So the train pulls into the station.  For some reason Henry Taylor is hanging his head out of the stairway like a dog in a car.  Why would he be doing that?  He doesn’t jump off before the train comes to a complete stop, so he isn’t in a hurry.  No one is chasing him.  He risks losing his fabulous fedora (and maybe his head as in Hereditary).  So why?

He asks the world’s oldest station master if any other strange men have come through lately; men who strangely hang their heads out of trains, I guess.   He slips the porter $20 and tells the old man to call him at the Grand Hotel if any strange guys show up at the train station — a bribe known in the train business as a “Kevin Spacey.”

Henry walks to the Kirkland Mercantile Bank, and we see that he has a gun.  He asks to see the bank president, William Spengler.  Henry pulls out a Letter of Credit and says he would like to deposit it, so I don’t think either of these guys knows what a Letter of Credit is.  He is in town researching a book on unsolved crimes.

Arnold Mathias was just killed while escaping from prison with his cellie Thomas Henry.  Mathias had worked at the bank 3 years ago.  He was hired by Spengler’s father-in-law, founder of the bank, over Spengler’s objections about his juvenile record (oddly, as a token gringo in Menudo).  After the old man’s stroke prompted his retirement, Spengler kept Mathias on because he had been a good employee.

Then in 1957, a construction company transferred $500,000 to the bank from their St. Louis branch to cover payroll on the flood control dam at the basin (kudos on the attention to detail here).  Holy crap, that’s a lot of cash for the local economy — $4.5M in 2018 dollars!  Well maybe not if you are Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.  How many f***ing guys are working on this thing?  Are they being paid in cash?  Are they using $1,000 bills to plug the leaks?  Is the mayor building a new house with a basketball court and swimming pool?  Did he buy a Maserati?  Did he join Scientology?  Did his wife go missing?

A few months later, Spengler got a call that his wife had suffered a heart attack.  He went to his car to go home, but it wouldn’t start.  He went back inside and said to Mathias, “I can’t get my car started, can you give me a push?” The next morning, it was discovered that the construction company’s remaining $200,000 was missing.  Despite being defended by the best attorney in the state, Mathias was convicted of the theft.  Henry reminds Spengler that the loot was never recovered.

What follows is Henry dismantling Spengler’s story with Columbo-like precision.  Both men give excellent performances, but much credit goes to the person who cast them.

“Henry Taylor” led Spengler to believe he was Mathis’s cellmate, escaped convict Thomas Henry.  After Spengler confesses, he reveals that he is really a prison guard named Henry Taylor Louden.  I get that he cleverly used the name Henry to plant the seed that he was Thomas Henry, but isn’t it just silly that Henry is his real name too?

Really, there was no name on the Letter of Credit?  Spengler’s father-in-law is right — he is a boob.  Is this like those bearer bonds at Nakatomi Plaza that somehow could never be traced or voided?

What was the point of the model sailboat in Spengler’s office?  Louden seems to know that Spengler had never removed the cash from the bank.  I guess Spengler could have bought it as a reminder of his retirement the way I keep cans of cat food and a refrigerator carton.

Louden reveals that he is the prison guard who shot Mathias.  I don’t know if that is a great motive for his quest to establish Mathias’s innocence.  What he is effectively doing is making sure he shot an innocent man.  Most people would want to prove they shot someone who deserved it.

Louden does a fine job of nailing Spengler, but he is a prison guard, not a cop.  Will the police believe him?  Wouldn’t this all be dismissed as hearsay ^[1] in court?

It was established earlier that one of the best defense attorneys in the state is a life-long friend of Spengler.  He’ll never go to prison unless he tries to steal back his Heisman Trophy.

Despite all that belly-aching, it was a good episode.

Footnotes:

• [1] Who approved this word for release?  I get that it literally describes the basic act of you say something and I hear it.  But it is in the wrong order. I can’t hear it before you say it.  And WTF asked you anyway?
• AHP Deathwatch:  No survivors.

Elderly Hermione Gingold gets off the train when she hears a local man yelling at his horse and whipping him.  I don’t know if she was considered a babe in her day, but her picture at IMDb makes me start to understand how they allowed Bette Davis ^[1] in front of a camera.  Ben Huggins is calling the horse an idiot and really is being brutal when Gingold demands that he stop.  When he refuses, she offers to buy the horse.

