The episode gets off to a good start with Reta Shaw as Mrs. Stone.  Anyone who has watched too much 1970s TV will recognize her from usually playing a bulldog of a cleaning woman.

Mrs. Grant has been waiting for the locksmith to install a chain on her door.  Her idiot lout of a husband berates her for being afraid of a strangler — the titular Creeper — that has been terrorizing the neighborhood.

Shaw and the new janitor are discussing the Creeper and Shaw opines that the women were probably asking for it: “Decent women don’t get themselves murdered.”

Mrs. Grant’s husband is a surly jerk and they appear to live in the Kramdens’ old apartment. He has just been passed over for a raise, and is currently working nights like the husbands of the murdered women. When she asks if he can switch to the day shift, he berates her.  There is never any insinuation that he is the strangler, although it seems they are about equal in their respect for women.

Mr. Grant stops off for a beer before work, maybe explaining why he didn’t get that raise, and talks to his friend Ed who had once dated Mrs. Grant.  Ed does come off as a possible suspect.  When Ed points out that the victims had both been blondes home alone, it finally occurs to Mr. Grant that maybe his wife is legitimately scared.

Ed drops by the Grant home, appearing suddenly, to Mrs. Grant’s shock.  He says he came to keep her company but won’t say how he got in.  Mrs. Grant does not believe his story that her husband asked him to keep her company.  For good reason — Mr. Grant does not strike me as a guy who would send a former boyfriend to keep an eye on his property, er, woman.

Plus Ed is pretty creepy, and does try to force himself on Mrs. Grant until some neighbors complain about the noise.  She uses that opportunity to ask him to leave.  Seeing the man, Shaw wastes no time accusing Mrs. Grant of being a tart who will get what she deserves in the end, just like those other two victims.

Finally the locksmith arrives as Mr. Grant calls to apologize.  Unfortunately, he does not apologize for sending Ed to keep her company.  She tells him the locksmith has arrived and he tells her the police are saying the Creeper has been pretending to be a locksmith.

Hands come into frame to choke her.

So, for the ladies, another love song of J Alfred Hitchcock.

Post-Post:

• AHP Deathwatch:  All dead.
• Christ!  Reta Shaw was only 43 in this?

To be fair, I’m sure he considers rape a close second

Oddball show-tune composer Gil Larkin is working with singer Mona Cameron and falling for her despite her being married; and despite him being a show-tune composer.  When Gil discovers bruises on Mona’s shoulder, he decides to pay her husband a visit.

Apparently, wife-beating is no longer the hoot that it was in the dark ages . . . you know, a week ago . . . in the previous AHP episode Mink.  It truly was a different time.

Gil goes to confront Mr. Cameron, who is on the phone wheeling and / or dealing.  Cameron shouts, “Richie, don’t!” as a man knocks Gil out from behind.  Richie, still unseen, then shoots Cameron.  Gil wakes up with a gun in his hand, Mr. Cameron dead, and the phone blaring out public domain pop music.

Gil realizes he is being set up, but has two clues — the name “Richie” and the caller who might have heard what happened.  The caller has hung up, but he finds a note listing two clients who were scheduled to talk to Cameron that night.

This really isn’t much of a frame-up as no one saw Larkin go to Cameron’s office and he had no appointment.  He could have just quietly slipped away after regaining consciousness.  And it was risky of Richie to knock him out.  Had Gil been unconscious when the cleaning lady came, that would have actually exonerated him.

Gil goes to see the first person on the schedule, a Japanese dancer.  This was pretty progressive casting in the 1950’s — there was no reason to make the dancer Japanese; unless she was the murderer, and that was somehow relevant.  I’m not sure whether this was a progressive casting choice or a yellow herring (I know, I know). ^[1]

Classic “exposition delivered with your back to the room” stance

The next person on the list is a wacky DJ.  It is hard to tell whether this giggling beatnik doofus is high, hyperactive, ADD, drunk or all of the above.  He inexplicably hums the tune that was playing through the phone.  In this case, it is a pickled herring.

