Movie producer Hal Ballew is looking through a book on entomology to get ideas for a new monster movie.  He and his screenwriter Fred Logan are unable to come up with a bug that hasn’t been used before.  The crafty Ballew switches gears and tells Logan, “Think you can come up with a high school background?  All those kidddds, full of liiiife!”  Before Ballew can suggest Cuties, Logan blurts out, “Ernst von Croft, the [titular] greatest monster of them all!”  And that’s how Cuties spent 59 years in Development Hell.

Ernst von Croft was an actor in 1930s movies who appeared as hideous, nightmare-inducing characters on-screen just like Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, and Bette Davis.

Ballew brings von Croft into the office and introduces him to his director Morty Lenton.  The actor is perfectly cast — an old cadaverous gent that would have fit right in with the Universal monster classics.  Lenton warns him that this is only a low budget joint.  Von Croft tells him that it can still be a very good picture. “Great films are not made with money.  They are made with love, with care, with integrity.”  I hope the hacks in Hollywood get that because most screenings I’ve seen on Fandango have sold zero tickets lately.

Von Croft still believes they can make a great picture, even after Ballew tells him the writer is no Edgar Albert Poe.  He goes into character, draping his jacket over his shoulders like a cape, wrestling Lenton to the ground, and going for his neck.  Just finding a neck on the tubby Lenton was a feat in itself.  Ballew gives him the job and von Croft even volunteers to do his own make-up.

Blah, blah, blah.  The rest of the episode is confusing and tedious.

• When Lenton suggests von Croft play the vampire with no teeth, what does that even mean?
• How is the movie playing in theaters without the producer ever having seen it?
• But wait, Ballew tells Logan that Lenton did a great job.  So did he see it?  Did he approve of the changes?  Surely not, because he would not have risked damaging the film’s success.
• Von Croft and Logan are in the theater.  The young audience is digging the suspense and horror.  However, when von Croft’s character speaks for the first time, the audience begins laughing bigly.  Lenton has dubbed in a voice that is identical to Bugs Bunny.  Why?  Was it because von Croft knocked him down?  If so, there was zero indication of his desire for revenge.
• Von Croft and Logan are humiliated.  Logan gets drunk that night and visits von Croft.  VC (because I’m tired of typing von Croft) angrily makes a point that the director kept insisting on close-ups and that Logan was complicit.  What do close-ups have to do with the cartoon voice?  If anything, wouldn’t you want long shots so the dubbing as less obvious?
• Later that night, at the studio, the writer finds Lenton dead with two puncture marks in his neck.  But when we see VC, he has a knife.  Did he bite Lenton or stab him?  The bite was not bloody enough to kill him, so maybe it was both.
• VC dies leaping from some scaffolding.  Did he actually think he was a vampire?  Did he always, or did the humiliation of the film and paying $8 for popcorn trigger him?
• Logan finds Ballew injured but alive.  Logan explains VC’s actions, “We should have remembered . . . he was the greatest monster of them all.”  Hunh?  There was no history of violence with the actor.  He seemed like a good guy.  Is Logan confusing the actor with his roles?

So I am just baffled by the motivations and some of the dialog.  Jack at bare*bones seems to like this episode, which always makes me conclude that I’ve missed something.

Really an off night for AHP.  I rate this episode a Phantom of the Opera out of the Universal Classic Monsters box set. ^[1]

Other Stuff:

