Category Archives: TV

Alfred Hitchcock Presents – Gratitude (04/25/61)

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My casino has a manager, it’s M-E-Y-E-R.  Peter Falk plays Meyer Fine, manager of a high-class speakeasy / casino during prohibition. [1]  Enjoy his performance, because it’s about all you’re going to get out of this episode.

He enters the main room of his apartment above the casino, wearing a tuxedo shirt, a bow tie, and a fabulous robe.  He sits down, and his servant John kneels and removes his shoes.  What the heck?  I’ve watched twenty-eight seasons and two boring, boring movies of Downton Abbey, but I’ve never seen Mr. Barrow tying anyone’s shoes; although he did seem do a lot of kneeling in front of dudes.

Even more baffling, John is just swapping them out for another pair of shoes.  Not slippers, shoes — they clunk when tossed aside.  What’s going on anyway?  John just told another minion that Mr. Fine was “having his bauth” (the accent is a very funny reference to John’s gangsta past).  Did he put on a pair of shoes (all by himself, like a big boy) to walk one room?

Fine then tours the floor of his casino.  Sadly the rule of no cameras in casinos does not apply to this AHP episode.  He is shown to be a sensitive, caring man.  We see him worry about an injured dealer, caution a man who is betting over his head not with it, and confess that he is terrified of death.

Turns out the high-roller — Hunter Combs — comes from big money as his father is president . . . of a railroad, I mean.  Meyer’s concern is not all humanitarian.  He worries that if the father knew his son was wasting his life gambling, whoring, banging his sister-in-law, and smoking crack that these establishments might get the wrong kind of attention.  You know, unless the kid was also funneling $10 millions of graft from the Communist Chinese into the family coffers.

Later that evening, Fine is told that Combs “blew his brains” out in the subway.  A police Lieutenant tells Fine and his fellow managers that he plans to close down “the private clubs you fellas have been running . . . for restricted membership.”  He says Combs went through $250,000 in 11 months, which was worth something back then. [2] He warns that Hunter’s father will destroy the three men, and that all news of it will be suppressed in the corrupt media.

The next night, Fine sees a man at the bar he does not recognize.  He learns the bouncer let the man in when he produced a “courtesy card” from another establishment even though it needed 2 more punches for a free sub.  Strangely, the bouncer had no curiosity about the box he carried which was big enough for a human head.  Seconds later, the man pulls out a camera the size of a human head, and takes a picture of the casino and its clientele.  He runs off running from the casino. [3] Fine tells his goons to “take care of him.”  Seconds later, the man is shot dead in the doorway of his detective agency.

Fine is distressed to hear that the man was killed when he only wanted him roughed up a little.  He meets with the other club managers and talks about this business they are in.  He says the death was not what he intended. They are interrupted with news that the hothead who shot Combs was just killed in a drive-by.

He worries that “The Dutchman” has called a meeting of all the club managers except him, and there will be pizza and girls.  For the rest of the episode, his forehead is glistening.  He decides he needs to tell The Dutchman his side of the story in person.

The next morning, as he is walking down his steps, he is shot in a drive-by.  He is able to stagger back inside  where John tends to his wound.  John suggests he hide out in Jersey.  Fine says he couldn’t stand to let The Dutchman see how scared he is.

Fine takes a pistol from his desk drawer and puts it to his head.  He breaks down that he doesn’t have the courage to use it.  He begs John to help him.  Which he does.

The lieutenant is baffled that John killed Fine after he had been so generous to him. The lieutenant says, “Didn’t ya ever hear of a thing called gratitude?”  I’m baffled that this is considered such a pivotal point that it is the title of the episode.  The themes up to this point had been Fine as a competent, sensitive man in a rough trade.  Next, he opened up about having such a fear of death that he couldn’t even attend a funeral.  Nothing foreshadowing the gratitude angle.  Sure, maybe John was so grateful that Meyer saved him from a life of crime that he . . . er, committed a heinous crime for him.  But it feels tacked on.

