An AHP Christmas episode.  Unlike TZ, I expect AHP to stick to its charter and give me a watchable episode.

Alexander Gifford is coming home with no Christmas bonus.  He is just sick thinking about “the 4% it could have accumulated in the bank over the next few years.”  I am just sick thinking of the .00001% my money is getting.

After a good gag with a newspaper, the parsimonious Alexander chides his wife for leaving a light on.  He sees a gift on the table and wishes his wife a happy birthday.  He didn’t forget — he reminds her, “What about our understanding?  Didn’t we agree a long time ago that it wasn’t necessary to demonstrate our affection for one another by the extravagant exchange of unnecessary items?”  I can think of another way affection will not be demonstrated that night.

Jennifer got the gift for herself.  “Don’t, worry.  I’m not getting anything for you,”  she zings him in a pitch-perfect retort.  She then horrifies Alexander by sitting down to eat a nice steak while serving him “stewed soup meat.”  Hey, wait a minute, he remembers, her birthday was 2 months ago.

She explains today is her new birthday.  While cleaning the closet, she found hidden bank books showing a balance of $33,000 ^[1].  He explains that is for their old age.  She calls him a cheap, miserly, penny-pinching, money-grabbing . . .”  She can’t say asshole on TV, so she asks for a divorce.  Alexander is stunned. He thinks, “That would be a terrible thing.  I didn’t want to part with Jennifer . . . not in this community-property state.”  So he decides to kill her — Ho ho ho, AHP rules!

Alexander recruits a hitman.  The hitman tells him to go see his friend Arthur who will sell him some poison.  The Chemist has just the thing — a perfume that when dabbed behind each year goes pshhhhh.  I can’t figure out what this means.  He prides himself on his poisons being undetectable, but he makes a sound like this eats right through the skin into her brain.  Anyway, at $600 the price is a little steep for Alexander.

Alexander gets the better (i.e. cheaper) idea of giving his wife food-poisoning.  Since he can’t wait for Chipotle to be created, he visits a young scientist at the university and manages to steal some botulism by drawing it into his fountain pen.  He applies it to a ham in their refrigerator, then claims not to be hungry at dinner.

That night, Jennifer’s eyes roll back in her head and she keels over dead. Well, not quite.  Arthur calls the doctor who finds she is in very bad shape, but still alive.  The doctors says if she makes it through the night, she has a small chance to recover.  Not one to take risks, Alexander smothers her with a HOME SWEET HOME pillow.

The bad news keeps coming for Alexander.  The doctor tells him a funeral will cost $160.  Disgusted that Jennifer is still squandering his money even in death, he donates her body to medical science.  He counts up a cool $75 as he walks out the door of State University Medical School.

What the hell — they had the perfect ending and they uncharacteristically bungled it! Alexander had gotten the botulism sample at the university.  There was even BEAT TECH graffiti on the blackboard ^[3].  He could have disposed of the body properly for $160, but the cheap bastard handed her body over to the same institution where he purloined the poison in his Parker pen.  That same young scientist should have taught an autopsy class and discovered the botulism matched the strain in his lab.^[2]  Thus Alexander’s cheapness would have been his undoing.

This was such a good episode that the last minute fumble is not a deal-breaker.  The performances are uniformly great.  Dennis Day as Alexander was believably prim and parsimonious.  Alice Backes was almost too good as Jennifer.  She had a sly delivery, an interest-ing angular beauty and a smile that cut through the jokes.  She could have been the standard AHP cookie-cutter shrewish wife, but turned the part into a real person.  The thugs were appropriately menacing and even kind of textured characters.  Their mugs sold the menace, but their deeds and manners showed more depth.  The chemist was a dead-ringer for Bunsen Honeydew, and you can’t go wrong with that.

The script was also a winner.  There were actual jokes, not just a reveal followed by a jaunty musical stinger.  All in almost all, a most wonderful time-slot of the year.

Post-Post:

• ^[1] $270k in 2016 dollars.
• ^[2] As always, Alfred Hitchcock assures us in the epilogue that Alexander was caught.  He still never makes the connection to the university, though.
• ^[3] Home of the world renowned VISITORS.
• AHP Deathwatch:  No survivors.
• Title Analysis:  OK, we get it — he’s cheap.  I don’t really get the title.
• A rare bit of 1950’s meta:  The hitman refers to the famous Lamb to the Slaughter episode of AHP which is, naturally, unavailable on Hulu.
• OK, not really a Christmas episode, but it was mentioned.