He joins the ranks of Hollywood DJs that you could not pay people to listen to (Stevie Wayne, Dave Garver, Johnny Fever, etc).  I would include Wolfman Jack in that list, except he actually was inexplicably successful.^[2]

Gil returns to Mona’s apartment where the police are waiting for him.  They take him downtown to give a statement.  Returning to Mona’s place, he discovers an album of the tune that was playing through the phone.  It is an LP, but luckily he chooses exactly the right track.  When he accuses Mona of framing him, she calls Richie out of the bedroom.

When they say they can’t allow Gil to live, effectively confessing, the police barge back in.  Mona tries to pull a switcheroo on the cops, acting as if Richie had just barged in on she and Gil.  She gives a pretty great O-face (as in “O, Crap!“) as she realizes in about 3 seconds that there is no point to even trying this.

Post-Post Leftovers:

• [1] Re-reading this after someone linked to it, I did cringe.
• [2] Trivia: George Lucas gave Wolfman Jack a “piece” of American Graffiti to appear it.  It wasn’t Star Wars, but it was huge and set him for life.
• AHP Deathwatch:  Gil and Mona are still alive, but that’s it.
• AHP Proximity Alert: Harry Taylor was in 6 episodes this season.  Jack Mullaney just appeared 4 weeks ago.  Give someone else a chance!
• Frank Gorshin, in his first role, has a bit part.  He would go on to at least two iconic roles: The Riddler on TV’s Batman, and Bele the black & white dude on Star Trek (not to be confused with the white & black dude).
• There must be some weird Alfred Hitchcock / Ten Commandments connection.  In the first season, AHP used eighteen actors from that movie.  And nine more in season two.  Of course, it was a cast of thousands.

More komedy from Alfred Hitchcock, this time explaining that he has given up on his diet and is trying sports.

Actual Closed Caption

That hilarity comes at the end of the episode, but it is kind of a slog to get there.  Woman buys fur on the cheap.  She is later busted as it had been stolen.  She pleads her innocence, but the conspirators deny ever having met her.  As always on AHP, justice prevails.  For a complicated episode, it is pretty easy to summarize.

Normally I like these kinds of mysteries where someone just seems to have disappeared and only one person remembers them.  Hitchcock did this earlier and better in his film, The Lady Vanishes; and in an earlier AHP episode, Into Thin Air.

But on to more important matters.  The women in this episode were annoying and er, not attractive to men.  With the exception of Eugenia Paul.

Holy crap, this woman must be a time traveler.  She does not look like anyone else I’ve seen in this series so far.

She has a few credits every year in the mid to late 1950’s then nothing.  According to IMDb, she married the heir to the Pep Boys Auto Shops fortune.  I find that hilarious, but I’m not sure why.

She is also in an episode in Season 2, so I have that to look forward to.

Aside from Eugenia, I rate this episode wet dog fur.

Post-Post Leftovers:

• Watching this episode, something made me think, “every one of these people is dead.”  I checked IMDb and sure enough every actor, actress, the writers, the director — all dead.
• And that wasn’t necessarily the case.  Gone With the Wind is almost 20 years older and the last performer just died this year.
• Sadly, that includes Eugenia Paul who was only 20 in this episode.

The episode opens with a voice-over describing “Palm Beach, where the sun spends the winter, and people spend fortunes to be in it.”  I guess sun is the “it” of that sentence, but it took a couple of rewinds for me to make sense of it.

We are introduced to what I can only assume is known as the “old money” crowd.  Or the old “money crowd”.  The “nonagenarian money crowd”, to be more accurate.

Writer Randall Burnside is in town to gather info on his next subject, Prince Burhan.  He is introduced by the geezers to Irene Cole, wife of oilman Howard Cole.  As is common with Hitchcock, this marriage is a little off.  Mr. Cole is hanging out with a floozy starlet, playing tennis, boating, while ordering his wife around.  Burnside is surprised to hear that Irene has the money in the family, yet tolerates this behavior.

The famous Prince Burhan arrives, either having spent too much time in the Florida sun, or having been made up just a few coats short of Al Jolson to represent some indeterminate Arab / Indian country.  He seems to be quite taken with Irene, asking her dance, then out to lunch the next day, and for a walk.  To be fair, her husband apparently believes what’s good for the gander is good for the goose.

We flash a few days forward and learn that the Prince is still spending a lot of time with Irene, sending her a bouquet of roses every morning, and wanting to party like its 1959.

