Category Archives: TV

The Veil – The Return of Madame Vernoy (1958)

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vreturn01A beautiful woman named Sita Vernoy died in August 1927 in Delhi.  A beautiful baby girl named Santha Naidu was born in August 1928.  In between, a pretty un-noteworthy 12 months for beautiful people.

Rama comes to Santha’s mother wishing to marry her.  Mrs. Naidu says that Santha is already married with a child — in another life.  Santha was born with memories of another life and still has those feelings.  Santha tells Rama she must go to her husband from her previous life.  She cuts short her rendezvous with Rama and says she must begin her journey.  Cuckmeister General Rama offers to accompany Santha and her mother.

Meanwhile, in France, Professor Charles Gencourt (Boris Karloff) has arrived to tell Armand Vernoy his son Krishna has been accepted to college in America.  Sadly, Vernoy does not have the money to send him, and Krishna will have to work in the Punjab Dell Computer Call Center all his life.

vreturn05Santha shows up at casa de Vernoy and tells Krishna she is his mother.  She throws her arms around Armand and claims to be his wife. Under-standably, Krishna does not accept this woman his same age to be his mother.  Not so understandably, Armand does not accept this woman 40 years younger than him to be his wife.  Dude!

Armand tells Santha that he cannot afford to send Krishna to America.  Santha is able to show him jewels that she, in her previous life as Sita Vernoy, hid in the base of a statue.  Despite Santha claiming to be his wife, finding untold rupees of jewels, and being 1/3 his age, Armand just can’t open his heart to her . . . his stupid, stupid heart.

Santha leaves.  Armand tells his son that he can go to America after all and take the job of an American.  Woohoo!

A fairly dull episode in a fairly mediocre series.  It is strange that Karloff’s role is entirely dispensable.  It would have made more sense for him to play Armand, who was not Indian.  The tragic figure here seems to be Rama.  He appears to be the only actual Indian in the cast (despite the actor being named Julius Johnson), and he is totally cucked by this snotty girl who claims to be married to an elderly Frenchman.

vreturn12Title Analysis:  Better than the episode.  The “return” is her rebirth, her return to Armand, and stretchingly her return to Delhi.

I rate it Return to Sender.

Post-Post:

  • Trigger Warning:  Santha Naidu is played by Lee Torrance, whose name doesn’t look very Indian.  Krishna is played by George Hamilton, whose name doesn’t look very Indian. Mrs. Naidu is played by Iphigenie Castiglioni whose name looks like someone fell asleep at the keyboard.
  • Hmmmm . . . I wonder if that was the same Iphigenie Castiglioni who was in Return of the Hero and The Weird Tailor.
  • Yes, I will use that line every time she shows up.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents – Relative Value (03/01/59)

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We open with a tight shot of a check.  What can we deduce from this?

ahprelativevalue1

  1. A 50 pound check was written by Felix Manbridge to his son John Manbridge .
  2. John Manbridge has hauled this unwieldy check from Felix Manbridge to the Townbridge Branch.  They are in London; probably near the bridge.
  3. It is 1930; Felix has foolishly purchased check stock with “19__”  pre-printed which will be obsolete in 70 years.

After actually watching for 5 seconds, I see my errors.  The check didn’t weigh 50 pounds; WTH was I thinking?  However, I had no way of knowing that John forged his cousin Felix’s signature.  He explains, “You needn’t blame me for that.  I wouldn’t have done it if I’d had any alternative!”  He is now back to shamelessly ask for another £100.

Felix tells his parasitic brother that he simply doesn’t have the money.  I believe he is sincere, but coming from a guy in a snappy three-piece suit, sitting in the mahogany-walled library of his country home, being attended to by a butler, I can see how John would be dubious.  On top of that, Felix says he is very ill and John will soon inherit everything anyway.  So no reason to murder him, nosiree . . .

ahprelativevalue3Felix warns John that if there is another forgery — just one more little felony — he will prosecute.  Denholm Elliott must have specialized in portraying this kind of upper class leech.  In The Crocodile Case, he murdered his girlfriend’s husband and assumed his comfortable life [1].  In The Coffin, he constantly sponged off his brother [2].  Indiana Jones was wise to keep him away from that Crystal Skull.  Or maybe his agent was wise to keep him away from it. [3]  He leaves in a snit, complaining that this was a waste of his time.