He asks an outrageous price of 10 pounds because back then horses were valued based on the # of pounds of glue they could be converted into.  Over the decades, the Glue-Book Value became known as the Blue Book Value due to 1934 translation error in Les Liaisons Dangereuses.  Hermione writes up a bill of sale with the stipulation that the man continues to use the horse in his work, but to “keep him well-fed and not over-loaded.”  The man is immediately more caring and leads the horse to a trough while he goes into the pub for a pint because you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.

Hermione notices the train pulling out of the station just as Mrs. Wellington pulls up.  She believes Hermione is their new governess, Miss Hope.  She says the old governess didn’t work out and that they wanted someone “more up-to-date.”  Although how that desire led Mrs. Wellington to hiring the ancient Hermione/Hope rather than a bonny young lass is a mystery, not least of all to Mr. Wellington.

On the way, Mrs. Wellington describes how she would like the children handled.  She expects the speaking of French, teaching of history, and lots of outdoor fleeing playtime.

Viewers smarter than Ben Huggins’ horse will notice there is a disconnect between the two women, but it is not clear exactly why.  Is Hermione just a stunningly impudent servant, or is there something more?  Watching at 2 am, I didn’t figure it out, but this created a great opportunity.  Once I knew the secret, rewatching this episode was even more entertaining.  So many of Hermione snarky comments and gestures are perfectly played once you understand the dynamic.

There is no point in tediously recapping every point . . . you know, like usual.  It is just a thoroughly entertaining episode cleverly executed.  I will just note of couple of interesting casting choices.

Patricia Hitchcock makes her final AHP appearance.  After a brief departure in The Cuckoo Clock, she returns to her customary role as the AHP maid, schoolmarm, spinster, or office nottie — in this case, a maid.  Three months later, she would play a secretary in Psycho whose plain looks are used for a laugh . . . by her father.  But really, sitting next to Janet Leigh, who wouldn’t look homely?

They also cast the Bates House from Psycho as the Wellington House.

Two of the children went on to work with the creepiest figures in science-fiction history — Veronica Cartwright with the titular Alien from Alien, and her sister Angela Cartwright with Dr. Smith in Lost in Space.

Other:

• Special kudos on the final scene.  The outdoor setting and use of deep focus visually set this location apart from the Wellington House.  It is almost other-worldly.
• [1] Ms. Davis’s URL is an impressive 0000012 at IMDb.
• For more information about the episode check out bare*bones e-zine.

Prisoner ^[1] De Baca only has 40 minutes left to be a burden on society.  His fellow prisoners are ridiculously supportive.  The multi-ethnic jailbirds try to cheer him up by saying he might get a reprieve from the Governor.  They call on inmate Herbert Morrison to opine on a possible pardon.  He gruffly says, “I wouldn’t count on it.  Chances are you won’t get a stay.”  Other than Mr. Downer, this is the best prison ever!

At 11:56 PM, the guards come to get the hysterical De Baca.  The other prisoners encourage him as he is dragged away.  One says, “Save a place for me, amigo.  I’ll see you soon.”  Another says, “There’s always hope.  Even until the last second!”  He is dragged through some anachronistic Star Trek style sliding doors which lead to the gas chamber conveniently located at the end of the hall.  Wow, this really is the best prison ever!

The next day, Morrison gets a visit from Father McCann.  He complains that there is no hope in a place like this.  “It is a system designed to grind a man down to no longer be human,” he says from on top of his clean taxpayer-supported sheets, after his taxpayer-supported dinner, from death row because he ground the humanity out of another human.  He refuses to play the man’s “games of writs and reprieves and stays.  So when I die, it will be as a man, not as a sheep to the slaughter.”

He even has cross words for Pops Lafferty, the head guard who had just dragged De Baca away.  The other inmates say he is the only one to give them a fair shake, or a decent malted.  He even puts a shot of hooch in their last cup of coffee.  Morrison thinks Pops “enjoys his work too much.”  He wonders what kind of man chooses “a career of leading men to the gas chamber.”

And so on.  As usual, AHP delivers a fine episode.  Will that stop me from complaining?  Of course not.

As an actor, Brian Keith had zero range.  He was always the very low-key, coiled spring of anger that could lash out at any time.  The joke about him on Family Affair was that he was that he and Mr. French were gay.  More likely, he would have tossed French and the kids off the balcony.  However, if that is the specific type you are casting, he is a great choice.  A round peg does just fine in a round hole.  Especially, like here, when in prison.

While that casting worked, the character of Pops was just a complete miss.  Herbert’s disdain for Pop’s was off in two ways.  Pops gave Herbert absolutely no reason to hate him.  That made Herbert seem irrational when being supremely rational was the core of his character.

