Tubi’s thumbnail synopsis which made me laugh

Enough of the funny stuff. On with the review . . .

Suspense continues its love of giant fonts, opening with a yuge newspaper headline: FOURTH MURDER VICTIM FOUND, ARSENIC POISONER STILL LOOSE.

We cut to George and Ethel eating breakfast.  There is not much to this scene other than to establish George is married to a much younger, pretty blonde.  She was an actress, but had a nervous breakdown when she saw the Dewey Defeats Truman headline 4 months ago.  Oh, and their housekeeper is Eleanor Roosevelt.  Well it is an easy mistake — she is very tall, er . . . stout, and not a looker. ^[1]

George takes the morning train work.  There are women talking on the train, but I can barely understand a word they’re saying. I expect that today, but this is 1949 and they are speaking English.  Actually the audio is rough in several sections.

One of them is reading the back of George’s newspaper.   I hear something about Brazilians.  George is irritated and refolds his paper.  The woman sees a picture of a woman named Anderson.  As best I can tell, she was a victim of the Arsenic Killer.

Eleanor is reading the paper when George comes home that night.  He has brought flowers for Ethel who is not feeling well.   Ethel says Eleanor is doing a great job.  George had been worried because she had no references.  Ethel says that is because she had been taking care of a widow’s mother “and couldn’t very well have references”. ^[4]  If the mother croaked, I don’t see how that prevents the widow from giving a reference.  Unless in 1949, you had to be a man.  Eleanor announces dinner is ready.

That night, Ethel calls 9-1-1, which got off to a slow start on rotary phones. ^[3]  Eleanor enters and Ethel tells her George is having a severe upset stomach.  A doctor comes, but is unable to find anything wrong with George that would cause the stomach pain or their separate twin beds.

The next morning he is well enough to do some gardening.  While looking for a trowel, he sees a can of Arsenic Weed Killer in the kitchen cabinet.  He has a full day, including going to a bachelor party that night.  He warns Eleanor he won’t be back until midnight. 

When he returns home, kinda tipsy, he finds a thermos of hot cocoa that Eleanor left for him.  He takes a sip, but it must not taste right because he spits it out.  He finds the arsenic can in the cabinet and sees the top has been removed after he replaced it that morning.  Thinking he has caught the Arsenic Killer, he pours a sample into a small jar.  

At breakfast the next morning, he makes excuses to Eleanor about why he is not eating.  He goes to a pharmacy to have the cocoa analyzed.  Busted!  That deranged monster Eleanor gave him instant ! Also, it is laced with arsenic.

He rushes home to make sure Ethel is OK.  Why didn’t he just call her cell?  Oh, yeah.    He is relieved to find her in good health.  Just as he is about to tell her that Eleanor is the killer, Eleanor enters and says the Arsenic Killer has been caught.  Maybe not the most reliable source for that bit of information. ^[5]

Oh God! I knew marrying an actress I was getting an out-of-touch, brain-dead, arrogant zombie diva who lectures me on things she knows nothing about, but murder?

George realizes it was Ethel who tried to kill him.  He asks why, and she says, “Can’t you eat one piece of toast, can’t you eat one meal without me having to hear you digest it?”  Seriously.  

Ethel seems to have another nervous breakdown ^[2] as she maniacally confesses to murdering her rival for an acting part.  We hear the police that George had called on Eleanor.  Ethel says, “George, how could you?”  Yeah, how could he?  He obviously had access to a phone to call the police.  Why didn’t he use the phone to warn Ethel?

The “early days of TV” excuse is wearing thin.  Citizen Kane was made 10 years earlier.  The suspense in this one was a little more formulaic than last week, but it did have a twist.  Not very good, but I grant the series another week to get on its feet.  

Other Stuff:

• [1]  Eleanor Roosevelt, Michell Obama, and Melania Trump are tied for tallest First Lady at 5’11”.  Eleanor just looked taller because she often stood next to a guy in a wheelchair.
• [2]  You never hear about nervous breakdowns anymore.  I think it was replaced by “exhaustion”.  Although just for actors, never for farmers, coal miners, or ditch-diggers.
• [3]  Even worse, England used 9-9-9.  
• [4]  That makes so little sense I admit I must have heard it wrong.  But dang if I can make it sound like anything else.
• [5]  Wait a minute.  Eleanor announces that the killer was caught, which proves to George that she isn’t the killer.  But wouldn’t that same logic also exonerate Ethel?  To be fair, Ethel then gives herself away when George says he had the cocoa analyzed, and she says, “How dare you!”
• Ernest Truex was in 2 memorable Twilight Zones: Kick the Can and What You Need.  Sylvia Field played Dennis the Menace’s mother.
• I say again, whoever invented the block system for WordPress should be in Hell

Brought to you by Auto-Lite spark plugs!  You know why you never see commercials for spark plugs any more? ^[1]

Mrs. Gardner is slumped in her seat on the train and actually thinks, “Goodbye New York.”  She sees a man she believes is following her.  But why?  She thinks back to yesterday.

