The Terrible Catsafterme

SEASON 1 – CBS

Created by Alfred Hitchcock

Theme song: “Funeral March of the Marionette” by Charles Gounod

• 001. Revenge – 10/2/1955
  • Carl (Ralph Meeker) and Elsa Spann (Vera Miles) have moved to a beach-side California trailer park so that Elsa can recover from a recent nervous breakdown. After Carl leaves for work, Elsa gabs with her neighbor Mrs. Ferguson (Francis Bavier) then lays out in the sun in her bathing suit, although it is clear that Mrs. Ferguson disapproves. When Carl returns home, he finds Elsa on the floor, the victim of some variety of assault by an intruder. The police and Elsa’s doctor (John Gallaudet) arrive at the scene, and Elsa’s doctor recommends that they move out of the trailer park or that her breakdown might become permanent. Elsa answers questions as briefly as possible while maintaining a vacant stare. As the Spanns are driving around before finding a motel, Elsa points out the man (Ray Montgomery) who attacked her. Carl follows him to his hotel room and bludgeons him with a wrench. As they drive on, Elsa then points out yet another man and claims that he is the attacker…as polices sirens roar in the distance. In the narration epilogue it is revealed that Carl was caught, indicted, tried, and sentenced and paid his debt to society for taking the law in his own hands. Ray Teal is the police lieutenant. NOTE: This episode was directed by Alfred Hitchcock, who provides opening and closing remarks for this and each succeeding episode. 10/18/14

• 002. Premonition – 10/9/1955
  • Kim Stanger (John Forsythe) flies into his hometown of Stangerford after a four year absence because he had a premonition that he should return home, but a foreboding of what he would find. He runs into his family lawyer Doug Irwin (George Macready), and tells him that he had come from Paris and hoped to see his father. At his former home he meets up with his sister-in-law Susan (Cloris Leachman) who insists that he should have called before coming home, and tells him that his father had passed away. Kim’s brother Perry (Warren Stevens) tells him that he had gotten the inheritance instead of Kim. Everyone seems evasive to Kim’s questions, including the coroner Gerald Eaton (Percy Helton). Information that he gathers eventually leads him to the family cabin on Tamarack Lake, where Susan confronts him and tells him that he hadn’t been in Paris, but in a mental hospital in Arizona these last four years. They had covered up the truth of his father’s demise…that he had accidentally shot him with a loaded rifle during an argument. Paul Brinegar is Mason, Harry Tyler is Isaiah Dobbs. 10/18/14
• 003. Triggers in Leash – 10/16/1955
  • Dell Delaney (Gene Barry) shows up at the restaurant of woman named Maggie (Ellen Corby), trailed by a Red Hillman (Darren McGavin), who wants to kill him over a poker dispute. Maggie tries to get them to calm down and talk sensibly, even feeding them both breakfast, but neither are willing to compromise. She also threatens that she will report who ever draws their gun first as a killer, and they will hang. Each tries to coax the other into drawing first, but neither will. Finally, they decide that they will wait until the clock on the mantel strikes noon and will use the cuckoo whistling as their cue to fire on each other. Maggie retrieves a cross from the mantel and prays. The clock stops just before noon and the gunfighters take it as a sign from God and call off the fight, riding back into town together. Maggie then reveals to her worker Ben (Casey MacGregor) that she knew that taking the cross down would make the mantel un-level and stop the clock from working. Hitchcock states in the epilogue that Dell and Red both died from food poisoning later that day. 10/18/14
• 004. Don’t Come Back Alive – 10/23/1955
  • Deep in debt and concerned for their future, husband and wife Frank and Mildred Partridge (Sidney Blackmer, Virginia Gregg) agree that they will report Mildred missing, and seven years later will have her declared dead in order to collect the $25,000 insurance money. She goes into hiding and adopts a different identity. Insurance agent Mr. Kettle (Robert Emhardt) is highly suspicious that Frank has killed on his wife and proceeds to hound him for seven years trying to prove so, even digging up the Partridge backyard. Two days before the seven years are up, Mildred returns home and says she has found a new love and wants to call everything off, offering Frank $1500 that she saved. Furious, Frank hits her on the head and kills her, burying her in the backyard. As Frank heads off to court, Kettle congratulates him and offers to make amends…by helping him plant some flowers in the backyard. Hitchcock states in the epilogue that Mildred did finally receive a proper burial. Irene Tedrow plays Lucy, Mildred’s sister. 10/18/14
• 005. Into Thin Air – 10/30/1955
  • Diana Winthrop (Patricia Hitchcock) and her mother (Mary Forbes) are traveling from India to England and stop in Paris en route to visit the 1899 World’s Fair Exposition. The check into the Hotel Madeline, where Mrs. Winthrop takes ill and is visited by the hotel doctor (John Mylong). He sends Diana off to see his wife and retrieve medicine, for which the doctor’s wife (Ann Codee) takes two hours to get it together. When she returns, her mother is missing and no one in the hotel including the desk clerk (Maurice Marsac) will admit to ever having seen her. Diana begins to panic and report the incident to the British Embassy. One of the members, Basil Farnham (Geoffrey Toone) goes to great lengths to help her, including getting her back into the room, where she learns that it had been re-wallpapered to disguise it. Sir Everett (Alan Napier) from the Embassy finally gets the full story: Mrs. Winthrop’s presence was ordered to be kept secret in order not to cause panic during the World’s Fair; she died of the Bubonic Plague. NOTE: Hitchcock notes that this story was used before in his film The Lady Vanishes…and he also praises the work of the leading lady, his daughter. 11/17/14
• 006. Salvage – 11/5/1955
  • Gangster Dan Verrell (Gene Barry) is about to be released from prison, and a nightclub singer named Lois Williams (Nancy Gates) is terrified that he is going to kill her since she had pulled a job with and then fingered his younger brother Richie that ultimately cost him his life. She pleads with her love interest Tim Grady (Peter Adams) to help her but he blows her off. When Dan comes to kill Lois, he ends up taking pity on her because she is so despondent. Instead he gives her some money to open a dress shop so that he can have a legitimate business while he is on probation. Many of Richie’s friends are hateful to Dan because they thought for sure he’d kill her. Dan just wants to make Lois happy, and even convinces Tim to propose to her. Her new life makes her the happiest woman alive, which gives Dan exactly what he was looking for: the right time to kill her. Ralph Montgomery is the drunk. Elisha Cook Jr. is Shorty. 11/18/14
• 007. Breakdown – 11/13/1955
  • William Callew (Joseph Cotten) is a New York businessman vacationing in Florida who callously fires a long-term employee named Hubka (Forrest Stanley). He remarks to his friend Ed Johnson (Raymond Bailey) that he is tired of sniveling people who cannot hide their emotions. On his drive back to New York, a bulldozer cause him to swerve into a group of prisoners and crash his car, with the steering wheel pinning his chest down. He is completely paralyzed but alive, and although he can see, he is unable to close his eyes. Looters come and strip the car, and two of the escaped prisoners return and take his clothes, but none can tell that he is alive. He realizes he can tap his finger, but by the time the authorities show up, it is too noisy and busy for anyone to notice. He is taken and wheeled to the morgue, where the coroner (Harry Landers) is about to pronounce him dead. He attempts to move his finger again, but his body is lying on it. At the last second, the coroner sees a teardrop falling from his eye, and realizes he is alive. His emotions saved his life. Harry Shannon is Dr. Harper. Murray Alper is Lloyd. Jimmy Weldon is a guard. Aaron Spelling appears as a road worker. NOTE: This episode was directed by Alfred Hitchcock. 12/30/14
• 008. Our Cook’s Treasure – 11/20/1955
  • With a murderess cook known as “Mrs. Anderson” at large who has been poisoning her female clients, real estate agent Ralph Montgomery (Everett Sloane) comes to suspect that his new cook Mrs. Sutton (Beulah Bondi) has been lacing his hot chocolate with arsenic when he suffers indigestion and finds some of the poison in their garage. He takes the hot cocoa to a chemist (Olan Soule) to have it tested. When it comes back with traces of arsenic – not enough to kill at once, but cumulatively enough to kill if consumed over a week’s time – he immediately fires Mrs. Sutton for fear that she is targeting his wife Ethel (Janet Ward). As Mrs. Sutton is leaving, Ralph sees in the paper where the murdering cook has been apprehended. Mrs. Sutton refuses to stay where she is not wanting, adding that she doesn’t appreciate Ethel making her lie about her time with another man. Ethel insists that Ralph calm his nerves as she brings him another cocoa. Elliot Reed is Ralph’s friend Earl Kramer. Gavin Gordon is George Brooks. Doris Singleton is Ralph’s secretary. Walter Woolf King is Dr. Pritchard. 12/30/14
• 009. The Long Shot – 11/27/1955
  • A compulsive gambler named Charlie Raymond (Peter Lawford), in debt to his bookie and needing to flee New York City, poses as a London native as requested in an advertisement offering cash to a fellow London native by a man named Walker Hendricks (John Williams), who wants company while driving to San Francisco. Hendricks insists on talking about London during the entire trip and Raymond adopts an accent and makes up info as he goes. Midway during the trip, Raymond decides to rob Hendricks and heads off to Florida with his friend Tommy DeWitt (Charles Cantor) for a sure bet. Instead, he finds out that Hendricks is on the way to pick up an inheritance from an uncle he never met. He ends up killing Hendricks in the Nevada desert and stealing his identity. When he arrives in San Francisco, he is arrested by Sgt. Mack (Frank Gerstle) for murdering Hendricks and confesses. However, the confession the police were looking for was actually from a guy named “English Jim,” whom they had fingered for murdering the real Hendricks… but now they realize that “English Jim” only made it as far as Nevada. Gertrude Hoffman stars as Hendrick’s Aunt Margaret Stoddard. Robert Warwick is Attorney Matthew Kelson. 2/16/15
• 010. The Case of Mr. Pelham – 12/4/1955
  • A man named Albert Pelham (Tom Ewell) meets up with his friend psychiatrist Dr. Harley (Raymond Bailey) and recounts the events that have led him to a point of desperation. In recent days, friends of his have been telling Pelham that they’ve seen him in places he hasn’t been. Even his butler Peterson (Justice Watson) has though he’s been home when he wasn’t. Work at his office is getting done, using signatures that look exactly like his even when he is not there. He asks the doctor if his mind could be doing one thing while thinking he was in a whole different place. The doctor thinks it sounds like an actual person rather than his mind, and suggests that Pelham change his routine a bit. Pelham buys a flashy tie to wear in place of his standard conservative one. He calls home later and finds himself speaking to the ‘other’ Mr. Pelham and we he hurries home, they finally meet face to face. Peterson can’t tell them apart, but realizes that one of them has a flashy tie, something the real Mr. Pelham would never wear. Later the ‘new’ Mr. Pelham is seen playing pool, describing the man that tried to take over his life and is not in an institution. Diane Brewster is Pelham’s secretary. Kay Stewart is Miss Clement. Jay Arvan is Harry. Tim Graham is the lawyer. Richard Collier is the bartender. NOTE: This episode was directed by Alfred Hitchcock. 2/16/15
• 011. Guilty Witness – 12/11/1955
  • Grocery store owners Stanley (Joe Mantell) and Dorothy Crane (Kathleen Maguire) overhear their upstairs neighbors Ben (Ed Kemmer) and Amelia Verber (Judith Evelyn) have a noisy fight that suddenly ends in silence. When Ben disappears for the next few days, Dorothy becomes obsessed with thinking that Amelia killed her husband. Sgt. Halloran (Robert Simon) shows up to investigate, but cannot seem to figure out how Ameila could have possibly dumped the body since she never leaves the apartment. Halloran investigates under the guise of being a building inspector, and Stanley assists him. The Cranes later hear a report that Stanley has gone to visit his mother, but when Dorothy checks, she finds that his mother hasn’t seen him either. Based on an idea from Stanley, she and Halloran search the basement of the building and end up finding Ben’s body in her baby carriage. Amelia shows up in the basement and confesses to the murder, stating that she killed Ben because he was about to leave her for another woman. She also reveals the the other woman was in fact Dorothy. Grazia Narciso is Mrs. Santini. Leola Wendorff is Mrs. Glavetsky. 3/28/15
• 012. Santa Claus and the Tenth Avenue Kid – 12/18/1955
  • Petty thief Harold “Stretch” Sears (Barry Fitzgerald) works with his parole officer Mr. Chambers (Arthur Space) and job placement worker Clementine Webster (Virginia Gregg) to get him a job for the holidays. Virtually unemployable because of his record, Sears ends up working for Samson & Cole department store as a Santa Claus. Initially unenthusiastic about the job, he plans to quit after he gets his first paycheck, but when Miss Webster takes his paycheck and starts an account for him so that he isn’t faced with the temptation of blowing all of his money, he is forced to keep the job. One boy (Gary Hunley) is particularly difficult and doesn’t believe in him. This boy is also a shoplifter, and is irritated that he cannot reach the $50 toy airplane that he wants. Sears convinces the boy that he will never be able to follow his dreams of being a pilot if he gets a prison record, so promises to deliver the plane if he puts back the merchandise he has stolen and promise never to do it again. Sears gets arrested for stealing the plane after he delivers it to the boy, but Miss Webster comes to the rescue and tells Chambers that he had no choice but to play his role as Santa, and since she had taken his money, he had to buy the toy on credit. Webster cuts Sears some slack and Sears is invited to Miss Webster’s house to share her Christmas Eve meal. 3/28/15
• 013. The Cheney Vase – 12/25/1955
  • A man named Kyle Endicott (Darren McGavin) is fired by his boss Herbert Koether (George Macready) from the Manhattan Museum of Art. Endicott finds out that one the museum’s benefactor’s Martha Cheney (Patricia Collinge) is in possession of  a valuable vase that her late archaeologist husband had discovered. Endicott confides in his girlfriend Pamela Waring (Carolyn Jones), who still works for Koether, his plans to steal the vase. Endicott gets a job as caretaker for Mrs. Cheney, and soon has convinced her that she is losing her mind and keeps her from leaving her house. He even arranges for her trusted housekeeper Bella (Kathryn Card) to be let go. Mrs. Cheney finally realizes what Endicott’s plans are and asks him to leave her employ, but he refuses. Endicott eventually finds the vase in the room where Mrs. Cheney works on her own pottery projects and gets Pamela to agree to help him fence it in Europe. She starts to feel guilty and tells Koether to head to her house immediately. Endicott still has time to steal the vase, but when he shows up, he finds that Mrs. Cheney has made nearly a dozen duplicate vases and he has no idea which one is authentic. Ruta Lee is the new maid Ruby. 6/24/15
• 014. A Bullet for Baldwin – 1/1/1956
  • In 1909 San Francisco, meek bank investor clerk Mr. Stepp (John Qualen) is fired by his heartless boss Nathaniel Baldwin (Sebastian Cabot), briefly considers suicide, but shoots and kills Baldwin instead. As he leaves, he tells the janitor (James Adamson) that Baldwin doesn’t wish to be disturbed. He goes home and awaits his arrest, but to his surprise Baldwin’s secretary (Cheryll Clarke) phones him Monday morning to see why he is late and tells him Baldwin wants to see him. When he arrives, he finds Baldwin alive and well with no recollection of what has happened. He confides in Baldwin’s business partner Walter King (Phillip Reed) what he has done, and King convinces him that Stepp has hallucinated the murder. It turns out that King, who is having an affair with Mrs. Baldwin, has hired Baldwin’s look-alike Mr. Davidson (Sebastian Cabot) so that he can maintain the illusion that Baldwin is still alive so that a deal can be closed, with plans to let Baldwin ‘die’ in a fire at a later date. After King closes the deal, he considers Stepp a loose end and fires him again. Stepp then shoots and kills King exactly as he had done with Baldwin earlier. As the janitor enters this time, Stepp tells him to go on in because no one is there. Robert Patten stars as a detective. Bill Erwin appears as a fireman. 6/24/15
• 015. The Big Switch – 1/8/1956
  • When gangster Sam Dunleavy returns from Miami to his old town Chicago, his old nemesis Al (Joe Downing), a police lieutenant, suspects he is going to murder his ex-girlfriend Goldie (Beverly Michaels) who ran off with another man. Al is exactly correct, and Sam visits an old friend named Barney (George E. Stone) who specializes in arranging alibis. Even with Al sitting in the bar while Sam and Barney supposedly argue their way through a game of cards, Sam manages to escape through a hidden door and goes to kill Goldie. However she convinces him to spare her by lying and saying that she is now married with a baby named after him to a man named Morgan (Mark Dana). Sam returns to Barney, who has accidentally shot and killed himself while cleaning his gun. Since it appeared that Sam and Barney were arguing all through the card game, Sam is arrested for the murder. James Edwards is Ed the bartender. Napoleon Whiting is Tony.  8/22/15
• 016. You Got to Have Luck – 1/15/1956
  • Escaped convict Sam Cobbett (John Cassavetes) who is currently serving life for robbery and murder makes his way to the home of David (Lamont Johnson) and Mary Schaffner (Marisa Pavan). David has left for work so Mary is alone to contend with Cobbett, as he brags about how luck helped him escape in a laundry basket. As Warden Jacob (Ray Teal) puts out an APB on Cobbett before he can get out of his prison clothes and into a civilian clothes, Mary is subjected to Cobbett ordering her around at knife-point, telling her exactly what to say when her mother calls, getting rid of her visiting neighbor Maude Martin (Vivi Janiss) and her daughter Suzie (Wendy Winkelman), stealing her husband’s suit of clothes, make advances at her, and then attempting to kidnap her. Cobbett is stopped however by the police when they start to leave. When Cobbett asks how they knew where to find him, the warden informs him that he gave away his location when he forced Mary to speak to her mother on the phone. Mary’s mother knew what was going on because Mary is deaf, and is only able to read lips. Hal K. Dawson plays the warden’s secretary. Robert Patten and Steven Clark are the helicopter pilots.  1/19/16
