Outer Limits – Re-Generation (01/24/97)

Posted on by
1

Four year old Justin is being rushed through the hospital with a contusion on the posterior skull from falling down the stairs.  His mother Rebecca (Kim Cattrall) rushes to the hospital to join her husband Graham (Daniel Benghazi) who is showing all the emotion of a man of a man sitting for a passport photo.  Sadly, Justin did not survive.

Rebecca is distraught because it had been  so difficult for her to get pregnant the first time.  Graham suggests that this day of their son’s death, they head down to the lab. They meet Dr. Cole (genresnaps-fave Teryl Rothery) who show how they can inject a glob of snot with some DNA from their dead son and grow a new Justin.

olgeneration06This is the act break for the credits.  After only four minutes, it is already obvious what the problem is with this episode.  Daniel Benzali is unbelievably emotionless and dull.  As a coma patient, he would be too subdued; as the father of a dead son who is playing God, he is virtually inhuman.  This is dullness on a Gabriel Byrne level.  Like Byrne, he has a unique talent for sucking the life out of every scene, every line-reading and every word; also like Byrne, he has an inexplicable talent for getting cast. [1]

Always a master of timing, Graham chooses the day of the funeral to talk Rebecca into having this science project injected into her.  Although, with Graham’s meat-syringe as the alternative, her acceptance is understandable.  He shows her a simulation of new Justin at 20 years old “already an inch taller than his dad.”  WTF?  Is he suggesting that he won’t be fully grown by age 20?

Six months after Rebecca’s insemination, Graham gets a call from the governor possibly to endorse Graham’s run for congress.  After building a hugely successful medical company on the cutting edge of innovation, anonymously funding a hospital wing and raking in big coin, he is finally ready to make the tens of millions of dollars, stocks and real estate mysteriously earned by $174,000 per year civil servants.

olgeneration18While he is out, Rebecca has a vision, but is is seen through ex-Justin’s eyes; memories from his POV.  Justin II is a sentient infant like the one in The Small Assassin, or Donald Trump.  She goes to Dr. Cole for an ultrasound.  She amazes Cole by being able to wake the baby in her  stomach and also have him wave at the doctor on the ultra-sound.  Cole decides the reason she can communicate with Justin II is the special umbilical cord.  In addition to the standard two arteries and a vein, there is an HTML cable going into her brain.

That night, Justin II is thrashing around, waking Rebecca up to more visions from Justin I’s perspective.  Although, just be clear, Justin II IS Justin I.  To comfort the baby, she brings out some of his toys and plays with them.  Sadly it was not Mr. Bubble and a little tugboat, but being six months pregnant I can overlook this lost opportunity.  When Graham begins speaking to the baby, he throws a fit and Rebecca has a seizure.

When she leaves the hospital, she gives Justin a tour of the house.  When she approaches the fireplace, he begins thrashing about.  She again experiences from Justin’s POV.  This time she sees her husband get frustrated at the kid’s noise making.  He accidentally knocks Justin back and he conks his skull on the hearth.  Just to make sure we get it, the memories suddenly become omniscient POV, including both Graham and Justin in the shot.  They still retain the same memory-indicating masking around the frame, though.

Rebecca promises Justin that Graham will never go near him again.  She senses that Graham is going to push her down the stairs, so flees toward the attic.  I’m not one to criticize the staging of a scene mostly because I’m usually too dense to notice.  It really is egregious here, though.  Rebecca pushes past Graham and goes down the hall.  Despite him being only 10 feet behind her, the pregnant woman has time to 1) grab a stick with a hook on it, 2) use said hook to lower the folding stairs to the attic, 3) climb the stairs to the attic, 4) find the light, and 5) work the mechanism which will pull the stairs back up.

Graham resourcefully grabs a fireplace poker to attempt to lower the stairs.  His dullness in this scene would be comical if it evoked any response at all.  Here is a man who killed his son (accidentally, to be fair), discovered a miraculous baby is gestating in his wife, has had his dark secret revealed to his wife, has just been accused of trying to kill her (or maybe actually planning to do so [2]), and has chased her into the attic.  He is more laid back than Michael Myers smoking a bone.  His delivery of his wife’s name, “Rebecca” as he stares at the closed attic door could not have had less dramatic impact if it were crocheted onto a satin pillow.

