was cheating on him with younger men, and he just wanted to get away from her. She admits to the cheating, but plays dumb about the faking of his death.

Richmond tracks Herbert Gild down in Tijuana and poses as an insurance investigator.  Had he posed as an insurance salesman, maybe Gild would have been more evasive.  Gild offers him $10,000 to say he was not found, and Richmond takes it.  When they get back to Laura’s apartment, Gild is there.  After the slightest of struggles, Gild shoots Richmond in the shoulder.

He gets a doctor to work on it.  He says the shoulder will heal, but will always be stiff.  “Not too bad unless you’re a tennis player.”  Oh, and Laura fled with the $10,000 of cash that he stupidly left in his jacket pocket in the waiting room.  Richmond laughs, as you do when you lose a hot babe, are robbed of $10,000, your favorite hobby is ruined, and your hook for picking up chicks is compromised.

“I can’t understand why the customers aren’t beating down my door.”

Post-Post:

  • AHP Deathwatch:  Robert Horton is still hanging on, and Betsy Von Furstenberg just died this year.
  • You can always trust a business card with no address or phone number.
  • Laura was 27 years younger than Gild.  Which is starting to make more sense to me.

Night Gallery – Hatred Unto Death (05/27/73)

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hatredunto01Primatologists Grant and Ruth Wilson are driving through stock footage of Africa.

They are stopped by 3 natives in the road.  Grant understands enough of their language to follow them to a pit where a gorilla has fallen.  Looking up at them, the gorilla is pas-sive toward Ruth, but when he looks at Grant, he is full of hate.  Grant, not a wordsmith despite writing a book, says, “Look at that hate — it’s almost as if he knew me.”  That could be taken 2 ways, Shakespeare.

Ghatredunto04rant has the natives throw a net over the gorilla so he can take him back to America to go to a zoo. Ruth tries to convince Grant to let him go free; or at least take him to the movies instead.

Over a picture of the gorilla, we see a transparent overlay of his journey from the natural wilds of Africa to the smokestacks and freeways of evil America.  The Wilsons temporarily house him at the Museum of Natural History run by their associate Fernando Lamas (best known for not being Ricardo Montalban).

When they take Lamas to see the gorilla, it once again is subdued toward Ruth, but very belligerent toward Grant.  Grant mocks Ruth for holding the gorilla’s hand while they flew to America to keep him from going into shock.  He jokes to Ramirez that he thinks she prefers gorillas to men.  She says, not joking, “Gorillas don’t drop napalm on children.”

hatredunto10She continues, “This earth doesn’t really need man.  He’s only ruining it. The gorillas and the elephants and the porpoises would manage and work things out very well by themselves [1].  Without men, this would be a fabulous place!” Colleges all over the country would be fighting to hire this woman for every primatology, history, womyn’s studies and diversity department today.

She opts to stay the night keeping the gorilla company rather than go home with her husband.  Grant confides to Lamas that he should have left the gorilla in Africa.  But when he looked into its eyes and saw the hatred, he knew the gorilla recognized him; perhaps as Hondo Harrelson on SWAT. He wants Lamas to break the gorilla’s spirit, turn him into a vegetable.

hatredunto22Meanwhile Ruth is telling the gorilla stories about how ancestors of Grant and the gorilla fought many years ago.  Strangely, they fought over a female.  A female what is not mentioned.  Being different species, that would be interesting.  Where she is getting this scholarship is anyone’s guess, but anyone at a college knows such questions will get you fired.  The ancient man, being an ancient man had the brains to trap the gorilla in a pit, take his female, and stone him to death. Now the man smokes a pipe, wears a leather coat and bangs a hot blonde; while the gorilla’s descendant is still getting trapped in pits.

Ruth’s interpretation to the gorilla is that “down through the eons [man] has grown pale, and weak and hairless.  Still he’s your master!  What’s happened to your power?”  She is heartbroken that man has evolved to a superior state.  I swear, if the gorillas had anti-aircraft guns, she would have been yukking it up with them.  This agitates the gorilla so he grabs her earrings from her hand.  When she enters the cage to retrieve them, he makes a jailbreak, knocking her to the ground.  She manages to call the pale, weak Grant to come save her.

Luckily the weak man has invented the gun and flashlight.  And I’m sure Ruth would have called for the napalm now that the gorilla had begun attacking her.  After some cat and mouse through the museum, the gorilla — shot twice — tricks Grant by playing dead, then picks him up and impales him on a statue before dying.

The episode ends with a pan from Grant’s dead hand, to the dead gorilla to Grant’s pistol, to a bust of a caveman; which I’m sure conveys some meaning that is so stupid you have to go to grad school to get it.

Post-Post:

  • Twilight Zone Legacy:  Richard Deacon and Steve Forrest did time in the Zone.
  • [1] Apparently the cobras, lions, sharks and scorpions would not get seats at the table.
  • Skipped Segment;  How to Cure the Common Vampire.  A very short sketch which makes no logical sense as a joke or horror.