• 017. The Older Sister – 1/22/1956
  • One year after the legendary Lizzie Borden murders, interviewer Nell Cutts (Polly Rowles) visits Lizzie (Carmen Mathews) and Lizzie’s older sister Emma (Joan Lorring), who is getting ready to vacation in Fairhaven, at their home in Fall River, Massachusetts, prodding Emma to let her speak to Lizzie for a follow-up interview. Cutts seems fixated on locating the ax that was used in the murders. Emma will not let her see Lizzie, who refuses to give interviews, but eventually Lizzie comes down from her room and throws Cutts out of the house. Once she is alone Lizzie pulls the ax from a trap door behind the fireplace. Through her conversation with Emma, it is revealed that Emma had sneaked back into town from Fairhaven and committed the murders out of hatred for her step-mother. During their conversation Emma’s eyes become glazed and she starts hallucinating, nearly using the ax to murder Lizzie as well until she is interrupted by a return visit from Cutts. When Cutts sees the ax out, she deduces first that Lizzie had killed her parents, then realizes that it must have been Emma with Lizzie covering for her. Lizzie confesses to the murders since she cannot be tried again, but also tells Cutts that she will sue for libel if she tries to print it. Lizzie chases her out of the house, and is left alone in a sullen state. Patricia Hitchcock is housekeeper Margaret. Wendy Winkelman is the child singing the Lizzie Borden jingle and Kay Stewart is her mother. 1/20/16
• 018. Shopping for Death – 1/29/1956
  • Retired insurance salesmen Clarence Fox (Robert H. Harris) and Elmer Shore (John Qualen) make a practice of visiting sites of various accidents including deadly car crashes, falls, and fire, making notes of the data and statistics that lead to the accidents. Clarence has been watching a shrewish woman named Mrs. Shrike (Jo Van Fleet) who seems angry at the world. Clarence and Elmer follow her to a butcher (Michael Ansara) and watch as she yells and belittles him and everyone else in whom she comes in contact. Clarence predicts that her personality combined with the 89-degree heat, that she will soon meet her demise. The men visit her apartment and try to warn her that her life is headed for disaster, but after much attempted convincing, Shrike loses her temper and throws them out. During her rampage, Clarence almost attacks her with his cane. Agreeing that there is nothing more that they can do, the men stand by and watch her husband Albert (Michael Ross) come home drunk with a longshoreman’s hook attached to his belt. Sure enough the police arrive on the scene soon, as Clarence makes a note that the temperature has reached 92 degrees. NOTE: This episode is based on a short story by Ray Bradbury. 3/31/16
• 019. The Derelicts – 2/5/1956
  • Ralph Cowell (Phillip Reed) is a dispenser inventor who borrowed $10,000 from an eccentric millionaire named Alfred J. Sloane (Cyril Delevanti) to start up his business. Now successful, but nearly broke by his demanding wife Herta (Peggy Knudsen), Ralph is asked by Cyril to pay back the loan. Unable to do so, Ralph kills Sloane, but it is witnessed by vagrant Peter J. Goodfellow (Robert Newton) who retrieves Sloane’s cigarette case that contains Ralph’s IOU. Goodfellow and his associate Fenton Shanks (Johnny Silver) begin blackmailing Ralph, forcing him to let them move in, and then pawning many of his belongings. Ralph finally admits the true reason they are there to Herta, who helps Ralph locate the blackmail note. Once Ralph finds that, he throws Goodfellow and Shanks out. Cowell’s business then prospers and he and Herta finally appear to be happy… until Detective Sgt. Monroney (Robert Foulk) pays Cowell a visit questioning Ralph for the items that he supposedly pawned. Ralph claims to have pawned all of the items himself, but one of the items happened to be Sloane’s cigarette case. Ralph is taken in for questioning, while Herta seems unfazed. 4/1/16
• 020. And So Died Riabouchinska – 2/12/1956
  • Vaudeville dancer Macey (Iris Adrian) and show manager Dan Sill (Harry Tyler) find the body of Luke Ockham in the basement of the show. Sill also tells Detective Krovitch (Charles Bronson) that Ockham had come inquiring a couple of times for ventriloquist John Fabian (Claude Rains). Krovitch senses friction between Fabian and his wife Alice (Claire Carleton), who admits she has become jealous and resentful of Fabian’s ventriloquist doll Riabouchinska. Krovitch discovers information about Ilyana Riaminolva, Fabian’s former assistant who later disappeared and looks identical to Riabouchinska; Fabian fell in love with Ilyana, but she disappeared, and in his despair he fashioned Riabouchinska in her likeness. After interviewing another booking agent named Zander (Charles Cantor), Krovitch finds out that Ockham had been a juggler who had played on a bill with Fabian and his ventriloquist dummy Sweet William. The dummy eventually takes over the conversation and tells the full story that Ockham had been blackmailing Fabian, and threatening to expose the fact that Fabian is now in love with Riabouchinska, and didn’t want to be laughed at and exposed. Riabouchinska then stops talking and Fabian is arrested. Lowell Gilmore is Fabian’s manager Mel Douglas. Virginia Gregg is the voice of Riabouchinska. NOTE: This episode is based on a story by Ray Bradbury. 7/1/16
• 021. Safe Conduct – 2/10/1956
  • American journalist Mary Prescott (Claire Trevor) travels from East Germany to Munich after interviewing and finding favor with the East German president and receives a safe conduct sticker on her luggage so that she will not be searched. On the train she meets local soccer star Jan Gubak (Jacques Bergerac), who confides that he is trying to smuggle a valuable diamond watch across the boulder to sell to help pay for his sister’s medical bills. Mary offers to wear the watch for him, but when the customs officer (Konstantin Shayne) check Mary’s room, Jan tips them off that she has the watch. She is taken to before a customs officer (Peter van Eyck), who has her locked up as they investigate. As they examine the watch further, they find that it is actually fake. Captain Greisham (Werner Klemperer), who was posing as a passenger on the train, believes that Mary had been trying to set them up for a story, so they release her back onto the train. Jan then confesses that he had set her up to divert attention from him, as he has been carrying a microfilm of the writings of an imprisoned bishop, who had been tortured and killed in East Germany. Jan gives Mary the microfilm so that she can tell the story to the world… as well as giving her a passionate kiss. John Banner is the train conduction. Ralph Manza is the waiter. Charlie Hall appears in Hitchcock’s opening monologue. 7/1/16
• 022. Place of Shadows – 2/26/1956
  • A man named Roy Clements (Mark Damon) shows up on a wintry night at a monastery, posing as Floyd Unser, a friend of a man named Dave Rocco whom the monks are giving sanctuary to. Clements is led to Father Vincente (Everett Sloan) and explains that he is seeking revenge on Rocco, who stole money from him and indirectly caused Clements’ father’s death. Father Vincente refuses to let him see Rocco, explaining that revenge will not make him feel any better, but gives him the $13,000 that Rocco had stolen from him. Another monk Brother Gerard (Sean McClory) warns him also that killing a man is something that will stay with him forever. When Clements heads back to the train station, he encounters the real Floyd Unser (Joe Downing), who tries to rob him of the money and shoots him. Clements returns fire and kills Unser, then makes his way back to the monastery for refuge. Two police officers (Claude Akins, Steve Mitchell) come looking for Clements, but are satisfied that the shot was fired in self-defense. Clements, having looked into the face of the dying Unser, tells Father Vincente that he now forgives Rocco and doesn’t want to kill him any longer. Father Vincente informs him that Rocco had died before Clements even arrived. Harry Tyler is the station agent. Everett Glass is Brother Charles. 8/21/15
• 023. Back for Christmas – 3/4/1956
  • British couple Herbert (John Williams) and Hermione Carpenter (Isobel Elsom) prepare for an extended vacation in Los Angeles, where Herbert will be doing some work. Herbert is digging a hole in the basement that he says is the preliminary work on a wine cellar, but it becomes apparent that he is measuring to the size of his nagging wife. They invite their friends the Sinclairs (Arthur Gould-Porter, Lillian Kemble-Cooper), the Wallingfords (Gavin Muir, Katherine Warren), and the Hewitts (Gerald Hamer, Irene Tedrow) over to say goodbye before their trip. As they put the finishing touches on packing and covering the furniture, Herbert calls Hermione down to the basement and bludgeons her to death. He goes on to Los Angeles alone and begins sending mail from her to her friends, while dropping hints that he may be staying permanently to his colleague Mr. Butler (Ross Ford). However his plan comes crashing to a screeching halt when he receives a bill in the mail from a construction company that his wife had contracted to excavate the basement for a wine cellar that she planned to surprise him with when they return for Christmas that year. NOTE: This episode was directed by Alfred Hitchcock. 11/21/15
• 024. The Perfect Murder – 3/11/1956
  • Two French brothers Paul (Hurd Hatfield) and Henri Tellendier (Philip Coolidge) attend the reading of the will of their late uncle and find that the bulk of his fortune would go to his wife Rosalie (Mildred Natwick), but that they would split it upon her death. Paul is a jobless playboy, who is able to get into the good graces of his crotchety and stingy aunt enough that she allows him to live with her. Henri has a wife and four children to support and in desperate need of money, although he has compassion for his aunt and wishes her no ill will. But after she refuses him a loan and his debts get so insurmountable, he meets with his brother and they hatch a plan to kill her by grinding up glass and putting it in her egg dinner. Henri nervously awaits the call that the job is complete, but when he gets the call he finds out that Aunt Rosalie had insisted that it was ‘fish night’ and had had her maid Ernestine (Gladys Hurlbut) scrap the eggs and make fish. Paul had returned home and eaten the eggs and died, leaving Henri the sole heir to her fortune. Hope Summers is Henri’s wife Marie. Percy Helton is the lawyer.  Walter Kingsford is Pierre. 11/21/15
• 025. There Was an Old Woman – 3/18/1956
  • Theodore the milkman (Dabbs Greer) visits an elderly lady named Monica Laughton (Estelle Winwood) and she tells him about a funeral that she is currently hosting. Later Theodore discusses Monica’s situation with Arthur (Emerson Treacy), a manager at the local deli, mentioning that someone needs to take care of her and that she must be sitting on a million dollars cash in the house that was rumored to be left to her by her deceased finacee who died on the way to her wedding. Frank (Charles Bronson) and Lorna Bramwell (Norma Crane) are a couple hitchhiking and trying to get money out of Lorna’s brother, and overhear the conversation. They pay Monica a visit under the guise of being from the Historical Society, but she assumes that they are relatives of the deceased Oscar. The Brawells quickly realize that Monica is crazy and is hosting all imaginary guests and a non-existent corpse. She invites the Brawells to stay and they being ransacking the room looking for her money. She catches them in the act, and Frank demands the money, which she claims doesn’t exist. The Bramwells being to lose their patience and threaten to kill her as she serves imaginary food to the hungry couple and won’t give up the money. Eventually Monica makes some muffins and they gulp them down, content that she is about to crack and turn over her money. When Theodore visits the next day to deliver the milk, she claims to be hosting a double funeral… and pays him out of her purse which contains overflowing one-thousand dollar bills. Hitchcock explains in the epilogue that she has used rat poison. 9/23/16
• 026. Whodunit – 3/25/1956
  • Mystery writer Alexander Penn Arlington (John Williams) arrives in heaven and finds out from the recording angel Wilfred (Alan Napier) that he was murdered in his sleep, stabbed in the back. Arlington doesn’t want to go through the murder again, but says he can solve the mystery if he doesn’t return until five minutes before the murder. Upon return, initially he pegs his assistant Talbot (Philip Coolidge) after Talbot offers to write the rest of Arlington’s books for him when his publishers give Arlington’s latest offerings a thumbs-down, which he knows would probably actually happen if he died. Then his nephew Vincent (Bill Slack) demands money to pay of creditors and indicates that he knows he’ll get money in the will. Following that, he sees his wife Carol (Amanda Blake) kissing another man named Wally Benson (Jerry Paris). All four individuals become his primary suspects. Arlington waits for one of them to return to perform the deed, but they all four end up at the house at the same time. Arlington puts forth a plea that the guilty party simply admit it giving them all of the reasons that they would benefit from his death, but none will bite. Wilfrid calls and allows Arlington to extend his time until the murder actually takes place. Knowing that no one can commit the murder in the presence of the others, so Benson puts out the lights and the murder takes place in the dark. Wilfrid helps him solve the crime by reminding him that the killer had to trust that Benson wouldn’t turn on the lights, so he deduces that it was Carol. Wilfrid tells Arlington that despite his imperfections, all writers go to heaven. In the closing commentary, Hitchcock states that Carol and Benson got married immediately and are living happily ever after… separately, in the penitentiary. Ruta Lee is the angel. Rudy Robles is Horace the butler. 9/23/16 
• 027. Help Wanted – 4/1/1956
  • The out-of-work Mr. Crabtree (John Qualen), who has been forced to retire from his former firm, answers a want ad in order to raise money to help his wife Laura’s (Madge Kennedy) failing health. He receives a call from Mr. X (Lorne Greene) in response to his job inquiry and forces Crabtree to admit that he had attacked his former personnel manager after being discharged. Regardless Mr. X sends his secretary Miss Brown (Ruth Swanson) to interview and hire Crabtree to work alone in an office and scan through financial journals and cross reference them to a list of corporations. He is thankful and goes on with his job as instructed, but one day Mr. X shows up at the office and tells him that the reports that Crabtree has prepared have all been burned, but that they were a test to see if Crabtree would perform another assignment: to kill a his wife’s first husband, whom he and his wife thought was dead and could potentially prove that his wife is guilty of bigamy. X convinces him that there is no way that Crabtree can go to the police as he has no evidence linking them. X guarantees that the murder would be foolproof and lays out the plan, whereby the blackmailer will visit Crabtree to pick up a blackmail payment and Crabtree will hand him an envelope that actually contains a suicide note…then Crabtree will push him out the window. Crabtree performs the deed although it is actually more of an accident, which triggers X to mail him a year’s salary in full. Detective Grant (Parley Baer) and his partner (Paul Brinegar) visit Crabtree but deduce that the man had jumped from the building’s roof, committing suicide. Moments later the blackmailer (Malcolm Atterbury) visits looking for the money. Crabtee realizes he has pushed an innocent donations collector (John Harmon) out the window, but flees the office, knowing there truly is no way of linking him back to X. 12/19/16
• 028. Portrait of Jocelyn – 4/8/1956
  • Mark Halliday (Philip Abbott) visits an art dealer (Alan Soule) to buy a painting for his wife Debbie (Nancy Gates) for their anniversary, and is shocked when the dealer brings out a different painting which happens to be of his ex-wife Jocelyn who disappeared five years earlier. Mark visits Jocelyn’s brother Jeff (Raymond Bailey) to show him the painting, and he tells Mark that he had in fact received a letter from Jocelyn two years earlier from Switzerland. Jeff finds out that the painter Arthur Clymer (John Baragrey) lives in Shell Harbor where Mark used to reside with Jocelyn. When they arrive in town, the only room available in town is the Willman cottage where they once lived. When he and his wife arrive there, they find fresh flowers that had been Jocelyn’s favorite, Jocelyn’s rain coat, and a sculpture of her. Clymer visits them as well and says that Jocelyn is his wife and invites the Hallidays to visit. Mark visits alone and finds a drunk, distraught Clymer who calls for Jocelyn to come downstairs and visit, but she doesn’t. Clymer provokes Mark by speaking in riddles when Mark asks where Jocelyn, until Mark finally breaks down and confesses that he murdered her. Clymer reveals that he is actually Detective Inspector Iverson, and Jeff appears as well, having been in on the set-up to get him to confess. He had buried her on a cliff that collapsed in an avalanche and her body was discovered. Harry Tyler is the hotel manager. 12/19/16
• 029. The Orderly World of Mr. Appleby – 4/15/1956
  • Antiques dealer Laurence Appleby (Robert H. Harris) is obsessed with curios, and has a hard time parting with them to customers. In fact he owes a great deal of money to a Middle Easter trader named Mr. Desar (Michael Ansara). His irritated wife Lena (Louise Larabee) won’t give him the money he needs, so he arranges her murder by pulling the rug out from under her causing her to fall and hit her head. In order to get money for another shipment of curious, Appleby courts and eventually marries a wealthy customer named Martha Sturgis (Meg Mundy), but thanks to her lawyer Sidney Gainsborough (Gage Clark), he has no access to her money. When he attempts to murder her in the same fashion, she catches on, but has no intention of divorcing but simply warning him that if anything happens to her, Gainsborough will follow up with murder charges. As Appleby resigns himself to accepting her terms, she slips on the rug without Appleby’s doing, and dying from a head injury. Helen Spring is Mrs. Grant. Edna Holland is Mrs. Murchie. Molly Glessing is Elly. 4/1/17
