After last week’s misleadingly titled murder-free outing  The Deadly, we get back to basics.  Here we get three deaths, although all are off-screen and one is not human (although he thinks he’s people, yes he does).  Shut up — cats are bad-ass.  Crazy cat ladies have given them a bad rep.

Speaking of crazy cat ladies, Miss Paisley fits the profile.  Even though she does not start off with a cat, she has crazy to spare.  For one thing, she talks to herself . . . a lot.  One night as she is chattering away, a cat crawls in her window and she decides to keep it.

As she is leaving the next morning, she meets Jenkins the building super on the stairs. He asks if the cat is hers.  With an honesty that will cause her trouble later, she admits that it is.  Jenkins tells her to be careful because he saw the cat coming out the window of her downstairs neighbor, a bookie.

To keep the cat from straying, she feeds it raw meat and puts a collar on it with her name and address.  It doesn’t seem to work as one morning she sees her neighbor kick the cat out his door.

As the cat does the trot-of-shame up the stairs, she confronts the man, but he makes it clear that “if I catch him in here again, you won’t have no cat!”

She later sees the cat in the bookie’s window, and leans in through the window to retrieve him.  For a bookie that the super describes as handling thousands of dollars, he’s pretty cavalier about security, living on the first floor and leaving the window open.

When she comes home that night, the cat is missing, so she peeks in the bookie’s window again.  She doesn’t see the cat, but does see his collar in a trash can.  She reports this to the super and he reluctantly shows her the dead cat in a garbage can in the alley.

Back in her apartment she again talks at length to herself.  Eventually, she bores herself to sleep. When she awakens, she no longer has her coat on and the lights are off.  A neighbor tells her that Jenkins has been arrested for the killing of the bookie.

She somehow concludes that she must have blacked out and that she killed the bookie, not Jenkins.  For every reason the police give her that Jenkins is guilty, she has an alternate theory that incriminates herself.  For every reason they say she couldn’t have done it, she further insists that she is guilty.  She is the Anti-OJ.

The detective humors her, but still believes that Jenkins is the murderer.  The cops figure their work is done here — he tells her the brain can play all kinds of tricks and goes to get some donuts.

Six months and three days later, Miss Paisley still misses the cat.  When she finds the cat’s collar behind a chair cushion, all her memories come flooding back to her of how she did indeed murder the bookie and dispose of the evidence; along with six months of crumbs and loose change.

She cheerfully puts on her coat to go to the police station.  Then says: Post-Post:

• AHP Deathwatch:  A couple of 90 year olds left.
• Under 6 months from the murder to Old Sparky — gotta love AHP justice.  Oh, Jenkins was probably guilty of something.
• I’m not sure what to make of this constantly cheerful old woman.  Is she crazy from loneliness?  Does she have dementia?
• The detective was played by Jed Clampett’s banker, Mr. Drysdale.

This takes place back in the old days when all women were housewives.   And they go to the train station to pick up their hat-wearing husbands after their train commute from the city.

On the way home, Margot tells her husband they have a leak in the water heater in the basement.  He says he will take a look at it.  It was back when men did that too, rather than just calling a plumber.

Margot is cooking dinner when her husband comes up from the basement.  She asks if he got it fixed, and he says, “No, it’s too dark down there to see what’s wrong.  I guess you’ll have to call a plumber.”  So what he really needs isn’t a plumber, it’s an electrician. Or a flashlight.  I take it back — this guy is not the handiest of men.

He also tells her to get an estimate, “and if it’s more that $10, he can forget it.”  I got nothin’.  That’s just mind-boggling.

The next morning, the doorbell rings.  Just like June Cleaver, she already has her pearls on by 9:30 am.  She looks out the window and sees the truck for Mike Staley Plumbing & Heating.  She opens the door and somehow seems surprised that her visitor is the plumber . . . who she called . . . and whose truck she just saw.

He makes way too much small talk with Margot, all smiles and charm. He is a little too familiar, guessing her husband’s salary and calling a neighbor by her first name.  After a few minutes in the basement, he tells Margot that he has to go upstairs to shut off the water in the bathroom to equalize the pressure, “that’s the trouble with the Stetson Valve, otherwise, they’re very good.”  I have a feeling he might just as well said he needed to get a Langstrom 7″ Gangly Wrench and Margot and I would both have been just as clueless.

She finds him admiring some artwork in the bedroom over the bed.  He compliments her taste on furniture, bedspreads, everything.  She is creeped out by this guy.  He picks up her nightie off a chair and compliments that too.

He comes back downstairs and after admiring the kitchen and house, he gives her an estimate of $500.  Extrapolating from the estimated $10 plumber’s bill, that would be $12 million in today’s dollars.  He explains that the exorbitant estimate is for him to keep his trap shut.  If people heard him talking about her bedroom, the artwork over the bed, the fancy bedspread, the pink negligee, they might get the wrong idea.

He also points out that his truck has been outside her house for two hours just to give an estimate for a leaky valve — what must the neighbors think?  That he’s getting paid by the hour, for one thing.

When he returns for the money, Margot has assembled all the housewives of whatever county this is.  He has blackmailed all of them and now they want their revenge.  He has spent all their money, so they start lining up jobs he can do to work off the debt, or they will call the police.  He whines, “but that’s blackm . . . .”.