Like any responsible broke bloke, his first stop is at the bookie.  He finds the odds never in his favor, but really just stopped by to see if the bookie had cashed the check “from Felix” he gave him yesterday.  Sadly, it was deposited and will soon be bouncing back the bookie’s way, causing Felix to call the coppers.

Like any responsible broke bloke, his second stop is at the pub.  This time it is just to make an appearance to establish an alibi.  If only he worked this hard at getting a job.  He trots down the road in his nice shoes, three-piece suit and gloves to where he stashed a bike to throw off the timeline.  He ditches the bike in a pond near the house and continues on foot.

ahprelativevalue4Through the window, John sees Felix has understandably dozed off listening to the most boring radio show in history not airing on NPR — a lecture about life insurance and actuarial tables. Getting no answer at the door, he knocks on the window. Felix does not respond, so he opens the window and climbs in.  Felix still doesn’t move, so John takes this opportunity to poke him in the head with a fireplace whacker; no wait, to whack him in the head with a fireplace poker.

In his dead brother’s pocket, John finds a check made out to him for £100.  Awww, what a softy the old guy is; especially around that bloody spot on his noggin.  For some reason, John burns the check — the one piece of loot he actually is legally entitled to.  John dumps Felix out of the chair and ransacks the library to make it look like a robbery.

He then doubles back to make it appear he just arrived.  A constable is biking by as John is rapping on Felix’s door.  I guess the police don’t get guns or cars in England.  The constable walks around to thewindow and sees Felix on the floor.  He climbs in, checks the body and goes through the house to let John in the front door.  The constable tells John he doesn’t know what happened, then produces a suicide note signed by Felix.  This guy is not detective material.

The 2nd half of the episode is a real detective trying to makes sense of the crime scene.  Both the writer and John Manbridge did fine jobs of planning the crime, establishing an alibi, and enabling the detective to deduce his way to the truth.  Elliott’s performance made the first half and the unraveling of the story made the second half.  I can’t bring myself to spoil it.

Despite being pointlessly set a long time ago in a country far, far away, this was another great episode.

[UPDATE] Going back in for pics, I realized I had missed some awesome foreshadowing when John read his brother’s suicide note.  Bravo!  Just great stuff!

Post-Post:

  • [1] Until he was sent to prison for murder.
  • [2] Until his brother murdered him from beyond the grave.
  • [3] Or maybe he had been dead 15 years.
  • AHP Deathwatch: No survivors.

Twilight Zone – Dealer’s Choice (11/15/85)

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I wonder what it was like to watch this series every week in 1985.  Was there a hopefulness that it might be a worthy successor to the 1960s classic?  Were people satisfied with the first episode featuring Shatterday and A Little Piece and Quiet?  They were both pretty strong, high-concept segments.  Yeah, I’ll tune again next week.

Wordplay was another fun, high-concept outing.  Chameleon didn’t have much of a story, but was enjoyable thanks to the performances and the NASA setting.  The ending was a little underwhelming.  Still, maybe they found a way to make a TZ for the 1980s.  I’ll give it another chance next week, if I’m home.

After that, with a few notable exceptions, the new TZ produced too many maudlin soap opera segments and short one-joke outings with no depth or arc.  Gone was the grit, irony and cosmic comeuppance of the original.  A good twist seemed to have become as passe as plot in a literature or skill in art.

I have a feeling this episode might have been the last stop for a lot of viewers.  After the insufferable James Coco, and then the tedious Bradbury monologues tonight, maybe turning over to catch the last half of Knight Rider seemed like a reasonable move.

Barney Martin (Jerry Seinfeld’s TV father), Garrett Morris (SNL), M. Emmett Walsh (everything), Morgan Freeman (everything else) and world’s greatest actor Dan Hedaya [1] are gathered for a poker game.

Hedaya always seems to win with a hand containing three sixes.  They ID him as the devil.  There is a showdown.  The guys try to trick him, but he tricks them.  They bust him but he is a real sport, creating sandwiches and beer for them.  The end.

No, that’s really it.