• 030. Never Again – 4/22/1956
  • Karen Stewart (Phyllis Thaxter) wakes up in the hospital with a terrible hangover, and tries to recall the prior events that led her there. She recalls her efforts to quit drinking in order to keep company with her beau Jeff Simmons (Warren Stevens). As he is a businessman who attends many parties with alcohol flowing, she finds it difficult, especially with Jeff’s seeming philandering and Karen’s increasing jealousy. At one point, Karen throws a drink in the face of one of Jeff’s female acquaintances named Renee (Louise Allbritton). She later apologizes for her actions and she and Jeff return to the party. But when she spots Jeff talking to another woman, she leaves with a drunk man named Marlow (Jack Mullaney). She gets increasingly drunk, until Jeff and Renee catch up with her and try to get her to stop. This is her last memory… but find out from the nurse (Carol Veazie) that she is actually in the city jail hospital after having killed Jeff with her broken glass. Joan Banks is Margaret. Mason Curry is Mr. Sterling. Karine Nordman, Marion Gray, and Jack Mulhall are party-goers. 4/1/17
• 031. The Gentleman from America – 4/29/1956
  • In May of 1940 in London, an American visitor named Howard Latimer (Biff McGuire) visits a men’s club and continues to win on the horse races, while a down-on-his luck man named Sir Stephen Hurstwood (Ralph Clanton) continues to lose. Sir Stephen and his friend Derek (John Irving) coax him into betting 1000 pounds that he can stay an entire night in an abandoned property called Hurstwood Manor, which they claim to be haunted. Stephen supplies Howard with a gun and leaves him for the night. Howard reads the history of the manor ghost, about two sisters named Geraldine (Sonia Torgeson) and Julia (Jan Chaney) who lived in the house. Julia was beheaded one night but continued to walk; Geraldine went completely mad. The murder was attributed to a lunatic who had escaped from the nearby Sunnyview Sanitarium. In the middle of the night, Howard is in fact visited by a headless ghost. Howard is convinced that it is either Sir Stephen or Derek, and when it won’t stop coming toward him, he shoots at it… but the bullets have no effect. Howard passes out cold. Five years later, Howard returns to the manor, and Sir Stephen admits that he had crated the illusion, and supplied Howard with a gun full of blanks. Howard attacks Sir Stephen, but is stopped by two orderlies and a doctor (John Alderson) who have tracked him from the Sunnyview Sanitarium. He explains that Howard frequently escapes looking for revenge on the man who he believes killed his ‘sister’ Julia. 10/23/17
• 032. The Baby Sitter – 5/6/1956
  • Following the murder of a woman named Clara Nash (Carole Mathews), her babysitter Lottie Slocum (Thelma Ritter) is interviewed again by the detective-in-charge (Ray Teal). Lottie’s daughter Janie (Rebecca Wells) is annoyed by the attention that her mother is getting, but she keeps getting recognition. Lottie’s friend Blanche Armstaedter (Mary Wickes) comes over to get the scoop Lottie, who proceeds to tell her many stories about how Clara ran around with another man named Mr. DeMario (Michael Ansara), how she mistreated the kindly Mr. Nash (Theodore Newton). She even goes so far as to say she thought that Mr. Nash might be in love with Lottie herself. Clara begins to suspect that Lottie might be guilty of the crime. DeSario pays Lottie a visit and threatens her that she better not let her imagination get the best of her, as it could be very costly. Lottie’s popularity continues to soar, and she tries to get herself in shape, presumably for Mr. Nash. When another visit from the detective upsets her, she writes Mr. Nash a note and explains that she saw him hide in his bedroom the night of the murder, but doesn’t know how to handle the questions from the police. Nash comes to visit her, and burns the letter… then kills her to tie up the loose ends. In the prologue, Hitchcock tells that Nash was hit by a train while fleeing the police. 10/23/17
• 033. The Belfry – 5/13/1956
  • The disturbed Clint Ringle (Jack Mullaney) tells school teacher Ellie Marsh (Patricia Hitchcock) that he has nearly finished building his house and intends to marry her and move her in. Ellie informs him that not only is she not interested in him, but that she is already engaged to Walt Norton (John Compton). When the argument gets heated, Walt steps in, and Clint kills him with his hatchet. The sheriff (Dabbs Greer) and townsmen form a posse to track him down, but Clint alludes them and hides in the belfry of the school, which also doubles as a church. Growing even angrier at Ellie, he decides to kill her too before fleeing town, and leaves a stern warning on the school chalkboard in the middle of the night. Everyone in town grows nervous and cautious as Clint watches the action from his hiding spot, which is nearly blown by a boy named Luke (Rudy Lee) who has lost his baseball in the belfry. Clint plans to make his move on Ellie on the day of the Walt’s funeral, but falls asleep only to be awaken by the preacher (Jim Hayward) ring the bell following the funeral. The causes Clint to scream out in fear… giving away his location to the preacher, who begins to ring the bell to summon everyone to the church. Kathleen Hartnagel is a schoolgirl. Norma Leavitt is Elmer. David Saber is Albert Grinstead. Ralph Moody and Ross Evans are citizens of the town. 5/23/18
• 034. The Hidden Thing – 5/20/1956
  • Dana Edwards (Biff McGuire) and his girlfriend Laura (Rachel Ames) are out one night parking and head over to a diner, when Laura is suddenly struck by a car and killed when she returns to the car to grab her compact. The driver leaves, and when questioned by Lt. Shea (Theodore Newton), Dana can’t remember any details about the car or license plate. Dana retreats to his mother’s (Katherine Warren) place where he stays in bed and is inconsolable, despite her efforts to help him recover from the loss. One night a man named John Hurley (Robert H. Harris) who claims he lost his own son in a hit-and-run accident shows up at the house offering to help Dana find the driver of the car by getting him to remember the license plate through a practice known as ‘total recall’. As the days go on, Dana starts to become suspicious of Hurley’s motives, but continues… up to the point that they start to talk about the day of the accident. Not wanting to re-live the accident, he refuses, but Hurley convinces him it is the only way to recall the license plate and find the killer. Confident that Dana will recall the plate number, he calls in Lt. Shea as Dana works his way through re-living the accident. Finally Dana recalls the license number and admits he had blocked it out because of his own guilt. Lt. Shea then tells Dana that Hurley never had a son nor wife, and is in fact just a nut. Richard Collier is the counterman. 5/24/18
• 035. The Legacy – 5/27/1956
  • Famed author Randall Burnside (Ralph Clanton) has been following playboy Prince Durhan (Jacques Bergerac) around on his travels, utilizing him as the subject of his most recent novel. They converge in Palm Beach where they meet up with socialite couple Col. Blair (Walter Kingsford) and Cecilia (Enid Markey), as well as Howard (Alan Hewitt) and Irene Cole (Leora Dana). Howard and Irene have somewhat of an open marriage, as Howard is cavorting with actress Donna Dew (Roxanne Arlen), when the Prince shows up at their resort. He seems to take an immediate liking to Irene, despite the fact that she is apparently just a plain housewife. Everyone assumes that Irene stays with Howard, but it is actually she who has the money. Irene claims she and Howard have an understanding about his affairs, and he seems to hold no ill will with her new association with Prince. She however refuses to leave her husband to marry the Prince, and he responds by claiming he will kill himself without her. Sure enough he does in fact die in a mysterious car crash that night. Three months later Burnside returns to the Palm Beach resort after having finished his book on the Prince. He visits with the resort manager Henri (Rudolph Anders) and finds out that the Prince was actually poor and only after Irene’s money, and also that he didn’t really commit suicide, but rather crashed because of the brakes being out in the car. Burnside goes to visit Howard and Irene in New York to tell her that the Prince’s death wasn’t her fault. He finds that Irene is now a woman living the high life with her husband. Burnside decides that they are happy believing that the Prince killed himself for her, so he decides not to tell them the truth. 1/2/19
• 036. Mink – 6/3/1956
  • A woman named Paula Hudson (Ruth Hussey) walks into a furrier to ask that a mink stole be appraised by the furrier Leslie Roms (Anthony Eustrel) and his assistant (Paul E. Burns), but they recognize the mink as one that they had sold and had been reported stolen by their customer Mrs. Wilson (Mary Jackson). The call Mrs. Wilson and attempt to stall her, but Paul becomes fidgety and leaves the store. The assistant followers her and soon she is tracked down by Mrs. Wilson and Sgt. Bradford (Vivi Janiss). She takes Paula to the police station where she and Sgt. Delaney (Vinton Hayworth) question her. Although she initially said her husband bought it for her, she quickly changes her story and says that her beautician Lucille (Veda Ann Borg) had referred her to a friend named Dolores Dawn (Eugenia Paul) and she had bought it from her. When they all visit both Lucille and Dolores, both claim that Paula’s story is false. It is revealed however when Lucille calls Dolores, that they had been the ones lying and it was Dolores’s acquaintance Charlie Harper (James McCallion) who had stolen the mink. He visits Paula and poses as an insurance man willing to buy it from her to give back to Mrs. Wilson. When Paula refuses, he admits that it was he who stole the mink… and then he proceeds to steal it from Paula to return to Mrs. Wilson. Paul reports it to the police and they are able to catch Harper at Mrs. Wilson’s when he attempt to return it. Paula is prepared to be arrested for stealing stolen property, but Sgt. Delaney decides not to arresting, telling her that only she knows whether she knew she was buying stolen property or not. Sheila Bromley is Paula’s friend Lois. 1/2/19
• 037. Decoy – 6/10/1956
  • Piano accompanist Gil Larkin (Robert Horton) is in love with the singer he works for, Mona Cameron (Cara Williams), who claims her husband abuses her. Gil goes to see her husband Ben (David Orrick McDearmon), but when he arrives Ben is on the phone, yells out the name “Ritchie”, and then he is hit from behind. When he awakes Ben has been shot and their is music from the phone receiver. Gil realizes he will be a likely suspect, so he attempts to find the person with whom Ben was talking, so that they can testify that Gil yelled out the name Ritchie. He finds that Gil had two appointments to talk to different people at that time: either Mr. Sasikawa (Edo Mita) or his wife (Mary Jean Yamaji), a dancer from a Japanese troupe, and beatnik disc jockey Dave Packard (Jack Mullaney), but when he visits them before the body is discovered, both claim they didn’t speak to Gil after all. When he returns to Mona’s place, the police are already there. He is interviewed by Lieutenant Brandt (Philip Coolidge) and released and returned to Mona. While there, he plays the record on her turntable and finds that it is the same music that he had heard coming from the phone. When he accuses her of setting him up, she calls out Ritchie who emerges from the other room and holds him at gunpoint. Brandt and an officer enter just in time, having presented Gil with their suspicions and sent Gil over to smoke her out. Frank Gorshin is the page. Wallace Earl Laven is the secretary. Harry Tyler is the theatre doorman. 1/3/20
• 038. The Creeper – 6/17/1956
  • During a sweltering hot summer in New York, a murderer dubbed as ‘The Creeper’ has claimed the lives of two victims in the same neighborhood. Housewife Ellen Grant (Constance Ford) is petrified that she will be the next victim, especially since she seems to fit all of the criteria of the victims, namely that her husband Steve (Steve Brodie) works nights and she is blonde. She orders a bolt and chain to put on their door from a locksmith. Due to the heat and state of panic, she and Steve bicker before he leaves for the evening, but he comes to regret it and sends over his friend Ed (Harry Townes), a journalist and former lover of Ellen’s. Among the folks who Ellen suspects of being the killer and tries to avoid are a new jovial apartment janitor named George (Percy Helton), a busybody named Martha Stone (Reta Shaw), who claims that the killer could be a woman taking out loose women who deserve to be killed, and a shoemaker (Alfred Linder) who asks for her address to deliver her husband’s shoes. When Ed arrives, he begins to show signs and of jealousy and begins to act violently toward her, alluding to the fact that he was scorned. She manages to escape him when George comes to the door. Ed leaves in a huff, and Ellen sends George to pick up the shoes, but won’t let him in when he returns. The locksmith calls and tells her that he will be by to install the lock, making her feel better. George calls but doesn’t have time to tell her that the news just announced that the prime suspect in the killing is a locksmith, before she lets him in and returns to the phone and hears the warning… as the killer descends on her. 1/4/20
• 039. Momentum – 6/24/1956
  • Richard Paine (Skip Homeier) is jobless and down on his luck, with not enough money to pay his bills. His wife Beth (Joanne Woodward) pushes him to see his former boss A.T. Burroughs (Ken Christy), for whom he worked for half price while Burroughs was struggling with the promise that he would pay him the rest when his business caught back up. It never did, and Burroughs sold it off without every paying Paine. When he shows up to ask him for the money, he spies Burroughs pull out his stash of money and hand off some of it to someone out of sight. Paine decides to return at night and break in, taking just the amount of money he was owed. When he does, he is caught by Burroughs and during a struggle, Paine turns Burroughs’ gun back on him and kills him. He returns home and tells Beth that they need to leave for Mexico, with her leaving ahead of him and then meeting up at the train station. Paine is frantic about getting caught, and when Martin the janitor (Frank Kreig) brings a prospective apartment hunter (Harry Tyler) to see the place, he hides Beth in the other room. After she leaves, he is visited by another man he assumes to be a policeman, and holds him at gunpoint. The man overpowers him and Paine is shot in his side. The man turns out to be a finance company agent (Henry Hunter), and Paine turns the gun back on him and hides him in the closet. He catches a cab, and on the way hears the radio announcer (Paul Frees) announce that Paine is on the lam. Paine forces the cab driver (Mike Ragan) out and knocks him out before leaving him in a woods and stealing the cab. Upon arrival at the train stations, he finds Beth and collapses from his injuries. Money falls out of her purse, and she tells him that Burroughs had given it to her. He tells her he had no idea she was the one he was giving money to… and then dies, all for nothing. William Newell is Charlie the bartender. Jack Tesler is the newspaper man. Don Dillaway is the policeman. Patricia Knox and John Lehman are the couple at the bus stop.  4/16/20

SEASON 2

• 040. Wet Saturday – 9/30/56
  • The well-to-do family of Mr. Princey (Sir Cedric Hardwicke), his wife (Kathryn Givney) and two children Millicent (Tita Purdom) and the dim-witted George (Jered Barclay) sit around the living room one rainy afternoon discussing their current problem: their distraight daughter Millicent has struck and killed Withers, the man she loves, with a croquet mallet because he announced to her in the stables that he intends to marry Ella Brangwyn-Davies. The Princeys are mostly worried about their standing in the community if this should ever get out. While they are chatting amongst themselves, they are visited by family friend Captain Smollet (John Williams), who was the former love interest of Ella, and who overhears part of the conversation about the murder. Smollet seems oblivious, but Princey nevertheless holds him at rifle-point and purposely frames him for the murder by having him apply his fingerprints to the mallet, having George punch Smollet to simulate a fight between him and Withers, and wrapping some of Smollet’s hair around Withers’ coat buttons , and finally forcing Smollet to deposit the body in the sewer. He lets Withers go and warns him that if he ever tells the location of the body, all evidence will point toward him. After Smollet leaves, Princey calls calls the police, not content that the body will ever be discovered, so that Smollet will indeed take the fall for the murder. In a postscript, Alfred Hitchcock says that all of the Princeys did indeed pay for the crime, as Smollet denied any wrongdoing, and in fact that Millicent became so much more distraught that she demonstrated the murder by using the mallet on her father. Irene Lang is Jane the maid. NOTE: This episode was directed by Alfred Hitchcock. 4/16/20
• 041. Fog Closing In – 10/7/1956
  • Arthur Summers (Paul Langton) and his wife Mary (Phyllis Thaxter) have moved to a large house on the west coast, because Arthur had grown tired of having Mary’s parents living with them for five years. Now she is distraught living without them, and seemingly fearful of everything. With Arthur leaving for a week-long business trip, he buys a gun for Mary to help her feel safe. After he leaves, she anxiously waits by the phone so that she can call her father when the rates are cheaper, but ultimately give in and starts to call before the rate change, only to be interrupted by the sound of a vase breaking. When she goes to investigate, she finds a man named Ted Lambert (George Grizzard) hiding out. He has just escaped the state mental institution and is scared to return. He seems harmless so the two connect, and she begins to tell him about the constant fear that grips her and how she only felt safe when she was with her parents. She says she has a frightening recurring dream that she knows will come true: she is in her bedroom and hears someone coming up the stairs, and when the doorknob turns, she wakes up screaming. Interns from the hospital come looking for Lambert, but she diverts their attention so he can escape. That night as she’s going to bed, she hears someone come in the front door and come up the stairs, and when the doorknob turns, the man reveals himself to be her husband Arthur. She takes out her gun and shoots him. Her father (voice of Paul Frees) calls her and she tells him that she’s is finally free to come home. In the postscript, Hitchcock reveals that Mary is now spending time in an institution. Billy Nelson is the cab driver. Norman Willis is the intern. 7/29/20