Luckily for him, he is a pretty good looking guy, so some of these dames might ask him to lay some pipe.  Another corpse-less episode, but a fun story with good performances.

Post-Post:

• AHP Deathwatch:  Coupla live ones.
• Title Analysis:  The Deadly?  Hunh?  There are no deaths or even any threats of violence.

Evan and Janet Wallace are showing Janet’s old battle axe aunt around California and she hates it.  She hates the desert, hates the rocks, hates everything.  When Evan points out a 200 year old Spanish mission, she has to trump him by saying, “Westminster Abby was consecrated in 1050 — that’s over 900 years old.”  Although she and her niece are supposed to be English,I don’t detect much of an accent.

She does, however, appreciate the mission in contrast to her feelings about the dreadful modern buildings that Evan designs — which she is not shy in sharing.

She insists on going to Tijuana despite not having the papers to get back into the US –this is back when there used to be a border.  Luckily, they get a pretty lax officer who peeks in the car, sees a nice couple and an old lady snoozing in the back seat, and waves them through.

After they cross the border, they try to wake up Janet’s aunt but discover she is dead. Of natural causes?  On Alfred Hitchcock Presents?  WTH?  They pull up to a cantina and throw a coat over Auntie while they have a drink and plan what to do.  If nothing else, a dead body in a hot car in Mexico might draw some flies away from the cantina.

No slur there — there is a huge roll of flypaper hanging in the restaurant, so they must have a problem.  That’s gonna cost them a Michelin star.  When they come out, they see the car has been stolen.  Not wanting to involve the police, they go to private detective Peter Lorre.

Back at the hotel, they get a visit from the Policía.  They have found a car like the Wallace’s. They go downstairs and confirm that it is their car, but it is missing its third wheel — Auntie has disappeared.  It wouldn’t be such a big deal, but they stand to get a large inheritance and need Auntie’s body to prove she is dead.

They go back to Lorre to see if he can locate the old bag.  He consistently nickel-and-dimes them like Mr. Haney on Green Acres.  He finally comes up with the body.  They follow the hearse to a funeral home in the states.

The funeral director calls them in to view the corpse — Lorre has sent them home with a man, man.

Strange episode.  The heart of the story is really Lorre’s huckster private detective rather than the . . . well, there really is no crime.  The dead body is just a macguffin — no murder, no cover-up, no irony, no self-incrimination.

With the story and the cast, more could have been done with the episode.  The opening of the casket feels more like the cliff-hanger of a two-parter than a satisfying conclusion.  Part two would be where Evan drives back to Mexico and beats Lorre like a piñata.

Post-Post:

• AHP Deathwatch:  No survivors.
• Sadly, no way I could I could reference Michael leaving Egg in Mexico.

Janice is an 17-year-old girl who wants to be older, able to drink, and move out of her aunt’s house.  Her boyfriend Stan is a pretty conserv-ative guy her own age.  They are at a local roadhouse, The Wooly Bear, but only able to drink lemonade because they are too young.

Stan wants to leave, but she wants to dance, and spins her way alone across the dance-floor.  At the end, she gets a call for a round of applause from tough guy Tex sitting at the bar.  Janice goes to him, and Stan fights for his woman by walking out — the ultimate passive resistance.  Tex gives her a cigarette because they are both cool.

This is the wild roadhouse Aunt Mae wants to keep her out of?

It takes about 2 minutes for Janice to ask Tex to take her out of this town and her humdrum life.  Tex knows trouble when he sees it and declines her offer.  Or maybe he is turned off by the huge fly that lands on her while they are talking (left shoulder, about 6:20 in).

The very forgiving sap Stan is waiting for her outside and walks her back to Aunt Mae’s house.  After an argument with her Aunt Mae, she goes back to the bar to see Tex.  A coppish friend of the family shoos her away and says he’ll check on her later at home, but when Tex leaves, he finds Janice waiting for him.

He walks her back to Aunt Mae’s house.  Really, the amount of walking in this episode would make my Fitbit explode.  They enter quietly with the lights off so as to not attract Aunt Mae’s attention.  Janice goes to get them some drinks and comes back with two milks.  WTH?

When they hear a police car pull up, Janice throws a glass of milk at Tex, rips her dress and runs outside screaming.  The cop naturally thinks Tex assaulted her.  Not only that, with the lights on, we can see Tex standing right beside Aunt Mae who has been pushed down the stairs and killed.  Doesn’t look good for Tex.

Janice makes up a story of Tex following her home, attacking her and killing Aunt Mae. Too bad for her, Stan strolls in and says he had stopped by the house while she was at the bar with Tex and saw Aunt Mae already dead.  A lot of guys might have called the police upon first finding the dead body.

A good story, but a so-so episode.

Post-Post:

• AHP Deathwatch:  Carol Lynley (Janice) and Stephen Joyce (Stan) are still with us.
• Carol Lynley aged very well, looking much sexier in The Poseiden Adventure than here.
• A big point is made that Tex is much older than Janice, and the actor is 14 years older.  But even Stan is 11 years older than Janice, playing 18.  A little more effort in casting, please.
• Directed by Robert Altman.

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: