I was immediately befuddled on this one. Ben Nelson and Sharon Trotter pull up in front of her mother’s apartment. Maybe this is one of those things like the riddles that reveal what a sexist pig you are.
Seeing Sharon on the driver’s side [1] my first thought was great, another bloody English episode. Still not prepared to accept a woman driver, my next dopey thought was Holy crap! There’s no steering wheel in front of that guy — what a dumb oversight by the prop department.
My brain finally accepted that Sharon is driving. In my defense, however, that was probably pretty rare in chivalrous 1959. I would also submit to the jury that it makes no sense for her to be driving. They are arriving at her mother’s apartment where she is going up to have dinner alone with Mom. So why is Ben there at all if not to drop her off?
Anyhoo, skipping the first 3 seconds of the episode . . .
Ma sees Ben and Sharon out of her window. She disapproves of their relationship because Ben is married. Probably also because he is 21 years older than her daughter, and only 3 years younger than her. Or maybe because he foolishly put all his assets in his wife’s name.
When Ma expresses some sympathy for Ben’s wife, Sharon continues, “His house, his factory, his invest-ments, everything. And she’s not going to let go of it. Now do you understand what kind of woman she is?” [sexist remark redacted — maybe that riddle was right!]
The next day, Ben is surprised to get a visit at work from Sharon’s mother. She asks Ben to stop seeing her daughter because he is ruining her life. He says he thought she was old enough to make her own decisions, and that he wants nothing more than to marry her daughter.
That night, he rats out Ma’s visit to Sharon. Sharon is starting to get nervous now as they have been dating for a year and Ben has done nothing to free himself up. She worries about losing him “because she has no protection.” You know, like the assets they want to bilk his wife out of.
Ma then goes to see Ben’s wife. Mrs. No-Name Nelson [2] is pretty accommodating to this stranger who has taken a long bus trip to see her for reasons unknown. She pours them a couple of glasses of ice tea in pilsner glasses. Mrs. Nelson recognizes Sharon’s name, but doesn’t seem to know about her husband’s cheating. Ma finishes wrecking the home that Sharon was working on.
That night, Mrs. Nelson confronts her husband. She is willing to give Ben “his freedom” but nothing else. Turns out the aforementioned assets were left to her by her father, so the fact that they were in her name makes sense.
Sensing that she can still do more damage that night, Ma goes to Sharon’s apartment. While Sharon is changing, Ma answers a call from Ben. Not realizing he is speaking to Ma, he says his wife is dead and tells her the alibi she must give to the police to protect him. She is to say he was in her apartment from 6 to midnight.
Ma tells Sharon about the call, saying that Ben spoke so fast, she didn’t get a chance to say who she was. Sensing a way to protect Sharon, she relays the opposite message — that Ben wants her to say he wasn’t here all evening.
OK, that is a great twist, and certainly nails Ben — but how is Sharon so dumb that she doesn’t see the problem? She is going to provide an alibi for a murder suspect by saying he was NOT with her at the time of the murder? Don’t alibis usually work the opposite way?
This is a pretty somber affair, but has a few things going for it. Although a little slow and talky, the story has a lot going on. Yet, there is also a leanness to the simple story that makes it effective. Robert Alda is great as Ben — yet another AHP poser who will get what’s coming to him. I’d like to see some stats on how many wives were killed on AHP.
Jeanette Nolan was especially good as Sharon’s mother. She had to be concerned for daughter, reluctant in visiting Mrs. Nelson, then distraught at the pain she has caused her, and conflicted at lying to Sharon. Even as she is spreading the truth, she reflects a horror and self-loathing at knowing she is intruding, that this has hurt Mrs. Nelson and ultimately killed her, set the wheels in motion that led Ben to resort to murder, and denied Sharon the chance to be happy with Ben.
Post-Post:
- [1] Things I will never remember if I live to be 100: In a car, is the left and right from the driver’s POV or the guy about to be run over? Also, which is ectomorph vs endomorph?
- [2] Portrayed by Fay Wray who has a history of being involved with big apes.
