Alfred Hitchcock Presents – Incident in a Small Jail (03/21/61)

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Hey, it’s uber- “That Guy” . . . or rather, uber- “That Dead Guy” John Fiedler!  Alas, where are the John Fiedlers, the Richard Stahls, the Charles Lanes of today?  Maybe driving for Uber.  Would network TV even allow these unattractive, old, bald(ing) white guys on the screen today?  I’m thinking of their heydays [1] when they converged on The Odd Couple.  And HTF does The Odd Couple (1970) not appear first when you search IMDb for “odd couple”?  Ain’t nothing but the best show ever.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, this is another one of those AHP episodes that is so good, I really have nothing to complain about.  Ray Bradbury Theatre, I miss you.

Due to my continued refusal to walk all the way across the room to load the DVD player, I am again watching on dailymotion.  I suspect the provenance of this video is about like that Picasso I bought, that not only was sold to me out of a car trunk, but was signed by Van Gogh.

In an effort to throw off copyright sleuths, the perps have uploaded the video backwards and zoomed-in.  However, the more Holmesian among you will note that they have helpfully tagged the video with the correctly spelled series name and episode title.

Well, might as well get this over with.

John Fiedler pulls into a gas station, launching a series of archaic events.

  1. An attendant fills the gas tank for him. [2]
  2. He tells Fiedler he can get a drink at the drugstore across the street. [3]
  3. Fiedler is arrested for jaywalking.

To be fair, even though the cop is a dick, Fiedler is actually arrested for then attempting to bribe a government official who is not in Congress.  Officer Carly [7] takes Fiedler to the jailhouse, oddly transporting him in the front seat.  The Sheriff seems a little more sane, but has bigger problems since a local girl was just found murdered.

Luckily a hitchhiker was found nearby and just brought to the jail.  Fiedler is ignored as he continually pleads to see the judge.  He even offers the same bribe to the Sheriff.  Again, Fiedler is lost in the shuffle as another Officer enters and says the men in town are forming a lynch-mob.

Hearing that the mob is heading this way, the  alleged killer demands to be set free, even though he is in the safest possible place — a locked iron cage.  Fiedler also whines to be released, but he is again the least of their worries.  Besides, he just did the impossible; he committed another crime while alone in a jail cell.  Bloody recidivist!

Incredibly, the dim-witted Sheriff agrees to transport the accused killer to another location.  Fiedler begs to also be taken.  “Shut up!”, the Sheriff explains.  But the distraction allows the killer to knock him out.  The killer then unlocks Fiedler’s cell and says, “Take off your clothes, buddy!”  Not what you want to hear in prison.

After putting on Fiedler’s suit, the killer locks him in his (the killer’s) cell as if the lynch-mob would know what cell the killer was in. Wouldn’t it maybe be the ONLY guy in the jail?  The mob shows up and drags Fiedler out of the cell.  They beat him unconscious, but the Officer shows up and runs them off.  I guess it would have been too much to arrest a couple.  Sixty years later, the Officer became Mayor of Portland. [4]

The next morning, when the bloodied Fiedler awakens, the Officer says the city will drop the charges and buy him a new suit.  Fair compensation for being overcharged, detained and beaten senseless.

As Fiedler is driving from town, he checks his briefcase.  Yep, his big knife is still in there.  Then he sees something never once witnessed in the USA, a pretty young blonde hitchhiker who is not on drugs or just escaped from a sex manic.  [6]

Another just about perfect episode.  Well told and well cast.  Fiedler is the perfect pusillanimous, high-pitched, panicky dweeb to sucker us in. [5]   It also plays on Hitchcock’s familiar theme of being falsely arrested.  The beautiful irony is that he was almost lynched for the crime he actually committed.