However, I have to apply a lesson that I learned after bitching about Ray Bradbury Theatre for 6 seasons; or maybe I just got 6 years older.  OK, nothing much happens here.  Peter Falk has a nice showcase.  Gangster-turned-valet John is a character I’ve never seen before.  But in service of what?  There is no suspense, no scares, no twist. [4]  It is just a day — granted, a big one — in Meyer Fine’s life.  Meh, maybe that’s enough.

Other Stuff:

  • [1] Upon further review, I see Alfred says the episode takes place in 1916, which places it well before Prohibition.  I guess the illicit activity here is the gambling and scantily-clad college girls dancing in the back [scenes cut for time].
  • [2]  Holy crap — about $6.7 million today !
  • [3]  That was a typo, but I kinda dig it.
  • [4]  If you still crave something dark and creepy, check out the magazine cover this story was originally published under in 1922.  Yikes!  You were warned.
  • The AHP gang must have known there wasn’t much here.  Alfred’s intro and outro both feature a complete non-sequitur — a violent western saloon brawl!
  • I always feel validated when I see that Jack at bare*bones shared my opinion of an episode.  It’s like beating everyone at Final Jeopardy.  Tonight (06/25/22 — it took me  while to get motivated) I nailed Gertrude Stein, which not many guys can say.

One Step Beyond – Delusion (09/15/59)

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Wow, it is an almost-star cast!  Future Larry Tate from Bewitched, 22 year old Suzanne Pleshette in her 8th TV gig, and one of Hollywood’s few greats: Actor, Director, Producer Norman Lloyd;  George Mitchell and Marjorie Bennett might not be as famous, but their resumes are yuge.  Amazing what an actor can accomplish when they don’t watch MSNBC and Tweet all day.

Harold Stern is working remotely before that was a thing.  He is at home at a messy desk.  Unlike slobs today, he is not wearing his pajamas in a Zoom call; he is wearing a long-sleeve shirt and a necktie.  Although, being a tax accountant, maybe those are his pajamas.

He hears on the radio that the police are looking for him.  They give his last known address twice, although I’d like to think the police already checked there.  I must call out the poor inserts One Step Beyond uses of the police.  OSB has been consistently brilliant at incorporating stock footage of everything from wars to horseraces.  This time, however, the shots are blurry, have distracting shadows, and they seem a little dated even for a 1959 show.

In seconds, Detective Tate is knocking on his door.  Stern, living under an alias, tells him he has the wrong man and tries to close the door.  The officer pushes his way in, so we know this does not take place in Uvalde.  Turns out the police were searching for Stern so he could donate his rare blood type to a crash victim.

This is what Stern was trying to avoid.  He has donated blood 31 times in the past 15 years, but not in the last 3, which is the kind of straight-forward answer you would expect from a tax accountant.  Tate finds an excuse to drag him downtown — signing a false name to tax returns.  Although his choice of signing “Donald Trump” to avoid tax scrutiny was quixotic at best.

He explains to Detective Tate that whenever he gives blood, he can see the future of the recipient.  Sometimes they win the lottery, sometimes nothing happens, but other times they die.  He even has newspaper clippings to prove the fate of his donees.  Well, I don’t think Judge McMann [1] would accept that as evidence of precognition since the events have already taken place.  Stern is taken to the hospital where the girl’s father shames him into making the donation.  

A month later, the recipient, Martha Wizinski, comes to visit him.  That night Stern has a nightmare about Martha dying.  In a blatant HIPAA violation, he gets Martha’s address from the hospital and goes to her apartment.  He finds her unconscious from a gas leak and saves her life a second time.  

She gets mad at him looking out for her.  He offers her a job and a place to stay.  In the next few days, he chews her out for swimming after eating, running with scissors, and scissoring after eating.  She gets tired of his warnings and packs to leave. 

As she tries to leave, Stern struggles with her and somehow kills her.  Her boyfriend is standing right outside the front door.  He can hear this happening and does nothing .  Say, maybe this is Uvalde. 

