Alfred Hitchcock Presents – Reward to Finder (S3E6)

ahprewardto01Carl Kaminsky is like one of those guys with a metal detector on the beach; except he has no metal detector, no straw hat, isn’t wearing shorts and is on a city street.  OK, not so similar — but he is keeping his eyes down looking for anything of interest.

On a grate, he picks up a soaking wet newspaper for reasons I can’t imagine.  Then he spots a wallet and picks it up.  He spends about the same amount of time looking for owner as OJ did looking for the real killers — then pockets the wallet.

He goes home to a very humble apartment and his wife Anna (Jo Van Fleet).  Fleet was last seen as a thoroughly repulsive shrew in Dangerous People.  Here, she is not as insane, but despite being abused by her brutish husband, she is no more likable or sympathetic a character.

Carl is in, what apparently for him, is a good mood even though he is still cruel to Anna.  And he’s not mentioning the wallet to her.  She asks what he is so happy about, he tells her to “shut up with the questions.”  Christ, what is this guy like on a bad day?

Finally he does whip out the wallet and shows her that it contains 52 $100 bills, and there is no name in the wallet.  Anna’s plan is to return the wallet in anticipation of a big reward.  Carl has a slightly different plan.

The next day, Anna sees an ad in the paper offering a generous reward for the wallet.  Anna wants to call, but Carl says he will return the wallet to the owner.  He comes home furious, telling Anna that there was no reward.  He then heads up to the attic to hide the wallet.

ahprewardto10Two weeks later, Anna is still pissed about being stiffed on the reward. She sees that the ad is still running in the paper, then she is really pissed and catches Carl counting the Bejamins in the attic.

Soon, Anna is buying new furniture, a new dress, and a mink coat.  When Carl demands that she return it, she threatens to call the owner of the wallet.  After a screaming match where Anna smacks Carl and dares her to hit her back, he retreats to the attic.

She brings him a poisoned cup of coffee while he is counting the money yet again.  He clubs her to death with a statuette, then drinks the coffee.

ahprewardto16It’s a great story, but the leads are so repulsive that it is impossible to have any empathy for them.

Post-Post:

  • AHP Deathwatch:  No survivors among those with data on IMDb.

Night Gallery – Tell David (S2E14)

ngtelldavid03On a dark and stormy night, Ann Bolt is driving through the rain.  After a nasty bolt of lightning, the radio starts playing some awful music and it seems to be daylight — or at least, dusk — I’m not sure if this was a story point or a mistake.  The rain continuing, and the radio going crazy, I can see happening; but time reversing is going to get a reaction from me.

She pulls into the garage of the first house she sees, and rings the bell. The owner, Pat Blessington, invites her in, and Ann is confused by the krazee electronics.  There is a closed circuit security monitor which she mistakes for modern art, a one-way window, and a telephone which is very unfuturistically built into a casserole console.

ngtelldavid15Pat is very accommodating, offering her a cigarette of a type she’s never seen before — non-lethal.  Pat’s husband David comes downstairs to show off his new gadget — a mapping computer about the size of a suitcase.  He is able to show her the way home, but they invite Ann back some time when she can stay longer.

When Anne arrives home, she notices her husband’s car is dry and there isn’t a cloud in the sky.  For some reason, Ann’s husband Tony is waiting for her dressed as an old hag and begins screaming at her.  Supposedly he is acting out the way she treats him, reducing her to tears.

ngtelldavid12I supposed the hag mask was an excuse to make something of the reveal that the same actor is playing David and Tony.  It was wasted on me as he is such an average looking guy that I still couldn’t make them look alike the second time I watched it. Add completely different temperaments, hair and mustache, and it seems pointless.

After a lot of screaming, they go upstairs to check on their child, also named David — hey, you don’t think . . . Tony makes eyes at the Nanny as he passes.