Other Stuff:

  • The title is a blatant rip-off of Incident in a Small Town which aired 30 years later.  Wait, what?  The title feels much older than that, but 30 seconds of research revealed no earlier source.  Maybe I’m thinking of Tragedy in a Temporary Town (1956) which I saw recently.
  • As always, a better write-up about the episode can be found at bare*bones ezine.
  • [1]  I would have bet money it was hayday, like “making hay”.  What does hey have to do with it?
  • [2]  This might not seem so strange if you are in Oregon or New Jersey where it is still illegal to pump your own gas.  Free country, pfft!
  • [3]  Long ago, most drug stores had soda fountains.  Mercifully, I deleted a dopey reference about Evel Knivel jumping the fountain at Caesar’s Palace, but here is the famous video.  Not deleted or in any way relevant, here is the Agony of Defeat clip.  And Bad Romance accompanied by tap-dancing because it is a hoot.
  • [4]  Would also have accepted:  Seattle.
  • [5]  35 years later, he had not changed a bit in the late, great Buffalo Bill
  • [6]  Upon review, she was not hitchhiking, but just walking along the road.  But you never see that either.
  • [7]  Myron Healey (Officer Carly) went on to star in The Incredible Melting Man.

One Step Beyond – Image of Death (05/19/59)

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First things first.  This is the 10th episode out of 18 to be set outside of America.  I guess they have to go wherever these “true” stories take them.  This week it is a Chateau in the Rhone Valley.  Still no paranormal activity in Africa or Asia.

A respectful length of time after his wife’s death (1 commercial break) Marquis Jacques de la Roget is married to Charlotte.  She was just a girl from the village, but is clearly pleased with her new wealth and power and indoor plumbing.  The new couple is barely through the door before she is ordering the butler Ernest to get her some strawberries, “A lot!  A big plate!” [1]

She complains that the furniture is old, but Jacques says it is antique.  Expect a lot of that sort of thing when you marry into the Roget family.

Charlotte is disturbed by the life-sized portrait of Jacques’ late wife Jeanette that overlooks the room.  She callously says, “Am I going to have to look at that 24 hours a day?”  Kudos to Jacques for showing that legendary French backbone and saying, “Yes”.  He reminds her that she had liked Jeanette.  But it turns out, they were not friends.  Charlotte was merely a nurse and companion during Jeanette’s last days.  She made sure that the weak Jeanette ate every spoonful of her meals.

Jacques snaps at Charlotte’s callousness, but she counters, “How you have changed from the impatient lover who complained so bitterly, ‘Why does it take so long, why does it take so long!'”

So either they were slowly poisoning Jeanette, or Jacques was complaining how long it took Charlotte to have an orgasm.

They are interrupted by Ernest with the strawberries.  Charlotte orders Ernest to take down Jeanette’s portrait.  Jacques shows that actual French backbone and allows Charlotte to have her way.

Some time later, Jacques notices a blotch on the wall.  It is shaped like a small dog or reindeer.  It fades away when he calls Charlotte to see it.  Late that night, Charlotte catches him trying to scrub away the stain, which now looks like a jelly fish.  Jacques believes it looks like a skull.  Clearly, however, I see a vagina with penguins flocking out of it.

The next day, Charlotte is barking orders at Ernest for a big party while being fitted for a fancy gown.  Jacques enters and dismisses the servants.  He is panicking because the stain is looking more like Jeanette.  Jacques wants to lock the room up.  Charlotte says that it is just his conscience torturing him for what they did to Jeanette, and he agrees.

She insists that Jeanette’s portrait be rehung over the stain so she can have her big party.  We do not see the big party, which is the way I like my big parties.  But it leaves Jacques consumed by guilt.  Charlotte offers to make him some hot chocolate, but they both know the score.  Jacques solemnly tells her, “I want it to work quickly, not like Jeanette.”

When Charlotte brings him the hot chocolate, he shows her how the stain has come to look just like Jeanette.  Apropos of a French woman, she croaks.  Jacques foolishly fesses up to his role in the shenanigans.  The police inspector insists on seeing the stain.

Now, about that stain.  I’m no nitpicker, but come on.  It starts as the little white dog.  Then it fades to nothing in front of Jacques as if it were supernatural.  Then it comes back as a jellyfish, then a little Jesusy.  The maid can see these because she tries to clean them off.  Then the stain evolves into a screaming face.  When the inspector looks at it, it is the little dog again, except black.  But wait, when it was the white dog, it disappeared completely so is it real or not?  During John Newland’s closing remarks, it looks like someone sneezed against the wall; and that is the family-friendly interpretation.  Just looking for some consistency.