• 042. De Mortuis – 10/14/1956
  • While Professor Rankin (Robert Emhardt) works on a project mixing and pouring cement in a hole in his basement, his friends Wally Long (Henry Jones) and Bud (Philip Coolidge) stop by to see him. Unaware that the Prof is in his basement, the two men sit upstairs and discuss his wife Irene (Cara Williams), and her various infidelities over the years, wondering why neither man warned him. Bud relates a time he saw Irene in a truck stop leave with a truck driver (Haim Winant aka H.M. Wynant), and Wally tells about a time Irene flirted with him while they were on a couples trip. After Wally and Bud realize that the Prof has been in the basement, they go down to see his project and also take a look at his experiment that he is doing with rats. The Prof says Irene has gone visiting out of town, but the more he talks, the more holes there are in his story. The friends begins to suspect that he has murdered and buried Irene in the basement. They finally confront him about it, and ask him which affair that he had found out about. Rankin admits that he knew Irene wasn’t a faithful wife, but denies having buried her in the basement. The friends merely talk over him, and ultimately decide that they will act as his alibi and swear they saw her leaving town with another man. After they leave, Irene comes home and says she missed her train. After Rankin verifies that she hadn’t seen anyone on her way walking back from the station, he invites her downstairs with a pick axe at the ready. In the postscript, Hitchcock relates that Irene was immortalized in concrete, and that Rankin later remarried but when the crime was discovered he paid the ‘ultimate price’. Bill McLean is Benny the cafe owner. 7/29/20
• 043. Killing with Kindness – 10/21/1956
  • Meek, mild-mannered, and somewhat childlike bird watcher and butterfly collector Fitzhugh Oldham (Hume Cronyn) lives with his sister Katherine (Carmen Mathews). One day they spot a lonely-looking older man named Mr. Jorgy (James Gleason) feeding the pigeons and invite him in for a meal. They have a plan for him, but it is unclear until Fitzhugh and Katherine begin to bicker, and Fitz tells Jorgy that Katherine once tried to kill him, but he got the idea to substitute another man’s body so they could both collect the insurance. Jorgy gets nervous and starts to leave, but is lured back by the idea of warm milk, into which Katherine slips a sedative. Fitz heads to the basement to spread flammable packing material around, anxious to light the match to burn the house down. The plan is to have Fitz leave, and then have the police identify Jorgy’s body as his. However a comedy of errors ensues when Fitz wants to take his bird and some of his butterflies with him. Katherine puts a stop to that, and then orders Fitz to put his ring on Jorgy’s finger. However as the house burns, they realize that Jorgy has a ring stuck on his finger that has his initials, which would cause further investigation. They have not choice but to carry Fitz outside. As the firemen (Mark Ragan) put out the fire, Jorgy blames himself for being a jinx, while Fitz gets the credit for keeping a cool head and saving everyone. Margie Liszt is the neighbor. 11/12/20
• 044. None Are So Blind – 10/21/1956
  • A ne’er-do-well antique store owner named Seymour Johnston (Hurd Hatfield) goes to see his Aunt Muriel Drummond (Mildred Dunnock) to ask for money to help support his shop. Seymour’s father had willed his money to Aunt Muriel, and since she finds so many faults in Seymour, criticizing him for everything from his vanity in always putting his best facial profile forward to irresponsibly squandering his money, she refuses to give him any more money. Seymour wants to kill her to get to the money, but it isn’t until he finds the wallet of a stranger named Antonio Bertani, that he gets the idea to create a ‘fake’ person to commit the murder. He tells his girlfriend Liza (K.T. Stevens) about his plans, but she only laughs in his face. He disguises himself and takes an apartment using Bertani’s identity. He later buys a car and a gun as Bertani, deliberately leaving a trail that will lead back to Bertani. One night he takes the car, making sure it gets stuck in the mud on his Aunt’s property, and then visits with her as himself. They bicker, and she tells him that she knew that it had been him who sent a blackmail letter from Bertani, but that she had tossed it out. He finds the letter and returns it to her desk drawer, then kills her. He pretends to be coming from elsewhere in the house when the maid (Dorothy Crehan) hears the shot fired. The police investigate the murder which does in fact lead back to Bertani. However the police detective (Rusty Lane) tells Seymour that he finds it amazing that he always presents his best facial profile forward, and had been told by his Aunt Muriel that Seymour would hide anything he didn’t want others to see until he himself forgot it was even there. He tells Seymour that those who saw and described Bertani described him having a giant birthmark on the side of nose, identical to the one that Seymour is always hiding when presenting himself in front of others. Lillian Bronson is ‘Bertani’s’ neighbor. 11/12/20
• 045. Toby – 11/4/1956
  • In New York in 1910, department store bookkeeper Albert Birch (Robert H. Harris) answers a newspaper ad from his old girlfriend Edwina Freel (Jessica Tandy) from Canandaigua, who has been looking for him. She is still single, so he arranges with his landlady Mrs. Foster (Mary Wickes) to rent out one of the apartment rooms to her. When Edwina arrives, Albert is surprised to find that she has a baby, which she claims to be her nephew Toby, of whom she took custody when his parents were killed in a carriage accident. She will not let Albert see or help feed Toby, because he has just recovered from scarlet fever and may be contagious. Weeks pass, and the neighbors Mac (George Mathews) and Marie McGurk (Ellen Corby) start to become suspicious of her claims of having a baby since they’ve never seen her. When Edwina becomes clearly upset, the McGurks come over offering her beer to make peace, but she throws them out and claims that Albert has seen the baby. He lies and covers for her, but then questions Edwina as to why he can’t see Toby. She has a meltdown about him leaving her behind in town twenty years ago and never writing to her or returning so that they could start a family with a baby of their own. Her rants become more and more unhinged, as he promises to start over with her now. Two men then arrive to escort her back to the asylum she has lived in for years outside of Canandaigua. She bids him farewell, and tells him that she’s leaving Toby in his care. When he goes in to get Toby, he finds that Toby is actually a black cat. Penny Santon is the Italian neighbor. 3/3/21 
• 046. Alibi Me – 11/11/1956
  • Gangster George Minnelli (Lee Philips) is tired of having his pinball machine racket territory invaded by rival mobster Lucky Moore (Chick Chandler), who often refer to Minnelli as a ‘sucker’, so he shoots him in cold blood in Moore’s office. Moore had warned him that the new Lieutenant James Larkin (Harvey Stephens) has warned them that if either of them was ever to get bumped off, the other one better have a good alibi. Knowing that he doesn’t, he visits his Uncle Leo (Alan Reed), who refuses to provide an alibi. He then moves on to his old flame Goldie (Shirley Smith) and she agrees to cover for him… until she finds a picture of another woman named Viola (photo of Eugenia Paul) and throws him out. Next he goes to see his elderly friend Timmy (Harry Tyler) who is in the hospital, and he agrees to say he was there all afternoon. Unfortunately as he is getting ready to call in the nurse to make sure she sees him, he dies. Minnelli returns home and blackmails his landlady Mrs. Salvatore (Argentina Brunetti) to tell Larkin that he was in his room all day, threatening to tell Larkin that her daughter Maria store a fur coat. Larkin shows up to question Minnelli and he claims he was home all day, and Mrs. Salvatore dutifully corroborates his story. Larkin finds the story fishy, but declares it closed based on her testimony. Before Larkin leaves, a messenger boy (Lee Erickson) delivers Minnelli and giant sucker from Lucky, and lets it slip in front of Larkin that he had been there several times that day to deliver it but that no one was home. NOTE: Also credited in the cast are Herb Vigran and Charles Cantor, neither of whom appear in the episode. Eugenia Paul is credited and only appears in a photo. 3/3/21
• 047. Conversation Over a Corpse – 11/18/1956
  • Cissie Enright (Dorothy Stickney) is a scatterbrained lady living with her domineering sister Joanna (Carmen Matthews), who has convinced Cissie to go along with her plan to poison real estate man Herbert Brenner (Roy Collins) to prevent him from exercising an option to buy their house and level it the ground. He comes over to the house with $5000 ready to buy, but Cissie gives him poisoned tea, and soon he has realized he has been poisoned and dies in the chair. As Cissie is cleaning up the room, she notices that Joanna’s tea leaves indicate death, but Joanna assumes she has mixed up their cups. They try to decide how to get him out of the house, including the idea of taking him out peace by peace. As they start to carry Brenner, he wakes up but is unable to move. They consider various ways to kill him: a shot gun, a knife, bug spray, a hammer, and weed killer. When Joanna is out of the room, Cissie confesses that she only put half a dose of the poison in his tea, and also tell shim that Joanna is actually a nursemaid named Abigail who came to take care of her real sister Joanna thirty years earlier. Brenner tries to convince Cissie to call the police, and tells her that Joanna plans to blame his death on her and have her put away. When Cissie asks Joanna if this is true, Joanna heads over to kill Brenner with the hammer, but Cissie has given him the rifle and he shoots her dead. Cissie gives Brenner poisoned whiskey, then allows him to call the police. Before the poison takes effect, he tells them that Joanna had poisoned him, that Cissie saved him, and that Joanna wasn’t her real sister. As he starts to feel faint again, he realizes that Cissie has given him more poison… as he collapses to the floor. NOTE: In the epilogue, Hitchcock claims that Cissie attempted to calm herself by taking several slugs of the poison whiskey, which was her ultimate downfall. Ted Stanhope is the bank teller. 6/29/21
• 048. Crack of Doom – 11/25/1956
  • Businessman Mason Bridges (Robert Horton) travels via train from New York to Chicago with a pair of colleagues, one of whom (Gavin Gordon) tries to get Mason to join a group of men in a game of poker. Mason adamantly refuses much to his friends’ surprise. After his other friend Tom Ackley (Dayton Lummis) loses his bankroll in the game, he and Mason chat about why Mason gave up poker. He flashes back to when he was a real estate officer manager working in Clifford Hills, and he had arranged for his client and friend Sam Clinker (Robert Middleton) to buy the Whitman property, but Whitman has postponed the meeting, so Mason agrees to hold Clinker’s $10,000 payment in his safe. Clinker invites Mason to play poker, and Mason agrees, despite the fact that he feels like Clinker’s no limit games are unfair since Clinker has a much bigger bankroll than the other players. At the game, Mason gets wiped out for nearly $1000, then decides to borrow $4000 of  the money he was holding for Clinker, knowing that he had $9000 in his own bank account to cover it. He ends up losing that money as well, but when he gets home and checks his bank book, he finds that his wife Jessie (Gail Kobe) has wiped out their account making some risky stock investments. Mason decides to go all in and take the rest of Clinker’s money and try to win all of his money back. Although Clinker suspects that Mason was using his money, but he allows him back in the game. After hours of winning and losing alternately, he winds up with a terrific hand, holding an queen in the hole with two aces showing. Clinker winds up with three tens holding and starts betting high. When Mason is dealt another queen showing, he sees the bet knowing that even a four of a kind of tens couldn’t beat his four of a kind in queens. Clinker drives the bet up even further, to the point that Mason has to write a check. Suddenly when Mason looks at his hole card, he realized that with his blurry vision, he actually had a jack as a hole card, and not a queen after all. Clinker decides he must really have a four of a kind, and he folds. Mason realizes how close he came to losing everything and likely going to jail, which is why he vowed never to play poker again. Kay Stewart is the secretary Della. Pierre Watkin, Francis De Sales, Keith Britton, Jess Kirkpatrick, and Alan Reynolds are card players. 6/29/21
• 049. Jonathan – 12/2/1956
  • A college boy named Gil Dalliford (Corey Allen) returns from a Mexican vacation that he took with his friend Don (John Wilder), after getting word from his mother-in-law Rosine (Georgann Johnson) that his father Jonathan (Douglas Kennedy) had passed away. Gil had been unusually close with his father, who he called by his first name, since his mother had massed away when he was a boy. The two did everything together, and when Jonathan has suggested that Gil return to school and put some real effort into finding friends his age, Gil became extremely resentful when he found out that the reason was that Jonathan wanted to get married to Rosine. In face, Jonathan and Rosine were on vacation during summer break while Gil and his friend Don were staying at the house. Gil didn’t want to see Rosine, so he suggested leaving for Mexico before his father returned. Knowing that his father didn’t drink, and thinking that Rosine had a drinking problem, Gil left behind a giant bottle of brandy before they left for the trip. After the funeral, Gil tells Rosine that he’s dropping out of school now that his father is gone, and wants to concentrate on criminology… so he can figure out how Rosine killed his father. She eventually admits that the doctor had told Jonathan that he should have a drink now and then, so Rosine, suspecting that Gil had poisoned the brandy, gave some of it to Jonathan… which ultimately killed him. Gil breaks down realizing that it was him who ultimately killed his father. During the epilogue, Alfred Hitchcock explains that Gil took this information to the police, and Rosine was arrested for murder, while Gil was arrested for attempted murder and they are not both model prisoners.  Hope Landin is Mrs. Duffin the housekeeper. NOTE: Walter Kingsford, Nancy Kulp, and Heidi Mullenger are credited in the episode, but do not appear. 11/28/21
• 050. The Better Bargain – 12/9/1956
  • Businessman with mob ties Louis Koster (Robert Middleton) suspects his young wife Marian (Kathleen Hughes) is having an affair with another man, so he hires private detective Mr. Cutter (Don Hanmer) to trail her. He has followed her several times and noted that she keeps meeting up with the same man, but so far he has gathered no other incriminating evidence, although it seem like that there is an affair going on. Marian comes into the office to see Koster and tells him that she plans to go away for the weekend to visit one of her girlfriends in Cleveland. Koster phones an old associate hit man named Harry Silver (Henry Silva) to meet with him, and Koster tells of him of his intention to have his wife and her lover killed, but doesn’t pull the trigger until Cutter gets back with him with a further report on whether she actually went. He gets the report from Cutter, which isn’t good: Marian didn’t go to Cleveland, but she does meet the same man and they have a conversation about running away. The man speaks to Marian with a poetry and flowery love affirmations. Koster calls in Silver to carry out the murders, but when Marian comes to see him at the office, he decides he can’t go through with losing her, so he tells Silver to just kill her lover. Silver leaves, but returns a few minutes later to tell Koster that he doesn’t want to kill ‘himself’, and goes on to say that instead of getting the fee for the hit, now he will be a rich man if he marries his lover Marian. He has already killed Koster’s assistant Baldy (Jack Lambert), and then moves in to kill Koster. In the epilogue, Hitchcock explains that Silver carried out the murder successfully, and that Marian inherited the money and lived happily ever after, while Silver did not join her as ‘crime does not pay’. 11/28/21
• 051. The Rose Garden – 12/16/1956
  • Book publisher Alexander Vinton (John Williams) travels from New York to Louisiana to visit with the elderly Julia Pickering (Patricia Colligne) who has written a murder mystery book. The cab driver Barney (Ralph Peters) who takes him to her estate is surprised that he is there to see Julia, a virtual recluse, rather than her more worldly and dominating sister Cordelia Welles (Evelyn Varden). He also tells him that Cordelia was once married to a man named Gordon, who had originally dated Julia… until the husband left her after thirty years of marriage. When Vinton arrives, he notices that the house seems to be the exact same house that is in the book. He is also surprised when Cordelia seems to have no idea that Julia had been working on the book. He starts to notice that all of interior of the house seems to be described in the book as well, as well as the similarity of names between the book’s killer Amelia and Cordelia. He starts to suspect that Cordelia had murdered her husband, and that Julia has written the details of the murder into the book. Vinton starts to question Julia, and tells her that she shouldn’t allow herself to be manipulated by Cordelia. Vinton mentions that the murder victim in the book has been buried in the rose garden under the bench in the backyard. When she hears this, she insists on reading the book for herself. Vinton puts her off, and when the sisters leave for church, he digs a hole under the bench to look for the body. Cordelia returns alone and catches him in the act, but he doesn’t find anything. Cordelia insists that he leave the house, and on his way out, he notices that there is a pistol missing from a decorative plaque that was in the living room. Once he is gone, Julia tells Cordelia that she now has the courage to call the police and turn her in for the murder, and tell the cops to dig a hole where the bench used to sit in the rose garden. Cordelia pulls out the pistol and tells Julia that she has no choice to kill her and make it look like an accident. She says she had killed him to save them the scandal of him running off with Julia. Vinton returns just in time to stop the murder. Julia decides not to publish the book, but Vinton agrees to hire her to write a different book. 5/5/22
• 052. Mr. Blanchard’s Secret – 12/23/1956