Tales from the Crypt – Death of Some Salesmen (10/02/93)

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tftcdeathofsome02After we see Ed Begley Jr. humping some floozy in a hotel, he is up early the next morning to check the newspaper obituaries; presumably to see if my appetite is listed. Actually, we were fortunate enough to see very little of him, but did get some swell nudity from the girl — in a show hosted by a puppet. That still baffles me.[1]

Apparently he made her promises about rescuing her from her lousy job and that dirtwater burg.  She accuses, “But you said you loved me” and he responds, “Yes, and you dropped your little panties.  It’s called salesmanship.”  No, it’s called lying.  Sharknado / Sharknoddo.

He drives out to a farm where Yvonne DeCarlo answers the door.  Asking for her husband, she tells him her husband died a few days ago.  Unlike her first husband, this one ain’t coming back — not even on TFTC.

tftcdeathofsome07He pretends to be shocked and does a variation of a gag that Chevy Chase did so much better in Fletch. He explains that just last week her husband had made a down-payment on a cemetery plot. He says it is too bad he died before paying the balance because the plot package covered funeral expenses plus $10,000 cash.  “Reluctantly” Ed agrees to bend the rules so Yvonne doesn’t lose out on the bennies (i.e. he bilks her out of $250 cash).

Having ungilded the Lilly (see what I did there?), he arrives at another farmhouse.  In a bizarre but fairly pointless bit of casting [2], the door is answered by the always welcome Tim Curry, but playing a woman (an actual woman — Ma Brackett — not just a sweet transvestite).  Although he went to the wrong address, and there was no obituary to lay the groundwork, Ma is still interested in what he is selling and calls out Pa Brackett — also played by Tim Curry. Very strangely, Ma looks like Tim Curry, but I can detect no resemblance in Pa.

tftcdeathofsome10They are very impressed by the brochures he has had printed up. He generously offers them a package deal for $750 that will provide $20,000 in death benefits.  Sounds like a good deal to them, but Pa is pretty shrewd and says they will have to see the plot in person.  Ed is able to stall them for a day and they go down stairs to get the cash.

While alone, Ed sees several of his predecessors — salesmen who have been decapitated, gutted with vacuum cleaner hoses, stuffed into TV consoles, etc.  He heads for the door, but is locked in and Pa clubs him to unconsciousness.

They rouse him, handcuffed,  and introduce him to their daughter Winona (also played by Tim Curry).  Despite all manner of hideousness, he tells her she is beautiful.  She takes him upstairs and rides him cowgirl style, although more cow than girl.  During pillow talk, she says she wants to get married so they can take her dowry and get away from her parents.  The dowry is money from all the dead salesmen and Winona estimates it at $40 – $50,000.

tftcdeathofsome08Begley shoots Winona and digs down about 4 feet in the basement where he finds a box with a piece of paper in it.  He unrolls the document to see one of his own contracts for a Restful Hill Cemetery plot — that is the dowry. This is where things go awry.

The contract is a mess.  I guess they figured that no one would notice in state of the art 1993 low-rez TV. Why were Mr. Jones and Begley filled in the Witness line rather than as the active parties?

And why was it buried under 4 feet of dirt?  Did one of the family dig the hole that night? And then fill it in?  For what purpose?  OK, the microwave salesman’s head was in the microwave, the TV salesman’s body was stuffed in the console, so it makes sense that Begley would be buried.  But irony shouldn’t require that much work.  In fact, irony should require no work  — the universe does the heavy lifting.

tftcdeathofsome06Turns out Begley was shooting blanks (with the pistol, presumably not in bed).  Winona is not dead, and Pa blows Begley away just before telling him that this is salesmanship — a phrase that sort of worked in the beginning, but makes little sense at the end.

If you overlook the nonsense at the end, it is a fun episode with great performances from Begley and especially Curry.  It was nice to see Lilly Munster again even though she had put on a lot of pounds and years (but haven’t we all).

Post-Post:

  • [1] It never occurred to me before that there really aren’t any cute Muppets. Granted, there aren’t that many humans among them, but — again, just occurring to me — they are almost all male. In fact, the only female I can think of is Janice — a groovy chick, but with a mouth that goes half-way around her head.  Just because it works — awesomely, BTW — for Anne Hathaway, doesn’t mean everybody can pull it off.
  • [2] Maybe I was wrong about the pointless casting.  The IMDb also cites his Emmy nomination for playing mother/father/sister/daughter, but he only portrayed 3 characters.  Sister and daughter don’t count as two people — this ain’t Chinatown, Jake.  Maybe this is why they all look so similar and the daughter is a little off.
  • The ugly daughter is named Winona.  Begley’s name is Judd.  Coincidence?  Just as an aside, PC I am not, but I never call real people ugly.
  • Title Analysis:  Inevitable, I suppose.  But shouldn’t it be “Deaths” since there were several killed?  Maybe “Death of Another Salesman” would have been a better choice grammatically and parody-wise.

Thriller – Well of Doom (02/28/61)

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twellofdoom01A long-nosed chauffeur is driving two men in suits through a thick fog.  As they are discussing the dangers of the Moors, Penrose laments that they are going to be late to his bachelor party.  The driver slams on the brakes as there is a giant standing in the road.