Baby Justin has apparently added psychic abilities to his repertoire as he shows Rebecca where a rifle is hidden in the attic.  Then shows her where the bullets are. Then shows her where the key is.  Is this really information they allowed Justin to have?  And don’t forget we keep the trigger lock in the sock drawer, sweetie.

olgeneration24Graham is finally able to lower the stairs, climbs into the attic, and approaches Rebecca.  He calmly (how else?) tells her she has nothing to be afraid of.  Is his stoicism because he is psychotic or because he is sincerely worried about her?  Since it is exactly the same monotone as every word he has spoken in the episode, it is impossible to say.  However, since his demeanor has not changed one iota in 41 minutes, it does seems premature when she shotguns him.

The jury must disagree because in the next shot she is taking Justin to the doctor for a cold — a baby, not a fetus.  Unseen by Rebecca, Dr. Cole is around the corner patting her stomach and assuring her in utero baby Graham that everything will be alright.  We get the same internal shot of her baby that we were repeatedly treated to of Justin.  What the hell?

I suppose the answer is that she got her hands on some of Graham’s DNA and injected another one of those snot-balls [3] to make herself a new Graham.  But why?

Is this new super-baby also destined to avenge a wrongful death?  But, unlike Justin I, there was no mystery to Graham’s death.  The facts would have been pretty clear and either Rebecca was not charged or she was found not-guilty.

Evil babies are always fun, and it’s always nice to see Teryl Rothery.  Sadly, Daniel Benzali sinks the episode.

.Post-Post:

  • [1] Dan, baby, what’s with the colored lenses on your IMDb page?  You’ve gone Hollywood, man!
  • [2] Such a void is his performance that it is impossible to tell whether he planned to kill her or not.  It would have been out of character to, you know, actually do something; but super-baby seemed to sense it.
  • [3] Technically, a blastocyst.

The Veil – Jack the Ripper (1958)

Posted on by
2

vjackripper1Walter Durst is scheduled to give his final lecture on clairvoyance.  His wife Judith is angry that the tiny ad in the newspaper would need a clairvoyant to find it.  He is a clairvoyant of the kind you see only on TV — genuine.  He is concerned that he dreamed of a murder last night.

He dreamed he walked along an alley in the East End and witnessed a murder.  He looked in the window of a pub.  A clock ticked loudly, and he noticed the time.  He looked up and saw a sign reading Bucks Row East.  He wishes he knew what it meant.

Judith tells him of the newspaper story of the murder of Mary Nichols whose body was just found in Bucks Row.  The police say she was butchered with surgical skill.  Police believe she was murdered by the same person who killed Martha Turner three weeks earlier.  Both women were prostitutes although, judging by their pictures, they might have just starved to death. [1]

Judith thinks it would be swell if Walter told the police where the next murder would occur, but he doesn’t want to get involved.  She convinces him that he could save countless lives, so he gives in.  When Walter offers his services to the police, he is shown to the bench where all the other nuts clairvoyants seeking the reward are seated.  It’s a pretty good gag undermined by the score and direction.  Walter walks out, passing an hysterical woman who claims her little girl is clairvoyant.  Oh, what a good Alfred Hitchcock Presents director could have done with this!

vjackripper2A few days later, Walter has a vision.  Somehow the vision has left him with a bloody hand although damn if I can figure out why.  Judith suggests he might want to wash his hands, but he would rather call Scotland Yard.  Possessing super-vision, Judith concludes that it is Walter’s own blood.

On the way to Scotland Yard, Walter gets the willies, suggesting that the killer is near.  They get off the bus and follow a man into the park.  They lose him, so continue to Scotland Yard.  Walter informs them that a woman will be found the next day with her ears severed from her head.  The inspector asks for a sample of his handwriting.  The inspector produces letter from Jack the Ripper in the same handwriting, so locks Walter up.

Luckily for Walter, an earless woman is found murdered while he is in jail.  Walter says he knows how to find the killer.  The next night, he takes the inspector to the park.  Half in a trance, he leads them on a walk, ending at a door he proclaims to be Jack the Ripper’s house.  Unfortunately, the owner of the house croaked the night before.

Blah, blah, blah.  It is all so deadly dull that it’s not worth mentioning.  I literally fell asleep the first three times I attempted to watch this episode.  How do you take a story about Jack the Ripper, filled with murder and prostitutes, and make it so dull?

Feh, good riddance to The Veil.

Post-Post:

  • [1] See, because they didn’t make much money, being so unattractive.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents – The Right Price (03/08/59)

Posted on by
2

ahprightprice01Mort and Jocelyn are working in an office.  We know it is olden times because she is using an adding machine the size of a 30 pound turkey and smoking in the office, although sadly not smoking the turkey [1].