• [1]  Actually, Phantom might be great, I just haven’t gotten around to watching it . . . in the 6 years I’ve owned the box set.
• The appearance of Robert H. Harris here is jarring.  I have previously pointed out how this bald, dumpy, middle-aged guy always seemed to be a hit with the ladies in other AHP episodes.  Typically, he would be in a suit with a bow-tie, and a snazzy hat.  Here, however, he is wearing a golf shirt.  Whether this is due to him being a care-free Hollywood producer or due to the general degradation of society in the early 1960’s, I couldn’t say.  But I think we know the answer.
• One bright spot is Meri Welles. Her brief performance is an aloof dimwit actress is fun.  She was last seen playing another dimwit actress in Madame Mystery.  Not so funny, she died at 36.
• William Redfield went on to 2 noted roles:  Felix’s brother in one episode of The Odd Couple ^[2] and Harding in One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest ^[3] (great, now I have to stay up and watch that on Netflix).
• [2]  He only gets a mention in that episode.  But, holy crap, has there ever been a better written and acted show?
• [3]  Wow, now that I’m older, Nurse Ratched was actually pretty hot.  No, I’m not watching the series.
• Why are the AHP aspect ratios always screwed up on dailymotion?  That means I have to walk alllllll the way across the room and put a disk in the DVD player to get some pictures.  No wonder COVID has turned me into Robert H. Harris.

Keenan Wynn is struggling in a strait jacket.  No, his fellow actors did not have him committed for voting for Nixon last year.  He is playing the self-titled Great Ferlini, a member of the only modern profession other than Russian Empress or actor to exalt themselves that way — Escape Artist. ^[1] His assistant Wanda brings out a screen to block the audience’s view which, frankly, is not usually required in this stunt.  C’mon man, Harry Houdini did it hanging upside down from a crane.  Martin Riggs did it in a Police Station.  A few seconds later Ferlini emerges holding the strait jacket and blows Wanda a kiss.

In the dressing room, Wanda says his agent Harry is taking them to dinner.  She asks Ferlini not to bring up the “water trick”, in which he drinks a glass of water and a waiter actually returns to refill it before the check comes.  She says it is dangerous at his age, which enrages him.  He says, “I seen 10 new wrinkles on your face in the past week, sugar!”  He roughly grabs her head and shouts, “Who you calling an old man, hunh?”  He berates her for not keeping in shape like him.

At dinner, Ferlini tries to convince Harry that the water trick will work.  Even though it’s old, the new generation has not seen it.  Harry finally relents and asks how Ferlini would do it.  He maps out a strategy including controlled breathing, ropes, chains, a skeleton key, hand-cuffs, razor blades, and a sack — all stuff he fortuitously picked up from the kink.com auction.

The next day when Ferlini is swimming in the lake, Harry goes to see Wanda.  She says every day is getting worse.  She even saw a psychiatrist in Louisville for a while, but then Ferlini got a gig in Vegas working for Moe Greene at the Tropicana.  Wanda is in tears because Ferlini thinks about nothing but his work, even while asleep.  She says he sometimes throws off the covers and takes a bow.  C’mon man, who among us . . . anyhoo, she spots Ferlini’s hand-cuffs and gets an idea about switching the keys. ^[3]

Harry announces the event.  He has Police Chief Wallace put hand-cuffs on Ferlini.  A couple of locals get the honor of tying him up.  He is then placed in the sack like a bottle of Crown Royal.  The men are directed to put Ferlini into a trunk.  The trunk has many holes in it which Harry says are to help it sink; or are maybe collateral damage from the Moe Greene hit.  Chief Wallace locks the trunk and it is tossed in the middle of the lake.  After 38 seconds, it is clear Ferlini is not going to resurface; even though David Blaine can hold his breath 17 minutes.

We join Ferlini’s funeral as the pall-bearers set down his coffin.  The preacher says, “Who is to say that Joseph Ferlini, in his last moment of earthly glory, was not happy in this choice that was made for him by the almighty arbiter of life.”  I don’t know . . . drowning seems like a brutal, horrific way to go.  I say that based only on Kurt Russell’s death in the Poseidon Adventure remake.  And I know from brutal, horrific pain because I sat through the Poseidon Adventure remake.

A man interrupts the preacher and asks if this is the Ferlini funeral despite the water leaking out of the coffin.  He tells the crowd he is from the Coroner’s Office and his daughter is selling Girl Scout Cookies.  Also, he has orders to collect the body because the Coroner wants a second examination.  Hmmm, underwater for 30 minutes, bound by ropes, chains, hand-cuffs, stuffed in a sack, and locked in a trunk.  Yeah, let’s take a second look there, Quincy.  If they are in Florida, it will be listed as a COVID death.

