Handsome young Ben Conan is playing cards with Peter Talbot who puts the old into cuckold.  Ben wins again, as usual.  Peter’s wife Lisa reminds him that Ben has beaten him at cards, billiards, and golf — and that Peter still owes him $50.  Ben says Peter can pay off the debt by watching as Ben plows Lisa like the North 40.  No, wait, that’s a short film I saw earlier tonight two and a half times.  Peter chugs some booze — inexplicably a penalty for losing — and passes out.

Lisa asks Ben how a man could change so much in just 2 years, “He seemed so strong, so capable.”  To be fair, Peter is now 23 years older than his wife.  When they married he was . . . oh yeah.

Lisa tells Ben, “You are kind, steady, dependable.  Just the way a man should be.”  Then they kiss.  In some of the most boring exposition in this series, Ben tells Lisa that he never married because managing his silver mine keeps him busy, and Lisa tells him she inherited a business from her father which Peter is running into the ground (which might be OK if it were a mine).  

In the building’s lobby, Ben is stopped by a man who knows him as Ben Conan aka Fred Sheldon aka Terry Lord.  Let me pause here for a shout-out, and not just to wake myself up.  The man is Private Investigator Alvin Moss, played by Russell Collins.  

Collins might be the greatest actor of all time.  When I see Jack Nicholson in a movie, come on, he’s never not Jack Nicholson.^[2] De Niro is such a drooling imbecile, it is impossible to take him seriously.  But every time I see Russell Collins, I never know what to expect.  We’ve seen him play a prisoner, a bum, a used car lot owner, a bitter old geezer, a nice old guy, and now a confident — and for a change — well-groomed, energetic, smiling PI.  The only constant is that his characters are old; but he was born in 1897 and didn’t start showing up on TV until he was 50.   Whaddaya gonna do?  Only 5 people had more appearances on AHP and two of them were named Hitchcock.  

Moss says Fred Sheldon is wanted for bigamy in Miami.  He “bleeds widows, blackmails married dames.”   Moss says some of them take sleeping pills, or watch this episode.  He tells “Ben” his client is paying him a cool $40/day to keep an eye on him.  So I guess the emphasis is on Investigator, not Private.

Despite being adults, they take the car out for a make-out session which seems to be on the planet Vulcan.  Ben breaks the mood when he says he needs $10,000 to meet the payroll at his silver mine which is no gold mine.  They decide to fly to Phoenix together.  Ben says he is going to pay Peter a visit tomorrow.  

Peter is drunk when Ben shows up.  Ben suggests that Peter just married Lisa for her money.  Peter says he must be joking (when actually he is foreshadowing).  He accuses Ben of being a conman.  Ben knocks him out with a single punch to the kisser.  He then undresses Peter and drags him into the bathtub.  He turns on the water and drowns the limp Peter unconscious Peter.  There is a little episode-padding as he dawdles around and spends more time in that bathroom than I would if it were Charlize Theron in the tub.

Finally he emerges, but leaves the water running.  Why?  There was already enough water to drown Peter.  Ah, you say, if Peter had a heart attack as Ben wants the police to believe, then the tub would have to be full because Peter could not turn off the faucet after his heart attack — so Ben is just allowing the tub to fill.  But wait, why then does Ben close the bathroom doors and bedroom doors if he is just going to go back in and turn off the water?  Ah, you say, he is going to leave the water running until it overflows and his downstairs neighbor calls the cops.  Really?  Unnecessarily ruining the carpet, causing thousands of dollars of structural damage, and pissing off his neighbors?  Ah, you say . . . shut up, I say.  I’ve had enough of you.  And BTW, what sumptuous Taj Mahal spotlighted in Architectural Architectual Architectural Digest has giant double doors like these on the shitter?

Seriously, these are the bathroom doors.

Blah blah blog . . . Moss drops by.  Ben says Peter is not here.  Moss asks how he got in . . . 3 seconds after he himself just entered the same unlocked door.  Then he asks about the running water.  He accuses Ben of killing Peter.  Ben says it was a heart attack — after all, Lisa said he had a bum ticker.  Moss says Peter was perfectly healthy and also very wealthy aside from Lisa’s dough.  