Returning from the grocery store, she is met outside her apartment door by the Building Superintendent, Mr. Mason.  Apparently the Gardners are behind on the rent.  He gruffly says, “You gotta pay me something or get out!”  People are so much more reasonable today.  Earlier tonight I saw a short film where a landlord worked out a deal with his young blonde tenant.  Although, to be honest, I totally lost interest after about 6 minutes and fell asleep.

Mrs. Gardner promises him they will have some cash soon.  Then she smells gas.  Mr. Mason seems strangely uninterested in this gas leak which could blow up his building,  his job, and his collection of Hummel Figurines.  She enters and finds her husband Ray on the floor.  Their apartment is even shabbier than the Kramden’s down in 3B.  At least the Kramden’s bed is in a bedroom; although, God knows I don’t want to think too much about what goes on in there.  Mrs. Gardner opens the windows and turns off the stove.  Ray wakes up.

After the commercial, Mrs. Gardner finds his suicide note, and adds spark plugs to her shopping list.  Ray lights a cigarette.  Dude, the room was full of gas like 1 minute ago!

He says his old boss Walton has him locked out everywhere.  Walton is telling everyone that Ray broke his contract, so he is toxic. Mrs. Gardner consoles her husband that he had good reason to break it.  If you want to know more about this Succession-like tale of corporate intrigue, too bad.  This is all the detail we get.

Ray says Walton wants him to come crawling back.  Working under the radar, he can’t raise the $500 he owes Walton.  Mrs. Gardner finally brings in the groceries.  Her husband asks how she paid for them, then notices her wedding ring is gone.

Ray grabs his coat, he says to go see someone about borrowing money.  His wife, suspecting he is going back to Walton, begs him not to.  He shoves her aside and bolts outside.  Mrs. Gardner follows him until she sees a sinister looking man on the sidewalk eying her. ^[2]

Six hours later, Ray returns with $500.  He doesn’t answer her questions about where he was and what is the capital North Dakota.  He just silently washes the blood and self-loathing off his hands.  Murder?  How ’bout some teamwork?  Mrs. Gardner could have picked up $500 that afternoon, and the sticky stuff on her hands wouldn’t be a man’s blood!  The next morning’s newspaper headline says:

Cripes, how big was the font on VJ Day (just 4 years earlier)?  Mrs. Gardner reads that police suspect a disgruntled employee, but dang if I can see anything on that page but the headline.  They get nervous when the police description of a white guy in a dark suit and felt hat narrows the suspects to about 5,000,000 guys in New York City.  Fearing Ray was seen, Mrs. Gardner takes some of the money to buy her husband a new dark suit.  And a new felt hat.

She nervously buys the suit and pays for it with a bloody bill.  As she is leaving, she sees the same creepy guy standing outside the shop.  He follows her back to the apartment.  She takes the suit upstairs and Ray puts it on.  But on the way out of town, he is wearing a trench coat, killing the point of the new suit.

They decide, for no good reason, to separate.  Both feel like all eyes are on them.  Because Ray doesn’t have 2 dimes for the train, it leaves without him.  I guess that’s back when turnstile jumping was illegal.  They meet up later at Grand Central Station.

Finally we are back where we began.  Ray joins his wife on the train.  The mystery man is seated a row in front of them.  They wonder if they will ever be safe, ever have to stop looking over their shoulders.  Well, ya know, he is a murderer.

When the conductor comes around for tickets, the mystery man flashes a badge.  OK, so what?  Is he ever going to confront the Gardners?  Don’t keep me in susp . . . oh,  yeah.

Testing the waters here with a new series.  Of course, it is primitive — it was made 70 years ago!  It is easy to laugh at the production, but it was a new medium and they had no budget.  There were some good signs, though.  The titular suspense is padded out by 2 more visits from Mr. Mason, a strange run-in with a cop, a bit with a piece of paper, and a subtle callback to the bloody bill.  So, they really did make the effort to inject suspense.  There were a couple of fun non-sequiturs that I appreciated.  A little girl was roller-skating outside their apartment, and a guy at the train station pocketed a newspaper.  These might seem like small things, but it shows me that someone cared.  I rate it: Deserves a second episode.

Other Stuff:

• Mrs. Gardner does not seem to have a first name.  She’s ahead of her husband, though, who is not even listed on IMDb.
• Mrs. Gardner buys a train ticket from an uncredited Mr.  Hand.  Warning:  Clip includes Sean Penn.
• [1]  Because not 1 man in 1,000 could change a spark plug today.
• [2]  But why is this guy eyeballing her?  At this point, Ray has not killed Walton yet.  Is it her gams?