On the other hand, Pops was a little too jovial with the guys about about to go to the gas chamber.  He didn’t put a whoopee cushion in the electric chair, but he also showed zero indication that he was aware of their fate.  I expected a grimace, or some show of discomfort at having to put on a happy face in that serious time.  He seemed so oblivious as to appear almost “challenged.”

Other Stuff:

• [1] Hmmmmm . . . why is a prisoner a convict, but a jailer is a guard?
• Despite the title being Cell 227, we see much more of a sign for 226 which is painted between the two cells.  Sure, 227 is painted on the far end, but it is seen only once at a distance.  Why design it this way?
• Brian Keith was last seen on AHP in No Pain.  He was trapped in an iron lung in that episode and in a jail cell in this episode.  These roles were appropriate for a guy whose range was similarly constricted.
• For more info, take a look at bare*bones e-zine .

Party Line:  A party line (multiparty line, shared service line, party wire) is a local loop telephone circuit that is shared by multiple telephone service subscribers.

Helen Parch is working on her preserves, eating what she can and canning what she can’t when the party line rings 3 times.  She surreptitiously picks up the receiver in the way the TV people always seem to think does not make a click on the other end.  Helen loves to eavesdrop on other people’s conversations.

She overhears a scintillating conversation between Betty and Emma about the market’s egregious lack of nectarines, Bingo games, and the awful hat worn by that wet blanket Helen.  Hey, that’s her!  Betty says the older Helen gets, the worse she gets.  They describe Helen as being boring, telling the same stories over and over.  Helen is being set up as the bad gal here, but honestly was there ever a time when all three of these women would not have been considered dullards?

OK, maybe the Far Side style glasses were stylish at the time.  And I’m sure women then were often trapped in lives that were not so exciting.  But these ladies make The View look like the Algonquin Roundtable.  The scary part is that these old bitties average under 50 years old which is seeming younger and younger to me.  And where are the men?  Helen is described as a spinster, ^[1] but I assume the other two buried their husbands.

Detective Atkins drops by to ask if Helen remembers a man named Heywood Miller.  Curiously she does not ask how he ended up with two such lumbercentric names — no wonder she’s a spinster.  Why yes, she does recall him as “That awful man . . . a fool, a gambler, and heaven knows what else.”  She thinks back 8 or 9 years to just after he and Mrs. Miller moved to the community . . . . . .

Helen and Gertrude, who Helen apparently talked to death in the intervening years, are yakking on the party line.  And Helen is using the exact same phone in 1951.  Yeah, they were attached to the wall, but you didn’t have to buy a new one every three years and they would survive a nuclear blast.  When the topic turns to how many eggs to use in a cake, a man interrupts, “For Pete’s sake, are you two still on the phone?”  He chews them out for monopolizing the line for hours while he has an important business call to make.

Helen tells him patience is a virtue.  She gets pouty and grudgingly tells Gertrude that she will call her back later.  She hangs up the phone, but just has to pick it up again to snoop on Miller’s call.  She overhears him placing bets with his bookie.

In the grocery store the next day, Helen overhears the clerk address Mr. Miller.  She confronts him about interrupting her conversation yesterday.  She smirks and tells him she hopes his horses won.  He tells her to mind her own business.

Later, while telling the famous story of her back-to-back Bingo wins that would be in her repertoire’s rotation for the next 9 years, Miller interrupts them again.  This time he says he needs to call a doctor for his wife.  Helen tells Gertrude to stay on the line, that they are wise to his tricks.  Naturally, his wife dies.

Detective Atkins says Miller moved back to the city.  He returned to a life of crime and ended up in jail.  And he has just escaped.  He says Miller “might be heading this way.  To kill you, Mrs. Parch.”  That finally gets the old shrew’s attention.

The story has set us up to root for the killer.  Psycho, which would be released the same year, manipulated us to empathize with killer Norman Bates.  This episode takes the opposite approach, and conditions us to dislike the victim.  Helen is just a loathsome, self-absorbed nothing who caused a woman’s death.  It is understandable that she does not rate much sympathy.

But we are expected to care enough about her for the lengthy scene of her securing her home to be suspenseful.  Any other show, I would think it was just sloppy to have her be so unsympathetic, but they count on our concern to create suspense.

Either by design or by their usual professionalism, they pull it off.  We might be worried that Miller will get in, but I think we are also a little bit happy that he does.

