Maybe I see the problem here.  There are 100 stories in the collection I have of Ray Bradbury’s “Most Celebrated Tales.”  There are 65 episodes in the Ray Bradbury Theater series; but only 14 of the episodes are included in the “Most Celebrated Tales” volume.  Perhaps the other episodes were based on “Volume II: Crapped Out Facing Deadline Tales” or “Volume III: Really Only Worked on the Printed Page Tales.”  Because this series is a legacy-destroyer of Phantom Menacean proportions.

Old and stunningly unattractive Matilda hears a noise downstairs and finds several men coming into her house.  The small old woman winds her way around the tall black-suited men in the sole interesting shot of the episode.  Only one of them, credited as “The Listener” acknowledges her, showing her a wicket casket they have brought.

He sits silently, listening to Matilda pad out the episode with tales of her grand-daughter Emily, the one man of her life (who died), and her philosophy of death.  She tells him that she will not allow herself to die, will not get into that wicker basket.

He continues staring silently with a smile on his face, but she will not be seduced into giving up.  She utters maybe the most horrifying words in this series:  “I’m too old to be made love to.  That’s all twisted dry like an old tube of paint left behind in the years.”

Despite her protestations, she drifts off to sleep.  The screen takes on a golden “magic hour” hue, but it is not clear why.  It is not from either character’s perspective, yet alternates with standard color palette shots.  A few seconds later, the camera moves seem to suggest that it is The Listener’s POV, but this contradicts the earlier shot where he himself was bathed in the golden light.

She wakes up from resting her eyes and sees The Listener is leaving.  She gloats about how he was unable to get her in the casket.  Seeing the men carrying it out, she can tell that there is something weighing it down.

When she demands to see what is inside, the men stop and lower it for her — which is strange because they can’t see or hear her.  To be fair, it is halfway presented as adjusting their grip and halfway as  a freeze-frame moment.  Either might have been OK if they had committed to it, but this is just awkward.  She realizes that it is her in the casket.  But she was already dead in bed upstairs, so what really has changed?

Her grand-daughter enters the house and Matilda greets her, pouring some tea.  There is no way that Emily could have missed her.  Yet, she casually goes to hang up her coat.  Only when she enters the kitchen with Matilda, does she give a blood-curdling scream.  Throughout the scene her sight-lines are bizarre as if sometimes she can see Matilda and sometimes she can’t, or is trying to avert her eyes.  It’s just a mess, but the scream is pretty good.

To stop Emily’s screaming, Matilda slaps her face.  But then, in the struggle, Emily discovers that she is able to pass her hand through Matilda’s stomach.  So is Matilda solid or not?

She makes Emily drive her to the funeral parlor.  She sees the same men carrying a wicker basket and looks inside, but it is not her.  Strangely, the men can see her now as can all of the employees and mourners.

She finally finds her body being embalmed.  She tries to barge in, but is restrained by a fat guy.  She passes through the man’s arms, but that is done off-camera so we just cut to a goofy shot of him standing behind her with his arms in an empty circle.  Again, this could have been played for low-budget laughs had they committed.  Instead, they tried to obfuscate the shot and it just looks weird.  She slaps him, so she is solid again — or, at least that slapping hand is firming up nicely.

She threatens to haunt the funeral parlor unless they give her the body.  They remove her corpse from the slab where the autopsy had already begun with the Y incision.  They then lift her into the casket with the body and somehow the two bodies merge back into her “living” self but somehow wearing the surgical garb the corpse wore on the operating table .  The body in the surgical gown sits up in the coffin, to a pretty subdued crowd.  The Listener literally closes the curtain on the scene.

In the epilogue, Matilda says if any one asks, she will show them the marks “where that crazy funeral autopsy man sewed me right back up.”  WTF would ask?

Post-Post:

• The Listener is played by Ronald Lacey, best known to American audiences as Toht in Raiders of the Lost Ark.  I’m not sure his name was ever used on screen, so he is the HNIC (Head Nazi in Charge).   With the head-piece of the Staff of Ra burned into his palm. You know, with the glasses.  The guy with the nunchuck coat-hanger.  Right . . . .

I thought maybe we were back in the USA given the subject matter of this one.  Sadly, no.  And that is really too bad since it it features a uniquely American art form, and is personally relevant to Ray Bradbury.