The pall-bearers, luckily not union men, are called into service a second time to carry the coffin to the caretaker’s cottage.  The Deputy Coroner opens the casket and it is empty.  Wanda shrieks in horror at the cash she wasted on the casket.

Later, in the Coroner’s Office, Harry explains.  Ferlini had made him promise that if he died, Harry would abduct the body.  Harry slipped the Undertaker $50, and hired an actor to play the Deputy Coroner.  That way, Ferlini figured, he would be remembered forever . . . longer than Houdini.  Yes, his years of toiling away in Dinner Theater would obscure Houdini’s innovations in magic and escape, international stunt performances, movies, books, and pioneering the debunking of seances and mediums.

Unfortunately, they didn’t quite nail the ending.  The final shot is of Wanda in a strait-jacket.  Done right, this could have had the same jaw-dropping impact as the last shot of The Changing Heart; especially knowing how Wanda might be treated in an asylum 60 years ago.  They lobotomized a Kennedy ^[2], what do you think they’ll do to her?

Ironically, both episodes endings fall apart if you think too much about their last shots.  Why is Wanda in the strait-jacket?  She must know Ferlini is dead — that was the plan all along.  I guess we are supposed to believe the Coroner didn’t go public with the disposition of Ferlini’s body, so she is waiting for him to return like Ted Danson in Creepshow.  Maybe Harry came up with another $50.

Hey, maybe Harry can recoup the cash by going on tour with Wanda.  You know, if she can wriggle out of that strait-jacket like Ferlini did.  Even better, if she can take off her bra without removing the strait-jacket, like Jennifer Beals in Flashdance.  What a feeling!

There were missed opportunities with the final shot and, as Jack notes at  bare*bones, a flatness to Ferlini’s escape and the coffin reveal.  However, Keenan Wynn was a powerhouse as always, and the lake location was almost worthy of One Step Beyond.  Reworking the final shot in my head, I can get this up to a 7.0.

Other Stuff:

• [1]  See also famed stunt-thing Gonzo the Great.
• [2]  Referring to Rosemary, not Ted.
• [3]  Come on, man.  Houdini didn’t use no keys.
• Born in 1874, Houdini could have maaaaaybe been alive when this aired, if some punk had not sucker-punched him.  Proof that the séances were fake:  He didn’t come back and whip that kid’s ass.

This is not their daughter — just a creepy doll.

Ralph and Jane Birdwell seem like a nice suburban couple.  He is a civil engineer and she is a civil mother.  Their daughter Eileen has just been sent off to school.  Ralph is getting ready for work when the doorbell rings.  Jane opens the door and a woman slurs, “Remember me?  Is the little girl home?”  I guess she doesn’t get the concept of going to school in the morning.  But to be fair, I think this is the first time this booze-monkey has been up before noon.

Ralph sees her and says, “You said you’d never bother us again.  What’s the big idea?”  Seven years ago, Mrs. Meade had given Eileen to the Birdwells for a few bucks and a pair of Beach Britches.  They could never track her down to formalize the adoption.  Although, if they didn’t post her picture on the back of a scotch bottle, how hard were they trying?  Now she wants the girl back.  But she’d be willing to accept $100/week payoff instead.  When Mrs. Meade threatens to sue, Ralph says the judge will see she is “a cheap, broken down drunk.”

Mrs. Meade does go to a lawyer — hey, it’s Mayberry’s Floyd the Barber. ^[1] He tells her that her plan amounts to nothing more than blackmail.  Mrs. Meade later gets a visit from Phil Ames.  The solicitous unsolicited solicitor is a former lawyer who also had bar trouble, but not the the same kind as Mrs. Meade.  He is now a private investigator who heard of her case down where the lawyers hang out.

He informs her that the Birdwells never legally adopted Eileen.  However, he also states he knows that Mrs. Meade never showed any interest in the child until now and that she has a criminal record.  He says they should go for the big payday and demand $25,000 from the Birdwells ($215,000 in 2020 bucks).