Mort has worked out by hand that his share of the profit is $705.  Jocelyn corrects him to say his share is only $505.  She accuses him of accusing her of trying to cheat him.  She checks his figures and says, “You’ve got a seven instead of a three in the 2nd column.”  How that could result in a $200 difference, I can’t see. [2]

She says she doesn’t know why she went into business with him, and he says he regrets letting her buy in.  She loaned him money when no one else would, but at an astronomical 10% because she had a big heart.  He zings her, “You mean that adding machine below your ribs?”  She explains, “Shut up!”  Then she strips naked.

Wait, thank God, she only strips off her dress and remains in a slip.  I can imagine this was quite a shock in 1959, and it actually startled me today.  The married couple walk out the door of their home-office and march up the stairs to bed.  The insulting and sniping continues.  They crawl into their respective twin beds and pull the covers up to their necks.  Jocelyn’s idea of pillow talk is, “You’ll never get a cent of my money.”

ahprightprice09That night, Mort hears a noise downstairs.  He surprises a 54 year-old burglar.  Are there any 54 year-old burglars?  I like to think they’ve all been shot much sooner than that. The burglar asks to see the silver-ware, then rejects it as junk when he sees one of the utensils is a spork. He has a bigger plan in mind, though.

He tells Mort about a job he pulled recently.  The homeowner stuck the insurance company for $5,000 more than the items taken, so everyone was a winner.  You know, except the poor saps whose premiums are raised to cover such fraud.  Playing on Mort’s pride in being a businessman, the burglar suggests a similar arrangement.

Unfortunately, the house is full of junky silverware, cheap art, fake jewelry and glass crystal.  However, there is something even more worthless in the house — his naggingshrewofawife (which is such a stock character on AHP, it should be a single word).  The burglar says he can make that problem disappear.  They haggle and agree on a price of $3,500 to kill her.

No time like the present, so the burglar goes upstairs and enters the couple’s bedroom.  After a few minutes, Mort goes up and finds that the burglar has already suffocated Jocelyn with a pillow.  He offers for Mort to “check her yourself.”  When Mort leans over, the burglar conks him on the head with a pistol butt and suffocates him.

ahprightprice26Jocelyn opens her eyes and they have a good laugh.  She had hired the burglar for $5,000 to go through this whole routine.

A nice little story.  The reveal of them as a married couple was slightly telegraphed — nobody on AHP bickers like that except married couples.  But Jocelyn tearing off her dress was effective even if not particularly at all sexy.  The gem in the story, though, is Eddie Foye Jr. as the burglar.  Much of the episode is simply him and Mort talking.  Foye has such a funny and disarming — even though armed — style of delivering his lines, that it is a pleasure to watch.

I rate it the price is right.

Post-Post:

  • [1] FWIW, I had smoked turkey last Thanksgiving, and it was awesome.
  • [2] I didn’t initially see it because it was clever.  The error was probably $400, so his 50% would be $200 off.  I appreciate them taking the time to make small things work out.
  • In a strange coincidence, Mort is played by Allyn Joslyn.  His wife in the episode is named Jocelyn.
  • June Dulo (Jocelyn) went on to be Murray the Cop’s wife Mimi in The Odd Couple.
  • AHP Deathwatch: No survivors.

Twilight Zone – Wong’s Lost and Found Emporium (11/22/85)

Posted on by
1

tzwong22As I’m watching this on YouTube, I am distracted by the other videos listed off to the side.  It’s like how you think “Look what he’s having” as the waitress carries a tray to a nearby guy with a really cute date.  I see Cold Equations — a sci-fi classic.  Nightcrawlers — a great episode already viewed.  Escape Clause from the original series.  And here I sit with . . . what?  I was going to name some mundane Chinese dish, but all of them I thought of seemed pretty tasty now that I think of them.  Plus, racist.

Or maybe that’s appropriate.  The only blatantly Asian name in the TZ cast & crew — William F. Wu — just happens to write the episode about Mr. Wong?  Hu knows, maybe he sought them out.  Write what you know, they say.  But this was season one and they never brought him back.  It just smacks of Tales From the Crypt’s infamous African-American episode.

David Wong enters a San Francisco porn shop seeking the titular Lost and Found Emporium.  Since the title is Wong’s Lost and Found Emporium, I bet he finds it.  The clerk [1] is pretty slippery — more slippery than the floor of his shop, I imagine.  He says sometimes the emporium is there and sometimes it is not.  He suggests Wong try in the rear, as he does with many customers.

tzwong17Wong sees two doors in the back of the store.  One opens into a rat-infested alley.  The other opens into a space where the alley should be, but actually leads into a large storeroom.  Which, I guess makes sense, as it is a room in a store.  He enters and inexplicably closes the door behind him.  The door then disappears from the wall.