  • Babs Fenton (Mary Scott) is a bored and nosy housewife, who writes murder mysteries to quell her own imagination and desire to commit her own murder. Her latest obsession is the next door neighbor Mr. Charles Blanchard (Dayton Lummis) who claims to be married to a wife that Babs never sees. She thinks that he might either be lying about being married or that he has murdered his wife. One night after talking this through to her husband John (Robert Horton) who pretends to be asleep to avoid the conversation, Babs spots Mr. Blanchard peering in her kitchen window. She roams over to his house and begins snooping around, discovering a photo of his wife, proving that he at least was married. She creates this into a written murder mystery in which Blanchard had strangled her because she is an alcoholic. However, as soon as she is finished, Mrs. Ellen Blanchard (Meg Mundy) shows up to visit with her. Before they can do much visiting, Mr. Blanchard shows up and insists that she leave with him. That night she sees Mr. Blanchard leave with a giant bag, and thinks that now he has in fact murdered her. This time she calls the police and insists that they go looking for the body, and she begins to write again. Before she can get started, Mrs. Blanchard shows up again. Although she admits that him coming to get her caused a quarrel, she will not speak too ill of her husband. The two have a nice chat, and Mrs. Blanchard tells Babs she hopes she can return the favor. When Babs leaves the room, Mrs. Blanchard takes a beautiful but broken silver lighter that she had earlier admired. Babs believes she has solved the mystery and that Babs is a kleptomaniac and this is Mr. Blanchard’s secret and the reason he won’t allow her to leave the house. Babs gets a return call from the police telling her that they have found a body, and they want her to come identify it. She then believes once again that Mr. Blanchard has murdered his wife. John has nearly lost patience, and agrees to go with her to the morgue to see the body, but as they are leaving, both Mr. and Mrs. Blanchard show up at the door, and Mrs. Blanchard tells Babs that her husband has fixed her lighter for her, and that he is secretly great at fixing things. Eloise Hardt is the maid. 5/6/22
• 053. John Brown’s Body – 12/30/1956
  • John Brown (Russell Collins) runs a successful furniture company, but his junior manager Harold Skinner (Hugh Marlowe) tries to convince his boss that the public wants a more modern sleeker look. Brown is more interested in the traditional, functional furniture. One afternoon Harold takes Brown’s wife Vera (Leora Dana) to lunch and shows off his ideas. She likes the new designs, and promises to try and talk John into going for them as well. A month later, Harold and Vera have begun an affair, and arrange elaborate liaisons in order to fool John and their housekeeper Ellen (Jean Owens aka Jean Hayworth). However, Harold has gotten no further with selling his furniture, so they come up with an idea to force John into retirement so that Harold can take over the business. They convince John that he is forgetting to sign contracts, leaving the safe open at work, losing his keys, and forgetting appointments. They even convince John’s doctor Sam Helck (Walter Kingsford) that he is becoming forgetful. He refers John to a psychologist named Dr. Croatman (Edmon Ryan), and the very thought of seeing a head doctor drives John into a rage, making it appear as if he has gone mad. Croatman recommends the Hillcrest Rest Home for John Brown, and as planned, Harold is now able to take over. As John gets used to his new surroundings and peaceful life, Harold doesn’t do well with the business and his accountant (Norman Leavitt) suggests they will need a $50,000 loan to stay solvent. Harold is unable to get any bank to loan to him, so he and Vera decide they need John to come out of the rest home and get involved with the business again so that they can get the loan. They are able to convince Dr. Croatman to reassess John to see if he is sane enough to leave, and Croatman does in fact think he has improved enough to go home. Harold and Vera go to retrieve him from the rest home, but after John signs himself out, Croatman tells them that John isn’t going to be able to leave after all, insisting that if they took John now, they’d only be taking his body and not his mind. John had signed himself out using the name ‘George Washington’. Madelon Baker is Croatman’s receptionist. Marcel Rousseau is the waiter. 9/2/22
• 054. Crackpot – 1/6/1957
  • Newly married couple Ray (Biff McGuire) and Meg Loomis (Mary Scott) are on the way to their honeymoon resort when they get a flat tire. After putting on the spare, they realize that is flat as well. Thankfully a good Samaritan named Mr. Moon (Robert Emhardt) stops by and helps them fill the air from his spare tire into theirs. Ray accidentally trips and stumbles into Moon and gets his jacket dirty, prompting Moon to unleash on him and threaten to kill him before taking off. When they arrive at their hotel, they are told that all of the rooms had been rented out to folks there for a veterinary convention. They also are questions by a detective Sergeant Carpenter (Michael Fox) about a diamond bracelet that they found while looking for Ray’s aunt’s murderer. Ray tells him that the jewelry didn’t belong to his Aunt. The hotel finally rectifies the overbooking situation and the bellhop (Phil Garris) sends them to their room. They then run into Mr. Moon who is in a considerably better mood after getting his shirt cleaned, and who tells them that he is in the room next door. While Meg gets cleaned up, Ray is badgered by Moon knocking on their door and wall, and then reporting them to the desk clerk (Raymond Guth) when Ray bangs back. Ray also spies on Moon from the shared terrace and sees Moon banging a hole in the wall. When Ray goes next door to confront him again, Moon pulls a gun on him and tells him that he’ll have him locked up in a nuthouse if he bothers him again. Ray starts to hear a clock ticking in the wall, and believes that Moon has planted a bomb. Meg thinks Ray is hearing things, but Ray tells her that he believes that Moon may have killed his aunt. Finally Moon comes to the door with his gun and tells him that his room is going to blow up, and he is going to be able to escape before it happens. Ray manages to knock him out, and sends Meg for the police. Ray goes back into the bedroom and grabs one of the small suitcases, but Moon wakes up and takes it from him. He breaks out the mirror in the case and exposes Ray’s aunt’s missing jewelry. Sergeant Carpenter enters as well, and Moon identifies himself as a detective who had set this up to get Ray to reveal the jewelry, and thus expose him as his aunt’s murderer. When the clock alarm goes off in the wall, Moon acknowledges that that might have given up the whole ruse. 9/2/22
• 055. Nightmare in 4-D – 1/13/1957
  • Harry Parker (Henry Jones) is a friendly tenant living in an apartment complex in room 4-D. One afternoon, he helps his lovely downstairs neighbor Miss Elliot (Barbara Baxley), an actress who just got a role in a Boadway show, carry her groceries to her apartment 3-D. He then goes home and tells his wife Norma (Virginia Gregg) about helping her, and she shows some minor jealousy. Parker then goes off to read his horror novels and falls asleep. When he wakes up, he starts talking as if he was in the novel. He wants to continue reading but Norma tells him she’s going to bed, so instead, he watches the late movie in the living room. At 2am, Miss Elliot comes to the door and tells him that there is an emergency in her apartment and asks him to come. He is reluctant, but comes along anyway, only to find a man lying on her living room floor. She believes that the man, who is their neighbor Bill Neilson, a piano player from apartment 2-D, who was helping her rehearse for a show she has coming up. She tells Harry that someone shot him from outside fire escape, and points to a bullet hole in the window. She doesn’t want the man discovered in her apartment and pleads with Harry to take him to the apartment basemen. He again reluctantly agrees, carries him down in the elevator, and leaves him in the basement. When he gets back to his apartment, he realizes that his robe sash is missing, so he goes back to the basement to retrieve it and finds it wrapped around Neilson’s leg. He then returns to his apartment and goes to bed. When he wakes up, he tells his wife the entire story, down to the missing sash and its retrieval. He thinks he had stuffed it in the pocket, but Norma finds it through the loop where it belongs and deduces that he must have dreamt the entire thing. Harry goes back to the basement, and there encounters a detective named Lieutenant Orsatti (Norman Lloyd) who is investigating the murder. Harry admits to the officer that he transported the body, but knows nothing further. Harry then returns to his apartment to tell his wife, who has already spoken to Orsatti. She believes that Harry was having an affair with Miss Elliot. Then Orsatti returns to their apartment and tells Norma that she had been lying about how well she knew Neilson. It seems she has been having an affair with him. It also seems that the killer must have come down the fire escape rather than up because the ladder had not been extended. The lady above them is an elderly woman named Mrs. Bolton with arthritis, so the Orsatti deduces the killer came from their apartment. Harry says that his wife must have snuck right by him while he was asleep, but Orsatti responds that Norma has an alibi since Mrs. Bolton was speaking to her on the phone while the murder occurred. She had called to complain about the loud TV. Harry Parker is arrested.  Percy Helton is Charlie, the building super. Norman Bartold is the building super. Minerva Urecal is the busybody. 11/27/22
• 056. My Brother, Richard – 1/20/1957
  • Burton Reeves, a candidate in the Governor primary, is shot in the back of the head while showering at the country club by Richard Ross (Harry Townes), the brother of Martin Ross (Royal Dano), the District Attorney and chief rival of Reeves for the nomination. Richard is the president of a construction company, and he readily admits to his brother that he has murdered Reeves, telling Martin that when he is governor, he wants him to favor him for government construction contracts in the state. He also wants Martin to set up someone else as the murderer to make sure Richard is never implicated. Martin is appalled at the situation and wants no part of helping his brother. Rather, he is ready to withdraw from the race and defend his brother in his murder trial. Richard tells Martin that if he refuses to cooperate, he will kill Martin’s wife Laura (Inger Stevens). Richard holds them both at gunpoint but then steps out of the room so that Laura, who sees the insanity in Richard. to talk Martin into complying. Martin thinks his brother is bluffing and tries to talk Laura into simply walking out of the house, but Richard takes a shot at her, deliberately missing her. Martin then gets a phone call from Sheriff Briggs (Ray Teal), who tells Martin that he has Reeves’s murderer at the station. Martin leaves Laura with Richard and goes to the Sheriff’s office to find that he has arrested country club caddy Tommy Kopeck (Robert Ellis) who had an altercation with Reeves earlier that day. Martin meets with Tommy and tells him that he knows that Tommy is innocent. However, he asks him to sign a confession of his guilt as part of a ruse to bring the real killer to justice. Tommy maintains his innocence and is reluctant to say otherwise, but eventually he puts his trust into Martin and writes out and signs his confession. Martin brings the confession back to his brother and asks him to put away his gun. Richard won’t do it until Martin hands over the confession. However, instead of letting Laura go free, he insists on keeping her until Tommy is at the end of a noose. Martin tries to struggle with him and Richard hits him in the head with the gun and knocks him out. Tommy’s mother (Lisa Golm) comes to see Martin to question him about the confession he had Tommy sign. She thinks that Richard is Martin, and he tells her that the law must take its course, and there isn’t anything he can do to save Tommy, no matter how much Mrs. Kopeck pleas with him. She becomes so distraught that she pulls out a knife and stabs Richard to death. When Martin wakes up, he tells her that she just saved her son and him with her act. 11/28/22
• 057. The Manacled – 1/27/1957
  • Sgt. Rockwell (Gary Merrill) is accompanying prisoner Stephen Fontaine (William Redfield) via train to San Quentin where he will begin a ten-year prison term for robbery. Rockwell is smug, joking about his predicament, and making sure everyone a little boy named Billy (Gary Hunley) and his mother (Kay Stewart) can see that he is handcuffed. When an old lady (Edith Evanson) asks Fontaine to help her put her suitcase above her seat, Rockwell has to step in and assist since Fontaine is not only handcuffed, but also shackled at the ankles by an Oregon Boot ankle shackle. The conductor (Rusty Lane) escorts the men to their private room and shows Sgt. Rockwell how the door locks from the outside, the shatterproof glass, and the call button in case any assistance is needed with the prisoner. Rockwell checks the Oregon Boot to make sure it is locked and tells Fontaine how it is only one of three in the department and shows him how it locks and unlocks before putting the key in his own pocket. To the annoyance of Rockwell, Fontaine begins to chat and alludes to the fact that he believes every man has a price to cross the line from legal to illegal acts. He tells Rockwell to check his inside pocket, and sure enough, he has had an envelope with the key inside planted there. It turns out that the woman he assisted with the suitcase was carrying $50,000 in it, and she slipped the envelope into Rockwell’s pocket when he was assisting her. He offers that money to let him escape before they arrive. Rockwell declines the offer, but Fontaine keeps chipping away at him. He even suggests that Rockwell leave the car to go check on the suitcase after the lady departs the train. The curiosity gets the better of him, and Rockwell does check the suitcase… and finds the money. When he returns to the car, he tells Fontaine that he will get a nice reward for turning in the money. Fontaine tries to convince him how $50,000 will change his life, and offers him more solid insurance that Rockwell would never get caught: by allowing Fontaine to shoot him in the arm before he makes his escape to make the scenario iron clad for Rockwell. He seems to be considering it, but when they get to their stop, Rockwell get ready to handcuff Fontaine and take him to prison. Fontaine then really resists and offers him the full $100,000 that he has, and then manages to actually take Rockwell’s gun and shoot him with it. Fontaine then gets ready to make his escape, but when he tries the key to his Oregon boot, he finds that the bullet grazed the key and now it will no longer open up his ankle shackle. Betty Harford is the waitress in the train station. Paul Frees is the voice in the train station. 12/21/22
• 058. A Bottle of Wine – 2/3/1957
  • Judge Connors’ (Herbert Marshall) wife Grace (Jarma Lewis) is leaving him for a younger man named Wallace Donaldson (Robert Horton). When Grace returns to her home to pick up some clothes, the Judges asks if there is anything he can do to change her mind, and she tells him there isn’t. When Grace tells him that Wallace is waiting in the car, the Judge invites him into the house to have a drink of sherry with him. They both toast Grace, but Wallace tells him he doesn’t feel comfortable in the house. When the Judge tells him that he will have things to tell Wallace about Grace, he remains for another drink. As the Judge starts to pontificate using the words of Aristotle about the nature of judges, he pulls a gun out of the drawer which makes Wallace very uncomfortable. The Judge tells him how he had planned to boldly kill him and that no jury would have ever convicted him for doing so. However, he puts the gun away and tells him that he has too much respect for the law for that. He continues to drink that wine that he tells Wallace they had purchased in Spain when he and Grace got married, planning to drink it on their tenth anniversary. He also tells her how cruel Grace was when he was first pursuing her, but ultimately his name and money won her over. Wallace insists that she has changed since then. The judge then pulls out another book and begins reading Socrates views on death, and then tells Wallace that he only has minutes to live since the wine was poisoned. He admits that he too was drinking the wine, but that he has the antidote. The Judge then locks Wallace in his den so that he can die alone, as he was going to leave the Judge to live and die alone. Wallace panics inside the room and begs to be let out, promising to leave and never return. Grace comes down in time to hear his childish pleas, and the Judge takes delight in showing Grace how much of a coward he is. Wallace then fires the Judge’s gun through the door, killing the Judge. When Grace lets him out, she tells him that the Judge would never kill anyone and has never even sentenced a prisoner to death. She also tells him that they didn’t honeymoon in Spain, nor buy the sherry together. She insists that there was nothing wrong with the bottle after all. In the Alfred Hitchcock epilogue, he tells the audience that Wallace was apprehended by the authorities. 12/21/22
• 059. Malice Domestic – 2/10/1957
  • Carl (Ralph Meeker) and Annette Borden (Phyllis Thaxter) attend a party, where they chat with their friend Lorna Jenkins (Lili Kardell) and mutual friend Perry Harrison (Ralph Clanton). Lorna is getting ready to move to San Francisco 90 miles away and leave her dog Cassandra with Carl and Annette to cafe for. Carl seems to spend more time with the dog than doing his work. Annette appears to be concerned with this, as she works on her pottery projects. Later, while Carl and Annette have Perry over for dinner, Carl suffers some abdominal pains, so they call their doctor Ralph Wingate (Vinton Hayworth). Ralph later runs into Annette having lunch with Perry at the country club and recommends that Carl come in from a check-up. Annette also tells the doctor that Lorna has invited them up for a stay in San Francisco. Dr. Wingate offers to drop Annette at home, and when they arrive, they find Carl collapsed on the floor. The doctor revives him and offers to run some tests and tells him to stay off his feet and solid foods for a couple of days. After running one more test, Dr. Wingate shares the results with Carl, telling him that there were traces of arsenic found in his stomach. The doctor tells Carl that he suspects that Annette might be poisoning him. Carl becomes furious at the insinuation and throws the doctor, threatening that he had better never mention it again. Carl later finds that Annette is using a glaze in her ceramics that is full of arsenic. After asking Annette if she loves him, he drinks a glass of juice that Annette brought for him without hesitation. Carl and Annette prepare for a fishing trip to Lake Tahoe, and as they are getting ready to leave, Annette brings them each a cup of coffee. Carl works on packing the car, but when he goes back inside, he finds Annette collapsed dead on the floor. The doctor comes to the house along Perry and says that his guess is that Annette got mixed up about which cup had the poison in it. Later, Carl is driving along with Lorna, bragging about how he had given himself two lesser amounts of arsenic to throw off the police. Hitchcock mentions in the epilogue that Cassandra was actually a detective in disguise and turned Carl in at the next town. 1/7/23
