Murderer Gerry Daniels is facing electrocution at midnight.  The chaplain, warden and an officer are there to prep him — expose the contact points for the juice, say a little prayer, offer him a last request. Unlike most such scenes, it is not just a last meal, but a last request that is granted.  The warden wisely adds “within reason” to head off any “3 more requests” tomfoolery.  Or hookers.

After protesting his innocence of this murder, Daniels requests a typewriter and some paper, pushing his luck with two requests.  He begins typing a letter to the editor of The Star Times News (24-hour old news printed on dead trees, for you youngsters).

He asks that when they print the story of his execution, they also print this letter.  He starts off opining that District Attorney Bernard Butler, who sent him to the chair, “is a fool” who has convicted the wrong man in his case, and blamed others for crimes that Daniels did commit.

In flashbacks as Daniels types, we see that he is quite a lady’s man.  He picks up a married woman drinking alone in a bar, and they go back to her place.  Just as they start swapping spit, her husband returns early from a business trip and belts her.  The husband then attacks Daniels, who shoots him.  Daniels then shoots the woman, and stages them to make it look like a murder-suicide.  In the letter, he admits shooting them both and mocks Butler for being so easily fooled.

At the bar, a waitress tells him that she saw him with the murdered woman the night she was killed. For $200, she will keep quiet.  So, he kills her too.  Again, he berates Butler for charging the waitress’s husband with her murder.  Her husband, he types, “was executed for a crime he did not commit, just as I will be executed for a crime I did not commit.”

Next he hooks up with a doctor’s wife.  His bookie tracks him down at her house.  She offers to pay his debt in order to never see him again.  When he goes to deliver the cash, the bookie is already dead.  Daniels is standing right there, however, so he is charged with the murder.  The doctor’s wife claims to have never met him.

In the letter he admits to killing three people, but says he is innocent of the crime which got him convicted. So the fool Bernard Butler is sending an innocent man to the chair.

He mails the letter, then gets a visit from the idiot Bernard Butler.  The doctor’s wife changed her mind and provided his alibi — he is a free man He screams to get the incriminating letter back, but it is too late.

Yeah, that Butler — what a maroon!

Post-Post:

• AHP Deathwatch:  A couple of Daniels’ babes are hanging on.
• Another reason I watch the AHP intros, but not TFTC’s:

Maxie drops in on this dame Madge, see?  He tells her that Joe got out of the joint yesterday, but she’s already hip.

They had all been in on a robbery that got them $100,000.  Unfortunately, Joe was the only one who knew where the loot was.  Fearing — and justifiably — that Madge and Maxie would split the loot 50/50, he never revealed the hiding place.

They discuss whether Joe will even try to hook back up with them.  Madge does the math, “I’m not 22 anymore — I’m 32, and he’s got $100,000.”  That’s 2,000 20 year old hookers in 2015 dollars.  Nevertheless, she dolls herself up and Joe does ring her bell; well, is at the door.

Despite Joe having been in the slam for 10 years, and her apartment being lucky #7, she is not very accommodating.  She says she is going downstairs to get a pizza, then they can talk about where is is going to stay.  Just what a dude fresh out of prison wants to hear.

When she gets back, Maxie drops in pretending he had no idea Joe would be there.  He asks Joe where the money was stashed and he says it is about 100 miles out in the Mojave Desert.  Maxie takes Joe home to bunk with him that night.  WTF, Madge?

On the way to the desert, they stop at a store to buy mining supplies — picks, rope, a pistol — wait, what?  They then drive 100 miles out into the Mojave.  As soon as they unload the tools, Joe shoots Maxie and socks Madge in the kisser.

Joe climbs down an abandoned mine and finds the loot he hid 10 years before.  Stupidly, he sends the bag of cash up before he goes.  Madge cuts the rope and Joe falls.  She tries to drive away, but Joe has the keys.

There are good give and takes about how to resolve the impasse.  Ultimately, Joe just taunt her.  They will both die, but at least he will be in a nice cool, shaded mineshaft.   Whereas she will have to make it 100 miles on foot through the blistering desert.