So not a great week.  A nice set and great production values are no match for two annoying leads and a pedestrian story.

Other Stuff:

  • [1] Strawberries!  Pfft!  The most over-rated of fruits.  Sure, they’re good when covered in sugar, but what isn’t?  I suspect most people would prefer banana or peach in their Neapolitan.

Tales of the Unexpected – A Dip in the Pool (05/12/79)

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Wow, a helicopter shot! Pretty extravagant for this cheap TV series. They zoom in on a cruise ship. We can see this week’s guest star is actually on the ship. This is no One Step Beyond insert. [1] However, if I had one of those devices they use to track debates by the second, here is where the line would nose-dive like when Hillary speaks  appears is introduced.  This week’s star is the odious Jack Weston.

To be fair, that reaction might just be due to his role as Julius Moomer in The Bard episode of The Twilight Zone.  He was the most repulsive citizen of TZ, just edging out Feathersmith in Of Late I Think of Cliffordville.  That is strange because he was one of the first people I recognized as an actor when I was a kid.  I liked him as the avuncular friend in The Incredible Mr. Limpet.  As I got older, I realized his screen persona was an obnoxious man-child.  I didn’t see it earlier because I was an obnoxious child-child.

Weston is on the Lido Deck, scribbling in a notebook, wearing a leisure suit.  The Renshaws sit next to him and he introduces himself as “Botibol:  B Brooklyn, O Oliver, T Tommy, I Idaho, B Brooklyn, O Oliver, L as in Love” — an affectation so floridly over the top that Roald Dahl should have sent Ray Bradbury a gift basket.

He bribes his way to the Purser’s table at dinner and asks Gopher about the Ship’s Pool.  After a brief fright that we might see Botibol in a Speedo, we learn that the titular Pool is actually a wager on how many miles the ship will travel by noon tomorrow.

During the meal, the sea gets rough.  Botibol thinks maybe Captain Stubing did not account for this when he estimated the mileage.  If the storm slows the ship down, it might be worth a bet.  Unfortunately, Gopher doesn’t know if the Captain was aware of the storm.  What is this, the Costa Concordia?  Wouldn’t the Captain have checked the radar, monitored weather reports, or heard the non-stop complaining about sore joints of the 800 retirees on board?

The Captain’s estimate is 515 miles.  Botibol bids $1,000 that the actual distance traveled will be less.  He sees Renshaw and tells him about the bet, and the Pool which is now $14,000.  He is sure there is no chance of him losing.

The next morning, Botibol is the only one onboard sad to see that the storm passed uneventfully.  The ship is cruising along now, making up the time it lost.  He is distraught at the money he is sure to lose.  He wonders how he will be able to tell his wife.  Although, how did he explain he was taking a cruise?  How did he plan to explain the suntan (ahhh, maybe that explains the leisure suit by the pool).  I have a feeling his gaining 10 pounds in a week would not be a red flag.

Botibol decides he will jump over the rail, forcing the ship to stop.  Thus, the ship would fall short of its goal, and he would win the Pool.

He sees an old woman on the fantail.  He chats her up to be sure she isn’t blind.  Then he jumps.  And credit for the stunt here.  It sure looks like Jack Weston took that plunge.

The old lady’s nurse walks up and does not believe her patient’s crazy story about a man jumping in the ocean.  She is clearly in a Bidenesque fog of dementia.  So we close with Botibol becoming a smaller and smaller flailing shape in the distance.

Sadly, the casting of Jack Weston was hard to overcome for me.  There was also an unnecessary flatness to the story.  Surely, there was a way to foreshadow the old woman.  Maybe she could have been Renshaw’s senile mother.  As is:

  1.  Renshaw exists only so this is not a one-man show (brrrr, shiver me timbers).
  2.  The old woman jarringly appears as a new character at the last second.
  3.  A better opportunity of humorous misdirection over her faculties is squandered.

On the other hand, actually being filmed on a real ship was awesome.  Also, since there is no supernatural element, his predicament is relatable and quite scary.  So, there are some things to like, but it could have been so much better.

