Category Archives: TV

Alfred Hitchcock Presents – Bull in a China Shop (03/30/58)

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ahpbull03Sweet Jeebus!  I take a few weeks months off and Netflix removes seasons 2 and 3 from streaming.  Hulu did the same thing with Outer Limits last year.  Oh the humanity!  The nooses are tightening, sheeple.  Hulu, as always, sucks.

Mr. O’Finn goes to see his neighbor Miss Hildy-Lou across the court, at her invitation.  She is 75 years old — 30 years older than O’Finn — but can’t stop making googly cataracts at him.  She invites him into the parlor where her similarly old friends are just as enamored of their hunky young neighbor.  There is Miss Bessie (83), Miss Birdie (76), and Miss Samantha (47).

Wait, what?  This is strange — she is only 2 years older than O’Finn but fits right in with the other much older ladies.  I would suspect an error on IMBd or that she lied about her age, but IMDb has her dying at 88 in 1999.  So unless she really lived to be 108, 47 would be about right.  Safe to say Miss Samantha was not aging gracefully.

ahpbull02

The Walkers Dead

The ladies know his morning work-out routine and know that he is a homicide detective.  That is why they invited him over.  Not for some squat-thrusts, but because another of their superannuated friends (Miss Elizabeth, uncredited, but probably about 103) is dead on the sofa.

They are disappointed when he tells them to call a doctor to get a death certificate. They were hoping to be questioned by him, but he says his business is murder.  They try their best to get him to stay, but he wants to get back to investigating more alluring women like gun-molls, hookers, and crack-whores [1].

ahpbull04Back at the station, he tells his partner he “felt like a bull in a china shop in that place,” speaking the title, but lending it no more logic.  He gets a call from the crime lab — Miss Elizabeth was poisoned with arsenic.

The old girls get giddy when O’Finn comes back to, you know, investigate the death.  They explain that the arsenic is kept in a sugar bowl as rat poison.  Once O’Finn determines that the death was an accident, he begins to leave, breaking the hearts of the giddy bitties that they won’t see him again.  But Miss Hildy-Lou has a plan.

When O’Finn sees the ladies spying on him through his window, he pulls the shades. Completely cut off from him, they must come up with a new plan to reel in this handsome devil.  But how . . . oh yeah, kill Miss Samantha.

ahpbull05No dummy, O’Finn — except for not seeing the first death was murder, and not getting that leaving your bathroom window wide open just invites peepers — he announces that Miss Samantha’s death by tea deserves a full investigation.  The olden girls are giddy to have his attention again . . . well, the ones still alive are.

O’Finn cracks the case and comes to arrest Hildy-Lou.  At the announcement, she goes all giddy again.  He asks if she understands what he is saying, since dementia is a strong possibility.  “Oh, yes,” she swoons.  “And I think it was very clever of you to have found out.”  When he tells her he must take her to the station, she runs to her room and comes out dolled up in a fancy new hat like they’re going out on a date.

ahpbull07For the two murders, she’ll probably get life — which in her case would be about 3 weeks.[2]

This is all pretty silly stuff, but there is a nice twist at the end.

Post-Post:

  • [1] OK, there were no crack-whores in 1958, but the word just has a great sound.
  • [2] Actually the actress lived another 26 years, dying at age 101.
  • AHP Deathwatch:  No survivors.  But, Christ, how could there be?
  • Title Analysis:  Hunh?  I guess is O’Finn is the bull, but he isn’t reckless as the cliche suggests, I doubt it was a reference to bullshit, and I can’t imagine what else it would be.
  • Hulu sucks.

Night Gallery – Doll of Death (05/20/73)

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ngdollofdeath02While Brandon is in his West Indies living room harrumphing with his cronies, his young hot wife Sheila is trying on the wedding gown that he has insisted she wear.  She tells the butler, “If Mr. Brandon wants me to be in white, I could have dazzled them with my naked body and a garland of pale roses,” thus producing the best line of Night Gallery dialogue in 3 years.

The gathering is humming along very Britishly until it is crashed by Sheila’s ex-boyfriend Raphael.  As she is descending the stairs, they lock eyes and she stops.  Raphael insists that Sheila belongs to him and it takes her only seconds to agree.

She tells her husband that somehow she belongs to Raphael and has since her first breath.  Although seconds before, it seemed to have started the night he banged her. Nonsensically, she runs off with Raphael leaving Brandon humiliated at his wedding party.