Post-Post:

• AHP Deathwatch: Steven Hill still hanging on.
• Holy crap — The $100,000 would be $844,000 in 2015 dollars.
• Everyone in this episode seems to have a sweaty forehead.  And not just in the Mojave, but even in Madge’s apartment.

Carl Kaminsky is like one of those guys with a metal detector on the beach; except he has no metal detector, no straw hat, isn’t wearing shorts and is on a city street.  OK, not so similar — but he is keeping his eyes down looking for anything of interest.

On a grate, he picks up a soaking wet newspaper for reasons I can’t imagine.  Then he spots a wallet and picks it up.  He spends about the same amount of time looking for owner as OJ did looking for the real killers — then pockets the wallet.

He goes home to a very humble apartment and his wife Anna (Jo Van Fleet).  Fleet was last seen as a thoroughly repulsive shrew in Dangerous People.  Here, she is not as insane, but despite being abused by her brutish husband, she is no more likable or sympathetic a character.

Carl is in, what apparently for him, is a good mood even though he is still cruel to Anna.  And he’s not mentioning the wallet to her.  She asks what he is so happy about, he tells her to “shut up with the questions.”  Christ, what is this guy like on a bad day?

Finally he does whip out the wallet and shows her that it contains 52 $100 bills, and there is no name in the wallet.  Anna’s plan is to return the wallet in anticipation of a big reward.  Carl has a slightly different plan.

The next day, Anna sees an ad in the paper offering a generous reward for the wallet.  Anna wants to call, but Carl says he will return the wallet to the owner.  He comes home furious, telling Anna that there was no reward.  He then heads up to the attic to hide the wallet.

Two weeks later, Anna is still pissed about being stiffed on the reward. She sees that the ad is still running in the paper, then she is really pissed and catches Carl counting the Bejamins in the attic.

Soon, Anna is buying new furniture, a new dress, and a mink coat.  When Carl demands that she return it, she threatens to call the owner of the wallet.  After a screaming match where Anna smacks Carl and dares her to hit her back, he retreats to the attic.

She brings him a poisoned cup of coffee while he is counting the money yet again.  He clubs her to death with a statuette, then drinks the coffee.

It’s a great story, but the leads are so repulsive that it is impossible to have any empathy for them.

Post-Post:

• AHP Deathwatch:  No survivors among those with data on IMDb.

Professor Donald Mason is reading from Richard III (bloody sequels!). One student in particular is enthralled. Claudia stays after class and asks if the line “my conscience hath a thousand several tongues” is Freudian — yikes!  She asks if he is getting a guilt complex — it is clear they are having an affair.

Just wait until Act 6 when she reads “My kingdom for a horse.”  Now that will give him a complex.

When he tries to make an excuse not to see her that night, she busts him on his alibi and says she knows that this is his wife’s gym class night.

That night, Mason suggests that he and his wife go for a drive or to a movie.  When she enters the room, we see she is played by Alfred’s daughter, Pat Hitchcock.  After playing a series of spinsters, maids, schoolmarms and “nottie” friends, here she is cast as the dowdy wife who can’t possibly compete with Claudia on a physical level.  It is piling on to have her character going to the gym — it just ain’t gonna make a difference. She even says, “I’ve got to control my figure if I want to compete with all the jail-bait in your classes.”

Claudia calls him at home.  She says she took a babysitting job at his next-door neighbors, the Davidsons — and can see him right that second. She invites him over after his wife leaves, but he refuses.  Yeah, but he does show up as soon as Pat is out of the house.

Claudia surprises Mason by suggesting they get married.  When he says that is impossible, she threatens to “ruin him forever.”  Then he ruins her forever by strangling her. Then the baby starts crying.

The next day a detective comes to question him.  The detective says that there is a witness, but Mason is relieved to hear that he is just talking about the baby.  “If only she could talk,” the detective says.

He is less relieved when his wife tells him later that at one year, babies start to understand the world.  That there are cases where babies start to talk about things that they saw before they could speak.  At 14 months, this kid could start squealing soon.  And not in the good way . . . no, wait . . .  yes, the good way.