Other Stuff:

  • [1]  With all due respect to OSB who does that expertly.
  • For anyone who did not click the link above, this is stunning.  Hey, there’s Arte Johnson, Bernie Kopell, Rich Little, that guy from Dallas, Iowa Congressman Fred Grandy, F Troop’s Forrest Tucker, and Donnie Osmond!  All seriousness aside, I look forward to a remake full of tattoos, piercings, green hair, shaved heads, trans-women, and all your favorite reality TV stars from My 600 Lb. Life.

Science Fiction Theatre – Human Circuit (12/07/56)

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“On the afternoon of April12th, Dr. George Stoneham received an emergency call to a large downtown nightclub [The Kitten Club].  Chet Arnold, manager of the club and a personal friend of Dr. Stoneham, summoned the physician when Nina LaSalle, a dancer, collapsed screaming in the middle of a rehearsal.  Although Dr. Stoneham didn’t know it yet, this was to be one of his most unusual cases.”

Oh yeah, the case when he left the suffering tubercular patients in his office in the middle of the day to make the country’s last recorded house-call at a nudie bar?  Yeah, that one might stick in the memory.

With no evidence at all, Stoneham says his diagnosis is “severe pressure on the optic nerve.”  Once the pressure is relieved, the hallucinations should go away.   Nina says that was no hallucination, she really saw an atomic explosion. [1]  When Mrs. Dr. Stoneham learns her husband abandoned his practice to ogle young women, he might feel a pressure on his optic nerve.

That night, Stoneham has dinner with his friend, scientist Dr. Albert Neville.  During desert with Neville’s mother, he mentions that Nina had a hallucination of a nuclear explosion.  While Ma Neville is doing the dishes, her son reveals that at exactly the same time Nina had her hallucination, a nuclear bomb was exploded by accident in the Pacific.  Since there was a democrat in office, the press did not deem it worth reporting. [2] 

Neville suggests Nina might be clairvoyant.  He helpfully defines it as “the faculty of perceiving a pictorial representation of a current and distant scene.”   Neville’s hobby is the paranormal, so he wants to further examine the case; which means — well, well, well — a trip to see the girls at the club.

Nina says she had a vision once before when her boyfriend Larry died.  He was in uniform, clutching his gut.  An army pal of his confirmed his exact time of death as the same time she had her vision, plus there was a time-stamped receipt from the Taco Bell near the base in his pocket.  Then SFT surprised me by earning the only laugh in its entire run:

  • Neville: Have you ever heard of clairvoyance?
  • Nina:  Who?

Nina agrees to help the boys with an experiment about clairvoyance.  Just as they are leaving, though, she collapses.  They take her to the dressing room and connect her to an EEG.  Neville tells her “radiant energy” is the reason for her clairvoyance.  The electrical wave-lengths of her brain are too close together.  Nina has another clairvoyant episode in the lab.

Blah, blah, blah.  The episode gets bogged down trying to conjure a scientific basis for Nina’s clairvoyance.  That’s really too bad because they had a genuine talent in Joyce Jameson as Nina.  No nudie bar employee since Jack Ruby has so quickly emerged from the pack to blow away others on screen.

As often happens on SFT, the discoverer or possessor of the skillz does not seem to reap the benefit of their talent.  For taking time off to cultivate her clairvoyance, the bar manager allows her to change her stage name from Nina (pronounced Nine-uh) LaSalle to . . . Claire Voyance!

No, that would be too much to expect from SFT.  He allows her to change her name to the god-awful Saturday Knight.  Seriously.

The two doctors received $500 and $750 for the episode.  Joyce Jameson was paid only $300.  Even sadder, she would be dead by 59.  She was a ray of sunshine here, though.  Enough to recommend the episode?  Oh, hell no!

Other Stuff:

  • [1]  Note the complex, clockwork, Nolandesque exposition: First, an evidence-free diagnosis, then a treatment, followed by the symptom.
  • [2]  Oh, alright, Eisenhower was President when this aired.
  • And it wasn’t a nudie bar.  But this COVID thing is going on for so long . . .

Alfred Hitchcock Presents – The Horse Player (03/14/61)

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Hey, the church roof is leaking and the pastor is played by Claude Rains.  If you’re looking for criticism more insightful than that, let me save you some time right now.