Ames proposes that Mrs. Meade kidnap Eileen.  He says it will not be a crime since she is “only repossessing her own property.”  This was before OJ tried to steal back his Heisman Trophy so case law was sketchy at the time. ^[2]

Ames and Mrs. Meade agree that his cut will be 20%.  Now keep in mind that this low-life disbarred shyster who elbowed his way into this case, conspired with a drunken sociopath, is willing to break up a happy family, and will callously tear a little girl away from the only parents she has ever known — even this scumbag isn’t charging the 30% to 40% cut that attorneys routinely milk out of clients.

Mrs. Meade meets Ames drunk and early a week later.  He has been watching the Birdwell home for 3 days and has cracked the algorithm that Eileen goes to school in the morning and returns in the afternoon.  Since Mrs. Meade has not seen her daughter in 7 years, they drive by the school and Ames is able to point her out at recess.

That afternoon, Mrs. Meade intercepts Eileen leaving school.  She says she is the new governess and that her mom wants them to go shopping for new dresses.  Instead they go to Mrs. Meade’s apartment.

Ames comes by with his partner Charlie Banks.  Banks asks Mrs. Meade if this is the little girl she snatched.  She says, “Sure I did.  Why not?  I’m her mother.”  Except the girl says her name is Margaret.  Ames brought Banks, who has connections at the FBI, to be a witness.  Mrs. Mead just confessed to kidnapping a girl she is not related to.

Ames forcefully tells Mrs. Meade that he is actually a friend of Ralph.  She is to stay away from the Birdwells, and allow them to legally adopt Eileen!  Mrs. Meade breaks down in tears with the same saline to alcohol ratio as a dirty martini.

Viewers in 1961 might have thought this was like Summer Shade last week — there is a happy ending, but an innocent young girl was hijacked in order to achieve it.  Well, no — in the hallway, Margaret smiles as she climbs into Ames’ arms.  We learn that Margaret is his daughter and she had a ball helping her dad with this ruse; way more fun than when they infiltrated Epstein Island. ^[3]

It was nice to see Mrs. Meade shut down by Phil Ames for multiple reasons.  Foremost, of course, she deserved it — using a little girl to blackmail a family.  Second, Biff Elliot was phenomenal in the role — he single-handedly redeemed the name Biff in the American arts.  Third, Biff played a father in The Day of the Bullet who profoundly disappointed his adoring son.  It was heart-warming to see him so loved by his daughter here.  Even after he let a drunk psycho put her in a taxi and go back to her apartment.

This was kind of a “soft” episode like director Ida Lupino’s previous AHP gig, Sybilla.  There are no murders and a woman was at the center.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that.  The story was thin, but the twist was sharp.  If you can stand Claire Trevor as Mrs. Meade, I rate it 70 proof.

Other Stuff:

• [1]  IMDb inexplicably states that Howard McNear is in the credits, but does not appear in the episode.  In fact, he has a prominent scene with Mrs. Meade.  How can you miss him?  C’mon, he’s Floyd the M*****f***ing Barber (as Gomer called him after he finished his hitch in the Marines).
• [2]  A fact-check indicates that OJ Simpson was convicted of stealing miscellaneous sports memorabilia, but not his Heisman Trophy.  Wow, could I be wrong about his previous legal issue too?
• [3]  I sincerely apologize for that disgusting reference.
• AHP Proximity Alert:  Robert Sampson (Ralph) was just in The Changing Heart two weeks ago.  Hey, give somebody else a chance!
• AHP Deathwatch:  Robert Sampson is also the only adult cast member still alive and even has a 2020 credit on IMDb.  Hey, give somebody else a chance!
• As always, Jack at bare*bones e-zine is all over the source and production of the episode.
• I don’t like categorizing people, but it is pretty cool that this was directed by a woman in 1961.  Ida Lupino directed dozens of other shows, including 9 Thrillers, a Twilight Zone, and 3 memorable Gilligan’s Islands.  Although, I guess if you saw them each 10 times as a kid, they’re all memorable.  Mary Anne was cute even playing Laertes; I heard as Caliban, she brought the hut down.