Stern dies in an institute for the criminally insane.

It pains me to say it, but we might have found something Norman Lloyd was not great at.  He gives his usual fine performance here except when he has to go over the top in anger or panic.  Shockingly, he seems a little hammy. 

Suzanne Pleshette is just as trashy as you would hope her to be . . . maybe that is too judgmental:

  • She has no relationship with her father.  She says he disappeared from her life again after she pulled through. 
  • She has the deep Elizabeth Holmes voice which only works if you are cute or selling bogus complex technologies to horny old men who pretend to understand them. 
  • She can’t hold a job. 
  • In fact, during the episode, she goes to an interview at a strip club.
  • Sadly, the job is “camera girl.”  Low self-esteem or class?  You be the judge. 
  • Also, a smoker.

Sadly, the show again kills a random innocent person.  Even that death is botched.  We see them struggle, but how that turns into a murder is baffling.  The episode also suffers from a lack of suspense, scares, or creepiness.  The Standard Deviation on OSB is pretty slim but sadly, this is one of the lesser efforts.

Other Stuff:

  • [1]  I finally got an answer to my question of whether McMann (of McMann & Tate) ever appeared in an episode of Bewitched. He only appeared twice and was played by 2 different actors, Roland Winters and Leon Ames.  At first I confused Leon Ames with Leon Askin.  I think my way would have been better.
  • Title Analysis:  What delusion?  I think Stern proved his abilities were real.
  • Norman Lloyd’s character dies at age 53 — exactly half the age Lloyd lived to.
  • Suzanne Pleshette was last seen in AHP’s Hitch Hike.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents – Post Mortem (05/18/58)

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Are you getting déjà vu of another time you wasted time on the internet?  Maybe doubly so if you read last week’s post.  Post Mortem came up in the rotation last week as an episode of Suspense.  Turns out the same Cornell Woolrich story was also the basis of an AHP episode which I inadvertently skipped 6 years ago.  OMG, six years?

The AHP version is an immediate improvement.  Although the story involves multiple scenes of a bathtub and sunlamp, there was nary an inch of skin to be seen last week.  Here, not at all gratuitously, we begin with a dame in a bubble bath. [1]

Her hubby Steve brings in a sunlamp and says, “Honey, you’re so beautiful you must be perishable.”  That might seem like a dopey line, but what’s the last thing you said to a naked woman?  I think mine was, “Why, yes, that is my MAGA hat on the dresser.” 

Steve wants to make some investments but his wife Judy wants to keep their nest egg safe in the bank.  He scoffs at the 3% it is earning, which this week sounds pretty great to me.

That afternoon, Judy gets visited by several reporters.  They tell her that her late husband’s horse won the Irish Sweepstakes.  Did he own a horse that bought a ticket?  The Irish Sweepstakes was a lottery, not a horserace. [3] She invites them in and throws some o’ them Belmont Steaks on the grill.  The ticket is worth $133,000 [4] — if she can find it.  

Judy and Steve search the house.  Judy is sure she searched her husband’s clothes before giving them to Goodwill.  Ergo, they deduce that the ticket is in the suit her dead husband was buried in.  Who says you can’t take it with you?

After meditating during the commercials, Judy says they should dig up the body; and also . . . must . . . buy . . . Lucky . . . Strikes. [5]  Steve is against it, saying it would give him nightmares.

While Steve is out of town at the AVN Awards, Judy goes to the Shady Rest Cemetery.  She hires the caretaker to dig up her husband who is buried next to Uncle Joe who’s moving not at all.  And if you get that reference, you watch too much MeTV.

A man claiming to be a reporter shows up.  He offers to watch the body being dug up, and will search it for the ticket so Judy is spared.  He finds the corpse’s jacket has the ticket and an I VOTED sticker.  In a shockingly honest move for a reporter, he gives the ticket to Judy.  