• 060. Number Twenty-Two – 2/17/1957
  • An incredibly cocky young man named Steve Morgan (Rip Torn) is being chased by the police all through the town for robbery and assault. When he is finally caught, he laughs when he hands over his gun and it turns out to be a toy. Officer Kelly (James Nolan) takes him into the station where the booking officer (Hugh Sanders) collects his belongings. He is walked to his cell, smiling and smirking all the way. He gets locked up with a hardened prisoner name Skinner (Russell Collins), who has no patience for his flippant attitude. Skinner tells him that he will face a line-up, where he will be asked questions by the chief of detectives (Ray Teal). Morgan is looking forward to his photo being taken and the notoriety that will come with being splashed across the papers, hoping that the fact that he used a fake gun will not be mentioned. Skinner tries to tell him to not answer any questions and to admit nothing, then get out of crime as soon as he can. Morgan is assigned number 22 in the line-up. When Skinner is questioned about smashing a store window, Skinner maintains he was drunk all night and has no memory of anything he did. Morgan is asked the basic questions, and only when asked, does he admit he had a toy gun. After he and the other prisoners have been questioned, everyone else moves on for arraignment, but Morgan and Skinner are held back for future questioning. Morgan still seems excited by the process and tries to get information from the other inmates being held back for more questioning, including number nineteen (Paul Picerni), who admits he was carrying a loaded Navy gun, and had received a dishonorable discharge. Skinner is then questioned further and admits that he has been previously arrested for homicide but was let off for insufficient evidence. When Morgan gets called, Officer Kelly says he was arrested for robbing a candy store and then slugging the owner. Once again, Morgan laughs and giggles through most of his testimony, stating that he picked the store because the owner looked like a pushover. When the chief detective questions him as to why he felt the need to hit the old man, he says that he didn’t hit him and won’t admit that he did it. He eventually admits that he had no plans to hit him, but things changed when the old man started yelling. The detective tells him that he can’t ask him anything about it, because the old man died in the hospital from a skull fracture. Michael Ross is the jailer at the drinking fountain. Bob Ross is Officer Bohlen. Peter Leeds is the line-up officer. Charles Watts is #19’s arresting officer. Martin Wilkins is the black prisoner. 1/9/23
• 061. The End of Indian Summer – 2/24/1957
  • Insurance adjuster with Triumphant Insurance Sam Henderson (Philip Coolidge) calls in one of his insurance investigators, Joe Rogers (Steve Forrest) and questions him about a $50,000 life insurance policy he paid out on. It seems the beneficiary Margueritte Gillespie (Gladys Cooper) took out a policy on her late husband just before their marriage and then he died on the honeymoon. Furthermore, Henderson has just learned that Mrs. Gillespie has been married before and her first husband suffered the same untimely death, and she similarly collected $50,000 on that policy as well. Henderson sends Rogers to her town of Oxport to investigate what she is currently up to while posing as a prospective businessman looking to settle in the town. He advises Rogers to bring along his wife (Kathleen Maguire) to make sure she doesn’t steamroll him into an affair as well. When they arrive in town, the see a man (Ned Wever) watching them at their hotel, and Rogers believes that Triumphant has sent a man to trail him. Rogers and his wife go to see a real estate man Mr. Graham (Hal K. Dawson) and pretend they are looking to open up a business in town. They also mention being interested in purchasing the house where Mrs. Gilliespie lives, and he advises them to drop by and see it. Joe goes alone and chats with Mrs. Gillespie, who laments the fact that she’s lost two husbands. He starts to believe she is innocent, but she then introduces him to her new fiancée Howard Fieldstone (James Gleason). Now Rogers is convinced that she is planning a third murder of her husband and hopes to buy time before they take the step of getting married. He finds out that she has already requested an insurance policy on him for $50,000. Rogers and his wife run into Fieldstone and ask him about his physical examination for insurance, and he says he has little use for insurance, but since Margueritte requested that he get one, he agrees to get one if she does. Rogers hopes they won’t go get married until they have sold her house. However, as soon as hears that the house has sold and that they plan to leave to a secret location to get married, he rushes over to her house, feeling that he must do whatever possible to save Mr. Fieldstone’s life. When he arrives, he finds Mr. Saunders there, who tells him that they have already left town to be married. He also sees the other insurance agent who had assumed worked for Triumphant. However, his name is Mr. Saunders, and he works for Reliable, a rival insurance company. He has been trailing Mr. Fieldstone, as his previous four wives all drowned in bathtubs. The two agents lament that they cannot locate either party, so it is just a matter of time to see whether Mrs. Gillespie has a bath before Mr. Fieldstone eats breakfast and gets poisoned. In the epilogue from Alfred Hitchcock, he says that neither one of them won, but only the insurance companies were victorious. Mason Curry is the desk clerk. Hope Summers is Mrs. Gillespie’s maid. Mike Kuhn aka Mickey Kuhn is the bellhop. 6/10/23
• 062. One for the Road – 3/3/1957
  • Charles Hendricks (John Baragrey) is a businessman who frequently travels out of town. This time he will gone during his and his wife Marsha’s (Louise Platt) 11th anniversary. Although not entirely serious, Marsha questions Charles about a cigarette lighter with initials B.A. that she found in one of his pockets from his last trip. He blows her off, but sure enough, he is having an affair in Lockton with a lady named Beryl Abbott (Georgann Johnson). Beryl wants Charles to divorce Marsha and marry her, but he is happy just the keep the arrangement that they have. Charles sends a vase to Marsha for their anniversary, but it arrives broken. She decides to call Charles and is able to get the phone number where he can be reached from his secretary Miss Inglewood. When she calls, Marsha answers and reveals her name, which makes her finally accuse him. He reluctantly admits it and tells her that he will break it off. However, he continues to see Beryl, but won’t budge on leaving Marsha. When Marsha continues to suspect that the affair is still going on, Marsha decides to pay a visit to Beryl. Posing as a welfare worker, she gets Beryl to donate some clothing while she sneaks in and laces the sugar bowl with strychnine. Later, Marsha gets world from Miss Inglewood that Charles has headed back to Stockton. Marsha becomes petrified that Charles will consume the poison, so she rushes there and confesses to Beryl that she had poisoned the sugar and meant it for her. Beryl tells her that Charles had already left and had a cup of coffee before he went. Marsha rushes out to try and track him down, but after she leaves, Charles comes out of the back room at Beryl’s house. She tells him that it was a welfare worker, and the prepares some coffee for him, tired of being strung along, and now with the alibi that Marsha had planted the poison. In the epilogue, Hitchcock tells the audience that Beryl ultimately paid for her crime. NOTE: Michael Kuhn is credit with appearing in this episode but does not appear. 6/10/23
• 063. The Cream of the Jest – 3/10/1957
  • A broken-down actor with a drinking problem named Charles Gresham (Claude Raines) is turned down for a job and the cut off by the bartender Jerry (Johnny Silver). He spots a Variety magazine that indicates that his old friend Wayne Campbell (James Gregory) is producing a new play. He goes to see Campbell to inquire about getting a part in the show, but Campbell says he won’t touch him based on previous experiences with his drinking problem. Gresham nearly begs and him and tells him how much being back on the stage would mean to him, but Campbell won’t hear of it. Gresham then resorts to blackmailing him by threatening to expose an arrest that Campbell has on his record for embezzlement. Campbell gives him $20 off the bat and begins making small payoffs to him. One day while Gresham is drunk in the bar, Campbell comes to see him and tells him he’s had a change of heart and has decides to let him into the play. He says he has two parts available, a small one and much larger one that he would need to have the backing of one of his investors named Nick Roper (Paul Picerni). Gresham gives him the part to read for Roper, and Campbell works toward perfecting it. Before leaving to see Roper, he is nervous about delivering the monologue to him, but opts to not have a drink so that he can perform sober. When he arrives at the Blue Flamingo to see Roper, he begins a cold read of the material which alludes to him blackmailing one of the characters. Many of the facts are based on a real crime perpetrated by Roper in his gang, causing him to pull a gun out and shoot Campbell. Although he has no idea how Gresham would have known the details of one of their crimes, he sees that everything that Gresham had said was written on Campbell’s stationary. Hitchcock reveals in his epilogue that the police did in fact connect Campbell to his role in the death of Gresham. Don Garrett is Roper’s henchman Pete. Joan Banks is Campbell’s secretary Lee. NOTE: Carol Shannon and Thomas Martin are credited in the cast, but do not appear in the episode. 6/12/23
• 064. I Killed the Count: Part 1 – 3/17/1957
  •  In London England at the Oxley Court apartments on Baker Street, housekeeper Polly Stevens reports to work for the Count Victor Mottoni (Anthony Dawson) and finds that he has been shot in the head in his armchair. Inspector Davidson (John Williams) from Scotland Yard reports to the scene with his assistant Detective Raines (Charles Davis). They begin by questioning the landlord Mr. Martin (Kendrick Huxham) for the Count’s basic information, and then the housekeeper Polly (Patricia Hitchcock), who tells them that she is used to this sort of thing with her previous employers. She reports that she had last seen him alive the night before when he came home drunk and admits that she never cared much for him. She also identifies the gun that was found on the floor as belonging to Mottoni. Also found on the floor was Mattoni’s wallet which contained bills with bloody fingerprints on them. Inspector Davidson later brags to Raines that he has won all but one murder case but doesn’t reveal which one he lost. Davidson finds a letter in the apartment from a man named Lord Sorrington (Alan Napier) cancelling their dinner plans. The letter is date nearly two weeks earlier, while the letter’s envelope was dated just one day before the murder. When they call Sorrington on the phone, he claims that he doesn’t know Mottoni, but agrees to come over for questioning after he attends an appointment. Inspector Davidson investigates the neighboring flat because he noticed that the deadbolts on the doors between the flats were unlocked. Mr. Martin tells him that the flat is supposedly occupied by a Mr. Rupert who sent his rent money through the mail and has been leaving his rent in an envelope on the table for Polly to pick up, but no one has seen him other than the lift operator Mr. Mullet (Melville Cooper). When they enter, they find that Kendrick has left another week’s rent in an envelope. They also find the cartridge to the bullet on the floor. In Mottoni’s attached room, they find a note on the typewriter addressed to a Bernard K. Froy (Charles Cooper) indicated that he doesn’t wish to see him, but then continues saying that Froy has just come into his room with the gun, but the letter then ends abruptly. Davidson sends his fellow officer Clifton (Arthur Gould-Porter) to pick up Froy, a noted American polo player, from the Dorchester Hotel where he is staying and bring him back to the flat. They also send for Mullet to be nearby to identify Froy as Rupert. Another lift operator named Johnson (George Pelling) tells Davidson that he recalls seeing Froy several weeks ago coming to visit with the Count and told Johnson that the Count was afraid to see him. When Mullet arrives, Davidson gets the distinct feeling that he’s seen him before. Froy finally shows up and claims that he has never heard of Count Mottoni. However, when confronted with Johnson’s statement, he admits that he did in fact know the Count and tried to collect a gambling debt weeks ago. He states that he wasn’t there the night before though…until Davidson shows him the note from the typewriter. He then fully admits to killing the Count. However, when Mullet gets a look at Froy, he states that Froy is not the man he knew as Rupert. Furthermore, Froy claims he knows nothing of Rupert or the flat next door. Froy is taken away by the other officers, and Sorrington shows up as requested. He maintains that he’s never heard of Count Mottoni, but when Davidson shows him the letter that he had found concerning the cancelled dinner plans, he admits that he does know, but is reluctant to be connected with him. However, when Mullet identifies Sorrington as Rupert, Sorrington also admits to having killed the count. NOTE: This is the first of a three-part episode. NOTE: Jerry Barclay is credit as appearing in this episode but does not appear until the second part.  10/7/23
• 065. I Killed the Count: Part 2 – 3/24/1957
  • After admitting that he had killed the Count Mottoni, Lord Sorrington admits that the Count was married to his daughter Helen. They had met in England, but he moved her away to Italy and became an abusive alcoholic. Helen had escaped his clutches and moved back to England with her parents with a baby in town. Mottoni then pursued her and demanded that she return to him under threat of him taking custody of the baby. The strain of all this has killed Sorrington’s wife. Under threat of his daughter’s life being ruined, he had planned to murder the Count, so he rented the room next to him to rack his movements. On the night of the murder, he had snuck into the house and found Mattoni asleep. Unable to kill a sleeping man, he had awakened the Count, who was able to temporarily overpower him and retrieve his own gun from his desk. In the scuffle, the gun went off and killed Mottoni. Fearing being caught, he left his own gun in his apartment and fled the scene. Officer Peters (Jerry Barclay) comes and fingerprints Sorrington, who says he never saw the wallet drop during the scuffle. Davidson also hears back that there was skin and flesh found under the fingernails of Mottoni’s body. He has Sorrington checked, and he personally checks Bernard Froy for any scratches, and they are unable to find either. Davidson the questions Fro about his motive for the killing he admitted to, and he says that he was in love with Mottoni’s wife Helen. In order try and keep her name out of the papers when Mottoni threatened to sue for custody of the child, he sent a letter offering to pay him off if he left her alone. He later regretted the letter and wanted to retrieve it, so he came after Mottoni with a gun. Mottoni said he had to get the key to the chest where the letter was hidden, but instead he grabbed his gun and tried to overpower him. Mottoni was shot and killed in the process. Froy also claims he never saw the wallet on the floor. Davidson then questions the other tenants on the floor. Louise Rogers (Rosemary Harris) has little to offer and says she stayed home, read a book, and went to be early, but the exotic dancer Miss LaLune (Roxanne Arlen) tells the detective that she came home with a man late that night after work but had to walk up four flights of stairs because the elevator was stopped on their floor. Davidson goes back to Johnson, who admits that he had traded shifts with Mullet that night. He brings Mullet back in for questioning, and he admits that he had traded shifts. A call then comes in stating that the fingerprints on the bills in the wallet didn’t match either Froy or Sorrington, but matched an old convict that they had on file named Pat Lummock. Davidson suddenly remembers where he had seen Mullet before and recalls that Lummock and Mullet were one and the same. Lummock then confesses to Davidson that it was him who had killed the Count. Davidson nearly has a meltdown after hearing a third confession. NOTE: This is the second of a three-part episode. 10/8/23
• 066. I Killed the Count: Part 3 – 3/31/1957
