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.

Before watching:  Woohoo!  With a title like that, you know Sir Alfred is going to take the directorial reins for this episode!

After watching:  Master of suspense? Yeah, the suspense was when is something going to happen?

Charles Courtney (Vincent Price) is adding another exhibit to his collection commemorating crimes he has solved.  Back in the old days, this was called evidence and kept by the police or returned to the victim.

He receives a late night visit from defense attorney John Gregory (James Gregory — really, they couldn’t have at least changed the character’s name to Greg Johnson?).  Price notes that he has seen Gregory in the courtroom four times.  All four times, it sounds like Gregory’s clients were found guilty and executed; bizarrely, nothing is really made of that.

Gregory notices a blank spot in Price’s trophy case.  He explains that it is reserved for the titular perfect crime, a real work of art.  Rather than being vacant because the person was — by definition — not caught, it is vacant because Price feels no criminal mastermind has ever risen to his level to deserve the spot.

The conversation turns to the trial of No-First-Name Harrington for the murder of Ernest West.  Gregory says he might have represented Harrington if he had not been out of the country.  Since Harrington was just executed, it sounds right up his alley.

Price recounts in a flashback how West was found dead by his housekeeper.  He is lead to Harrington by analyzing tweed threads, tire treads, footprints, and financial evidence.

A certain stock had risen 57 points in the days leading to West’s murder.  Two days after his death, the stock dropped 63 points.  Price found that Harrington had been selling short as the stock rose and was on the hook for 132,000 share when West was killed.  At the same time that Harrington was selling short, West had been buying up all he could. So Harrington killed West — it was, as Price describes it, “murder for millions.”

There is nothing in that scenario that makes sense.

Gregory finally discloses that he knew West, Harrington and Harrington’s wife Alice.  And furthermore, Harrington was innocent and Gregory can prove it.  He tells an alternate version of the story that begins with the Harringtons and West being in a love triangle.

In another flashback, we see Gregory sitting in a fancy Monte Carlo hotel room talking to Alice.  And I literally mean SEE — for some reason, there is no dialog in the flashbacks other than the narration of the two stars. Alice hands Gregory a letter from her husband which is abusive.  They agree that her husband deserved to be killed.

Gregory brings up other facts that contradict Price’s version of events, or fill in certain gaps.  It soon becomes clear, unfortunately in yet another flashback, that Price has been responsible for sending the innocent Harrington to the gas chamber.

Welllll, let’s not go crazy with that innocent-talk.  Harrington was standing right beside Alice when she shot her husband.  Then he covered it up, or at least did not rat her out.  So really, the only miscarriage of justice is that Alice wasn’t sitting in his lap when he got fried.

Rather than spilling the beans, all Gregory wants is for Price to ease off next time when he has a client facing the death penalty.  Because, while it would be fun the bring the smug Price down to earth, and would benefit society to bring the shooter to justice — the important thing for a defense attorney is to be sure we get as many future murderers back on the street as possible.

This isn’t good enough for Price who fears for his reputation if this ever got out.  So that’s it for Gregory — Price commits the perfect crime.  Sadly, the moral police could not let just this one episode go by with a killer getting away with his crime.  Hitch gave his standard closing, assuring the audience that Price got caught.

The epilogue is a little muddled as we learn that Price stuffed Gregory into his ceramics kiln and made him into a vase.  His hobby of ceramics was quickly mentioned early in the story, so that part is not a complete non-sequitur.  But can the human body be incinerated down to clay?

And it was such a plain vase.  There should have been something to tie it to its source material — like being very fat or thin if that matched the body type of Gregory.  Or a bowl with a lid that resembled a unique hat, or at least color that matched his suit.  Or maybe something like the Hitler Kettle.

Overall, the performers did a great job, but it was just too talky and reliant on narration over the silent flashbacks.

Post-Post:

• AHP Deathwatch:  Ironically, Harrington is the only survivor.
• I supposed Gregory’s constant losses to Price were the reason for his extortion.  It just doesn’t really work because Gregory comes across as an confident, intelligent attorney.
• Price took a 2 year world-tour after killing Gregory.  He says he preferred Angkor Wat to the Taj Mahal.  Fine, but that just seems strange to randomly drop in the script.
• Alice’s fate is not given in the episode, but she possibly went on to be part of the biggest crime of the last 50 years.