The only black man (besides the butler) shows up, which by Night Gallery rules, means he must be a voodoo master.  Brandon pays him off for a voodoo doll of Raphael.

The next day while Raphael and Sheila are frolicking on his boat, Raphael experiences an ngdollofdeath07attack that is not quite identifiable.  What is identifiable are the giant hand prints which have left red marks the size of his back.  Rather than use the traditional needles on his voodoo doll, Brandon is throttling it in his hands, attempting to squeeze the doll and Raphael to death.  Lucky this is pre-CSI or he would have left some nice 10-inch fingerprints as evidence.

That night, Sheila calls Brandon to see if his doctor will come.  The doctor says, Raphael’s had some kind of attack.  She’s hysterical, she claims he’s been murdered — and contends Brandon is the culprit.

ngdollofdeath06The doctor goes to Raphael’s boat, but he is still alive.  She tries to convince the doctor that Brandon is at fault.  The night before their wedding, Brandon took her to see a voodoo priest.

Sheila runs to Brandon’s house. She searches for the voodoo doll, but is caught by Brandon.  She claims to have seen the error of her ways, but Brandon sees through that.  He shows her the doll which has a few strands of Raphael’s hair, a few nail clippings, a swatch of his clothing, and a teeeeeny little mustache in order to make the psychic connection.

ngdollofdeath09She takes the doll and begs him not to do anything further, but he grabs the doll and slams it on the edge of the table.  Ah, but the nimble little minx has added Brandon’s ring to the doll, so he falls over dead with a broken neck.  Raphael and Sheila are reunited.

Strangely enough, even though the doll still had Raphael’s hair, mails clothes and mustache, the ring seems to trump all that, so Raphael is unharmed.

 

 ngdollofdeath10 Post-Post:

  • Twilight Zone Legacy:  Barry Atwater was in the classic The Monsters are Due on Maple Street.  Murray Matheson was in the classic Five Characters in Search of an Exit and the mediocre TZ Movie.

Tales From the Crypt – Curiosity Killed (09/16/92)

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tftccuriositykilled01Two elderly couples have taken RVs out into the woods for a little vacation.  Jack and Cynthia are miserable.  Or rather, Cynthia is miserable and Jack is miserable because of Cynthia.  She is not happy at all to be outdoors, eating natural foods like rutabagas and bok choy.

On the other hand, Harry and Lucille, in their own RV are having a civil discussion.  Lucille, who has something planned at midnight (she’s black — gee, I wonder whether TFTC will make her a witch doctor or voodoo queen) wonders why they had to bring this unlikable, constantly bickering couple.  Turns out Jack saved Harry’s life at Guadalcanal — you’d think this might have come up in the past 40 years — this weekend is his chance to pay Jack back.

Jack and Harry go off by themselves with shovels and Cynthia thinks they are digging a grave to get rid of her.  In fact,they dig up Harry’s ex-wife tftccuriositykilled02Emma whom he murdered. Bulbs he buried in Emma’s mouth quickly sprout into large white flowers (thanks to some magic bones provided by Lucille, natch).  That night, Lucille sees that Cynthia has become young again.  Harry has become younger also, but frankly I don’t see much of a change in him — apparently even witch-doctors have not conquered male pattern baldness.

Cynthia is thrilled at the prospect of being young and happy again.  Jack says he is too, but he is not going to waste another 25 years watching Cynthia turn again into a hateful, bitter old crone.  Stupidly, they allow her to beat them back to the campsite where she spikes the magic juice.  They are all having a grand tftccuriositykilled03old time as they drink the potion, but within seconds they become emaciated and fall over dead, cracking open as dried out husks.

Cynthia has wisely saved some of the unspiked potion for herself.  She drinks part of it, spilling the rest on the ground where Harry’s dog laps it up.  For a few seconds, Cynthia is happy as she sees her young face in the mirror, and begins dancing.  Unfortunately, Harry’s dog is feeling younger and friskier too and off-screen either rips her throat out, or humps her leg to death.

This was in between times when Margot Kidder (Cynthia) was having some personal tftccuriositykilled07problems.  She had an auto accident that was so bad that she didn’t work for two years.  Four years later, her bi-polar issues surfaced.  So I didn’t really know how much of the old crotchety Margot Kidder I was seeing was real, and how much was make-up and acting.