- AHP Deathwatch: No survivors.
- Title Analysis: No idea how they came up with this.
- Dorothy Provine (Sharon) was in It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World where, in a cast of thousands, she was the only one to have no funny lines.
- There’s Got to Be a Morning After.
- IMDb and Hulu.
The second half of the debut episode benefits from a Thora Birch Bounce [1] Also, despite not really being one of the Twilight Zone’s dreaded “humorous ” episodes, it has some good laughs in it. Some are intentional, some are not, but all are good fun.
It is funny enough when her young son brings a snake into the kitchen. It is awesome when his sisters react with a yawn — a major 180 from what you expect. To top it off, he sneaks the snake onto the grill to fry with the bacon. Just great stuff. Bacon, I mean; but the snake bit was great too.
The efficiency comes in the editing of several quick bits by Penny to determine what caused this miracle, how to turn the world back on, the location of the necklace, etc. The episode surprised me by having her husband actually notice that she changed positions as she switched them on and off.
That afternoon, she is visited by two attractive, earnest young people wishing to impart the wisdom of their 2 years since high school to her. They invite her to a debate about ridding the world of nuclear weapons. All three agree that nukes are icky, but that isn’t enough for the two kids. If Penny doesn’t go their debate, well she’s just a poopy-head. She kindly and non-violently gets rid of them in a scene well-performed by her (the guy is awful, though).
Post-Post:
It is a given that Bruce Willis is a movie star. That star was pretty slow to rise, though. Breaking out in Moonlighting (1985) [1], it took quite a few tries for Willis to make it in the movies.
All this is to say, this episode is a great concept largely sunk by Willis’s performance. Maybe he was still learning his craft. He was still the wise-guy, fun-loving party-boy on Moonlighting, but this was a pretty somber role. Maybe it was the 80’s style or lousy DVD transfer. Maybe it was the thick hair — Willis didn’t really seem to take off until the hair started to go, which is an inspiration to me.
Barfly threatens to go home and throw homeboy out into the street. Homeboy remains calm and tells him that they can’t occupy the same space because physics. So now homeboy somehow knows the “rules?” Barfly suggests that they can both separately go about their lives, but homeboy berates barfly as not being able to live on his own. Barfly leaves the phone-booth to look for a telegraph.
Barfly further devolves in the hotel room until he is visited by homeboy. Yada yada, barfly becomes trans — as in lucent until he fades completely, leaving behind his new and improved self to star in The Return of Bruno.[4]
On a nice little farm located somewhere in the fabulous matte paintings of the American west, Derek Edlund is saddling his horse to search for his missing father. His uncle 
As a Native American presented by Hollywood, Eddie Bear is of course the first to leap to a mystical explanation for Grady’s condition. He believes that Grady was possessed by a 
Rowdy gets Elena and the kids out to Eddie Bear’s trailer and leaves a gun with Derek to protect them. As Rowdy leaves to confront Grady, he tells Elena, “If I don’t make it back, tell the kids the truth.” Because after their father kills their uncle, finding out their uncle actually just killed their father will pep them right up as they cower in fear with their tramp mother, distraught in the fugue of their new-found bastardhood.
Post-Post:
It’s 
She meets the temporally-named Mr. Tickton, the bank president, who assures her there has been no mistake. This is a different kind of bank. Besides actually being solvent, it takes deposits of time rather than money. For example, one customer found a new route to work so was able to bank a few extra minutes every day. Many other male depositors cut their foreplay time in half. Kudos to Tickton for being honest with Natalie, telling her that the bank staff is not of this world.
Natalie gets fanatic about saving time — doing her housework more quickly, skipping lunch, avoiding friends, getting rid of Michael’s dog. Natalie’s efficiency and dog-napping are too much for Michael — he walks out on Natalie. After Michael drives off, Mr. Tickton makes a house-call.
Kind of a goofy premise, but the kind of high-concept nonsense I like in my 1950’s sci-fi. Tickton was suitably creepy and the bank was pretty surreal. For a change, the lack of budget was perfect for the stark set design.