Ben & Phyllis Kendall are starting to get discouraged in their quest to find an affordable one hundred year old house in Salem with three bedrooms, a modern kitchen, a study, central heating, and a tree for young Kate’s swing.

Suddenly, Phyllis Kendall gets a premonition.  She tells her husband to take the next right.  They pull up in front of a house that has a sign that says: FOR SALE TO DISCRIMINATING BUYER.  Ben says “discriminating buyer” means it is expensive.  But in 1960, it might have meant something else.  On the plus side, there is a tree for Kate’s swing and it might already have a rope.

The owner, Amelia Gastell, appears and tells them the house is 107 years old.  The Kendalls buy the house even though it is far from any other kids for Kate to play with.  To their surprise, as they are unpacking, Kate mentions meeting a new friend named Lettie at the nearby creek.

Lettie told her about riding in a gig. ^[1] Kate’s father has to explain to her and to me that a gig is a horse-drawn carriage.  Phyllis says Lettie’s family sounds “like a religious sect — like those people who won’t wear buttons.”  Say, the Kendalls are discriminating buyers.

When Phyllis later sees Kate talking to no one at the nearby creek, she figures out that Lettie is an imaginary friend.  Her father asks if that is the case.  Kate insists Lettie is real.  She even has a picture that Lettie drew of her aunt Bridget Bishop who appears to be puritan.

During a house-call, Kate’s doctor recognizes the name Bridget Bishop.  Ben finds her name and picture in a book about Salem.  She was hung in 1692 for witchcraft.  A local preacher shows Phyllis the grave of Lauretta Bishop who died of the pox in 1694.

That night, Ben goes to Kate’s room to check her fever.  She is wearing a necklace of buzzard bones that she says Lettie gave her “to keep off the pox” and a No Pest Strip to keep off the flies.

Amelia is hired as a babysitter so the Kendalls can have a date-night.  She agrees that Kate needs a real friend to play with.  Ben says, “If you hear about an agency that rents out little girls, let us know.”  After the Kendalls leave, she looks for Jeffrey Epstein’s card.

The next morning at breakfast, Kate startles her parents by asking, “What is an exorcism?”  They are interrupted by Amelia who has brought over a girl Kate’s age.  It is Judy Davidson, the daughter of her milkman.  Today, Kate would ask, “What is a milkman?”

Upstairs, in Kate’s room, it is clear from Judy’s speech that she is possessed by Lettie.  She speaks such archaic sentences as:

• Twas a fine notion, mistress Kate.
• Would that we had started it sooner.
• I want to grow up to be an objective journalist.

Kate warns her to not talk “in that old-fashioned way” so she is not caught and exorcised or banned from Twitter.

Well, I’m glad Kate has a little friend, but what happened to the real Judy?  Did her soul disappear?  Is she stuck silently in that body?  Is she doomed to helplessly watch Lettie’s life the way the poor sap in Source Code was doomed to be stuck in Jake Gyllenhaal, helplessly banging Michelle Monaghan for the rest of his life?  Actually, that doesn’t sound so bad.  Actually, it sounds better than my life.

Not much going on here. No murder, and a dash of the supernatural make this a poor fit for AHP.  I rate it 65 in the shade.

Other Stuff

• AHP Deathwatch:  Veronica and Angela Cartwright are still with us.  Strangely, on IMDb, Veronica is credited as Kate; Angela is credited as Lettie (uncredited), who we never see.  Sadly, the writer of the original short story died this year of COVID-19.
• [1] The fact that Kate is torturing a frog at the time seems coincidental to their mention of gigs.
• For more information about the source material and production, check out bare*bones e-zine.
• Pictures are of Julie Adams (Phyllis) in Creature from the Black Lagoon because it is 1:09 am.

Dane Ross enters Klemm’s watch shop and is taken aback by the overwhelming sound of ticks and tocks and clicks and clacks of a hundred clocks stacked chockablock like knick-knacks and bric-a-brac on the shelves. He should be wary of this place as it would be impossible to work here without going insane.

