Executive James Barrett barks at his secretary to book him a flight to Toronto. He is leaving the Muldoon merger in the hands of young Philip Weaver. After handing off the file, Barrett calls his dimwit, baby-talking, still-in-bed trophy wife who thinks Canada is overseas. What could such a mature, educated titan of industry see in this numbskull? Oh, she’s 29 years younger than him. Not quite the 37 year difference we saw in yesterday’s OSB, but he’s got time to put another trophy on his shelf. It just might not be a participation trophy by that time.
Mrs. Barrett meets Phillip for lunch. This being AHP, they discuss their plan to kill off Mr. Barrett during his Toronto trip. Phillip says he will mail her the details of their murder plan. Wait, what? He’s putting it in writing and mailing it to the victim’s home? God help Mr. Muldoon if Phillip is really this dense.
The next morning, the doorman comes up to their apartment to drop off the mail and pick up Mr. Barrett’s luggage. After her husband leaves for the airport, Mrs. Barrett rifles through the mail until she finds Phillip’s letter. She reads, “By this time, my sweet, your adoring husband is on his way to the airport.” Phillip is pretty trusting that the USPS would get that letter there on the right day. Even more-so that it would be only be delivered after Barrett left, although he did improve his odds by mailing it the same day as the Monkey Ward catalog.
The letter continues on, instructing her to “write James a good, smarmy letter, leaving nothing to the imagination.” She is to mail it to Toronto so the police find it in his room. “That’s all you have to do,” he assures her. Then he suggests that she throw a cocktail party that very afternoon as an alibi, which seems more complicated than writing a dirty letter. Finally, he does show a slight bit of brains as he reminds her to destroy the incriminating letter. Although, inexplicably, he does add a PS that he just recruited a sap named Oswald to be a patsy in assassinating the president in 3 years, includes a sketch of the grassy knoll, a copy of a $10,000 check signed by LBJ, and a clean set of fingerprints.
Mrs. Barrett . . . she doesn’t seem to have a first name. Let’s just call this treacherous, cheating ninny Helen. No reason at all. Just seems like a Helen.[1] So Helen immediately addresses an envelope to her husband’s hotel in Canada. After getting stuck because she doesn’t know what “smarmy” means — no, seriously — she pulls a picture of Phillip out of the desk drawer for inspiration. Wait a minute — she keeps a photo of the guy she is cheating with in her desk at home? And this is not a wallet size photo, this is an 8 x 10 glamour shot. It is even framed! These are the dumbest criminals ever.
Helen begins the letter, “Dearest James, you might think I am a feather-brain for writing to you so quickly” Yada yada. “Your adoring wife, Poopsie.” She stuffs the letter into the envelope and goes downstairs to mail it.
Back in their apartment, Helen begins calling people to attend her cocktail party. I have to give her credit, though, she remembers more phone numbers than I can. Suddenly this brainiac remembers that she left Phillip’s framed picture on her desk where Gladys might find it. She puts it back in the drawer. Then she remembers she also left his murder-instruction letter on the desk. Uh oh, she realizes she accidentally mailed the murder instructions to her husband. She runs back to the mailbox hoping to catch the mail man picking up, but just misses him.
Back in her apartment, she is mortified. I really felt for her, sitting on the sofa, almost catatonic with anxiety. Although in my case, it would have been because I had to attend a cocktail party. On the other hand, she does look pretty snappy in her little black cocktail dress. Gladys suggests that she go to the Post Office and see if she can retrieve the letter. She does, but again just misses the letter as it is sent out.
As the guests begin to arrive, she calls her husband. His office says he never checked into his hotel, so Phillip must have already whacked him. She is distraught that her husband is dead and their plan will be discovered. Just then, the doorman arrives with a delivery from the liquor store and good news, but I repeat myself. He tells her the postman returned her letter because she had forgotten to put a stamp on it. The doorman then proudly tells her that he added the postage and sent the letter back out.
Of course, AHP’s sheer professionalism makes this better than most of the crap that airs then or now. However, it did not completely seem to gel. I felt like Helen’s pursuit of the letter at the mailbox and post office should have had a more farcical tone. Maybe an hour episode could have pulled that off. Also, while I did appreciate her stoic reaction to the pressure she was under, it should have been better used at the end to emphasize the twist. If she had finally come alive with excitement upon hearing the the letter was returned, she would have lit up the screen. Then the zinger that the doorman re-mailed it would have been devastating in contrast. As played, it was just too flat to evoke any reaction in the viewer.
Other Stuff:
- [1] I only realized later that the housekeeper in this episode is coincidentally also named Helen. Just doesn’t seem like a name of someone who keeps things tidy. Let’s call her Gladys and keep Helen for the evil pea-brain slob.
- Sarah Marshall (Helen) was the mother in Twilight Zone’s classic Little Girl Lost.