Ben takes a swing at Moss, but Moss conks him on the noggin with his pistol.  Moss says he is going to call his client — Lisa.  This is supposed to be the zinger.  Yes it is a twist, but I’m not sure why it matters.  Ben is already busted and will go to jail.  Ah, you say — starting your “Ah” shit again — but he just learned Lisa betrayed him!  Hello, McFly, Ben was a con-man!  He was just using her! ^[4]

This was a rare AHP exercise in tedium.  The leads were not very interesting, the story was very simple, the backgrounds of the ocean and desert were laughable, and the twist was underwhelming.  But, hey, that Russell Collins was great! ^[1]

Other Stuff:

• [1]  Great, but maybe not good enough for a picture.  This is the guy.  He shows up one more time in season 7, which I should get to in about 2035.
• [2]  I just inexplicably watched him in Something’s Got to Give.  OK, it was not in his peak-Jack heyday, and the picture didn’t sweep the Oscars (although, who would know?). ^[3] But, wow, what an embarrassing performance.
• [3]  Tomorrow I will include a link that the Oscars tonight achieved another record low viewership.
• [4]  There’s an out here, but I’m in a bitchy mood.
• Title Analysis:  Fail.  I assume this is a play on checkmate.  The coined word does not have a good ring to it.  Besides, this was a simple — to the point of tedium — story.  It did not require a lot of strategery.
• Sadly, Gia Scala (Lisa) died at 38 years old.
• As always, thorough coverage of the episode and source material can be found at bare*bones e-zine.  

Middle-aged Lucy ^[1] & Arthur have cut short a date that I don’t even want to think about.  Old-aged Mrs. Evans meets them at the door.  Stone-aged Mrs. Baldwin, Lucy’s mother, had some sort of episode while Mrs. Evan was visiting.  Lucy and a doctor were summoned — not like Dr. Jill Biden, but an actual doctor who helps the aged and infirmed.  So, I guess, yes like Jill Biden.

The doctor is a strangely-cast pusillanimous sort, when a solid authority figure was needed.  However, I do believe him when he says Mrs. Baldwin was just faking to get some attention from Lucy.  He advises Lucy to stop allowing her mother to control her life.  Despite his diagnosis that there is nothing wrong with Mrs. Baldwin, he gives Lucy some medicine for her mother.  He warns her that only one teaspoon should be used — any more would be dangerous.

What’s with the medicines on these shows that are actually killers?  In real life, you would never see a doctor prescribing some treatment that was suspected of doing more harm than good.  Why, he would have to be some fame-obsessed quack who facilitated the creation of the illness, lied about its source, and was caught in repeated lies about mask efficacy. ^[2]

She sees the doctor out.  There is a fire in the fireplace, which is really the best place for it.  But where did it come from?  I don’t think Arthur started just it.  Mrs. Evans was just visiting.  Mrs. Baldwin is bed-ridden upstairs.  And what kind of word is fireplace, anyway?  It is very cavemanesque.  Ummm, fire place!

But I digress, and probably bore.  Arthur agrees with the doctor that Lucy needs to get out from under her mother’s thumb.  He reminds Lucy that they aren’t children, just 40 year old virgins.  He says he wants to marry her, but won’t wait forever.  He says, “I want your answer tomorrow.”  Nothing in between — just tomorrow or never.

Lucy takes her mother some tea.  She apologizes for ruining Lucy’s date, but Lucy accuses her of not being sorry at all. She tells her mother, “I am 34 years old!” even though actress is 42.  She worries that she will be stuck here forever with her mother.

Lucy tells her mother about Arthur’s ultimatum.  Her mother says good riddance!  Lucy accuses her of not wanting her to be with any man.  Mom says Arthur is only after her money.  She dares Lucy to accept Arthur’s proposal, but to also tell him that her mother is changing her will to leave her money to Jerry’s Kids.^[3]   Not the Muscular Dystrophy Assoc., but Jerry Lewis’s actual kids that he screwed in his will.

Lucy admits she is afraid to do that.  She shouts at her mother, “Look at me!  Why would anyone want to marry me?”  Her mother says, “Everyone can’t be a great beauty.”  Lucy storms out in tears, saying, “I have been by myself long enough!”