Thelma the Waitress is worried that Mrs. Mannerheim is late for dinner. The elderly Mrs. M strolls in wearing a dead fox around her neck which was the style at the time.  She confides in Thelma that she never takes the medicine the doctor gives her, which probably explains her longevity. “When the time comes, the Lord will take me.  Medicine won’t help.”

Mrs. M asks her to sit down for a chat.  She asks Thelma about her living arrangements at the rooming house (“crummy, but cheap”), and confesses that she is very sick.  Apparently having never seen AHP, Mrs. M tells Thelma that she has put her in her will.  After Mrs. M’s death, she will be able to quit this job, and move into a nice apartment. That’s all well and good, but can I get some water over here?

Thelma didn’t mention that she lives with her musician boyfriend Arthur.  Apparently having never seen AHP, Thelma tells him about being included in Mrs. M’s will.  Arthur has immediate plans for the money, like starting his own band.  When she estimates the haul might be $50k, he leaps up and starts blowing his clarinet.

Mrs. M continues coming to the diner, but starts complaining about the service.  Thelma tries to hold her tongue, but is getting a little ticked off.  Arthur is getting a little peeved too, waiting for months for the “old bag” to die.  Thelma claims to still like her, but Arthur can see the signs, and has a plan.  Thelma initially thinks he is crazy, but comes around.  She will put a little something in her tea, so that over time it kills her.

When Arthur goes to the drugstore to get some poison, the pharmacist asks him to sign his name.  Arthur is no fool — they could trace that right back to him!  So he checks six books about poison out of the library — nothing suspicious there.  After pouring through the books for days, he decides on Anatine, which must have been around page 3.

Suddenly, the clarinet player is Walter White with the flask and coiled copper tubing dripping a distilled poison into a beaker.  The next day, Thelma puts a small dose into Mrs. M’s tea.  Mrs. M drinks it down as Thelma looks on nervously.  Over a short period of time, this should kill her.

That’s her speaking:  What a gal!

This goes on for a six months, driving Arthur crazy and making Thelma sick with guilt.  One day, Mrs. M is too ill to come to the diner, so Thelma brings a tray up to her.  Thelma forgot to bring the milk and Mrs. M asks her to go get it.  There is an argument, then Thelma tells her off.  When Mrs M threatens to take her out of her will, Thelma strangles her.

Why can’t I meet a girl like this?

Ha-cha-cha . . . now we’re talkin!

Well, still a keeper.

The coroner testifies that she was strangled.  She is asked why Arthur has blown town, but she insists he had nothing to do with it.  Thelma is held for trial.  Mrs. M’s doctor tells the coroner that he had prescribed Anatine — a poison in large doses, but with some medicinal value in lower doses.  He says he suspected she was not taking the medicine.  “Actually, Anatine was the only thing keeping her alive.”  Those words echo in Thelma’s mind as she is escorted from the hearing.

Kind of beautiful because if Thelma had been nice and done nothing, Mrs. M would have died sooner.  Less obvious:  If Thelma had been super-nice and insisted Mrs. M take her prescribed medicine, the double dose would also have killed her.

Not a classic, but a solid episode.  I rate it an 18% tip.

Post-Post:

• AHP Deathwatch:  Amazingly, the oldest cast-member Mrs. Mannerheim (Celia Lovsky) is still alive at 120 years old.  Just kidding, they’re all dead.
• What the hell?  Mrs. Mannerheim was the old Vulcan chick in the Star Trek episode where Spock gets horny.  Her character’s birth-date is given as 2122 so we are five years closer to that date than to the actual birth-date of the actress.
• Definition of Anatine:  Resembling a duck.

Hey, it’s TV’s Big Ben!  Were they required to set a certain number episodes in England?  I really can’t think of another reason to do so. The setting really has no bearing on the story.

Benson,  Inspectre Benson (Roger Moore) is clipping coupons in Sir Charles Harrington’s office when the old man arrives.  Wait, in the pre-internet version of Favorites, he is actually collecting articles on his passion, horticulture — which also has no bearing on the story.  He manages to bore even the old British upper class twit, rambling on about flowers and the friars who love them until Harrington stops him.