I assume this was to be the meaty segment of the episode.  It was the longest segment at 22 minutes. It contained a cast that in 1985 were probably all familiar faces. Just, nothing happens.

Walsh is clueless as his characters often are.  Martin seems to be tzdealerschoice15playing a mentally challenged man — wait, are they going to keep the money they win from him?  He should be playing for cigarettes with Martini and Cheswick. Morris has a knack for putting the wrong inflection on just about every word he speaks.  Freeman is mostly the voice — literally — of reason. Tragically, the great Dan Hedaya is very subdued here.

Strangely, I must admit the 22 minutes flew by faster than did the first much two shorter segments.  It must have been the actors, because there was certainly nothing in the script to captivate me.  It is not tense or suspenseful.  Despite the comedic talent, it isn’t really even particularly played for laughs.

As Homer Simpson once said, “It’s just a bunch of stuff that happened.”  Except not much happened.

I rate it a flush, and not in the good way.

Post-Post:

  • [1] Only a slight exaggeration — he is usually a hoot.  How can there be no decent clips of him in Cheers on YouTube?

Twilight Zone – The Burning Man (11/15/85)

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tzburningman01In 1936, Doug and his Aunt Neva are driving through the country.  An old man in a dirty white suit runs into the road and flags them down.  He climbs into the car without an invitation and tells Neva to drive off because the sun is after them.

He tells her that on days like today, it feels like the sun is going to split you wide open.  He says Lucifer was born on a day like this.

“Ain’t this the year when the 17 year locusts are supposed to come back?” he asks.  “If there can be 17 year locusts then why not 17 year people?”  This piques Doug’s interest for some reason.  The old man continues, “Sure, why not 24 year people or 57 year old people?”

Somehow this leads him to ask, “Who’s to say there ain’t genetic evil in the world?”  The car blows a tire and the man allows the old woman to change the tire herself, answering his own question.  He tells Doug to imagine that on a hot day like this, an ornery 57 [1] year man could be baked right out of the dried mud and arise.  That evening he would crack open like a snap bean and a new young human would emerge.

“I think I’ll eat me some Summer, boy.  Look at them trees, ain’t they a whole dinner?  And that grass down there, by golly there’s a feast.  Them sunflowers, there’s breakfast.  Tar-paper on top of that house, there’s lunch.  And Jehoshaphat, that lake down the road, that’s dinner wine.  Drink it all up til the bottom dries up and splits wide open.”

At this point, I think they need AA more than AAA.  Neva finishes changing the tire and inexplicably doesn’t leave the crazy bastard behind.

tzburningman05Doug says he is thirsty and the old man says, “Thirst don’t describe the state of a man who’s been waiting in the hot mud 50 years [2] and is born but to die in one day.  Not only thirst, but hunger!”  C’mon, you just had some tar-paper!

He yammers on — and by he I mean Bradbury — about eating all the cats in the county. [3]  When he finally, inevitably gets around to talking about eating people, Neva slams on the brakes and orders him out of the car.

Proving that he is not the only long-winded son-of-a-bitch in the car, she rants, “I got a load of bibles in the back, a pistol with silver bullets here under the steering wheel, I got a box of crucifixes under the seat, a wooden stake taped to the axle, and a hammer in the glove-box.  I got holy water in the radiator filled early this morning from three churches on the way.  Now out!”  And by she, I mean Bradbury.

They leave the old man literally in their dust.  Soon they arrive at a lake.  Whether this is their destination or just a chance to cool off, I don’t know.  God forbid we get 5 seconds of exposition between the monologues.  I guess a refreshing minute at the lake was the point of their drive.  Hearing some locusts, Doug gets the willies and asks if there is another road back to town.

tzburningman20They see a little boy in a clean white suit in the road.  Neva offers to drive him home.  After it gets dark, he leans in from the back seat and whispers to Neva, “Have you ever wondered if there is such a thing as genetic evil in the world?”  The car stalls, the lights dim, then nothing. We couldn’t at least get a scream?  I think we deserve that.

This was like a flashback to Ray Bradbury Theater — not much of a story, monologues better-suited to the printed page, set when times were simple and presidential candidates weren’t, and an unsatisfying ending. Unfortunately an average episode of Ray Bradbury Theater equals a disappointment from TZ.