The next day at the Blessington’s house, it is clear that David realizes that Ann is his mother, has somehow traveled from the past, and — oh yeah — isn’t dead.  He is pretty nonchalant about this miracle.  He talks about how he got the name Blessington from a relative who took him in as an orphan, but never mentions his prior name.  He is also pretty obtuse in vaguely telling a story about a woman who killed her husband and later herself.  Ach du lieber, just tell her and save her life, you idiot — she’s your mother!

ngtelldavid21Back at home, Tony mentions — apparently for the first time in their relationship — a cousin named Jane Blessington. That, combined with an incident older David mentioned about his 4th birthday finally clues Ann into what is happening.

None-the-less, after catching Tony making out with the Nanny, she shoots him and plans on killing herself before the trial.  This is the sacrifice she is willing to make after seeing what a good man David grew up to be.

Post-Post:

  • Twilight Zone Legacy:  None.
  • Swapping spit is apparently pretty casual in the future, so it is lucky David recognized his mother early on, or we could have had a reverse Back to the Future moment.
  • Skipped segment: Logoda’s Heads, because two was enough.  Although, Vigoda’s Head — that, I would have checked out.  A rare misfire by Robert Bloch.

Night Gallery – The Different Ones (S2E14)

ngdifferent05A 17 year old boy, Vic, is sitting alone in his bedroom as kids outside yell at his window calling him ugly and a freak.  We’re in kind of a tough position to judge since he has a sack over his head.  In any event, I think we can agree the kids are assholes.

His father says that after a lot of thought, he has decided to send Vic to live among others like him.  Somewhere he can be himself and walk in the sun.  Vic asks where this utopia is, but his father really has no ideas.

The father calls the government on a swell video-phone, asking for the department that deals with deformed kids.  He is referred to The Department of Special Urban Problems.  When they ask the nature of the deformity, Vic tears off the sack and photobombs his dad’s call.

ngdifferent08Shockingly, the government is of no help.  Their only solutions are 1) Vic lives with his father for the rest of his life, or 2) Vic is put to sleep (OK’d by the Conformity Act of 1993).  At the last second, a position opens up in an exchange program with another planet.

Vic’s father watches with tears in his eyes as a rocket takes off carrying away his son.  Then we are treated to a lot of NASA stock footage, which is OK with me — I could watch that stuff all day..  He meets a very human looking man in the jet-way and learns that he is the exchange for Vic.

Bottom line, the freak on the other planet is handsome by human standards, and Vic is handsome by their standards.  Everybody’s a winner.

ngdifferent18A pretty light-weight segment, but I’m a sucker for a happy ending.

Post-Post:

  • Twilight Zone Legacy:  Mary Gregory was in three episodes, and Dana Andrews was in one.
  • Also, I was getting Eye of the Beholder deja vu.

Tales From the Crypt – Easel Kill Ya (S3E8)

tftceasel05

Mondrian with less ambition, but about the same amount of talent

Jack Craig (Tim Roth) is an artist whose talent would not even get him a showing in Night Gallery.

A gallery owner is in his loft looking at his work and deems it unworthy of a showing.  She suggests that he start drinking again, but the alcohol might be put to better use if served to the viewers.

Jack has the standard daydream where fantasizes killing his adversary — in this case, planting the business end of a ball-peen hammer in her skull.  Next we see Jack in Obsessives Anonymous, a 12-step type of group.  His problems have been linked to alcohol, but I guess AA has their group trademarked.  He admits that he thinks he would have enjoyed killing her.  “But you didn’t — you faced your demon,” the group leader tells him.  If simply not planting a hammer in someone’s skull is considered a victory, that’s got to be one of the early steps.

tftceasel11Sharon from the group approaches him in the parking lot.  He has not sold a painting in a year, and she wants to be his inspiration to paint a masterpiece.  So they end up in his loft.  Somehow her showing a little leg breaks his mood.

That night, when confronting a noisy neighbor, Jack accidentally causes him to fall from the fire escape and die.  Looking down at the dead body, he is inspired to take his art in a new direction and paints the punk lying dead in the ally.

This is just the kind of morbid art that billionaire Malcolm Mayflower (William Atherton) collects, so Jack pays him a visit with the painting.  Mayflower buys the painting, but only for $200.  But he promises Jack $20,000 for the next one.

tftceasel21Needing more inspiration, he pushes his landlady down the stairs, killing her.  Ca-ching! Jack wants to stop, but Mayflower offers him $100,000 for a third painting.