There was a recent case where the “Avon Lady Lady Avon ^[1] tried to sell some jewelry and overlooked the share of the proceeds due to the treasury.”  This is a very British way of saying that Lady Avon understandably tried to avoid the Tony Sopranoesque demand for a piece of the action by the government before her husband had hardly assumed room temperature.  Benson recalls being on the case.
Harrington tells him that an emerald necklace valued at £100,000 has been put up for sale by Lady Avon.  It is the last asset from Lord Avon’s estate, the rest having been seized in confiscatory taxes to keep the inbred royal family living in style.  He believes that Lady Avon intends to leave the country and sell the necklace abroad in a greedy attempt to keep her own money from the proceeds of the necklace sale which was, after all, originally purchased with cash that had already been taxed at least once.  The necklace is currently “in a hotel safe” but not “in a hotel, safe.”  Benson is instructed to verify the location of the necklace.

His heartless boss orders Benson to follow Lady Avon to the French Riviera and hang out for a few days to be sure she didn’t take the jewels with her.  If he spots the jewels, he is to bring them back.  I suspect his theory that she will show up wearing them at the topless beach will not pan out.

The audience can be forgiven thinking the next scene is set in France after that set-up, but they haven’t left England yet.  Benson asks the hotel desk clerk to show him the jewels.  An appraiser apprises him that they are the real Avon Emeralds.  The hotel manager implores her to keep them in a bank, but she insists on keeping them at the hotel.

Lady Avon wisely chose to keep the jewels in the main vault rather than the little safe in the hotel room closet.  For maximum security, she would have kept them in the mini-bar — no one ever opens it, and it would have been inconspicuous among higher-priced items.  Darn the luck, the emeralds are stolen before she can leave for France.

Benson meets Lady Avon at the airport when she lands in France.  This is a potentially fun scene where a waiting gendarme can’t grasp that 1) Lady Avon doesn’t have the jewels, 2) that they were not insured, and 3) that she stole them from herself.  The elements are all there for a snappy routine . . . except for competent performances.  I guess I could have mentioned this in the first sentence, but Moore’s performance is ghastly.  His constant wide-eyed mugging is a huge distraction in every scene.  The Frenchie’s delivery and thick accent are also komedy kryptonite.

To the policeman’s credit, he can see no more reason to see this through to the conclusion than I can.  However, while he takes off to the beignet shop, I feel duty-bound to finish up here.  Lady Avon is strip-searched, although because it is off-camera, I’m just speculating.  The jewels are still mysteriously absent.

All is explained and, despite there being no murder this week, I am forced to like the tax avoidance scheme on principal.  If I really wanted to complain, there is a courier bag that could have benefited from some foreshadowing.  There is also a plant in the last scene which is a callback to Benson’s interest in horticulture, but plays absolutely no role in the story.

Despite Moore’s dreadful performance, I rate it a pink Toyota.^[2]

Post-Post:

• ^[1] Apparently pronounced A-VIN in England — like Stratford-upon-A-VIN . . . I’m reading a book about Shakespeare.  That’s really my only point here . . . I’m reading a book about Shakespeare
• ^[2] I know that’s a Mary Kay thing, not an Avon thing.  All I know about Avon is Ding Dong, and how could I possibly work that in?
• AHP Deathwatch:  A pretty hardy group, most lasted until their 80s and 90s.  The one survivor, Roger Moore, is still alive because no 007 has ever died.  And don’t give me that David Niven or Barry Nelson crap.  Also not included:  Any character named Jimmy Bond.

“Ethernet doesn’t have a valid IP configuration.”  What the hell?

Russell Collins and Ralph Meeker — two men truly obnoxious in very different ways. Meeker was an oily and unctuous clothing salesman in Total Loss.  Here he shows his range by portraying an oily and unctuous car salesman.  Collins was an unbelievable sourpuss in Mrs. Herman and Mrs Fenimore.  Here . . . well actually, he is a decent old guy here; except for the betrayal, blackmail, and covering up a murder.

A trio of college boys drive onto Meeker’s used car lot.  They are looking for a wreck they can use in a carnival to charge people 2 bits for 3 whacks.^[1]  Unfortunately, rather than offer up old man Collins, Meeker charitably tells them he’ll try to have a car for them Friday.