Young Terwilliger brings a demo reel of his stop-motion animation to nasty, brutish film producer Mr. Clarence for review.  In case we did not know Clarence was a jerk, he is given a huge squarish protrusion above his left eye.  Cuz different people is evil. Clarence likes the demo, but grudgingly offers Terwilliger only $2,000 to do the special effects for his next film.

I am tempted to say his is the kind of film destined to be included in a collection of 20 for $5.  Sadly, none of those 20 has yet shown the skill and dedication required for stop-motion animation.  But, to be fair, I haven’t gotten to Gingerdead Man 3 yet.

Terwilliger accepts the contract and we watch him designing the dinosaur models.  We get small insights into the process, such as how the artists use peanut shells to impress texture into the clay skin of the models.  Also, that artists like peanuts.  The filming commences and we see a little of the painstaking work required to move the models 1/16th of an inch for each shot.

Despite the work Terwilliger puts in, and how much Clarence’s lawyer praises the effects, Clarence rolls out of the shadows to berate them both and claim ownership of the models.  He also demands constant changes to the bodies, more spikes, bigger teeth, angry eyes, claws like razors.  Clarence demands that the dinosaur be a monster!

Clarence is finally satisfied at the screening when he sees a dinosaur that is a true monster.  Terwilliger is a little fearful of his response, since the monster was clearly based on Clarence.  I guess there’s not much you can do to make a dinosaur look like a man, but giving it a huge knot over its left eye was a pretty clear shot across Clarence’s brow.

Leaving the screening, Clarence realizes the dinosaur was based on him and screams for Terwilliger — for God’s sake, let’s just call him T!  Clarence catches up to T in the studio and fires him, threatening a lawsuit.  The lawyer tells Clarence that the film was actually a tribute to him, hero of the motion picture industry.  The dinosaur represents the lonely, cunning, strong producer, all thunder and lightning, never appreciated.

Clarence, literally a blockhead, is vain enough to buy this load of crap.  He generously offers, “You’re both still on the payroll, but just until the preview.”  This is especially generous to the lawyer who pointed out earlier, that he had not been on the payroll for months.

At Le Cinema that night, the house is filled completely with hot French teenage girls, illustrating once again that I went into the wrong business.  After the movie, the girls swarm Clarence for autographs.  T is baffled by this response until he discovers that the girls are a Scout Troop recruited by the lawyer through his niece.

Final shot of the episode which suddenly puts the knot on the other side of the dinosaur’s head.

Clarence is reveling in the adulation, and the lawyer tells T, “Looks like we both still have jobs.”  This despite the fact that the lawyer had no job, and T was just a contract worker for that one film.  T points out that this time it is the lawyer who has created the monster.

Although, surrounding this bitter, lonely, middle-aged man with adoring underage French girls for the first time in his life might just be entrapment.

Post-Post:

• This episode and the short story are considered to be an homage to Ray Harryhausen, king of stop motion animation and friend of Bradbury since their teens.  A great overview of his work can be seen here.
• No mention of Harryhausen, but a good article here on the group of young men in southern California who shaped sci-fi and horror during the 50s and 60s.
• Out of 65 episodes in this series, this one is rated #64 by users on IMDb. That seems harsh.  It’s no masterpiece, but there is a little fun to be had here.  And God knows the bar is pretty low for this series.
• Are there really this many open fires in the streets of France?

I’d like to think we are moving out of the European phase of this series since we have an American prominent in the cast.  But confidence is not high — next week’s director has an accent grave in his name.

At least the Brit du jour is Denholm Elliott, most famous in this country for fun performances in Trading Places and the prime-numbered Indiana Jones films.  Elliott had the good sense to fake his own death — speculating here — in order to avoid Indie & the Crystal Skull.

Dan O’Herlihy is inventor Charles Braling.  He has taken all his valuables out of the bank and is storing them in his home over his lawyer’s objections.  His brother Elliott has stopped by to borrow a few pounds as he apparently does on a regular basis.  Braling tells him he is dying, and is building his own coffin.  For some reason it is 9 feet long and has a window and a tape player.

They bicker continuously with Elliott being oddly belligerent for  guy who depends on his brother for support.  Elliott finally goes too far and brings up Braling’s dead wife.  Braling throws him out, but the excitement was too much for him.  Elliott hears him collapse.