Based on a few seconds we see her in her natural state, it seems she did an unbelievable job of acting in this role and was supported by some excellent make-up work.  Of course her character was over-the-top, but that’s what TFTC is supposed to be.  Her every body movement, hand gesture and vocal inflection were perfect for this role.  If there were any integrity in Hollywood, this would have won her an award.

tftccuriositykilled08Her performance made her constant bitching a pleasure to watch.  I think another actress playing the part could easily have made the episode unbearable.

It is also a fine story, and the other actors were fine in their lesser roles. There is a nice twist and a coda of questionable necessity, but it worked for me.

Great episode.

Post-Post:

  • Title Analysis:  Hunh?  Curiosity killed the cat, but there are no cats in the story.  I wouldn’t describe any of the characters as being particularly curious.  I give it a zero on the title.
  • Lucille was played by Madge Sinclair who did a rare two-peat on Star Trek.
  • tftccuriositykilled09

Thriller – The Prisoner in the Mirror (05/23/61)

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tprisonerinthemirror02Paris 1910 — I ‘m bored already.

A man is entertaining a woman by doing a few magic tricks for her at dinner. Despite not being six, she is charmed by his shenanigans.  He produces a bird from under a napkin — God knows where he had the poor thing jammed during the amuse-bouche and escargot.  Then he releases the filthy creature in the restaurant to shit in everyone’s consomme — to her delight.

Ultimately, she is hypnotized by his reveal of a huge diamond necklace.  But the scene tprisonerinthemirror03turns to horror as she screams, imagining him turn into a skeleton and his bony fingers putting the necklace on her.  He apparently strangles her as the gendarmes come after him as he is painting over an evil mirror. Rather than face trial and be judged mad, he throws himself out the window, uncannily splatting in the spotlight of a curiously focused streetlamp.

“Half a century later,” Boris tells us.

Professor Robert Langdon, er Harry Langham is interested in an old mirror he has read about and has his assistant, Fred Forrest, scouring the antique shoppes and museums looking for it.  Langham himself finally finds the mirror in a Paris antique shoppe, still tprisonerinthemirror04painted over.  As he scrapes away a bit of the paint, he sees the image of a woman killed by the original owner of the mirror.

He has it shipped home to America, or specifically to the home shared by Langham and Forrest.  Forrest wants his sister Kay to marry Langham and settle him down.  They move the mirror up to the bedroom where Langham gets out the paint scraper and cleans the entire mirror.  He sits staring at the mirror for hours, but sees only himself.  Finally in the dark, he sees the woman lighting candles.  She is able to hear him, but can’t speak herself.

When he tries to show his girlfriend Kay, she sees only her own reflection.  And as she is played by a very hot 33 year old Marion Ross (Mrs. C on Happy Days), that should be tprisonerinthemirror07enough.

But Langham throws her out, and is then met by a man in the mirror who explains that the original owner, evil Count Cagliostro has trapped them in that other dimension, but that they are alive.

The man recites an incantation that is supposed to free them from the mirror, but instead hypnotizes Langham into joining them in the mirror dimension. This enables the man to take inhabit Langham’s body outside the mirror.  The woman can now speak and tells him the man was actually the evil Cagliostro.

Cagliostro goes out for a night on the town for the first time in 50 years, foolishly passing up the very hot Mrs. C who was just complaining of Langham not paying enough attention to her.  Luckily for the future Mr. C, Cagliostro picks up a floozy down by the docks and kills her, drawing the police to his house.

tprisonerinthemirror08The next morning, he sets his eyes on Kay.  She is Langham’s girlfriend, and is there first thing in morning, but he wakes up alone in a twin bed?

That night, Kay deduces that he killed the floozy.  Fred busts him for killing Kay.  The mirror is busted in a struggle.

A nice little story, but with major strings left dangling — like the fate of 3 major characters.  Is Langham dead, or trapped forever in the other dimension?  How about the girl in there with him? Most importantly, is Kay actually dead or hypnotized perhaps banished to a mirror downstairs?

Post-Post:

  • The representation of the people in the mirror is sometimes fairly amusing as it is obvious they are just standing in a box.  In some scenes not even a sheet of glass has been installed to look like a mirror.
  • Supposedly Marion Ross is given the ironic toast “Happy Days” but I missed it and ain’t going back.
  • One year later, Lloyd Bochner would be hauled aboard a Kanamit spaceship just because no one could decipher that To Serve Man was a cookbook despite the pages and pages of full-color tasty dishes.