Ulrich Klemm comes out and greets Ross. He hands Klemm a watch that can’t count steps, can’t check heart-rates, can’t display texts, and can’t give GPS directions.  The bloody thing just tells time.  Klemm is none-the-less impressed at the time-piece.  He has not seen one since he left the old country, but thinks he can fix it.

Ross admires the clocks in the shop.  Klemm says he brought them from the old country.  Sadly, he was not able to bring his famous automatons — clockwork figures.  On the hour, the figures — birds, angels, policemen, construction workers, Indian chiefs, bikers — would appear and give little performances.

With admirable precision, all the clocks in the shop strike 6:00 in unison.  Klemm’s beautiful grand-daughter Lisa comes through the door, which is pretty clever when you think back on it.  She asks Ross to stay for dinner.  He accepts under the pretense that he wants to see more of Klemm’s work (i.e. any other hot grand-daughters).

In the rear, Klemm displays figures which play the piano, shine shoes, and some mechanical birds in a cage.  Lisa says these are just simple versions of the work he did for kings in the old country and queens in the village.^[1]  Ooops, she cuts her finger preparing dinner and Klemm bandages it.

After dinner, Lisa walks Ross to the door, and he asks her out.  She says she can’t because her grand-father is so protective.  However, the next time we see them, they are at a German restaurant where, it is safe to say, they are not there for the food.  Ross has been promoted and asks Lisa to move with him to Seattle, which was part of the USA at the time. But she won’t leave her grandfather.

They go back to the shop.  Ross tells Klemm that he is taking Lisa to Seattle whether he likes it or not.  Klemm seems to hypnotize Lisa so that she agrees that she cannot go and will never leave Klemm.  Staring blankly at him she says, “I will never leave you.”  Klemm tells her to go to her room.  She complies without any acknowledgment of Ross as she exits. 

Ross accuses Klemm of turning his grand-daughter into an automaton.  Klemm says he is protecting the one thing he loves.  “The one thing I rescued from my old life and brought to this new world. She’s my masterpiece and no one will take her from me!”  Klemm pulls out a knife.  Fearful that he is going to be served more German cuisine, Ross leaves.

Three months later, Ross is living in Seattle.  He sends his friend Jack to the clock store.  Klemm says the watch will be ready Tuesday. 

No wait, Jack wants to know why Ross’s letters to Lisa have not been answered.  Klemm says Lisa is sick and Ross made her that way.  He scoffs at the Amerikanische Doktors and the heartpills they give her.  He insists, “I will not let her die!”

Alarmed by Jack’s report and the newly proposed $.05 postage rate, Ross returns to Klemm’s shop, to find it boarded up.   He busts in and finds Klemm slumped dead at his desk just like I expect to go.  He has left a note that says he was willing to give his life for Lisa to live.  Ross goes into the back room and finds Lisa sitting in a wheelchair.  Ross is thrilled to see her there, eyes wide open.  But she is lifeless as a mannequin.    He hears a ticking and puts his ear to her chest.  There he clearly hears the clockwork ticking in her chest.

First off, let me be clear that this was a great episode and the final shot was awesome.   That said, I do feel like the writer ^[2] came close to cheating with some of the dialogue and stage direction in the first half as to whether Lisa was an automaton from the start.  But the proof that Lisa was not an automaton is pretty clear.  If Klemm could make a device that looked like the 22 year old Lisa, would he have made her his grand-daughter?

Also, I’m not clear how Klemm saved Lisa.  Yes, she has a ticking heart, but she is glass-eyed, silent, and perfectly still.  This is life?  At the top of the hour does she do a table dance?

Other Stuff:

• [1] The dictionary labels this merely informal, so I’m keeping it in
• [2] Robert Bloch, so who am I question him?
• AHP Deathwatch:  Anne and Ross are still with us.  Jack passed away in January.
• Oddly, Bloch’s previous script for AHP also involved a clock.
• Nice bit of trivia from bare*bones:  Anne Helm went on to be in an Elvis movie, and moved in with him after filming ended.  It’s good to be the king.