Pop Quiz: This screenshot is stretched out like the _____ ____ ________ .   Correct answers will be deleted.

Father Amion’s church is in bad shape.  Not only is the service sparsely attended, but the roof is a sieve, with multiple leaks drizzling water into buckets, onto heads, and unto their feet. [1]  A Building Contractor stops by the church after the service and surprisingly speaks without his tongue catching fire.  He tells Amion it will cost $1,500 to fix the roof.

The church doesn’t have that kind of ready cash, but things are looking up as a ten-spot appears in the collection basket.  At the next service, Amion pulls aside the church’s generous new member.  The benefactor, Mr. Sheridan, is not dressed like the other church-goers.  He has no tie, is in a wrinkled jacket, and is sporting a goofy hat.  Actually, he is dressed like a church-goer, just one from a few years in the future.  Slackers!

He says he has lived in the area for 20 years.  He just started coming in after seeing the church’s sign TRY PRAYER.  He was a loser, and found that prayer turned his life around.  Father Amion is happy to hear the man has found religion, but less so when he learns that Sheridan credits prayer for “six winners out of eight” at the track, and “one of them was a 20-to-1 shot.”  Amion might have felt better if he knew the Jesus responsible for the 20-to-1 win was the Guatemalan stable-boy.

Yes, more stretched out screencaps this week. I own the DVDs, but they’re waaaay over there on the other side of the room.  Blame COVID.

Amion tries to explain to Sheridan why this is wrong.  He asks, “What if everyone rooted for their own horse; what would God do?”  He’s God, I think he could come up with something.  Sheridan says it is their own fault for “not being wise to this prayer racket.”

A few days later, Sheridan returns to the church and gives another $30 to Amion.  He even suggests a horse that Amion might want to place a bet on — Red Devil in the 4th race at Belmont.  Amion declines.

A few days later, Amion sees Sheridan in a new convertible, and wearing a bow-tie.  The “prayer racket” has continued to pay off.  Sheridan has hit on 14 of his last 18 bets.  He again tries to give Amion a hot tip.  Sally’s Pal broke the track record and is going to be running against “broken down fillies”.  Sheridan says colts run from fillies “like burg-u-lars.”  The odds are 15 to 1, so there is big money to be made.

Sheridan says if he hits it big, he is moving to Florida. If I hit it big, I’m leaving this freakin’ hellscape.  

Amion asks how much he would win if he bet $500.  Sheridan says, “Let’s say worse comes to worse and the horse only pays 10 bucks, the least a guy would pick up would be about $2,500.”  Amion asks Sheridan to place the bet for him.  Kudos for this subtle reference to the nuances of Win Place & Show betting.  To the casual boob (i.e. me), the math seems way off at first.  However, after some thought (or Googling), you can see how it would not only be possible, but also explain the denouement.

Amion is immediately seized by guilt and confesses to the monsignor.  The monsignor says he must pray for the horse to not win.   “You can’t expect a reward for your sin, no matter what the consequences.”

Amion does pray for the horse not to win.  He is still praying when Sheridan returns to the church.  He immediately apologizes to Sheridan for the horse not winning.  Sheridan confuses Amion by offering him a wad of bills.  He says, “You didn’t expect me to risk your dough on a WIN bet did you?  I took the $500 and bet him to PLACE.  He came in 2nd and paid $8.40.”   Sheridan hands over his winnings of $2,100.  The Lord works in parimutuel ways.

As always, another class act from AHP.  This one has the benefit of being directed by Hitchcock himself.  Claude Rains does his usual excellent job.  The surprise is Ed Gardner as Sheridan.  He is such a great presence, that I can’t believe how slim his resume is at IMDb.  

Other Stuff

  • [1]  I feel like I need to point out this is a reference to Lamp Unto My Feet — a show whose title I found hilarious as a kid.  It was a religious program that ran for 30 years and, astoundingly, was produced by CBS.  It’s almost like it was a different millennium.  They might still be embarrassed by Hee Haw but surely this one is censored from the archives completely.
  • For information about the background and production, check out bare*bones e-zine.  
  • Were some of the musical cues in this episode used in Leave it to Beaver?