As he is searching for a clerk, Wong sees another magical door appear.  It opens and he correctly guesses that it is sunny Fort Lauderdale outside.  A Springbreaker walks in, although sadly from Spring of 1936. She says she is searching for lost time.  She became an artist late in life but confesses she didn’t have the patience or discipline to stick with it. I would think those were actually virtues more likely in an older person, but I ain’t no artist.

As Wong is whining — and he really is obnoxious — about how long it took him to find this place, he spots a floating orb behind the woman.  They follow it until it settles on a box of white mice.  There is an instruction card which says to stroke the mice until calm, at least five minutes.  The woman places the box on the floor, but the mice scamper away on little cat’s-dinner feet before she can find relief.  She is distraught as she has lost her last chance at happiness.  “Well, those are the breaks,” Wong says to the heart-broken old woman.

tzwong31Wong soon encounters a man wandering through the aisles.  He has been a self-absorbed jerk up, but he’s really started getting to me now.  He is just pointlessly belligerent and sneering at the man.  “Tell me something, Pops.  You lose anything valuable?  Lost hope?  Lost dreams?  Lost love?”  The old man speaks of losing the respect of his children.  Wong sympathetically responds, “If I hear one more sob story, I’m going to puke.”

He sees another orb, though, and follows it to a mirror.  The instructions tell the man to stare into the mirror for five and a half minutes.  The mirror shows him as a monster, so he shatters it, squandering any future reconciliation with his children.  On the plus side, he did give Wong a good laugh.

Wong next meets a young woman. He explains his bad attitude by saying what he lost and what he seeks is his compassion.  What really pushed him over the edge was the murder of Vincent Chin.  He tells the tragic real-life story of Chin who was murdered by two idiots in Detroit.  Despite being Chinese, they mistook Chin for being Japanese and blamed him for the collapse of the US auto industry. [2]   They beat him to death with a baseball bat and were given probation for their actions.  She agrees to help him find his compassion in exchange for him helping her to find an item to be named later.

tzwong35

Oh yeah, this disembodied head shows signs of life a couple of times. I have no idea why.

He sees her orb descends on a canister.  The instructions tell her to inhale for five seconds.  She does so, and the magic seems to work for a change.  She bursts out laughing, so I guess she had lost her sense of humor; or just noticed Wong’s haircut.

She sees Wong’s orb and they follow it to three bottles, one of which contains his compassion. Yada yada, Wong screws up the test tube that contains his compassion, and just uses the bottles that contain his integrity and childhood memories.  The woman assures him he will still regain his compassion because that comes with integrity.  Not sure I go along with that. Integrity is being honest and living by solid principals.  Ayn Rand novels are full of such people, but I must have missed the chapters describing their compassion.

Wong becomes compassionate enough to stay on at the store as the new manager.  The woman decides to stay on with him.  She hangs a sign on the door which says “Under New Management, Wong’s Lost and Found Emporium” — an ending efficiently spoiled by the episode’s title.

Again with the kindler, gentler Twilight Zone.  In this 1980’s series, To Serve Man really would be a book about curing diseases, ending poverty and driving people to the airport.  Still not what I’m looking for from TZ.  I’m starting to think I’m looking in the wrong place.

Post-Post:

  • [1] The porn clerk is such a doppelganger for Best-of-Show-era Christopher Guest that it is distracting.
  • [2] Maybe they also mistook him for Roger Smith.
  • [2] I guess it would be churlish of me to point out the producers apparently also think Asians are interchangeable as they cast an actor of Japanese heritage to play a man named Wong — typically a Chinese name.  But it’s OK when our moral superiors in Hollywood do it.
  • Also, one incident that led to Wong losing his compassion was the reaction of some bigots when he was out with a Caucasian woman.  I notice the producers were careful to have him end up with an Asian woman in the episode, though.  But it’s OK when our moral superiors in Hollywood do it.
  • Brian Tochi (Wong) was one of those punks on Triacus.
  • TZ Legacy:  None except to make me long for a cruel, ironic twist of fate.

Twilight Zone – Dead Woman’s Shoes (11/22/85)

Posted on by
3

In the 1962 Twilight Zone episode Dead Man’s Shoes, hobo-American Warren Stevens puts on the titular dead man’s titular shoes but strangely not the dead man’s socks as he goes commando. Possessed by the soul of the previous owner, he becomes a confident gangster seeking revenge.