Elliott makes funeral arrangements for his brother, choosing the cheapest coffin and opting for no service.  Well, one service is permitted — the reading of the will.  His brother has left him the house, but taxes will eat up most of it.  However, he also willed him the contents, including all his valuables, hidden somewhere in the house.

Elliott deduces that the fortune is hidden in the coffin.  As he climbs in to retrieve the goodies, the lid snaps shut.  Braling’s robot servants serve as pallbearers, in a well-directed scene.  You don’t see much, but you do see enough to accept that these robots actually are moving the coffin, negotiating the stairs, heading into the woods, and lowering the box.  The sequence is especially credible, paying off a previous scene where we saw Braling pacing off distances and noting directions — now we know it was for the ‘bots to follow to the grave-site.

En route, and as he is being lowered, and covered with dirt, Elliott is of course screaming.  He is better portraying panic than outright terror, but it works OK.

Not a bad episode, even though murdering the brother seems a tad excessive.  Plus, what of the loot that was buried with him?  Surely that could have been put to better use.  But then, people are buried with diamonds and gold all the time.  Or so the funeral directors would have us believe.

Post-Post:

• This is the 6th highest rated RBT episode on IMDb which does not bode well for the future viewing.
• From the director of The Small Assassin episode
• Anyone who thinks Last Crusade was better than Temple of Doom can go to hell.
• Denholm Elliott was in the RAF in WWII, was shot down and spent time in a German Stalag.  He earned his way into the Indy films.  How about you, Shia?

Another bloody European episode.  At least we have a recognizable face in this one — Dr. Loomis himself, Donald Pleasence.  Despite airing 22 years after Fantastic Voyage, he has barely aged at all.  Which is a sad commentary on his 1966 self.

Pleasence is George Hill, a billionaire investment banker who is married to a woman 40 years his junior — I have no problem with that.  It is, admittedly, kind of creepy to see them together.

In an ineptly choreographed scene which involves the complex procedure of, er, opening a door, Hill sees his wife Katherine making out with a man who is also approximately 40 years his junior.

Update: I finally realized what happened.  Although the story is told 99.9% from Hill’s first-person POV, the director inexplicably switched to a third-person omniscient-POV for about 2 seconds.

So, naturally, Hill hatches a plan to a) have a robot duplicate of Katherine built (and she was built to start with, heyyyoooohhhh), and 2) kill said robot.  Having the cash, a better plan would have been to build 2 robot Katherines and not kill them.  But then, he’s a pretty old dude and this is PV (pre-Viagra).

The plan really makes no sense unless you look at it as a cathartic act where just going through the motions will give him some satisfaction — like Westworld.  But Katherine will still be alive.  And, by the way, will expect half his stuff to be handed over to her and her lover in the divorce.

Such is his anger that he can’t stand to wait the 2 weeks it takes Facsimiles, Inc to build the perfect mechanical duplicate of Katherine.  BTW, like all high-tech facilities in low-budget sci-fi, it has the standard completely inefficient floorplan, and is apparently staffed by one person who sits in the dark until needed.  Hill opts to be put into suspended animation until she is ready.

Naturally, once he meets Katherine 2.0 (now with fidelity!) he decides he wants to keep her.  Alas, that is not an option as she can’t be bought, only rented.  If she is an Apple product, there won’t even be a way to replace her battery.  Hill insists there must be a way he can keep her, but she has been well-programmed.  She speaks of cheating just as Katherine 1.0 did to taunt him into shooting her.  It works as he shots her and synthetic blood spills out onto the white floor.

Within seconds, a police detective arrives and arrests Hill for murder.  He is put on trial because a few hand-wringing do-gooders have decided that robots should have the same rights as humans.  He is found unanimously guilty in a televised trial that seems to be some sort of precursor to reality-TV, complete with soundtrack and stinger queues.

Katherine 1.0 comes to visit him in jail.  Even though the jailers know Katherine is alive, the sentence is carried out.

Post-Post:

• Unlike my recap — a model of economic narrative — the episode opens with a framing scene, then a flashback, then a flashback within the flashback, ending with the same framing scene.  Sort of.
• The opening and closing scenes cover the same material, just as in Pulp Fiction.  Also, just as in that film, the scenes are not exact duplicates.  I give Tarantino the benefit of the doubt that there was a point to his changes due to shifting perspectives, or even the nature of reality.  I think it was just incompetence here.
• Nice cell he has, with access to the prison exterior security cameras.