Hanging out in a cabana, Prince Burhan makes clear his feelings for her, and Irene makes clear her belief in old wives’ tales.

The next day, Burhan kisses Irene and says he will kill himself if she doesn’t marry him; thus proving that he is not only a famous prince, but a drama queen.  She refuses and sends him packing.  Burhan dies the next day in a car accident, leaving Irene distraught with guilt.

Three months later, Burnside returns to Palm Beach.  The resort manager informs him that the Prince was after Irene’s millions, that he was bankrupt.  Somehow this is news to Burnside who has just finished writing a biography of Burhan.  This is why you never hear about the investigative team of Woodward & Burnside.  The manager, however, says it was an accident rather than suicide because the Prince’s mechanic had been in the middle of working on the brakes; also news to our intrepid reporter.

Burnside goes to New York to let Irene know it wasn’t her fault.  However, he sees the positive effect Burhan’s death had on them.  Thinking that the Prince killed himself over her, Irene has gained new self-confidence (and her own young actor boy-toy).  Her husband has become much more attentive seeing that another man could desire her (and no sign of his floozy).  Burnside says he doesn’t want to rob them of the Prince’s precious legacy to them and breaks the 4th wall: “Would you have?”

Post-Post Leftovers:

• In a headline about his death, Burhan is described as Oriental.  In common parlance, that would exclude India.
• According to Wikipedia, ”Oriental” is banned from legislation in Washington state due to being raaaaaaacist.
• Once again in a Hitchcock joint, we have a woman disparaging herself and criticized by others for being “plain”, “ordinary”, “not amusing”, and (gasp) “over 30”.  At least this time, he did not cast his daughter.
• Another unexpected 4th-wall breakage, just 2 days after Tales from the Crypt.  More jarring than effective this time, though.
• Bess Flowers appears uncredited as an extra.  She might have been the most prolific actress in history.  She appeared in over 700 films, including 23 that were nominated for Best Picture.
• Oh, Hitchcock, you so crazy . . .
  

  Actual Closed Caption

Al gets off a pretty good one to open this episode: Sadly, it is largely downhill from there.

Dana Edwards is making out with his gal Laura in a car parked across from a hamburger stand.  I just get a strange stand-offish vibe from Dana, like maybe he isn’t totally into it.  Could be because he has the androgynous moniker of Dana; also the actor is named Biff — a la the biggest loser in American literature, according to no less a scholar than G. Costanza.

After sharing a smoke, they go across the street to the hamburger stand.  Laura, however, has forgotten her compact (compact what is not specified).  Tragically, she is killed by a hit-and-run driver, but not before this shot which I love so much I am putting it on my Christmas Cards:  Dana saw the car and the license, but is so distraught by the death of his beard, that he can’t recall either one.  He has taken to spending his days in bed, cared for by his mother (surprisingly, a living woman, not a corpse in the fruit cellar).

He gets a visit from John Hurley, offering to help Dana remember the car and license through hypnosis.  Hurley had similarly lost a son to a H&R driver.  For several days, Dana is reluctant to regress because he would have to relive the accident.  After much persistence from Hurley, he recalls that night with such clarity that it is almost like there is footage of it being replayed.  Anticipating a breakthrough, Hurley has called the investigating officer.

Sure enough, Dana soon remembers the license number.  He gives full credit to Hurley for his help.  The decidedly anti-climactic kicker is that the detective says Hurley did not have a son who was run down, he’s just a police-groupie who frequently shows up on his cases.  “He’s just a nut.”  Cue wacky music.

Almost 60 years later, the dialog below actually provides a more shocking climax than the one shown.

This is the keen analytical mind that enabled him to make detective by age 70.

Post-Post Leftovers:

• Biff McGuire was in another AHP episode just 3 weeks earlier; the detective was in an episode only 2 weeks earlier.  Were actors really that scarce in 1956?
• Laura orders a double hamburger because like all actresses from Lillian Gish to Lorelei Gilmore, she does not understand thermodynamics.  Calories in / calories out, ladies.
• Greater minds than mine have suggested that the driver should have been revealed as one of the other characters.  Really, just about anything would have been better.