Meeker has called Collins “Dad” several times.  However, when Collins’ wife shows up with his lunch, it becomes clear that Collins is not his father and the woman is not his mother.  That kind of pointless obfuscation always bugs me.  Collins is worried Meeker might sell the lot, but Meeker says, “I’ll take care of you.”

The next day, Meeker’s wife Dorothy stops by the lot.  After dissing Collins, she tells Meeker she wants to go to New Zealand to visit her cousin.  This, the day after their expensive anniversary party.  He tells her to cancel the trip.  After she leaves, he bravely says, “I’ll get her a one-way ticket right out of Cape Canaveral!  Zoom!” ^[2]  To the moon . . .

“Ethernet doesn’t have a valid IP configuration.”  Seriously, what the hell?  My wi-fi works.

Meeker goes home at lunch to prevent his wife from going to their club and blabbing about New Zealand.  While he is changing clothes, she darts out and steals his car.  Knowing the car was running on empty, Meeker gallantly takes one of his used cars to rescue her. Seeing her out there on the side of the road in her mink stole is just too tempting.  He runs her down; we don’t see her hit, of course, but we do see him get an gratifying bounce as he crosses her dead ass.

Meeker goes back to his house and tells Dad he did not see Dorothy, but did accidentally run someone down.  Why more pointless obfuscation?  Even a Washington journalist could connect those dots.  He tells Dad to take the car back to the lot, and expects him to back his alibi that he was there all night.  He shows Dad the busted headlight and tells him to get it fixed.  “If you take care of this, Dad, I’ll take care of you.”

The cops show up at the lot, followed seconds later by the college kids.  Seeing a chance to get rid of the deathmobile , Collins cleverly sells them that for $50 instead of the wreck Meeker had set aside for them.

The cops tell Meeker they estimate his wife was knocked about 30 feet into some shrubbery.  They checked the tire tracks, but naturally they did not match Meeker’s car.  Collins backs up Meeker’s alibi to the cops as we see — in a beautiful composition — the college kids driving the car out behind them.  Meeker is all smiles when Dad tells him of the ploy.

That night at the carnival, Dad and his gal Kitty go to see rubes paying to take whacks at the car.  Meeker sees Collins and Collins informs him that they are partners now, that a man his age has to look out for himself.  They both see the cops come in, and Collins assures Meeker he never said a word.

They nab Dad.  After all, he was the one that sold the evidence — a $500 car — for $50 and insanely low APR so some college kids could whack it into junk.  Pretty fishy.  The cops haul Dad away and Kitty comes out of the tent looking for him.

This is where things get confusing.

Kitty is all smiles and says Dad has been a good husband all those years.  She says to Meeker, “That headlight you asked me about today, I never asked him why he had it hid.” She looks around.  “I  get so nervous at night if I can’t find Dad.”  She takes Meeker’s hand and says, “Will you take care of me?”

Kitty’s cheery attitude baffles me.  Does she know that Dad was just hauled away to what will certainly be life in prison if the sentence is more than six months?  They seemed like such a happy old couple.  It makes no sense for her to be so chirpy.

If she doesn’t know Dad was just taken away, why is she slyly bringing up the hidden headlight?  And why is she so chirpy?

What’s with the  “I  get so nervous at night if I can’t find Dad” and “Will you take care of me?”  The second part must a veiled threat, but why make herself appear vulnerable? He’ll just bonk her on the head, strip the house and destroy the evidence.  After all, he is a liar, a murderer, and a used car salesman.

If you concentrate on the ending they were going for rather than what they actually put on the screen, this is a better episode.  Russell Collins, who I despised before as the bitter old crank was pretty likable here.  Acting!  Meeker’s smarmy salesman shtick is effective, but does he ever play anything else?  Acting?  I especially like the repeated use of the title as it took on different meanings.  There were some great shots, and the college kids and carnival were given more character than I would expect in a 30 minute show.

Great stuff.

Post-Post:

• ^[1] I’ve witnessed one of these events — you have to be Conan to make a dent in those old cars.  Also, the price later goes up to 4 bits.  Soon people would be bashing American cars for free; and rightly so.
• ^[2] I wonder what viewers thought of that.  The Mercury 7 would be chosen the next month.  The first man wouldn’t go into space for 25 months; the first free man 2 weeks later.
• AHP Deathwatch:  Richard Evans, one of the college kids, is hanging in there.  Another, James Westmoreland just died this year.

Mort 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.”

That 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.

Jocelyn 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.