OSB once again, to great effect, uses historical and stock footage to add depth to a story which is just not that interesting. We open with several shots of WWII Dunkirk and London in 1940 before we arrive at a bunker where a group of men cheer Winston Churchill’s rousing “finest hour” speech on the radio:
This is an odd assortment of a farmer, a coal miner, a chaplain, a bank teller, a chemist, a grocer, a retired one-armed WWI hero, a young volunteer, and the headmaster of a girl’s school. It is a different time when this group of patriotic civilians would prefer to defend their country rather than going to work in their own jobs every day (well, except the headmaster, I imagine).
The elderly Blakely takes the first watch. Nazis row the boat ashore, hallelujha — wait, that’s not how that goes! But he has already dozed off. He dreams of his wife Ethel, as well he might — she is only 35 years old! Uh, wait a minute, Charlie said they had been married 20 years. Oh well, it was the olden days, I guess.[2] He dreams of Ethel at home asleep in their bed as bombers release their load, which is more than he’s done lately. The old guy is awakened by the whistling of the bombs, the explosions, and his enlarged prostate. Good thing, too, because at that very second, a Nazi is peeking into their bunker.
Another not particularly interesting — not even really a twist — but more of a gimmick or hook this week. It really is a mixed bag though, with some great elements. The episode had great potential with an large cast of defined characters, but didn’t know what to do with them. Too many people were thrown at the viewer at once, and arcs were hinted at but never paid off. The shaky kid did kill a Nazi, but that wasn’t really a satisfactory resolution. Well, not for the kid.
On the other hand, OSB continues to astound with its production design. It might start out in a one-room bunker, but it eventually moves outdoors (even if it was on a set) to show some effective fighting with the Nazis. The devastated town that Blakely walks through is utterly convincing. That and the bombed out home are worthy of a movie in that era. Much as I love The Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents, they never matched the visuals on this series. If it had not been so committed to such a narrow genre, this series might have been remembered as the equal of those classics.
A hot blonde walks in and busts them for quarreling as usual. Frequent SFT viewers know that scientists on this series frequently have hot daughters, and often the daughters date their father’s proteges. Although there have been many female scientists on this series, I think this is the first with the cliché daughter. Dr. Adler says her daughter Marie disproves the genetic memory theory. “Distinguished scientists on both sides of the family, and Marie has not one brain in her head. How do you explain that?” Marie says, “I’m a throwback to Aunt Elenora. She didn’t have a brain in her head either”.
Joe sits out the race. When there is a crash in the race, all agree that is a sign that if Joe had been in the race, he would have been killed, but that it would have been great TV.
Alice and Mildred are walking out of a theater. Mildred says it is amazing what they can do with the bible, and Alice mentions how long the movie was. I figured it was The 10 Commandments, but we see part of a sign advertising The Wives of Solomon. That does not seem to be a real movie. The IMDb auto-complete returns The Real Wives of South Boston. If 10 commandments take 3.5 hours, how long would Solomon’s 1,000 wives take? Give the answer in square cubits.
The next morning, Alice gets dolled up to go to the police station. We also meet her daughter and son-in-law who are living with her, having just moved back from California. Leo seems to be a layabout who should be out looking for a job. Mabel is . . . well, I don’t know what she is, but she insanely hot. Way too good for Leo or the name Mabel.
She meets with Lt. Meade who is wearing a tie so thin it makes a bolo tie look like a lobster bib. Alice says she got a good look at the man’s face. Meade gives her a stack of mugshot books to look through. Alice methodically reviews the hundreds of photos before she finds one that looks familiar. One of the men looks just like Leo, but the name on the mugshot is William Draves.
Back at the house, Leo is nagging Mildred to give him $20. When she refuses, he tells her she spends more than that on a permanent even though she appears to have never had a permanent unless it was a temporary. She tells him she knows he will just take the $20 and waste it at the track. Leo is lazy and a mooch, but is wearing a tie; and, unlike Lt. Meade, one with two dimensions. He claims to have been a stockbroker in California, so tries to get Alice to give him $20 to “invest”. Mabel tells him to beat it.
Alice asks what Leo did for a living in California. Mabel says she has told her mother several times that Leo was a successful stockbroker. That’s how she got her furs and jewelry. In a way-too-long scene, Mabel assures her mother that Leo is a good man. He just needs time to get established in the east. Alice is still worried about that mugshot, though.
Blah blah blah. There is a lot to like in the episode. The actors, especially Alice and Meade, do great jobs. The twist is excellent, and atypical of what we usually get with AHP. Unfortunately, it just feels bloated in more than one scene. Still, despite dragging a little, it is worth watching for the ending. Rather than reading this, you should watch the episode; or do just about anything else, really.
SPOILER:
Inexplicably, the final shot zooms in on Mabel alone as she approaches a door frame and pounds it, looking completely beaten. She’s a crook, no better than Leo. She does not deserve the focus of the last shot. We should have ended up on Alice’s face. She is the center of this scene. Not only has she learned her daughter — who she clearly loves — is a criminal, but she is responsible for sending her own daughter to prison. Ya got tragedy, anguish, guilt, helplessness, and just plain old bad luck. There’s your last shot.