He has his arms raised menacingly and is wearing one of those tinker-bell jerkins with the little tutu-like ruffles around the waist.  Who decided this was the official uniform for giants? Obviously they are custom-made; there are no Giant and Fat man stores selling them.  If they are custom made — bespoke, if you will — why not order a f***ing pair of proper trousers and a snappy blazer?

twellofdoom02And who decided to start stores that catered only to the Tall and Fat like they were freaks to be segregated from decent — though in need of new clothing — people?  C’mon, #talllivesmatter.  OK, I’m not so worried about the fat ones.  I just lost 65 pounds — it ain’t rocket science; well maybe a little physics.

The giant pulls the chauffeur out of the car.  Fearing a bad Uber passenger rating, the two other men — Penrose and his estranged butler Teal —  gamely get out of the car to help the driver.  It’s only a giant, after all; it’s not Ferguson MO.

Before they have a chance to have their heads ripped off, the giant’s equally creepy boss shows up.  He coyly throws out devilish names they might use for him — Beelzebub, Baal, Moloch.  Moloch seems to stick, and his giant is named Styx.  Presumably still carrying a lot of anger from a childhood where the other kids called him The Stygian Fairy, he kills the chauffeur and drives off with the three men.

twellofdoom03Flashback:  Earlier that day, Teal had dropped in to toast Penrose’s upcoming nuptials, despite some sort of falling out.  Although I’m not sure how you have a falling out with a butler — you just buttle his ass right out the door.  They toast the bride Laura and throw their glasses in the fire.  Laura calls and tries to talk Penrose out of attending the stag party, but he refuses.

Back in the car, Penrose believes this is just a stag party prank.  Moloch is in the front seat pointing a gun at him.  One pothole and he could have ended up like Marvin in Pulp Fiction.  As it is, Moloch puts a slug in the seat next to Penrose just to let him know this is not prank.  Penrose offers him his entire net worth — a little prematurely in my opinion — but Moloch says it is not enough.  In an ill-fated escape attempt, Moloch kills Teal.

twellofdoom05Penrose is locked in a cell with the titular Well of Doom.  He claims that Penrose’s father threw the rightful owners of the castle down the well to their doom and usurped their position; although did not usurp their source of fresh water – idiot!

And Moloch should know because it was he who was killed!  Bwah-ha-ha-ha.  Oh, and Styx has kidnapped Laura and she is in the cell across the hall, gagged and naked — er, bound.

Moloch presents Penrose with a contract to sign over all his possessions.  Penrose refuses, suspecting he and Laura will be killed anyway.  Moloch, in true Bondian style leaves him alone to contemplate his doom.  Penrose rigs an escape plan from the Well involving a device a Bondian device worthy of Q — a rope.

twellofdoom08When Moloch returns, he finally relents in order to save Laura’s life. Of course, after signing, Styx tosses him in the well anyway.  After they leave, Penrose is able to climb up the rope which would have been perfectly visible to Moloch and Styx.

Finding Laura’s cell empty, he goes back up into the castle and finds Moloch and Styx stripping off their make-up.  He also sees that his former butler Teal is still alive and is really the ringleader.  With Penrose dead, he will claim Penrose and his wife are on an extended honeymoon and will enjoy the estate as overseer.  Yeah, that honeymoon story should satisfy the neighbors for years.

He says that document Penrose signed is going to “make up for years of humiliation . . . have you ever thought what it is like to be a man’s man and live in a household where they give you orders day after day?”  Maybe he really is a man’s man, he’s sure never lived with a woman.

twellofdoom09In a nice bit of luck, and by “bit”, I mean a Rock of Gibraltar sized bit of luck, Moloch and Teal shoot and kill each other; and Styx falls from a balcony thinking Penrose is a ghost.

Several reviews give high praise to this episode, but it wasn’t really anything special.  The high point was the make-up on Moloch and Styx.  Its effectiveness is especially obvious when we get a scene of them without it late in the episode.

Penrose, Laura, Teal and the story are only adequate.  But the show really belongs to Moloch, Styx, the make-up department, and the cinematographer — all outstanding.

Thus concludes the ten episode run of the Thriller Fan Favorites Collection.  At first, I thought I had found a show that possibly even trumped The Twilight Zone.  But, like any show, the quality was a bell curve — just seems like the curve would have been a little more subtle if you’re cherry-picking 10 episodes.

On the plus side, the screeching score was effective, there were some good scripts, and it rarely dragged or seemed padded out like the hour-long TZ season.  But Boris Karloff brought nothing to the show except his name, and presumably the 57 remaining episodes would all be lesser efforts.  But they are on You-Tube, so who knows.

Post-Post:

  • Richard Kiel (Styx) was best known as Jaws in a couple of James Bond joints.
  • Thriller filled the Outer Limits slot after the rest of the episodes went behind the paywall.  The question now is do I want to shell out for Hulu.
  • Hulu sucks.