Tales of the Unexpected – Poison (03/29/80)

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Roald Dahl’s intros don’t usually do much for me or the story.  However, this time it casts a spell over the whole episode.  He tells of the time as a young man that he looked out the window and saw a 6-foot black mamba snake behind the gardener — or as we call them today, the Mexican. er, landscaper.  He shouted to the man to turn around, but the hombre is bitten and DIES!  Hitchcock can deliver his droll intros about murder 1,000 times, but this short first-person anecdote stays with you throughout the episode.  Kudos!

And if that intro did not sufficiently make your skin crawl, the sitar music should do the trick.  I think that’s why George Harrison was perpetually haggard [1] — nausea at all that sitar music.

Harry Pope is a little haggard himself as he has been on the wagon for three weeks.  He is also feeling pressure from his boss.  Harry works in India training citizens there to speak English.  His boss in London orders him to hand over the training classes to Bengali teachers because of reports that some Indian immigrant’s kid in Podunk, KY came in 2nd in the Spelling Bee.

Harry sees this as an opportunity to get back to England so he can enjoy that delicious English cuisine.  And if you’re living in a place where the cuisine makes English food seem tasty by comparison, by God, I doff my chapeau to you sir.

He climbs into his bed which is enclosed in mosquito netting.  Sadly, it does nothing to keep out snakes.  As he is reading [3], we see a krait [2] slither into his bedroom.  He feels a warmth down below and sees the sheets begin to rise, and it’s not because his bedtime reading material is like mine.  He lifts the sheet and sees the snake sitting on his chest.  He is immobile and sweating profusely.  Harry, not the snake.

Hours later, for some reason, his British pal Timber brings a blonde dame back to Harry’s house.  In a low voice, Harry calls him into the bedroom.  He tells Timber and the girl that there is a krait on his stomach, under the sheet.  He implores his friend to call for help, and maybe another girl.  Timber calls Doctor Kunzru — hey there’s an actual Indian in India — that the woman knows.

The doctor has an antidote that might work, but they want a fallback position.  They decide to sprinkle some chloroform on the sheets to put the snake to sleep which sounds ridiculous, but I’m no Indian.  All the while, Harry is motionless and glistening.

The woman is afraid the doctor will recognize her even without her feet in stirrups and blab that she is cheating on her husband.  She sneaks out and takes the doctor’s car, which I guess was her only purpose in the episode.  BTW, what better way to not draw attention to yourself than to steal a dude’s car.

Timber and the doctor slowly pull back the sheets and they all see the snake is gone.  Timber somehow knows where the woman is going so he drives the doctor to get his car.

Harry goes to the kitchen, rather than Europe, which would have been my move.  He takes a bottle of Stoly out of the well-stocked liquor cabinet which all recovering alkies keep close by.  He reaches for a glass and the snake strikes, biting him and coiling around his arm.  He dies on the spot — the spot made by his own pool of urine, I imagine.

So we have a great synergistic intro and a great premise, but no real value is added beyond the suspense that is fundamentally baked into the premise.  There is no revenge, no come-uppance, no karma, no irony . . . he just gets bit in the kitchen instead of the bedroom.  Harry was not a bad guy, so what is the point?  The woman was cheating on her husband, maybe something could have been done with that.  Of course, it would be sexist not to point out that Timber was also guilty of adultery.  The doctor says to Timber in the car that he is not a “failed MD”.  What is that about?

Still, the premise was so great that I have to give it a thumbs-up!

Other Stuff:

  • [1]  As observed by Norm McDonald.
  • [2]  Pronounced CRITE.  Who knew?
  • [3]  Late Call by Angus Wilson is displayed so prominently that it must be meaningful, but dang if I can figure out why.
  • I see that this is not the first adaptation.  Like Post Mortem few weeks ago, I somehow skipped the AHP version.  Cripes, it’s starting to look like I put no thought at all into this thing.  So that will be the next AHP entry.
  • Proximity Alert:  Anthony Steel appeared in Galloping Foxley just 2 episodes ago.  Give someone else a chance!
  • Kudos to Andrew Ray (Harry) who appeared to do some real snake-handling at the end.  Again, not like me with my bedtime reading material.

