Alfred Hitchcock Presents – The Return of the Hero (03/02/58)

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The scene:  Wartime France.  Hitchcock’s opening and closing remarks are very subdued this week due to the gravity of the story.  This isn’t ordinary Americans being killed after all, it’s . . . well, more on that later.

Gendarme, stop that man -- he has no baguette!

Gendarme, stop that man — he has no baguette!

Cafe owner Leon is forcing his daughter into a marriage with the butcher.  Therese has her eye on the salami of a soldier named Sgt. Andre, though, and is heartbroken by his discharge; I mean, that he as been discharged.

Andre’s friend Marcel is telling a barfly how he saved Andre’s life.  He tells her Andre is rich and engaged to a baroness.

Andre is much more humble and honest, telling Therese that a few kisses in the dark meant nothing, that a soldier needs a girl, it was never going to last past Marseilles.  She tells him she wants to be with him anyway, to look after him.  He brutally says he  wants to get back to his family.

ahpreturnofthehero02Meanwhile Marcel is still talking up Andre to the barfly — how he has a yacht, has a winning racehorse. One of the disbelievers at the bar calls Andre’s mother to verify Marcel’s stories.  Andre takes the phone and tells his mother — now seen in an evening gown at a glamorous party — that he will be home in 2 days.

BTW, the Countess is played by Iphigenie Castiglioni; I wonder if that is the same Iphigenie Castiglioni that was in Hitchcock’s Rear Window?

He says he invited a friend to come home with him.  He assures them all that he is fine, but his friend has lost a leg in the war.  His family, the snooty society folk are aghast! The friend has not had time to get a prosthetic leg, so he will have to walk on crutches or — avert your eyes, ladies — a wheelchair!

His fiancee says, “That’s terrible!  To bring a cripple in here.  He won’t fit in.”  Well, we really can’t judge her until we measure the doors.

Andre’s mother sympathetically is only thinking of his poor friend.  She says he is welcome, but “don’t you think it will be a little awkward?  He won’t be able to ride, or swim, or dance — he will be so out of it!”

When Andre says the man saved his life, his mother promises the best life for him . . . just so it’s not too close to the family.  They will be happy to send him to Switzerland to recuperate, but “don’t bring him home!  Not Now!  It would be so depressing having such an unfortunate boy around.”

ahpreturnofthehero04After the call, he tells Marcel that he can’t take him home with him now, because he is not going home.  He tells Therese to marry the butcher and lead a long and happy life. He then hobbles out on crutches, revealing that it is actually him who has lost a leg, and he was testing his family’s reaction.  Therese runs after him, and will probably catch him . . . what with having two legs.

Alfred says at the end that he will dispense with his usual gallows humor as this show has no desire to make light of men who have suffered as a result of war.  Hopefully next week he can have us rolling in the aisles again with tales of murdered Americans.

ahpreturnofthehero05This episode was OK, but another missed opportunity.  Marcel was seen walking around, so we know he is doing OK.  There are tell-tale crutches prominently displayed leaning against the bar in several scenes. And the accents made it an effort to listen to the dialogue.

Post-Post:

  • AHP Deathwatch:  Susan Kohner is still with us.
  • Sir Alfred is correct, there is nothing funny about wounded soldiers.  But it did remind me of the classic sketch by Dudley Moore and Peter Cook.
  • This idea has apparently become an urban legend even showing up in Snopes, but its roots go back even further.

Phantoms (1998)

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We open with a scene reminiscent of The Shining — a small car on a winding road through the mountains.  Only without the ominous music and awesome cinematography.  On the other hand, the car contains 2 hot babes, neither of whom are Shelly Duvall.  So call it a draw at this point.

Lisa and Jennifer Pailey  drive into Jennifer’s home of Snowfield for Lisa to get some relaxation from the big city.  Jennifer, who has a medical practice there, says the town is seasonal, going form 4000 to 400 during the year.  The town seems deserted, though.  When they get to Jennifer’s house, her mother is dead on the floor.  And the phone is dead on the desk.

When the car won’t start, they walk the four blocks to the police station.  They find dead bodies there also, sadly not due to capital punishment.  They arm up and become even hotter.  They wander into a bakery where there are more dead people, but grizzlier — severed hands still rolling dough, and severed heads in the oven (OK, those were clearly suicides).  The good news is they find three living police officers there; the bad news is two of them are Liev Schreiber[1] and Ben Affleck.