When Sharon discovers what he has been doing, she runs away.  As Jack chases her, she runs across the street and is hit by a car in a very well staged stunt.  Needing $100,000 for the operation that will save her, he kills again.

Turns out he killed the surgeon who could have saved Sharon.  Doh!  And by leaving his brush at the scene, he led the police right to him.

tftceasel33Meh.  A pretty somber affair.  Too many of the directors forget that this series should have an element of fun to it.  Tim Roth is great as always, but it is played completely straight.  There is a nice closing shot, however, of him looking through some blinds as they close on him.

Post-Post:

  • Title Analysis:  Being a fairly somber episode, maybe they shouldn’t have gone for the pun at all.  First of all, kudos for it being relevant to the episode after non-sequiturs such as Abra Cadaver and Dead Wait.  Sadly, however, it is still a failure.  I assume they were playing off of the phrase “this’ll kill ya” but “easel” is just to much of a stretch.  Coincidentally, there is an episode next season  called “This’ll Kill Ya.”
  • This was a year before Reservoir Dogs and three years before Pulp Fiction.
  • William Atherton is not playing his usual dickish self (Die Hard, Ghostbusters, the forgotten Real Genius, etc).  Normal just doesn’t suit him.

Outer Limits – The Refuge (S3E11)

olrefuge05Wearing just his suit jacket, Raymond Dalton is stumbling through a blizzard.  He is thrilled to come across a Thomas Kinkade matte painting.

Through the requisite lit window, he sees people having a party.  When he tries to enter the yard, an electrical charge knocks him on his cold as a well digger in Montana’s ass; which is the same reception I usually get.

Luckily, during the credits he has been dragged inside the house and is being attended to by nurse Gina Beaumont (Jessica Steen from Earth 2, which I need to rewatch someday).  For some reason, the first thing she gives the freezing man is ice-water.

olrefuge12

Exhibit #1 why this is a dream.

She is promptly chewed out by both the doctor and the leader of the group for lowering the barrier and allowing Dalton in.  Leader Sanford Valle (M. Emmet Walsh) welcomes him to the titular refuge. He says an oil company drilled a little too deep and released a bacteria that polymerized the water like Ice-Nine.

This caused water to freeze at 40 degrees rather than 32 and to not melt until it hits 90 degrees.  Seems like the melting and freezing point should be the same, but I ain’t no expert on polymerized water.  That led to Florida being the tundra they see out the window.

As always in isolated groups of weirdos, dinner is a Downton Abby level of affair. Everyone dresses and acts like they don’t do this same thing every night with the same people.  Dalton meets Valle’s wimpy son Thomas and his floozy wife Justine.  He meets Walsh’s wife Debi who is so hot that it gives away that this just be a dream; or that Walsh has big bucks. Last to join them is dour Sister Angelique who accuses Debi of dressing like a whore.

olrefuge14

Exhibit #2 why this is a dream.

Later Justine comes on to Dalton.  He pushes her away after Gina sees them.  Justine then goes then next room down and beds down with her father-in-law. Thomas catches his wife in bed with Walsh and points a gun at him, but Walsh has a derringer and shoots Thomas first.  Dalton attacks Walsh and suddenly finds himself transported downstairs.

When he awakens, Thomas and the doctor have changed bodies, Justine is Gina, Debi is Justine, Angelique is now Walsh’s babe, and Gina is now Sister Angelique.  Got that?  It is revealed that Walsh is controlling the changes, but he doesn’t understand why Dalton is immune.

After the next change, Gina is Walsh’s new squeeze.  Dalton attacks Walsh and ends up waking up in a lab.  He sees that all the other people in the house are cryoginacally frozen in tubes.

olrefuge17

Exhibit #3 why this is a dream.

Dalton was thawed out because his brain tumor was now operable.  While on the outside, he does research on the other house-members.  He lawyers-up and gets them to re-freeze him so he can use the information to break Walsh’s hold over the others.

Another good episode.  Walsh is always a hoot and I’m a Jessica Steen fan from way back.