When Steve gets home from the convention, he is upset that Judy dug up the body.  He is soon calmed after hearing the exhumation was uneventful, by the thought of $133,000, and by the fresh toasted flavor of Lucky Strike.

Some time later, the man who helped her at the cemetery stops by.  He admits he is not a reporter, but an insurance investigator named Westcott.  He became interested that Judy’s current husband sold her a $25,000 life insurance policy on her late husband just a month before he croaked.  As long as the body was just lying there, he decided to order an autopsy; and, hey, that jacket would be a nice fit.  Arsenic is found.

Just like in the Suspense version, Steve waits until his wife takes a bath, and tosses the sunlamp in.  Again, his character does not make sure his wife is dead before telling the cops.  Her surprise return and the arsenic report seal his fate.  She nearly forgets to retrieve the ticket from his pocket before he rides, ironically, Old Sparky. [6]

Now is the literary analysis where I methodically deconstruct the Suspense vs AHP adaptations of this story.  Er, the big difference is that I watched the Suspense episode 2 weeks ago and barely remember it now.

Other Stuff:

  • [1] Bonus Points for scratching her foot with a hanger.  Bonus Bonus Points for it not being a wire hanger, causing me to think of Joan Crawford in a bathtub. [2] 
  • [2] Would also have accepted “Bonus Bonus Points for not being a wire hanger, causing me to think about the turnover of Roe v Wade.”
  • [3]  It is not like AHP to make a mistake this yuge.  I suppose the reporters must have been talking about a metaphorical horse, but it sure isn’t presented that way.
  • [UPDATE — Dammit!  There actually was a horserace component to the Irish Sweepstakes.  I have to either start fact-checking these things, or stop fact-checking them.]
  • [4]  That would be $1.3M today, or $3.1M at the end of the Biden presidency.
  • [5]  Not everyone is smoking like a chimney in this version, but Steve is smoking in this scene.
  • [6]  Sadly, it appears that the electric chair was never used in California, almost certainly dooming my proposal to maximize efficiency with the electric couch.

Suspense – Post Mortem (05/10/49)

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At the Royal Crown Life Insurance Company, Investigator Westcott (no first name) pounds the hell out of a cigarette. [1] He tells his boss he thinks they made a mistake paying out the Mead claim.  His boss grabs the cigarettes from him and says, “There was nothing fishy about the death certificate.  You saw how he died.”  Westcott says the doctor who issued the death certificate had his license taken away — and married Mead’s widow!  Not only that, but Westcott says she had just taken out a “big hefty” policy naming the doctor as the beneficiary! [3]  His boss is shocked by this revelation.

Well wait, they just paid the claim.  Didn’t these chowderheads already know when the policy was purchased, who purchased it, and who they just cut a check to?  And did it not arouse suspicion that Mrs. Mead bought a policy on her husband and made another man the beneficiary? [3]

Westcott pays a visit to Mrs. Mead (now Mrs. Archer) who is smoking, but not smokin’ if ya get me.  This show must have been sponsored by Lucky Strike because there is a lot of smoking.  Mrs. Archer’s first line is the oddly singular, first person, present tense, “Oh, I just love a cigarette!”

Westcott asks how she hurt her arm.  She says she fell down the cellar stairs like Don DeFore’s mother.  “It wasn’t very bright of me to leave the rolling pin at the top of the stairs.  I haven’t the slightest idea why I left it there.”  WTF? [4]  He asks if she has had any other accidents since her husband has taken out a big policy on her.  She tells Westcott she can’t understand why her husband would take out a big policy on her.  Ach du Lieber, this dumbbell could work for the Royal Crown Life Insurance Company!

Westcott tells her that in 1933 her husband’s mother tripped over a broom and fell down the stairs, leaving him a policy worth $25,000.  Then the steering failed in his brother’s car and he collected another $20,000.  Then he set his sister up on a date with Ted Kennedy. [2]  She demands, “What has this got to do with how my first husband died?  Certainly my husband didn’t get anything out of that!”  Well, except for the life insurance proceeds that we were told in the first scene were paid directly to him. [3]

Mrs. Archer throws him out, but not before he makes two parting comments:  1) Be very careful, and 2) I’ll leave the cigarettes for you.