Image 013While investigating a hotel, the third cop.who might as well have been wearing a red shirt rushes outside at the sound of a screech.  The others rush outside when he screeches, but all that is left is his gun spinning in the street.  Soon Liev is killed also by what appears to be a giant moth.

Peter O’Toole is brought into the picture as a reporter for one of those sleazy tabloids — you, know the ones that have 100% more credibility than the New York Times because of the NYT’s seething hatred and bias against anyone who doesn’t agree with their clustered, shrinking little band of followers.

It is about this time that I repeatedly fell asleep, was awakened by gunfire, then fell right back to sleep about 5 times until the credits rolled.  And I don’t really feel compelled to give it another try.

Image 009The beginning with Rose McGowan and Joanna Going was fine.  In fact the whole movie could have been them and it would have been better.  Ben Affleck has proven repeatedly that he is great behind the camera.  Who, for the love of God keeps putting him in front of the camera?  It’s got to be ego.  I didn’t see Steven Spielberg fighting no shark.

I never did entirely figure out his role here.  He is the sheriff of this, admittedly, small town at the age of 26.  Seems that he had time to go to college, get a law degree (I assume standards haven’t been lowered for that yet), get booted from the Secret Service and end up in Snowfield.  The picture might have benefited from having someone with a little more gravitas in the role. And not sporting that goofy coat and hat.

An officer with more experience might also have made firing Liev Schreiber one of his priorities.  They let this borderline mentally challenged resentful insubordinate deputy carry a gun?  He is such a drooling idiot before the attacks, that afterward, when I suppose he was possessed during one of my naps. there is no appreciable difference.

To be completely unfair, the intermittent portions I saw of the last half did not engage me at all.  The most telling assessment:  There is no Phantoms II.

Post-Post:

  • [1] Schreiber is a good actor, just not who I’m looking for to protect me in a disaster.
  • If Jennifer was making a living as a doctor in a  town of 400 people, there must have been something wrong before the killer moths showed up and killed people and their sweaters.

Night Gallery – Finnegan’s Flight (12/03/72)

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Pete Tuttle is standing in the yard as Finnegan (Burgess Meredith) enters.  Well, yard is charitable as there is no grass to be seen.  It is a prison yard enclosed by concrete walls.  No pool, no tennis courts, so you can be sure there are no politicians here.

Finnegan approaches the wall and looks at the guard atop it.  He asks for permission to leave.  Even though he says “please”, he is understandably denied, and begins pounding the concrete walls with his fists until they are bloody and broken.

He wakes up in the infirmary with the prison shrink.  He has been a model prisoner for his extended stay — current 30 years for murder, and before that a string of lesser crimes. Nowadays he mostly says please and thank you and follows orders, gets three meals a day, clean sheets and free health care.  Although haircuts do not seem to offered.

The doctor asks why he smashed his hands, and he says, “Do you know Pete Tuttle? Just between us, Doc, that’s the only time I care about living. ngfinnegansflight09 When Pete Tuttle makes me feel I’m something.”  This is getting a little uncomfortable, but he continues that Pete Tuttle has the ability to make him feel that he is somewhere else, outside the prison.

The shrink calls Tuttle into his office and learns that on the outside he was a professional hypnotist.  Apparently it didn’t work on the judge, because he is in the jug too, doing 5 years for a B&E.  He says Finnegan is the perfect subject for hypnotism — a guy locked up forever longing to get out.  Why Tuttle felt the best way to assist him was to give him the suggestion that “his fists were made of pig iron” is not clear.  How about, “You are the best laundry truck driver in the world.”

Suggesting (or maybe “suggesting”) to the shrink that Finnegan is so amazingly responsive to hypnosis, that there might be a book in it, the shrink has the guards bring Finnegan down to his office. Tuttle puts him under in a few seconds.  Pouring a cup of water from a cooler, he tells Finnegan that the water is boiling hot and commands him to put his fingers in it.  The power of his suggestion, or the receptiveness of Finnegan’s mind is so strong that blisters appear on his fingers.

ngfinnegansflight10It is an impressive display of hypnosis, but couldn’t Tuttle come up with demonstrations that didn’t end up mangling Finnegan’s hands every time?

The next time, Tuttle gives a more gentle suggestion that Finnegan is in an airplane.  We see Finnegan pretending to hold the controls and even making an airplane noise.  The warden comes in — bizarrely seeming to have been costumed for a WWII Nazi role — and doesn’t like what is going on.

