Being from the 1940’s, Suspense gets graded on the biggest curve here. But this is just dreadful.
England 1897. Exterior. A Salvation Army woman is soliciting donations.
Another woman stumbles into the scene. Let us savor this moment because it is the sole sign of a pulse in this episode: The woman drunkenly proclaims her name is Hettie . . . Spaghetti! Sure, it might be a joke worthy of a 3 year old, but here it is gold! And by here, I mean this blog, not the episode.
After telling a constable she has “no kith or kin”, she starts to pass out. The cop goes to call “the wagon” to remove this riff-raff from the street. So I guess that bridge in the background was not the Golden Gate. [1] She is approached by a hornblower [2] — wait, maybe that is the Golden Gate Bridge! No, that is Tom, also in the Salvation Army [3], who literally plays a horn.
Boris Karloff sees this out his window. He goes to the door and offers Hettie shelter. He offers her a room to herself, to feed her, buy her some clothes, and give her a pounding a week “to perform the duties of an indoor servant“, and that euphemism, I’m going nowhere near! Oh wait, that was one £ pound a week.
But there are 2 rules: 1) always keep the front door closed, 2) never leave the house alone, except for the morning shopping. He points to another door which leads to his laboratory. No one goes in there except his assistant and his clients. She is never to enter that room.
Karloff tells his assistant Tilson that Hettie will do fine. “She will sit in front of the shop to allay suspicions”, which seems to violate both rules. He says their “special clients” will be able to come and go as they wish. Tilson asks what will happen if she finds out what they really do there. Karloff says he will marry her! No, as my president says, joke.
Months later, she hears Tom playing a horn in front of the shop. She puts her hands on his chest and says, “What a chest you must have! What windpower! And you must have real muscle in your lips.” Oh sure, but I get sent to HR.
Karloff is working on a paralyzed man when Tilson rats out Hettie about opening the door. Or maybe it is a corpse sitting up. Still no clues what’s going on here. I guess that’s the titular suspense. This is going to have some great payoff, I tells ya!
She moans about being cooped up. He asks if there is any detail of their Clintonian marriage agreement he has not lived up to? She has her own room, her own clothes, enough allowance, and he has made “no demands on her person.”
She says she just wants him to talk to her at dinner, or say he likes her dress, or even just smile. He reminds her of the 2 rules and wants to get back to work.
The next time she sees Tom, he gives her the titular yellow scarf that he got from the donations bin. He says on their next hookup maybe they can go shoplifting at Goodwill. She says she can’t come out, but Tom says he can come in. Maybe he’s in the Salvation JAG. Boris sees them smooching.
A month later, at dinner, Hettie spills soup on the scarf. Boris asks where she got it. Tilson again rats her out about Tom. She claims Tom gave her the scarf for taking a temperance pledge, although that might have been a clever ruse to steer her away from the chastity pledge. Boris demands it, saying his wife will not accept presents from other men.
Hettie goes nuts and in a rant, finally says she is inviting Tom to dinner. Boris takes the scarf into his lab and stuffs it in a beaker where he says it will be slowly destroyed. He does, however, decide to allow Tom to come to dinner but they can go to hell if they expect him to serve amuse-bouche.
Karloff is not around when Tom arrives for dinner. He and Hettie enter the lab to look for the scarf. They see it in the beaker, but when they remove it, it is covered in a powder. They flee back to the lobby just in time to meet Karloff and Tilson. There is a bit of business where Karloff has Tom help him open a can of salmon with a hunting knife. Though the series does not hold up, I appreciate that they usually take the time to inject some manufactured suspense. Seriously, kudos. Sure enough, Tom gets cut “by accident.”
Hettie acts quickly, pulling out the scarf to wrap his wound. To be fair, Karloff seems to be concerned for Tom when he tells her not to use the scarf. Rightly so, because Tom croaks within seconds. Hettie is so distraught at his death that — and this is pretty good for this show — she grabs the knife which has been foreshadowed, stabs Karloff in the hand, and in his pain she is able to wrap his hand with the killer scarf.
She stumbles outside and tells the same constable she’ll be needing that wagon after all. It might have felt like months to us, but it has been months for him — does he even now know WTF she is??
By all modern (or even 10 years later) technical standards, it is a disaster. However, I admire some of what they attempted. The two big failures were 1) as always, the oppressive, omnipresent organ score, and 2) the complete lack of backstory or even sidestory for Karloff.