Two motifs help contribute to the excellence of the episode.  First, the images of the ladies on the phone are fantastic.  As Helen eavesdrops or Miller interrupts, they are effectively pasted between the callers.  Second, the scenes of Helen securing the house are more suspenseful than they have a right to be.  This is because — and this is news to just about anyone in Hollywood — it is engrossing to watch someone do something competently on TV.  Maybe because we encounter it so infrequently in real life.  Whether it is Hannibel Lector, Walter White, or a chef chopping onions, we love to see people who are proficient at their task.

Maybe that’s makes AHP so consistently great.

Other Stuff:

• [1] I always thought this meant a woman who had never married.  Apparently it just means currently unmarried and of a certain age.  Helen actually refers to her husband Fred who is either dead or hiding.
• AHP Deathwatch: Not surprisingly, no survivors.  BTW, Gertrude was born in 1884.
• As usual, bare*bones e-zine got there first and has a lot of great info on the production and source material.

It’s hard to call a guy a loser when he’s married to Neile Adams.  Joe makes a pretty good case, though.  He watches TV until 2:00 am, sleeps until noon everyday, then goes to the movies after lunch.  His unemployment benefits expired because he considers himself too good for manual labor, clerical work, or sales.  Also, he’s a smoker.

While his wife Irene is chewing him out at breakfast, she notices the power has been cut off.  I thought I caught them in a continuity error with the toaster working, but they slyly manipulated the events to make sense.  I thought I busted them over the light-bulb not working, but then realized she might have a gas stove.  What I’m trying to say is this show rules!

Joe, parodoxically, tries to look at the bright side of the electricity being out.  He says, “Candles can be romantic” trying to slip in a matinee before the matinee.  Irene is not amused.  He promises to 1) get a loan, and 2) take any job the employment agency has available.

He goes to the Friendship Loan Company, which sounds like a brothel.  They somehow twist his lack of equity, assets, job, or even unemployment benefits into an excuse to deny him a loan.

On the way home, Joe sees a dapper older gentleman carrying an umbrella get off the bus.  Joe, and the audience, suspects this debonair dude is probably loaded (which is crazy, because he was riding the bus).  Before Joe really has much time to be tempted into mugging the man, the gentleman keels over with a heart attack.  Joe lifts the guy’s wallet, but despite the weather report, leaves the snazzy umbrella.

He tells Irene he met an old army buddy who repaid him a forgotten $275 loan.  Irene is thrilled and Joe suggests they be more prudent with this windfall, try to make it last, spend only on essentials, or maybe start a business.  Naw, he says they should get a steak at the most expensive joint in town.  And maybe a carton of Luckies.

Going through the man’s wallet, Joe finds a card that says:

What an awesome set-up!  Joe curses his luck and tosses the wallet away. He quickly realizes, though, that he must do something.  Having seen Breakdown on Alfred Hitchcock Presents 5 years ago, he knows how horrific this could be for the man.

Joe goes back to the corner where the man fell over.  The ambulance is just pulling away.  This was no dark alley, it was a busy street.  What took so long?  Anyway, a cop confirms that the man just hauled away was dead, ceased to be, expired and gone to . . . you know the rest.

Joe goes across the street to a phone-booth and calls Dr. Kruger.  Only able to get an answering service, Joe slams down the receiver.  He walks away, but then decides to try the police.  He tells them about the stiff just carted away, “Isn’t really dead . . . You shouldn’t bury him!  Whatever you do, don’t bury him!”  The cop suggests Joe come in to talk about it.  Knowing he would have to explain how he had this info, he hangs up.

After a fight with Irene, Joe goes to the police station.  Lt. Bates comes down to see him — hey, it’s Biff Elliot from this week’s SFT, Project 44!  After trying to convince the lieutenant the man wasn’t dead, Joe is so determined to save the man that he finally confesses to stealing his wallet.  The two men go to the morgue.  Turns out the dead man was a notorious pickpocket who had stolen that wallet containing the card.

By doing the right thing, Joe incriminated himself for no reason.  Bates puts an arm around Joe and says, “Let’s go upstairs.  We’ve got some talking to do.”  Crazy as it sounds, I think this might just be just the thing to turn Joe’s life around.  I think he and Irene will both live long healthy lives.  Only his will be in jail.

A rare AHP where no one is murdered; at least onscreen.  Strangely, no one mentions the shrunken disembodied head of Lucille Ball they have on top of the refrigerator!  Other than that oversight, a great episode.

Other Stuff:

• AHP Deathwatch:  Neile Adams still kickin’ at 86.  Why did I even check on the actor credited as Elderly Gentleman in 1961?
• Sir Alfred’s wraparound is uncharacteristically lame this week.  I don’t even understand the bit with the giant golf bag.  Oversized household goods iz always funny though.  Anyone?