Finnegan begins coughing and laughing.  Imagining himself in the jet, he has induced hypoxia — a lack of oxygen — in himself.  Did he imagine the Jet had no canopy?  Well, it was mentioned earlier in the episode that jets were invented after his incarceration, so I’m willing to give that a pass.  His face begins to blister as he were 50,000 feet up, almost in a vacuum.

ngfinnegansflight11Tuttle suggests to Finnegan to bring the plane down, but Tuttle must have also trained the 9/11 hijackers — he got Finnegan in the air, but can’t teach him how to land.  Finnegan is terrified, imagining himself in a dive.  His hair is even being blown back by his imagination, so maybe he does think jets are open-cockpit like bi-planes.

His perception of being in a jet is so strong, that as he “crashes”, the hospital ward explodes in flames even though — just as at the Pentagon on 9/11 — there were no airplane parts. [1]  Coincidence?

Pretty good episode of what I suspect is not an original concept.  But Burgess Meredith elevated every episode he was in . . . just not above ground-level in this one.

Post-Post:

  • Twilight Zone Legacy:  Burgess Meredith appeared in 4 episodes.
  • Aired 4 years before Meredith was in Rocky.
  • [1] Of course an airplane hit the Pentagon — shut up.

Zombeavers (2014)

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Zombeavers gets off to a very funny and unexpected start with hazmat haulers Bill Burr (Joseph) and John Mayer (Luke). After a funny conversation about Joseph dating a guy (but just for a week), then them discussing being banned from friend’s bathroom, Joseph runs into a deer, dislodging a barrel of chemical waste.

After fun, well-constructed, almost James Bondian credits which track the progress of the barrel downstream like a Bass, Saul Bass  It arrives at the home of the titular beavers.  It’s worth saying again, titular beavers.

zombeavers07Three hot girls are off to a cabin in the woods with no boys, no texting, and no tops (well, that’s more anticipation on my part).  If the movie maintains its pace and humor, this will be the Citizen Kane of horror/comedy.

zombeavers14There are so many good lines that it is pointless to to even discuss them.  This is easily the best horror comedy since Tucker & Dale, and even surpasses that benchmark. Whereas the T&D was mostly situational comedy or satires of horror tropes, Zombeavers ups the ante with a lot of very funny dialogue, a nice Jaws homage and even goofy throwaway shots (the skinny 14 year old kid with the “#1 Dad” hat?  WTH?). Even the standard wacky neighbor is genuinely wacky and hilarious.

Sadly, their 3 boyfriends show up.  They do come in handy when the first zombeaver shows up hiding in the bathroom, however.  Not being brainiacs, they decide to take a swim in the lake the next day with predictable results.  They swim out to a raft and we get a scene that is a beautiful balance actual horror, comedy, creativity and sexiness.  The bit with the dog is Oscar-worthy.

zombeavers21And the zombeavers are smart — I can’t even spoil how smart they are.  I expected the 3rd act to run out of steam, but it just never stops — twists, fire, whack-a-mole, it just goes on and on.

zombeavers23This is just great.  It even wraps up with some funny outtakes and a swinging Frank Sinatra / Tony Bennett style swinging ode to Zombeavers.  When the artists put this much effort into something that really could have been a VOD release in lesser hands, I really appreciate it.

Rating:  A

Post-Post:

  • Title Analysis:  Really, there was no other option; it’s the reason the film was made. But you can’t put the emphasis on “zombie” or you’re left with “vers.  If you stress the “beavers” (of which we saw none, well of a certain kind), you’re left with “zom.”
  • In the last shot, we are visually set up for what I hope is a sequel by the same crew entitled Zombees.
  • Yeah, what’s the deal with this?zombeavers08

Tales From the Crypt – Maniac at Large (08/19/92)

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tftcmaniacatlarge03You can’t get a title more promising than that, but sadly the episode does not meet expectations; and I would argue only the word “at” is accurate.

Some gangstas are hanging out at the library, as gangstas are wont to do, terrorizing an old man and stealing his newspaper after jabbing a knife through it.  To be fair, there was a Nike coupon on the back.

Librarian Pritchard bravely confronts them and has security man Grady escort them out. After all, everyone knows public libraries are for smelly homeless people to hang out in, not gangstas.

This is witnessed by the meek new librarian Margaret who is given the task of cleaning up the gangsta’s vandalism.  Beneath the newspaper, she finds that one of the little angels left a switchblade which she slips into her pocket.  No one sees her except 1980’s singing star Adam Ant, who is no goody two shoes.

tftcmaniacatlarge04Despite there being a Maniac at Large as both the newspaper headline and episode title informs us, Pritchard has scheduled a late night inventory count.  Actually, Pritchard is treated about as if she were an ogre of a boss, but she seems pretty reasonable to me, so maybe I’m the ogre.