Science Fiction Theatre – The Magic Suitcase (01/25/57)

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Ahh, Science Fiction Theater.  I haven’t heard that overwrought theme in months.  And with only 2 episodes left after tonight, soon it will just be a distant memory, like the time I had Shingles. [1]

Terry and his grandfather are heading up to the family cabin in the mountains.  13 year old Terry wants to take his electric train, but his mother reminds him there is no electricity at the cabin and that he’s not six.  Terry obnoxiously — and this kid is awful — insists that he take the train.  He counters that Grandpa is taking his fishing gear, but there are no fish in the creek.  That’s valid — why is Grandpa taking his fishing gear and rowing to the middle of the creek alone? [2]

They pass a man wearing a jacket & tie walking along the road carrying a suitcase.  Back in 1959, this guy looks demonic with his beard.  In fact, he looks like a young me heading to the local motel, except he’s carrying a suitcase.  Turns out, the man is on the wrong road.  Grandpa offers him a ride and offers to let him stay overnight at the cabin.  Then he will drive him to his destination in the morning.  

Terry sets up the train and plugs it in, knowing there is no juice. He just wants to pretend.  Wait, if there is no electricity, why are there electrical outlets?  Oh, grandpa explains that he built the cabin and wired it in anticipation of getting on the grid for a couple of years before electric car mandates account for every kilowatt.

The next morning, the man is gone, but his suitcase is still there.  Grandpa goes to fetch some water from the creek.  Terry, rather than getting the water for the elderly man, snoops around the case and sees it has an electrical outlet.  He plugs in his train, and it takes off.  Like a European train, I mean, not an American one.

Grandpa is amazed that the train is running.  He looks in the suitcase hoping to find the mysterious source of this power, and maybe some Fig Newtons.  Inside, he finds that miracle of 1950’s computing:  a board with lights on it.  

Grandpa puts the suitcase in the car and drives back home.  To be fair, he leaves a note in case the man comes back, telling him to just hang out until they get back and that there are some nudie magazines in the rowboat. 

He shows the device to his son-in-law John who is an electrical engineer.  He says it looks like a board with lights on it.  Grandpa rigs up a test to show the suitcase can power several appliances and, for some reason, a band saw.  John’s wife screams like this is the devil’s work.  A better reaction would be rapture because this suitcase is worth more than all the $1,000,000 bills that could fit in it (at the beginning of the Biden administration).

John takes it to the lab to show his boss and soon the Feds are sniffing around too.  Scientists attempt to see what is inside, but the board is as impenetrable as the mustard packets I got at Culver’s today. [3]  The old man, though born before electricity, has the great idea to use the awesome power of the board to penetrate the board.  They are successful and determine that the board is made of metallic hydrogen (which is a real thing).

They conjecture that the man is an alien.  He left the enigmatic rectangular object to inspire humanity like we were the apes in 2001, which seems about right.  

Not much story here.  The take-away from the episode is the performances. Charles Winninger as Grandpa is dreadful.  His hamminess might be due to being born 45 years before talkies.  Freddy Ridgeway as Terry has no such excuse, being born 15 years after talkies began.  His shouting of lines, whining voice, and misplaced inflections are excruciating. 

I  would like to see this series take an unexpected turn to quality in its last gasp like Halloween Ends, but confidence is not high.

Other Stuff:

  • [1]  Yikes, I need a new series.  At the rate I’m going, I’ll be done with SFT in 2026.
  • [2]  I just got into Virtual Realty Porn Gaming.  I was shocked to see VR Fishing is a real thing.  Or did it say Fisting?  Either way, I can’t imagine.
  • [3]  Seriously, WTF?  My guess is that some dicks from McKinsey told them if only 20% can be opened, people will grab five times as many as they need.

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.