I felt bad immediately upon seeing a young Eileen Heckart in this episode because my first thought was, “Wow, she was always homely.”  Then I read her bio on IMDb: “Versatile, award-winning character actress Eileen Heckart, with the lean, horsey face and assured, fervent gait . . . “  Then the script piles on her in a manner usually reserved for Hitchcock’s daughter, Pat.

That night, Lucy purposely gives her mother two tablespoons of the medicine and it kills her.  WTF is in that stuff?  She learns that her mother’s loot came from an annuity which ceases upon death.  Arthur also seems stunned at the news, but not incriminatingly so.

After, or maybe during, their honeymoon, they visit Arthur’s mother who lives “way out in the country”.  For the 2nd episode in 3 weeks, we have a woman getting married without meeting her husband’s mother.  Let this be a lesson, ladies.

His mother is bed-ridden just as Lucy’s mother had been.   Her infirmity is legit, though, as she took a header down the stairs.  She says she is lucky to have Lucy to look after her now.  The old woman orders Lucy to make some tea.  Lucy tells Arthur they should get the doctor to prescribe something to make her sleep.  She walks to the kitchen with a knowing smile.

As Lucy, her mother, the writer, and the camera make clear, Lucy is not a looker.  However, Eileen Heckert knocked it out of the park in this episode.  You really do feel sorry for her as the lonely, trapped woman whose life is slipping away.  Don DeFore might seem like a schlub, but his decency and stability, at least in the beginning, are a credible antidote to her misery.  I’m not entirely sure how we’re supposed to feel about him at the end.  It feels like they want to say he manipulated this outcome.  But that would have required a lot of working parts, and is not necessary.

I appreciate that any other series would have been satisfied with having fate ironically doom Lucy to the same subservient role she thought she had just escaped.  Cheers to AHP for morphing her into a serial killer and smirking at the prospect!

Other Stuff:

• [1]  That started me thinking about I Love Lucy.  Her husband was Ricky Ricardo.  Does that mean his name was Ricardo Ricardo?
• [2]  This is not the place to come for accurate medical commentary.  That sort of analysis should be left to experts such as late night comedians, over-rated over-weighted has-been rockers, and our tyrannical social media overlords.
• [3]  I see on Wiki that Jerry’s Kids was also the name of a punk band.  I’m assuming punk because that is a pretty punky thing to name yourself.  They make Dead Kennedys look like The Housemartins. ^[4]
• [4]  I know nothing of their music but always admired the name.
• For a more coherent review with actual facts and stuff, see bare*bones e-zine.
• Not that anyone should care, but I cancelled Netflix today.  According to them, I joined in December 2002.  According to me, I watched 1,640 movies.  HBO MAX, you’re next!

Either AHP is getter duller or I’m getting more exciting.

Mr. Hollister is guiding a tour through his small museum.  The last exhibit on the tour is a couple of skeletons.  He says one skeleton is an ancient “proto-pueblo” and the other is a “Caucasian”.  He describes the second one as being “very much like you and I.”

He escorts the group out and locks the doors.  He finds that one of the men has stayed behind.  Mr. Clovis — oh, I get it! — is admiring the collection of obsidian knives. ^[1]  He describes himself as an archeo-psychologist.  That is, he tries to divine the psyche of ancient man by his possessions.

He notices the Caucasian skeleton and profiles him.  Wait, he does know that is the Caucasian skeleton, right?  He says the large skull indicates he was an intelligent man who had trouble finding hats that fit.  He also deduces the man was athletic because he had the type of broken leg that is common in skiers.  The flaw in this logic is that Clovis has the same injury, but is decidedly not athletic.

Hollister shows Clovis through the other exhibits, pours some cocktails, then says the skeleton is was is was his son, Tim. ^[4]  He recalls the events that caused his son’s death.

Tim was hunting a fox.  He wasn’t really a hunter, he just wanted it for his collection.  He spots the fox running into Farmer McCaffery’s barn and follows it.  Little does he know McCaffery’s son is up in the hayloft also pursuing a fox.  Tim shoots the fox — the four-legged one.  McCaffery climbs down and busts Tim for walking into the unlocked barn like it was some kind of insurrection.