  • After Lummock confesses to killing the Count, he explains that his killing was a matter of mere robbery. Lummock had been helping put the Count to bed on nights he was drunk, and after getting behind at the dog track, began stealing little bits of money here and there. On this particular night, Lummock had returned to take some money from his wallet, but Count Mattoni woke up and pulled a gun on him. When Mottoni threatened to call the police, Lummock punched him, and the two struggled, with Mottoni getting shot by his own gun in the process. Davidson checks Lummock for any scratches and finds nothing. Clifton finds Lummocks uniform jacket, bloody and missing a tassel that was found on the murder scene. Davidson tells Raines to take all three folks who confessed to the murder to Scotland Yard and put them on one room together. When Froy and Lummock see each other, Lummock asks him whether he had killed the Count. He said that when he arrived, the Count was already dead, but that he had moved him into the chair then left the clues as they had planned. Raines brings Davidson out of the room, and they attempt to eavesdrop once Sorrington enters as well. However, the three men pretend to talk about on subject, while whispering about the case. Sorrington and Froy tell each other they never went to the flat at all. Lummock says he had planned to kill him since he drew the black Ace, but he was already dead when he arrived. Louise Rogers shows up at the station, but faints before she can see Davidson. Raines tells him that Louise had planned to confess to the murder herself. Once a woman officer (Norma Marlowe) tells Davidson that Louise is awake, he goes to see her and admits that she is actually Mottoni’s wife Helen. She claims that she went to see him and told him that she would kill herself if he didn’t let her out of the marriage, so he gave her a gun and told her to go ahead. When she pointed the gun at him, he tries to grab it and it went off and killed him. She also has the scratches on her neck to prove it. Davidson believes she is only trying to protect her father, since she claims she left him on the floor and doesn’t recall a lamp that broke on the floor. Davidson tells her that three other men have confessed to the murder, and each has compelling evidence. Davidson says he plans to hold them all until he gets to the bottom of the case. However, Raines tells Davidson about a law that states that two or more persons cannot be charged as principals with a crime known to have been committed by only one person. Davidson suddenly realizes that all four of the possible killers planned it this way, so that no one could be arrested for the murder. Helen tells her father that it really was her who killed him, even though it was an accident. He tells her to stick to her story, and not to worry. Raines tells Davidson that at least the victim deserved what he got. 10/8/23
• 067 – One More Mile to Go – 4/7/1957
  • A man named Sam Jacoby (David Wayne) gets into a shouting match with his nagging wife (Louise Larabee) one evening, and after she rips his newspaper from his hands and throws it into the fire, then slaps him in the face, he hits over the head with a fireplace poker and kills her. He cleans off his hands and the poker and then puts her inside a giant bag and drops her in his trunk to take her out into the desert and bury her. As he is driving, he is pulled over by a motorcycle cop (Steve Brodie), who tells him that he has a taillight out on his car. The officer insists that Jacoby visit the service station nearby before he heads back home so that he can prevent a potential accident. When he gets it to the gas station attendant Ed (Norman Leavitt), he tries to get by with just buying the bulb and leaving, but the cop shows up behind him, so he has Ed attempt to install it. Ed can’t get the bulb to light up, so the cop suggests that they get into the trunk to fix the short. Sam hides his key and says he will have it fixed in the morning, but the cop insists that he might prevent a costly accident by fixing the light now. The cop tries to use a crowbar, but as he is working on opening the trunk, the light comes on. Sam drives off toward home and promises to get the light fixed the next morning. After driving some ways, the cop pulls him over again, this time to give him the change for the light bulbs that Ed forgot to give him. The cop makes final check of the taillight, only to find that it is out once again. He tells Sam that they are only a mile away from the police headquarters and that the mechanic there will be glad to open the trunk and fix the short. He tells Sam to follow him, and as they drive off, the taillight begins to flicker. 6/12/23
• 068. Vicious Circle – 4/14/1957
  • A nervous man named Gallagher (Paul Lambert) drinks and smokes and fidgets nervously in his apartment, and then receives a visit from a young man named Manny Coe (Dick York), who tells him that he is there on behalf of Vincent Wiliams (George Macready), who doesn’t like the way that Gallegher slipped up on a jewel robbery. Manny unceremoniously shoots and kills him and then heads to his girlfriend Betty’s (Kathleen Maguire) apartment to see her. Betty has already learned of the murder and begs Manny to sever his ties to Mr. Williams. When he leaves her apartment, he runs into Williams’ former top guy Turk (Russell Johnson), who ponders how Manny eases him out of his former position. Manny then goes to see the Mr. Williams, who is pleased with Manny’s work and tells him that he is soon going to be his assistant, which will reap him many rewards. However, he orders Manny to get rid of Betty, as he has already heard that she doesn’t like him. Manny pays another visit to Betty and warns her that she needs to leave town for a while to avoid a clash with Mr. Williams, but Betty tells him that if he doesn’t get away from him, she will go to the police. With the New Year coming up, Mr. Williams infers that Manny needs to end the life of Betty and start a new one with Mr. Williams running his life. Since Mr. Williams tells him that Betty tries to get Manny put away, he does indeed go after her with a gun. Although he doesn’t have the guts to pull the trigger, she runs away and is hit by a moving car, killing her instantly. Mr. Williams thinks that Manny orchestrated her death and raises his status in his organization to be his official assistant. Time passes, and Manny becomes a bigwig and attends all of the best parties with Mr. Williams. Another young man named Georgie (George Brenlin) attends one of the parties, and Mr. Williams compliments the way that Georgie handled a camera store heist. As Manny drinks with his new girlfriend Ann Nash (Kathleen Hughes) and her friend (Tracey Morgan) and they try to talk Manny into inviting Ann back to his apartment. Before he leaves, Mr. Williams tells Manny that he’s sorry that the last job that Manny planned didn’t work out how they expected. When he gets home, he acts nervously and invites Ann over to his place after all. When Ann notices a photo of Betty in the apartment, Manny immediately sends Ann home and says he has an early appointment with Mr. Williams. She leaves behind her pair of gloves, and when Manny hears the door buzz, Manny assumes that it is Ann returning to get them, but it is George, who says he has been sent by Mr. Williams. NOTE: Michael Kuhn, Betty Woods, and Roy Darmour are credited with appearing in the episode, but do not. 10/7/23
• 069. The Three Dreams of Mr. Findlater – 4/21/1957
  • Ernest Findlater (John Williams) is a henpecked husband who escapes the nagging of his wife Minnie (Isobel Elsom) by entering his private den that he’s decorated with posters and artifacts from various tropical locations. One poster advertising a South Seas location contains a painting of girl named Lalage (Barbara Baxley), whom he imagines comes to life and visits with him throughout the day. As they lay around in each other’s arms sipping tropical drinks, Findlater confesses to Lalage that he has a dream in which she does not appear with him, one in which he comes home from work and finds his maid Bridget (Molly Glessing) weeping, and Dr. Manley (Walter Kingsford) informing him that his wife has died from a stroke. As he continues his fantasy world with Lalage, he comes across an abandoned, crashed car in the bushes with a gun in the front seat. He considers killing his wife with the gun and works with Lalage on trying several ridiculous disguises to commit the act. Later after greeting his sports club receptionist Mr. Rogers (Arthur E. Gould-Porter), who makes it a point to tell Findlater how he notices everyone who comes in and out of the apartment, another opportunity presents itself. While he and Lelage are in the lobby restroom, he notices that a window in it faces another building so that no one could see someone climbing in or out of it. He begins working out in order to ensure he has the strength to lower himself and then climb up the rope to return. By doing this, he can leave and murder his wife and then return through the window, all the while having Rogers act as his alibi. When the day comes for him to commit the murder of his wife, he sneaks out the window as planned, but when he arrives, he finds his maid Bridget crying and Dr. Manley on site telling him that his wife has passed away from a stroke, just like had occurred in his original fantasy. Raymond Bailey is Hitchcock’s psychiatrist in the opening and closing sequences. 2/8/24
• 070. The Night the World Ended – 4/28/1957
  • A group of newspaper reporters, led by the jovial but mean-spirited Harold Holloran (Harold J. Stone) gather around in a bar and reminisce about some of Holloran’s best jokes, one involving sending a young reporter (Bob Ross) to interview gangsters who ultimately threw him out of a window. As he chats with his friends Jim (Clark Howat), and another fellow (Ned Wever), he offers to buy a drink for a down-on-his-luck loner named Johnny Gin (Russell Collins). The bartender Nick (Bart Burns) is also in on the gag and gives him furniture polish to drink, then feels bad and gives him an actual drink. A newsboy named Timothy (Robert Ellis) then rushes into the bar and shows a headline indicating that the world is going to end at 11:45 that night due to being set on a collision course with Mars. Johnny runs out of the bar, telling everyone that if he only has three hours left to live, he’s going to do something memorable. As soon as they leave, everyone laughs at the joke and Timothy tells Holloran that the typesetter gave him a hard time about making one fake newspaper headline. Johnny heads to the liquor store and asks the owner Mr. Stern (Joe Marr) if he can front him for some of the good, imported cognac since the world is ending. Stern declines the request but fronts him some cheap whiskey. Johnny decides to steal the cognac and rush off, leaving Stern to call the police. As Johnny is trying to stay away from the silence, he trips over some dogs that an older lady named Felicia Green (Edith Barrett) is walking. She invites him back to her apartment and they have a nice conversation, but when he mentions it being the last night that they will be alive, she begins to panic and calls for help. A boarder (Henry Corden) rushes in and throws Johnny out. Johnny can’t believe his bad luck as the clock ticks away on his last hour of life. He then runs into three street kids and asks them what they want if they could have anything. One (Harry Shearer) wants a basketball, one (Billy Miller) wants a basketball, and the eight-year-old (Charles Herbert) can’t decide. Johnny then leads them in breaking into a hardware store where they each get their items and play with the toys and bicycles in there to their heart’s desire. A security guard (Michael Ross) then enters and tells them that he’s calling the police to have them arrested. Johnny then loads one of the store’s guns and shoots the security guard (Michael Ross) as the boys scatter. Johnny leaves the store and stops at a newsstand where he sees the real headlines of the evening, none of which mention the earth coming to an end. Johnny then realizes that Holloran had a played another practical joke on him. With his life now in shambles, he returns to the bar where he finds Holloran playing cards with his friends. He pulls out his gun and shoots Holloran dead. The time on the clock is 11:45. Paul Brinegar is the man working at the newsstand. 2/8/24
• 071. The Hands of Mr. Ottermole – 5/5/1957
  • On a very foggy night in London in 1919, a man named Herbert Whybrow (Arthur E. Gould-Porter) walks home from work, nodding to an unseen man who is whistling Greensleeves. The man then comes to Whybrow’s door and strangles him and his wife (Hilda Plowright) to death. After the murders, a crowd forms outside the house. Sgt. Ottermole (Theodore Bikel) is onsite, and he allows Officer Peterson (John Trayne) to permit the Whybrows’ nephew (Barry Harvey) into the house. Although he lives nearby, he hasn’t seen anything and hasn’t any leads on who might be a suspect. Nearby, Constable Johnson (Torin Thatcher) questions one of the neighbors (Nelson Welch). Mr. Summers (Rhys Williams) from The Guardian newspaper also shows up looking for answers from the officers, but Ottermole sends him away. Two days later, Summers and other reporters hound the police for answers since they appear to have come up with nothing. Ottermore makes the rounds to make sure the curfew is enforced, telling the bartender Ben (James McCallion) to be sure to close on time. A lady (Nora O’Mahoney) who is selling flowers in the bar is approached outside by the man whistling Greensleeves and is strangled to death. Mr. Summers continues to pester Sgt. Ottermole, speculating as to the motive of the killer. He seems to be so deep into the head of the killer that the police start to suspect him as the killer. Sgt. Ottermole runs into Constable Johnson on the street, and then minutes later Johnson finds the dead body of Officer Peterson on the street, just three minutes after he has just spoken to him. Ottermore is incredulous that this happened right under the nose of Johnson, and he sends him to question everybody who lives on either side of the street. One of the reporters (Charles Davis) tells Ben and Summers that he thinks the police will now accelerate the investigation since a police officer has been killed. Summers thinks that the answer must be obvious and that no one has stopped to question something right in front of their eyes. Summers hits the streets and run into Ottermole, and accuses him of being the killer. Ottermole states that he doesn’t know why he has killed, but that sometimes his hands have a mind of their own. He then attempts to strangle Summers but is stopped by Johnson who has been trailing them. Ottermole is arrested by an astounded Constable Johnson. Summers admits that it did indeed feel as if Ottermole’s hands were insane. Gerald Hamer is the reprter who talks about the senseless wantonness of the killings. Mollie Roden is the neighbor outside Whybrow’s front door. 2/10/24
• 072. A Man Greatly Beloved – 5/12/1957
  • The story is narrated by a little girl named Hildegard Fell (Evelyn Rudie), who lives in the town of Essington, Massachusetts with her parents, Reverend Richard (Hugh Marlowe) and Mrs. Fell (Rebecca Welles). She talks about a man who has moved into the neighborhood named John Anderson (Sir Cedric Hardwicke). After Anderson refused to let the annual church bazaar take place in his garden as it had for many years. Hildegard decides to pay him a visit, and although he tries to resist talking to her, she winds up inviting herself in, hijacking his game of chess, and drinking his lemonade. She tells him that she plans to get married to a bank clerk named Clarence (Robert Culp) from Boston, who often comes to visit her other adult friend Aggie Whiteford (Edith Barrett), an aspiring medium. Anderson laughs it off, especially since Hildegard’s father is a minister. Hildegard later visits Mrs. Whiteford, who is struggling through contacting her spirit contact Naomi. Clarence stops by, and Hildegard asks him if he is familiar with Anderson, since they both hailed from Boston. Clarence tells her about a Judge Anderson, who is now retired and quite revered for all of the brutal killers he put away behind bars. Hildegard deduces that Anderson may be in hiding in case any of the criminals ever get out of prison. Hildegard later confronts Anderson and asks him if he is the judge, and he confesses that he is indeed. Hildegards says she will tell no one if he allows the bazaar to take place in his garden, to which he reluctantly agrees. The bazaar turns out to be held on a rainy day, so the bazaar is moved into Anderson’s house. Since the band is unable to play due to the weather, Mrs. Whiteford volunteers to take their place and perform a seance in the living room. Initially, the Reverend says he can’t sanction such a thing, but eventually his wife and Hildegard talk him into allowing it. Once the lights go down, Hildegard assumes the role of Naomi and crawls under the table, pretending to be her spirit guide. She decides to tell her secret about Judge Anderson to everyone. Once she exposes him, Anderson admits that it is true, and he becomes greatly revered by everyone in town. This causes a drastic change in him, and soon he is one of the community’s leading contributors, even donating a stained-glass window to Reverend Fell’s church. Time passes, and John Anderson passes away. As Reverend Fells works on preparing a eulogy for him, Clarence stops by to talk to Reverend Fell, and tells him that he has made a huge mistake. It turns out that Anderson was actually a man named John Louton, who had strangled his wife to death. Judge Anderson has put him away for fifteen years, and as a sick joke, Louton adopted the judge’s name. Reverend Fell decides not to change a lot about his eulogy since he referred to the Book of Daniel’s verse that mentions that “A man greatly beloved understand the words that I say unto thee.” Ken Christy is the dart thrower. Marjorie Bennett is the cake lady, Mrs. Crow. 2/10/24
• 073. Martha Mason, Movie Star – 5/19/1957
  • Henry G. McKay (Robert Emhardt) seems like the perfect husband to his wife Mabel (Judith Evelyn). He takes care of her, often dotes on her, and only leaves her one night a week to attend his lodge meeting. Mabel, on the other hand, is self-centered, irritable, and fancies herself a look-alike to popular actress Martha Mason. She seldom gets up in time to cook breakfast for her, and often attends the motion picture show, especially during screenings of Martha Mason films, during which she thinks that other people are staring at her because she is the movie star. Henry prefers to spend the time in his garden and has just built walls and found a new fertilizer to tend to his lilies. When he calls Mabel to come and see it, she reluctantly comes, but then criticizes him and tells him that she finds him boring. She suggests divorce, but he says he doesn’t believe in it and that she had no grounds for divorce, which would leave her without alimony. In a fit of anger, she grabs his hammer and hits him over the head, killing him instantly. She then buries him in his garden. When he doesn’t show up for work, his boss, Mr. Abernathy (Vinton Hayworth) calls and then comes to the house to see what is going on. Mabel has typed a note indicating that Henry has recognized that he is not worthy of her and has run off with another woman, but not one that is as glamorous or looks as much like a movie star as she does. Abernathy believes that Henry may just be sowing some wild oats and will likely return ashamed of himself. He tries to keep the word of this from spreading and tells others that he sent Henry to Chicago on business. However, the world soon leaks, and people begin talking. When Abernathy suggests that Mabel try to keep it quiet, she responds in anger and then calls the police to report that she has been deserted by Henry. The police detective (Rusty Lane) has sympathy for her and corroborates that the signature that she forged belongs to Henry. One day he calls her to the police station to sign some papers, and then springs on her that they have found Henry. She insists that he has run off with another woman, but the actual ‘other woman’, named Cora (Karen Norris), who Henry used to see on the nights when he was supposedly at his lodge meeting, reported that if he had run off, it would have been with her. The police then investigated the house when Mabel wasn’t home and found the body in the garden. In true prima donna fashion, Mabel faints into a police officer’s arms. 6/25/24