Mason sees Mrs. Davidson in the yard and she says the baby has been acting strange.  When Mason leans in to look at her, she screams at him.  Mason starts getting paranoid that the baby is growing up and will be talking soon.  Later that day, he peeks at the baby again, setting her off.

The next day, leaving for work, he sees the baby in a stroller and learns that she has said her first word, “Dada.”  Now that the tike is capable of discussing the early 20th avant-garde art scene, we see in his eyes that he is actually thinking about strangling the baby.

Just in case you aren’t clear — this is the Police Station.

Overcome with paranoia, he goes to the police station and confesses.

Mr. Davidson finally gets home from Germany.  When he looks in on his daughter, she again begins screaming.  Mrs. Davidson says the baby is always around women, so has that reaction whenever she sees a man.

There are really no problems here other than it is just a ludicrous plot point to worry that a 14-month old baby is going to rat you out.

One negative is that the beautiful Claudia (Delores Hart) disappears from the story so early.  She also disappeared from Hollywood pretty early, having no credits after age 25.  According to IMDb, she became a nun and remains one to this day.

Post-Post:

• AHP Deathwatch:  Patricia Hitchcock, and Katherine Warren Theodora Davitt and Dolores Hart are still holding on. [CORRECTED]
• At 37, the Professor is almost exactly twice as old as Claudia.  I am very disturbed by this; I mean disturbed that I didn’t go into teaching.
• The Professor’s name is Don on IMDb and is referred as Don in Hitchcock’s remarks.  In the episode, however, he is called Bob.

They are entirely superfluous, but there is a reason I watch the intros for Alfred Hitchcock but not the intros for Tales from the Crypt.

Parolee Jackie Blake arrives at the Collins house, fresh out of Jail.  Alex Collins had asked him to check on his mother and brother.  Ralph Collins — a major gin-swilling, t-shirted meathead — doesn’t seem too excited to see him, but Mrs. Collins warmly invites him in.

While chowing down on Mrs. Collins’ meatloaf, he says he didn’t know anything about his crime — he was just there to drive the car.

Mrs. Collins blames the neighborhood for Alex’s troubles with the law.  She says she has a little nest-egg.  She invites Jackie to live with them.

Pretty soon, he is calling her “Ma”.

Preparing for his first day of work at a garage, Mrs. Collins brings him breakfast.  Jackie only has time for the coffee, but Ralph scarfs down the rest while mocking the small wage Jackie will be making.  It not clear that Ralph makes any wage at all.

Jackie’s parole officer stops by the garage.  The insurance company thinks Jackie knows where the $150,000 is from the bank robbery.  Apparently the local mob thinks so too as they pay him a visit.

That night, he can barely make it up the stairs, having taken quite a beating.  But, really how bad could it have been when the leader was Seinfeld’s Uncle Leo?

The next day, the parole officer stops by the house.  Turns out a parolee can’t stay with the family of another prisoner — although living in a building full of murderers and thieves for 5 years is is considered non-corrupting.  Mrs. Collins talks the parole officer into bending the rules.

When Jackie gets home from work, Ralph is drunk.  He starts bullying Jackie, demanding a cut of the money.  He is one of those bullies that also likes to get a little too close, touching his victim’s face, putting his arm around him.  Just very touchy-feely creepiness.  With a few drinks in him, he admits sending the thugs that beat him up.

Jackie pulls a kitchen knife.  After some rough-housing, Ralph is stabbed and dies.  At that second Mrs. Collins comes in.  Jackie begs her not to tell anyone, to let him be Ralph’s replacement as her son.

The twist is that “Ma” says they were only after his money.

All the ingredients are here.  Ma seems nice and motherly, Ralph is immediately hateable, the twist completely suckered me in, there is some great staging and composition in the shots.

For some reason, it just did not come together for me, though.  I rate it Heart of Chalcopyrite.  It’s not fair, but it might be because Ralph was just such a loathsome character.

Post-Post:

• AHP Deathwatch:  3 survivors — possibly a record.
• Strange that Jackie seemed to be the go-to name for small-time hoods in the 50’s.
• Neil Young’s Heart of Gold.