In this 1985 version, 71 year old Helen Mirren puts on the titular dead woman’s shoes and becomes 40 year old Helen Mirren.  Better.

OK, to be fair, she starts out at 40 in the episode.  She is such a frumpy bundle of nerves, though, it is hard to recognize the elegant woman I’ve seen in roles in her 60s and 70s.  When she puts on the shoes, she transforms into a beautiful woman that I also have trouble squaring with the actress at her current age [1].  So her performance gets a freakish time-warping boost from this episode being 31 years old.  However, even viewed in 1985, her performance would have been amazing.

Hot maid Inez [2] is packing up Susan Montgomery’s clothes to give to a thrift store.  Susan’s husband Kyle says it still pains him to see his dead wife’s things but, you know, get a receipt.  He is played by Jeffrey Tambor who is hideous in a huge bushy beard, silly in white shorty-short tennis togs, and unconvincingly named Kyle.  But it’s nice to see him him men’s clothes again.

tzdeadwomansshoes3The introduction of Maddie (Helen Mirren) is creatively shot from the knee down as she awkwardly makes her way to work.  Framed from the hem of her drab dress to her sensible shoes, she is constantly in the way, startled, apologizing, stumbling.  Her job at the thrift shop is no less nerve-wracking as she is forced to wait on two obnoxious teenage girls.  Then an Elvissy jerk with huge hair, massive sideburns, and several buttons open on his shirt crudely hits on her.

She retreats to the back room.  Needing a boost, she tries on the fabulous shoes that just came in from the Montgomery house.  She walks confidently back out into the shop. Again shot from the knee down, her stride is now straight and purposeful.  She tells Elvis to “buzz off” and leaves the building.

She takes a cab to the Montgomery house.  She is greeted at the door by Inez, who jumps around giddily and licks her face.  No wait, that is Susan’s poodle Fritz.  Inez is baffled as the stranger picks up Fritz and walks right in.  She further stuns Inez by mentioning her cheating husband Carlito.  She prepares to take a shower, but when she removes the shoes, she is Maddie again and baffled by how she got there.

Inez comes in and busts her, but sees that Maddie is genuinely confused.  Despite recognizing the shoes as Susan’s, Inez gives them back to Maddie.  She slips them back on and becomes Susan again. Despite Inez being told twice to get rid of Susan’s clothes, Maddie walks out of the house in a snappy black number.  Or maybe Kyle was hanging on to that one for himself.

Susan calls Kyle at his law office.  He threatens to sue this person with the poor taste to imitate his wife.  Then she mentions how Kyle killed her.  He rushes home and we are treated to an outstanding an shot from the second floor — Kyle walks in the front door, the camera pans past Inez cleaning the 2nd-floor bedroom, and continues to shoot over a balcony overlooking the living room where Kyle confronts Susan.

And by confronts, I mean punches in the face — a really solid one, right on the kisser.  He goes for a gun they keep handy in the living room, but she has already taken it.  She fires at him as he flees the house.  She chases him down the street.  Unable to run on high heels, Susan removes them and instantly reverts to Maddie.  She drops the gun and places the shoes in a convenient Garbage Can, although the Recycle Bin would have been a more appropriate choice for this episode.

The maid at the house the garbage can belongs to sees the shoes in the can and slips them on.  Now she is possessed by Susan. She picks up the gun, crosses Easy Street where this episode apparently takes place, and walks up the Montgomery’s driveway.  A crane shot shows her approaching the house, climbing the steps, and opening the door. The door closes and there is legitimate suspense for a few seconds until a gunshot is heard.

tzdeadwomansshoes5As mentioned, Helen Mirren is just great here.  Theresa Saldana is not given much to do, but is a fine presence.  The only weaknesses are a melodramatic score and Tambor’s performance.  His leaden line readings combined with that absurd beard work against every scene he is in.  Nevertheless, I was wrong to assume this would be a watered down rip-off of the original episode.  It might be the 2nd best segment so far.

I rate it a 13 EEE.

Post-Post:

  • [1] Not that there’s anything wrong with that.  If 70 year old women are your thing, she is pretty awesome.
  • [2] The lovely Theresa Saldana, who died this year.
  • TZ Legacy:  Maybe one time ripping off a classic title for Little Boy Lost was OK, but don’t make a habit of it.  Both “homages” were written by Lynn Baker.  Her next IMDb writing credit was 17 years later.  What do these people in between gigs?
  • Director Peter Medak completely redeems himself after the dreadful Ye Gods.
  • Kyle’s secretary is played by Nana Visitor from Deep Space Nine.
  • Charles Beaumont gets a story-by credit.