• 074. The West Warlock Time Capsule – 5/26/1957
  • In the town of West Warlock, a taxidermist named George Tiffany (Henry Jones) works on putting together a dead horse named Napoleon, explaining all of the gory details of the job to a young boy named Charlie (Bobby Clark) who is visiting the studio. The boy reads from a newspaper that the city mayor Herbert Ayers (Charlie Watts) has accepted the memorial to the horse as a gift that will be enshrined and will include inside it a sealed time capsule to be opened in 100 years. Later, George returns to his home upstairs and receives the news from his wife Louise (Mildred Dunnock) that Waldren (Sam Buffington), her younger bachelor brother from Canada is coming for a visit. George is less than enthused but tells Louise that he is looking forward to it. Once Waldren arrives, he immediately has Louise waiting on him hand and foot, claiming that a cough is keeping him out of work. He begins guzzling the cough syrup faster than George can purchase it for him. George continues to work on the horse and gather relics for the time capsule. Charlie contributes a picture of his dog Rover. When he notices Waldren out taking a walk, he goes up to see Louise and tells her that she is wearing herself out by waiting on Waldren constantly. George realizes he must be delicate as she starts to cry at the mention of Waldren and insists that he wouldn’t want to be any trouble. When George returns home that night, he finds that Louise has collapsed in the kitchen, while Waldren complains that she made a racket and disturbed his sleep. George talks to Dr. Rhody (Russell Thorson), who tells him that Waldren is merely pretending to be sick and that there isn’t anything physically wrong with him. When George tries to talk to Waldren, he has no interest in Louise and simply tells George that he hasn’t had a decent meal since she’s been in the hospital. Later, George composes a letter to Louise that reads as if Waldren sent it from his new location in Mexico. He then asks Waldren with his assistance with Napoleon, telling him that he is going to need to add a little weight to him. At the dedication of Napoleon, Louise, who is now back to her healthy self, tells George how proud of him she is, but wishes Waldren could see it. She also notes that he must be enjoying the warmer weather, and George confirms that it is indeed warmer. Alfred Hitchcock reveals in the epilogue that Waldren’s murder was revealed earlier than he had hoped when Waldren’s weight caused him to fall through the horse’s stomach a few months later, but the jury was lenient with George. James F. Stone is one of George’s customers. James Philbrook is the horse mover. 6/25/24
• 075. Father and Son – 6/2/1957
  • In 1912, London, England, a middle-aged ne’er-do-well named Sam Saunders (Charles Davis) is once again out of money, so he goes to see his father Joe (Edmund Gwenn) to ask for a loan. Joe tells Sam that he has been a disappointment who has never even attempted to hold a job, while Sam accuses his father of being a useless drunk who is never there for him. After Sam storms out, another man named Gus Harrison (Frederick Worlock) comes to Joe but collapses upon his arrival. Meanwhile, Sam pays a visit to his one true love Mae (Pamela Light), a singer in a local nightclub, telling her of his plans to be together. Unfortunately, she has been disappointed by his sorry state for too long and tells him that she is leaving for Brighton and to only come back and see her if he has money. Sam visits a bank manager named Mr. Schiller (George Pelling) to ask for a loan, telling him that he will soon be heir to his father’s store when he dies and wanting to use it as collateral. Schiller is disgusted by Sam’s comments and demands that he leave the bank. Sam briefly considers smashing a heavy ornament over his head but decides against it. Back at Joe’s place, he and Gus discuss the fact that Gus is a wanted man and needs a place to hide from the authorities. He says he has been falsely accused of a murder and there is a reward of fifty pounds on his head. Joe agrees to hide him in the cellar, but unbeknownst to both of them, Sam has returned and overhears the conversation. After Gus disappears into the cellar, Sam emerges and asks his father one more time to loan him some money, telling him that he would resort to anything to get it. When Joe again refuses, Sam heads straight to the police station to report the fugitive that his father is hiding. A sergeant (Dan Sheridan) returns to the station with Joe, but having been unable to find Gus, another sergeant (John Trayne) threatens to charge Sam with giving them false information in order to get the reward. He is shocked to find out that Sam and Joe are father and son. In order to save his son, Joe admits that he was indeed harboring Gus, but that he was warned by Mae that the police were coming and he fled. Sam is given his reward and Joe is arrested, but when Sam leaves with his money, he falls down a flight of stairs as he exits the station. 6/26/24
• 076. The Indestructible Mr. Weems – 6/9/1957
  • The Knights of the Golden Lodge has purchased a plot of land that they’ve named Elysium Park, which they plan to use as a cemetery for lodge members. A board meeting of members presided by over by Cato Stone (Robert Middleton) is called to discuss the fact that the other members Brother Elkins (Don Keefer), Brother Brodsky (Harry Belaver), and Harry Brown (Joe Mantell) have been unable to sell any plots to the membership. They hope that if one person buys a plot, the floodgates will open for others to follow suite. Harry suggests that they make an offer to an inactive member named Clarence Weems (Russell Collins), who has been confined to his bed for over a year and has little time left. They propose that if they give him $50 a week to help keep him comfortable until the time of his passing that he will agree to be buried in Elysium Park. They go to visit him, climbing the four flights of stairs to get to his apartment, to make him the offer. Stone and the other guys also find out that Harry is dating Weems’ daughter Laura (Rebecca Welles) and start to become suspicious of his motives. Mr. Weems accepts the offer, and they draw up a contract. Almost immediately, Mr. Weems seems to come back to life, inviting his maid Sara Collins (Gladys Hurlbut) to start a relationship with him. As time passes, Mr. Weems starts to get better rather than worse, costing the lodge $50 every week. Weems even reactivates his membership in the lodge and begins attending dances with Sara. Mr. Stone continues to visit Weems weekly, hoping that his condition might worsen, but climbing the stairs only seems to tire himself out. The men visit with Weems doctor, Dr. Allen (Theodore Newton) to find out the details of Weems’ condition. He tells them that by giving him hope that he is no longer a broken man without a wife and a job, he has rejuvenated himself to feel much better than before. With the lodge in financial trouble, they consider selling the land, and then decide to offer Weems $500 to negate the contract. They rush over to make the offer to him, but when they see him pushing some heavy furniture into his apartment, Stone has a heart attack and drops dead. Mr. Weems agrees to give up his plot at Elysium Park in order to help sales by having Mr. Stone buried there. In the epilogue, Hitchcock mentions that their trustees eventually converted the cemetery into a dog racing track. Ted Bliss is Mr. Evans, the man at the dance. Ferdi Hoffman is the minister. 6/26/24
• 077. A Little Sleep – 6/16/1957
  • A woman named Barbie Hallem (Barbara Cook) attends a party with her beau Chris Kymer (John Carlyle), who gets frustrated with her with dancing all over the room, and flirting, and then kissing another man named Austin (Douglas Kennedy). Chris wants to take her home, but she would rather go up to the mountains where she now owns a cabin that she recently inherited from her Uncle Alex. They take off together, but Chris tries to get her to let him at least drive. She winds up tricking him when he gets out of the car and drives off without him, abandoning him on the road. On the way to her cabin, she makes a stop at a cabin diner owned by a man named Ed Mungo (Robert Karnes). Barbie notes that there are several armed men inside and overhears that they are searching for someone named Benny, who has committed some atrocious act to a woman. She mentions to one of the men (Jack Mullaney) that she is heading up to the Hallem cabin, and he suggests that she speak to Ed Mungo, who looks after the cabin… and is the brother of Benny. She is told that it was Ed who found the girl, whose neck Benny has broken, and her dog, which he had also killed. She decides to head up to the cabin without waiting to talk to Ed. When she arrives, there is a man there, who claims to be trespassing, and introduces himself as Benny (Vic Morrow). He says that Ed gave him permission to be in the cabin. Benny admits to Barbie that he had killed a girl named Marcella’s dog, but only because the dog attacked and bit him. He says that Ed then showed up and ran him out and has now gone to get Marcella. He tells Barbie that the last time he saw Marcella she was just fine and was sleeping. Barbie wants to know if Ed liked Marcella as she begins to suspect that it was actually Ed who had either kidnapped or killed her. Barbie offers to take Benny with her and suggests that they not wait for Ed, but he shows up before they can leave. Ed says that he needs to talk to Barbie to see where they stand, telling her that Marcella is indeed dead. Barbie insists that Benny did nothing more than kill a dog, and Ed says that he needs to protect Benny from being put away. Ed insists that Barbie drives him and Benny to get out of there. Barbie looks to Benny to help and tells him that it was Ed who killed Marcella. Benny then turns on Ed, and they begin to scuffle, with Ed getting knocked out. Benny tells her that Ed will be just fine when he wakes up, and Barbie offers to drive Benny away. When Benny sees Chris’s jacket in the car, he asks who it belongs to. Barbie tells him that it belongs to a man who bored her. Benny then says that Marcella had said the same thing last night, just before he ‘put her to sleep’ just like he also did to Ed… and then moves in to show Barbie how he does it quickly. George Chandler is the champagne-drinking partygoer. 10/24/24
• 078. The Dangerous People – 6/23/1957
  • One evening, a nervous man named Mr. Bellfontaine (Robert H. Harris) enters a desolate train station as sirens wail in the night. The only other passenger in the station is a man named Mr. Jones (Albert Salmi), who is waiting for the train to Milwaukee. Bellfontaine thinks to himself that he shouldn’t have hurried, as he will now appear to be out of breath. The two strike up a conversation, but Jones seems out of sorts and evasive. They discuss the sirens blaring outside, and Bellfontaine tells Jones that it is coming from the home for the criminally insane because one of their inmates has escaped, a fact of which Jones is already aware. Bellfontaine also mentions that it could be a killer who has a split personality, and that he is likely perfectly willing to kill again because they can only put him back in the asylum where he already was. Bellfontaine begins to suspect that Jones could possibly be the killer himself, so he goes to restroom to remove his gun from his briefcase and put it in his coat pocket. Once Bellfontaine starts acting suspicious, Jones starts to suspect that it might be him who is the killer. He tries to get his hands on the fireplace poker to use for defense, but Bellfontaine grabs it first to stoke the fire. Both men sit and make small talk while being utterly on edge and ready to kill each other at the first provocation. Bellfontaine nearly decides to make the first move when an officer (Ken Clark) walks into the station, breaking the tension. They both ask the officer if the escaped man has been caught. The officer tells them that the man had killed a policeman in Waynesville and stole his car and the uniform. Both Bellfontaine and Jones suddenly realize that the officer is the escaped inmate, so they both subdue him, just as some orderlies show up to take him back to the asylum. They both acknowledge that they each thought the escaped man might be each other. Jones admits that he has been quite out of sorts after a night of heavy drinking and then falling on his face. Bellfontaine admits that he was carrying the gun for a client of his to give to the man’s son in Milwaukee. David Armstrong is the orderly who tells the escaped man that they’re heading back to the home. Harry O. Tyler is the station agent. 10/24/24

SEASON 3

• 079. The Glass Eye – 10/6/1957
  • Jim (William Shatner) and Dorothy Whitely (Rosemary Harris) go through Jim’s cousin Julia Lester’s (Jessica Tandy) belongings following her death. Jim laments the fact that she remained so private and alone all of her life but recalls one time that she nearly broke out of her single life. She shows Dorothy a glass eye that Julia had kept and then begins to explain the situation via flashback. Julia had been a victim of her own boring routine for many years but seemed to be satisfied. However, one day while she was babysitting for a little boy named Allan (Paul Playdon), she took him to the theater where they saw a performer named Max Collodi (Tom Conway) who had a funny ventriloquist act with his dummy George. Julia enjoys the act so much that she purchases a ticket to come back and see Collodi again that night. She keeps returning to see the act, even in areas far away, and soon finds herself in love with Max Collodi. Eventually, she resolves to actually meet him, so she writes him a letter. She quits her job and plans to live on the money that she has saved and begins following Collodi around the country. He responds to her letter and says he is grateful for her praise but never gives interviews. He also requests her photograph, and she obliges. They begin exchanging letters and becoming more cordial, until at last he grants her an in-person meeting but stipulates that it can only last for five minutes. He says there will be no other chaperone outside of his dummy George. She spends the day getting ready to greet him and then goes to see him after his performance at the Winter Garden Theater. Although he keeps the room in low light, they have a very pleasant conversation, and he expresses how grateful he is for her admiration. As her five minutes nears completion, she tells him that she would love to come back and see him. Before she goes, she tells him that she has had the urge to touch him ever since she first saw him. As she moves in and touches him, it is revealed that the full-grown Collodi is actually the dummy, whose head falls apart after being touched. George (Billy Barty) is actually the living, breathing little person who has been controlling the Collodi dummy. He screams at Julia to get out, and in her shock, she picks up the glass eye that fell from the dummy… which she kept all of these years as a remembrance of the one she thought she loved. From that day forward, Max Collodi made no more appearance, but Jim has heard that he joined a traveling circus and works as a clown. Patricia Hitchcock is the saleslady. Arthur E. Gould-Porter is the hotel clerk. Nelson Welch is the music hall presenter. Colin Campbell is the man who brings Julia a letter. 11/13/24
• 080. Mail Order Prophet – 10/13/1957
  • As disillusioned corporate employee Ronald J. Grimes (E.G. Marshall) is complaining about being nothing more than a cogs in a large corporate machine to his associate George Benedict (Jack Klugman), he receives a mysterious letter from a person named J. Christiani, which makes simple prediction that Mayor Twiss will be defeated in the election that week. He and his friend George are both skeptical and believe it is nothing more than a political gimmick. However, when Twiss loses the election to the underdog Hampton, and then Grimes gets another letter stating that the fighter Booker will lose the championship fight that Friday night to Matthews. Grimes fails to bet on Matthews, but when Matthews wins, Grimes starts to take the letters seriously. The next few letters he receives advise him to bet on other things, and Grimes winds up coming out a winner. The next letter that he gets from Christiani states that although he cannot use his power to foresee the future for his own personal gain, Grimes is not prohibited from sharing his good fortune with Christiani. In return, Christiani will send him a stock market prediction that will return his investment tenfold. Against the advice of Benedict, Grimes sends Christiani a check for $200, which is all that he has left from the $1000 that he has won. He also confides in Benedict that he plans to borrow the money for the stock investment from their company and then return it after he collects the dividends. Benedict tries to dissuade him from doing this, as he is certain that there is no way to predict the future. Grimes moves forward with the plan anyway and buys 100,000 shares in Athabaska mines for 30 cents each, borrowing the company’s negotiable bonds to pay for them. He also writes a letter of confession that also serves as a suicide note just in case he loses. When the stock fails to move in his favor, he takes a bottle of poison pills into the restroom at work, but in the nick of time, he finds out that the stock has gone up to $1.40 per share, leaving him a net profit of over a hundred thousand dollars. This is enough money for him to quit his job and heads out for a life of luxury on his new boat. Benedict pays a visit to the postmaster (Judson Pratt) to try and find out more about this scheme and the source post office box to which Grimes has sent his money. Pratt explains that the con man behind this ruse simply sent 4000 random letters, with half of them predicting the winner of the mayor’s race. From the two thousand winning letter, he sent follow-up letters, with half of them predicting the victory of one boxer and half predicting the other. He continued to follow this pattern until he had a handful of letters that always seemed to be correct, and that’s where he would convince them to send him money. Christiani was caught and is serving time for fraud, leaving Grimes to reap the benefits of nothing but chance luck. Barbara Townsend is the secretary. Ken Christy is Grimes’ boss. Victor Romito is Tony, the waiter. Linda Watkins is the barroom customer watching the fight. 11/13/24

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 18th, 2000 at 11:04 am and is filed under Television. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.