The girl yells down “Stealing pigeons!  That’s what he’s up to!”  What the heck?  Is McCaffery a pigeon farmer?

McCaffery Jr. is really a jerk.  He challenges Tim to a fight.  McCaffery grabs a pitchfork ^[2] and lunges at Tim.  So he Rittenhouses his attacker right in the eye, in a case of self-defense so clear that even MSNBC couldn’t miss it.

Tim is arrested for murder.  Although, the cops must have let him bring the dead fox with him because Hollister showed the stuffed critter to Clovis before the flashback.

Hollister goes to the District Attorney to try to get a break for his son.  DA Henshaw won’t violate his oath of office because that would be unethical.  After all, he’s a lawyer for God’s sake!

Er, I mean he won’t let the fact that the victim’s father was a campaign contributor sway him.  After all, he’s a politician for crying out loud!

Uh, I mean in order to assure justice is done, he will stay in the office working nights and weekends.  After all, he’s a civil servant for Pete’s sake!

OK, Tim is screwed.

His father really didn’t help the situation by antagonizing the DA.  Henshaw actually seems like a pretty fair guy.

I take it back.  DA Henshaw is a shark in court.  His strategy is to point out the fox and other animals in Tim’s collection were all shot in the eye to preserve their bodies for the taxidermist.  McCaffery was also shot in the eye, ergo it was intentional.  First of all, if Tim is shooting all those animals right in the eyeball, he should be on a SWAT team!  Maybe he broke his leg skiing during a biathlon.  Second, what would be the benefit of shooting McCaffery in the eye?

Anyhoo, he is sent away for life in prison.  I wish I could tell you that Andy fought the good fight, and the Sisters let him be. I wish I could tell you that – but prison is no fairy-tale world.^[3]  Oh wait, this is Tim’s story.  Yeah, he died in prison shortly thereafter.

Turns out Clovis is actually from the District Attorney’s office and he identifies the skeleton as belonging to Henshaw.  Hollister confesses, but then stabs Clovis in one of the most lackadaisical stabbings I’ve ever seen.  The next tour group sees two Caucasian skeletons.

Not a bad outing.  Certainly better than the previous episode.  It just didn’t grab me for a few reasons.  First, Bert Convy was not much of an actor.  Or maybe I just keep expecting him to say, “The Password is . . .” ^[5]  Second, Ed Platt was great as the Chief in Get Smart, but I just can’t take him in a serious role with an unserious jet-black toupee.  In a comedic role, I never noticed how grating his voice is.  Also, he and McCaffery Jr seemed like caricatures.  Both seemed to be hamming it up, especially Jr.  It also seemed like AHP played it a little cute with the skeletons.  They didn’t outright lie, though, so I guess that one is on me.

Other Stuff:

• [1]  Actually, they are Chekov’s Obsidian Knives as bare*bones points out, but why bring Star Trek into it?
• [2]  We don’t see the business end of the implement, but it is referred to as a pitchfork.  The strange thing is, he swings it like a shovel.
• [3]  Shawshank.
• [4] Upon review, he does not say the skeleton is his son.  But boy do they want you to infer that!
• [5]  I knew him from Tattletales.  I didn’t even know he hosted Password, but that gives me an excuse to include another Odd Couple clip below.  Bonus:  It also serves as a farewell to Betty White.

I don’t want to bury the lede, so:  I’m surprised someone didn’t bury the leads.  These three lifeless nobodies are so dull that they bring down the episode.  It was never going to be MacBeth, but it was a perfectly adequate story with a twist at the end.  OK, maybe it was MacBeth. ^[1]  

How much time is left in this episode?

Actually, Arnold Burton is timing an egg above.  At the right precise second, he takes the egg from the water and places it in one of those egg cups that I’ve never seen anyone use and usually in movies looks too top-heavy to be practical.  Don’t be too impressed — Chester the butler was spotting him the whole time.

Clearly, Arnold is a kept man.  Despite having no job, he is dressed in a snappy suit and tie at the crack of eight for no other reason than to bring breakfast on a tray to his chronically sick wife Elizabeth who is ringing a bell from her bed.