Adam Ant give Margaret a scare as he is hanging around past closing time.  He wants to checkout a reference book, but Margaret tells him it must stay.  He ominously says that if the police read this book, they might be able to catch the killer. Plus he’s British!  Just like a certain “the Ripper” I recall, hmmmmm?  He predicts the next victim will be a woman.  And speculates that the killer is set off by fear of living in the city.

tftcmaniacatlarge06Pritchard give Margaret some items to take to the basement where she sees the shadow of a knife repeatedly stabbing someone or something.  She runs upstairs to have Grady take a look.  He goes down but finds nothing.

She tells Pritchard who just happens to be talking to a police detective.  In the basement, they find an art book of nekkid ladies that has been slashed up.  The detective says he could pick up the ganagstas but “probably couldn’t make the charge stick”; unlike the pages in the book of nekkid ladies. Still no idea who it was as the gangstas were long gone, and Grady and Pritchard were upstairs.

tftcmaniacatlarge07Serial killer buff Adam Ant is trotted out again with some scary talk.  After he leaves, Margaret sees the newspaper headline again and starts to freak out.  A man with a deformed face bangs on the door menacingly, but Pritchard later explains he is a regular, just trying to return a book. And this guy was trying to return the hell out of it, banging on the door, waving the book, pressing his face to the window.  Perhaps he as unaware of the Book Drop earlier observed behind Grady’s desk.

Pritchard invites Margaret upstairs for a chat.  In Pritchard’s office, Margaret accuses her of killing Grady, and accuses her of “wanting to kill me.”  Pritchard tries to calm her down, but Margaret grabs the switchblade left behind by both the gangstas and the detective and plunges it repeatedly into her boss.  Echoing Adam Ant’s prediction, she rants “I knew you were after me, just like all the others!  But I’m not afraid anymore!  I showed you!”

tftcmaniacatlarge08Grady picks that moment to show up again and sees Pritchard stabbed to death.  Margaret is staring out the window, and says “I guess I’ll have to resign, but I liked it here.”  On the bright side, there is a higher position available for her promotion; stabbed to death being the only way to vacate a civil service position.

She wistfully continues that “the city makes me nervous.  So much crime.  I don’t like being afraid all the time.”  While she is giving the monologue, there is no indication what Grady is doing.

A guy with John Frankenheimer’s resume knows what he’s doing, but there were problems here.  Grady’s disappearance in the final scene, for example.  Blythe Danner did a fine job, but wasn’t really used well.  I’m an old fashioned guy — she was really hot back then, but we barely got a clear well-lit shot of her smiling and looking pretty.

Pritchard was regarded as a bitch, but really was just trying to run the library efficiently, and was pretty conscientious for a civil servant; I never considered her a suspect.  And who was doing that stabbing in the basement?  I suspect it was just a paranoid delusion by Margaret, but being the only such hallucination gave it too much credibility.

However, the set was great.  Maybe not a great library, but a great set — I really liked all the stairs, and levels, and railings.  And the performances were all good.  Adam Ant was over the top, but that is de rigueur in a good TFTC episode.  Blythe Danner just seemed beautiful and classy as always. Even while murdering her boss, she seemed classier and more relatable than her daughter Gwyneth Paltrow.

Post-Post:

  • Title Analysis: I didn’t consider Margaret to be a “maniac” in the classic raging asylum dweller sense.  And she wasn’t “at large” — she was at work in the library for the whole episode.  Technically, I guess it was true, but not as brutal as I had expected.
  • Almost 20 years earlier, Grady (Clarence Williams III) was in a show whose concept still amuses me.  It was a serious police show where 3 hippies worked under cover (or am I thinking of 21 Jump Street?).  The best part is the cool name the 50 year old suits with long sideburns at the network gave it to really reel in the teens:  The Mod Squad.  Of course, the Porno-Industrial-Complex did the obvious and released The Bod Squad.
  • Or maybe not.  I could swear I remember seeing it on a drive-in marquee, but I can find no evidence of it,  I don’t think I’m confusing with this one.
  • The third of Mae Wood’s lifetime screenwriting credits, all on this show.
  • The classy beautiful Blythe Danner:  I’d like to book her . . . no, that doesn’t work. I’d like to make her decimal system dewy. . . no, too disrespectful.  I got nothing, but then I’m writing this in a craft brewhouse within walking distance of my front door, so I’m lucky to be forming complete. Sentences.