That night, Mrs. Archer gets a telegram addressed to Mrs. Mead.  She has won $150,000 in the Irish Sweepstakes!  I wish I knew how to make a gif because Dr. Archer’s delayed reaction from ho-hum to WHAT’S THAT ! is classic.  Mrs. Archer says her dead husband must have purchased it.  Fortunately, you don’t have to be present to win the Irish Sweepstakes or, of course, sober.  You do need the ticket, however, and they have no idea what Mr. Mead did with it.  After searching the house, they conclude it must be in a pocket of the suit he was buried in.

Mrs. Archer suggests they could get a court order to dig up the body.  Dr. Archer doesn’t want the cops sniffing around the exhumed body; and, after 6 months, it wouldn’t be too pleasant for the cops, either.

Dr. Archer has some goons dig up the coffin.  He doesn’t find the ticket.  Some cops stumble upon the site.  They all get away, but the cops decide to haul the body in for another autopsy.  Archer gets a call that arsenic was found in Mead’s body.  He tells his wife the call was from a patient.  But wait, his license was revoked.  Also, wasn’t he a coroner?  Spooky.

He writes a letter confessing to the murder of Mr. Mead, and sign’s his wife’s name.  Yada, yada . . . Dr. Archer tries to kill his wife, fails, and is busted.

Robert Coogan (Westcott) does a great job.  Literally, every other actor hams it up just as much as the intrusive organ (my nickname at the gym).  While looking up some background on the episode, I discovered that the same story was the basis of an AHP episode that I somehow skipped.  That will be the next post.

Other Stuff:

  • [1]  I had to Google why smokers tap their cigarettes.  It is to pack the tobacco in tightly because in the old days, the tobacco would fall out.  Or it is to loosen the tobacco allowing it to breathe.  Gee thanks Google.  Do I have to send Elon Musk over there to straighten your ass out, too?
  • [2]  Sorry for two consecutive posts with Chappaquiddick references.  I couldn’t figure out how Dr. Archer could have insured the Lindbergh baby which would have least been close in the timeline.
  • [3]  To be fair, I finally figured out that they mean that Mrs. Mead took out a new policy on herself that names Dr. Archer as beneficiary.  It is misleading because Westcott says she “had taken” not she “has taken”.  It is just poorly written.  On the other hand, it is stated later that her husband bought the policy on her.  I’m writing this at 3 am.  What’s their excuse?
  • [4]  The incongruity of the rolling pin reminded me of this from almost 50 years ago.  There is a better clip here, but I couldn’t make the embedded video skip to the right timestamp.  The wording is vastly superior at the first link, but the fishing rod is in Tim Conway’s face the whole time.  Directoring!

Tales of the Unexpected – The Hitch-Hiker (03/22/80)

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Writer Paul Duveen is driving through England. He passes a sign that the Cambridge By-Pass is opening in Autumn 1979.  The funny thing is, this aired in 1980.  That’s it, the only funny thing.

He cruises past the world’s oldest and best dressed hitchhiker.  Then he has a second thought and slows down.  The old gentleman trots up to the car and asks if Paul is going to London.  As they drive off together, Paul is seen to be one of those lunatics that actually likes meeting people, enjoys talking to them, and is genuinely interested in what they have to say.  Wait, I have a feeling I’m rooting for the wrong guy here.

Paul is actually a very affable guy.  He talks to the man about Epsom (the town, not the salts) and the Derby (the race, not the hat).  Then he somehow surmises the man might be a busker.  The man takes offense at that and demands to be let out.  Paul pulls over and the man gets out.  Paul sincerely apologizes and asks the man to reconsider.