A new nurse is starting today and Elizabeth expects she will just be some floozy.  Arnold reminds her that she actually did the hiring.  This woman is just nasty.  AHP stacked the deck by casting an actress that is 2 years older than her husband.  In Hollywood, that usually means you’re playing the mother.  They also gave her the high-forehead / tall-hair look that made Margaret Thatcher such a sexy mama in the 1980’s

Chester picks Miss Grecco up at the train station and brings her to the house.  Sadly, this role is also poorly cast.  I think she is supposed to be a beauty, but I’m just not seeing it.  Arnold nervously tries to make small talk.  While Miss Grecco rings his bell, Elizabeth rings her bell.  After being introduced to Elizabeth, Miss Grecco goes to freshen up.  This gives Elizabeth a chance to further berate Arnold for hiring a “chorus girl from the Folies Bergère.”

Six months later, Elizabeth is in her wheelchair, sitting outside with Arnold and Miss Grecco.  Arnold is reading a Shakespeare poem to her.  She calls it “romantic glop” and says he reads it badly.  He hands the book to Miss Grecco.  Funny how it falls open to The Rape of Lucrece. ^[3] She wisely chooses another piece and is much better at the reading.

Late that night, Arnold is in the kitchen having a warm milk and appreciating that Jack Paar isn’t still telling jokes about Nixon every night even though he lost the election months ago.  Miss Grecco enters and he gets her a milk.  After a very lame rebuff, they start kissing.  She makes it clear that if he expects these shenanigans to continue, she expects him to marry her.

The chemistry here is ELECTRIC, I tells ya!

He confesses he has no money of his own, and just hanging out with no duties, at the beck and call ^[2] of an unbalanced authoritarian invalid has prepared him for no job except Vice-President.

Hmmm, how could he be no longer married, yet become financially independent?  Hmmm, I wonder.  Check the name on the door, baby — AHP!  Similar to the plot in OSB’s Image of Death, Arnold and Miss Grecco come up with a plan to slowly poison Elizabeth’s food.  Wait, that’s exactly the murder plot in Image of Death!

They begin poisoning Elizabeth with very small doses, expecting it to take about 2 months.  The plan is foiled half way through when she fires Miss Grecco for having no first name.  Also Elizabeth catches Arnold and her smooching.  She proclaims that she will hire the next nurse, again overlooking the fact that she hired Miss Grecco.  

A few days later, she informs Arnold that she has hired a replacement, and that he will not like her.  He goes downstairs and meets the new nurse who is unattractive and old enough to be his mother (I probably need a comma in there somewhere).  There is some unnecessary misdirection here, but it is quickly revealed the new nurse really is his mother!  And, guess what, she is totally on-board with murdering Elizabeth!  But still won’t shut up about the piece of gum he stole when he was six.

First of all, major kudos for foreshadowing that Elizabeth had never met her mother-in-law.  It was just one line spoken several minutes ago.  How many series covered here would have sewn up that plot hole so nicely? 

However, the episode was a bit of a slog.  Who to blame?  Writer Henry Slesar was a machine, cranking out dozens of fine AHPs.  Director Arthur Hiller went on to make The In-Laws, so he gets a lifetime pass.  So I guess I have to fault the actors, especially Scott McKay as Arnold.

A rare miss this week for AHP.

Other Stuff:

• [1]  In which Shakespeare basically says a woman is nothing but a vagina.  With a quill like that, how did he get Anne Hathaway?
• [2]  What does that phrase even mean?  Can you just be at the beck of someone, but not at their call?
• [3]  It should go without saying, nothing funny about rape.  Just not what you expect from The Bard (I won’t even link the dreadful TZ episode of that name).
• Cheers for the civic-minded Lillian O’Malley (Arnold’s mother)!  She appeared as “Townswoman” four times in The Virginian, once in the Alfred Hitchcock Hour, eleven times in Laramie, twice on Frontier Circus ^[4], nine times on The Deputy, twice on The Tall Man, twice on Riverboat, once on Johnny Staccato, ten times on Cimarron City, five times on The Restless Gun, and twice on Trackdown.
• [4]  Frontier Circus sounds like the name a foreign market would give to F-Troop.
• I always feel like I’m on the right track when I agree with bare*bones e-zine.  Tip o’ the hat for suggesting Peacock also.