To be fair, Roberts Blossom as the old man delivers Bradbury’s poetic words as well as anyone on RBT.  And Danny Cooksey’s smile at the end is worth the price of admission.  As I seem to say for every segment — it’s OK, just not what I’m looking for from a Twilight Zone reboot.

Post-Post:

  • [1] 47 year man in the short story.
  • [2] 30 years in the short story.
  • [3] Country in the short story.
  • The episode closely tracks with the short story, except for the flat tire.  Much of the dialogue is verbatim from the story.
  • TZ Legacy:  Sadly, none.
  • Roberts Blossom will show up in Amazing Stories if I last that long.

Twilight Zone – Act Break (11/15/85)

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tzactbreak12TZ Legacy:  I have to move this to the top section because I’m not sure I can last to the bottom section.

Nutshell:  In The Bard, an hour-long 4th season TZ episode, insufferable man-child Julius Moomer summons the ghost of William Shakespeare to be his co-writer.  In this 14-minute-but feels-like-an-hour episode, insufferable man-child Maury Winkler makes an imprecise wish and ends up as William Shakespeare’s co-writer.

Uber-annoying James Coco (Winkler) is pursued down a busy city street by equally annoying but at least amusing Avery Schreiber. [1]  Winkler is a writer of failed plays and rent checks.  Schreiber, his fish-monging landlord, not unreasonably, would like his rent paid with a boffo check.  Less NSF, more SRO.

Coco is working on a play with his partner Harry.  They have partnered up on 17 plays in 22 years, but somehow success has eluded them.  Winkler says all he wants is “an office that doesn’t smell like low tide.”  A good line made better by the fact that his landlord actually is a fish-monger.

tzactbreak15As Harry is dictating a death scene to Winkler, he begins having chest pains.  For some reason, he continues dictating even as he is clutching his heart (but sometimes, his throat).  This is not played for laughs like Winkler misinterprets his pain; it is just pointless.  They are going for a fun romp here, though, so I can live with it.  Unfortunately, while Bob Dishy as Harry does play it as broad comedy, James Coco plays the scene like an Adderall-abusing chimp in an elementary school play.  No expression is too tortured, no movement is too exaggerated, no line-reading is too hammy, and for some reason, he seems to be typing with one hand like Edmond Valier.[2]

Harry falls to the ground.  He pulls an amulet out of his ass — thankfully figuratively, not literally — and tells Winkler to make a wish for him to survive.  Seems the amulet is only good for one wish per customer, and Harry squandered his wish to survive a plane crash in the Burmese Jungle.  Instead, Winkler dawdles until Harry croaks and then wishes for “a new partner, the best playwright ever.”

tzactbreak26Winkler is shocked to find himself transported to the home of William Shakespeare. [3]  Shakespeare is having a little writer’s block, and Winkler suggests a play called Hamlet.  There is some amusing business by Shakespeare hearing this wrong as Hamnet and being baffled.  The gag is not explained, but makes me curious:  Did viewers back then know Shakespeare had a son named Hamnet?  Was the writer giving the audience that much credit?  That might be the most unbelievable thing in this episode.

Winkler tells Shakespeare the story of Hamlet.  Shakespeare then plagiarizes that and other plays.  Not all that far off from what I’ve heard.  As the follow-up to Hamlet was Troilus and Cressida, maybe this was not such a great partnership for Shakespeare. [4]

If you can tolerate James Coco, there is a lot to like here.  Avery Schreiber was always a hoot, Bob Dishy plays it perfectly, and there are some genuine laughs in the script. For me, the whole production is torpedoed by Coco, though.  Your mileage may vary.

Post-Post:

  • [1] Schreiber, German for writer, would have been an appropriate character name for Coco.
  • [2] The noted masturbater.  I mean, he masturbated a lot.
  • [3] Dishy also portrays Shakespeare.  I’m not sure the point of that, but he plays both parts much better than Coco.
  • [4] It appears they wisely set aside T&C to write Twelfth Night.
  • Title Analysis:  I don’t think a writing partnership is considered an act, but close enough.
  • Episode schreiber Haskell Barkin had no writing credits on IMDb until he was 43 years old.