They continue on.  Paul gets the car up to a smooth 70 MPH, which seems strange since it is a German car with the wheel on the wrong side being driven in England by an Australian.  Shouldn’t it be in Gobsmacks per Fahrvergnügen or whatever the hell they use over there?   The hitchhiker asks how fast the car will go.  Paul, proud of his new toy with only 2,503 miles on it, claims it will go 129 MPH.  He is offended when the HH suggests the dealer was lying. Whoever heard of such a thing!

Paul tells the HH to fasten his seatbelt, and he puts his on too.  I guess going a mere 70 without them had been OK. They are thrown back in their seats as Paul  accelerates.  He gets the speed up to 125 MPH, then sees a motorcycle cop in the mirror.  The HH urges him to just outrun the cop.

Paul pulls over.  The HH says that model of motorbike maxes out at 112 MPH, so they should have outrun him.  Well then, how did the cop catch up to them?

This is one of those episodes that would just be tedious to recount step-by-step.  The good news is that is because there is character development, ideas, red herrings, foreshadowing, and twists.  Great for the show, not so great to transcribe or read.  With the cop entering the stage for an extended scene, we now have all the characters on deck.  This might be the most uniformly excellent ensemble I have come across since Dan Hedaya’s one-man performance of The Vagina Monologues at The Winter Garden. [2]

Rod Taylor (The Birds) plays Paul Duveen as a cheerful, inquisitive sort befitting his job as a writer (the inquisitive part, not the cheerful part). [4]  He occasionally gets ticked at the hitchhiker, but shakes it off.  He just seems like a great guy.

Cyril Cusak plays the hitchhiker as a seemingly harmless old chap.  His charming Irish accent is empathy-bait for Americans.  He even survived an episode of Ray Bradbury Theater.  Best of all, he seems to be no relation to former actor John Cusack.

I’ve never heard of John Forgeham who plays the cop.  However, he absolutely nails it as the humorless, laconic authority figure who has your future in his hands and knows it.  Alfred Hitchcock would have loved him.

Watching all three of them work is a delight pleasure.  The fact that their performances are also in support of a good story makes this the best episode of TOTU so far.  Bravo!

SPOILER:

I started with the ending when writing this post, so this does give away a plot point . . .

Hey, wait a minute.  That twist of stealing the cop’s notepad is right out of an Alfred Hitchcock Presents Episode.  Just one story beat you say?  Well in both cases it came after an upstanding citizen was goaded into speeding by a sticky-fingered hitchhiker and was pulled over by a motorcycle cop.  Not feeling it yet?  The AHP episode was entitled Hitch Hike — pretty close.  OK, we’ve had a few Tales of the Unexpected episodes based on stories that were originally used on AHP:  The Landlady, Man from the South, and Lamb to the Slaughter (all by Roald Dahl).  The difference is, Roald Dahl was given no credit on the AHP version of this one. [1]

Finally, thanks to the producers for actually filming a scene where the actors get wet in the rain.  Usually it is an effect or a screen of drizzle between them and the camera.  The reality this adds is worth a million Fahrvergnügens. 

Other Stuff:

  • [1]  As nearly as I can tell after 30 seconds of research, Roald Dahl was the 3rd greatest source of stories for AHP.
  • [1]  Odd that I immediately assumed Dahl was ripped off by AHP.  It was days later that I saw Dahl’s story was published 17 years after the AHP episode.   
  • [2]  Though lacking the range of Russell Collins — cited recently by me as the greatest actor in history — Dan Hedaya never fails to amuse or interest me.
  • [2]  Blatant rip-off of JFK’s gag about his Nobel Prize winning guests being the greatest collection of talent since Thomas Jefferson dined alone in the White House.  He had tried it in the clubs as “the greatest collection of drunken a**holes since Ted Kennedy dined alone because he killed his date.”  Luckily Ted Sorenson bailed him out again, crafting the crude jibe into the witty bon mot we remember today. [3]
  • [3]  Details from this era are sketchy at best.
  • [4]  Actually, it makes more sense the other way.  Today’s newspeeps are preening, self-important idiots who are not at all inquisitive.