Please consider this episode NSFW! Not because it is lewd, but because your boss should smack you for watching TV at work. Is this what you were doing while working remotely? POW! Oh sure, but I get sent to HR.
Other Stuff:
- [1] Rigorous New Yorker-level fact-checking reveals the GGB was opened in 1937.
- [2] It seemed to me that hornblower would be an amusing euphemism for a gay dude (not that there’s anything wrong with that). In checking it out, I confirmed that it is, and learned it also can mean a chronic masturbator. BTW, a Horatio Hornblower is the act of farting on another’s head with such force that the hair is blown back.
- [3] Sadly, could not work in Piano Man reference: . . . talking to Tommy, who’s still in the Salvation Ahmy, and probably will be for life . . .
- Proximity Alert: Russell Collins was just in last week’s episode. Collins is a genresnaps-fave, but give someone else a chance! What the . . . Douglass Watson (Tom) was also in both episodes. Was there an actor shortage in 1949? My heavens, where ever did people get their political and climate expertise? [4]
- [4] The same gibe appears in the underrated Get Smart movie. The writers had no non-sequel writing credits for 5 years. Coincidence?
Anna Parish and her mother are planning for Anna’s beau Danny to visit the house — the first time anyone has been inside since they moved to Boston. As they work on the Boston Baked Beans and Boston Cream Pie, they are surprised to hear someone shriek outside. Mrs. Parish assures her daughter that no one can see in the windows.
Anna screams that she hates her brother. Mrs. Parish gives her two really good slaps. [2] Anna runs out of the room. Her father tells his wife that either they put Jason “some place” or he will leave her. So that’s the end of Mr. Parish.
As she is about to ventilate Mr. Parish, Anna enters the room, all smiles. With her is Jason, now a handsome, unblemished young man. Doc Brown’s crazy hypno-therapy got him out of that room! Although the two of them living in there eating beans everyday for 3 months was probably also a factor.
Agatha asks Sally [5] (pop quiz, hotshot: which is which?) how work is going. Sally says the hours are long, but it keeps her in New York. She also mentions seeing a lot of George who lives in her building.
She writes a note for the milkman that I-am-trapped-by-a-killer-please-for-the-love-of-God-let-me-out!, and also no more cheese because it makes the cat fart. She slides it halfway under the door, but seconds later notices the paper has already been taken. Through the peephole, she sees Andy leaving Agatha’s apartment. Well wait, was he doing wind-sprints from Agatha’s door, to Sally’s door to grab the note, back to Agatha’s door, then fleeing Agatha’s door again? She tries to get the attention of the Peeping Tom across the alley, but his wife busts him before she can get her blouse off.
Harold Stern is working remotely before that was a thing. He is at home at a messy desk. Unlike slobs today, he is not wearing his pajamas in a Zoom call; he is wearing a long-sleeve shirt and a necktie. Although, being a tax accountant, maybe those are his pajamas.
In seconds, Detective Tate is knocking on his door. Stern, living under an alias, tells him he has the wrong man and tries to close the door. The officer pushes his way in, so we know this does not take place in Uvalde. Turns out the police were searching for Stern so he could donate his rare blood type to a crash victim.
He explains to Detective Tate that whenever he gives blood, he can see the future of the recipient. Sometimes they win the lottery, sometimes nothing happens, but other times they die. He even has newspaper clippings to prove the fate of his donees. Well, I don’t think Judge McMann [1] would accept that as evidence of precognition since the events have already taken place. Stern is taken to the hospital where the girl’s father shames him into making the donation. 
She gets mad at him looking out for her. He offers her a job and a place to stay. In the next few days, he chews her out for swimming after eating, running with scissors, and scissoring after eating. She gets tired of his warnings and packs to leave. 
Well wait, they just paid the claim. Didn’t these chowderheads already know when the policy was purchased, who purchased it, and who they just cut a check to? And did it not arouse suspicion that Mrs. Mead bought a policy on her husband and made another man the beneficiary? [3]
Westcott tells her that in 1933 her husband’s mother tripped over a broom and fell down the stairs, leaving him a policy worth $25,000. Then the steering failed in his brother’s car and he collected another $20,000. Then he set his sister up on a date with Ted Kennedy. [2] She demands, “What has this got to do with how my first husband died? Certainly my husband didn’t get anything out of that!” Well, except for the life insurance proceeds that we were told in the first scene were paid directly to him. [3]