![]() ![]() It's obvious that he's not going to use it to hang up his shirt. Meanwhile, her disgusting husband is already plastered with alcohol and is heading home with a longshoreman's hook stuffed in his back pocket. Her response to their kindness is to literally rip into them with the same diatribe as she did with all her other acquaintances of the day and their efforts are mostly futile. Van Fleet to try to warn her of her dire situation and to give her some much-needed comfort. Making matters worse, the temperature in the city is boiling over and everyone's nerves are frayed. To put it in literary terms, she's a modern-day Madame DeFarge without the revolutionary fervor. His abuse and nastiness to her is matched equally by her own and she serves everyone else she encounters with more of the same. She lives in a miserable slum tenement with a drunken husband prone to violence. Shrike (a nearly unrecognizable Jo Van Fleet). Two retired insurance salesmen (John Qualen and Robert Harris) have found a new sideline they walk through the city streets together to pick out the next "accident waiting to happen." They find one in a wreck of a 45-year-old woman named Mrs. That said, old Alfred straddled that thin line quite a few times over the years and this is certainly one of them. This Ray Bradbury penned story probably fits more into a "Twilight Zone" episode format than the usual Hitchcock entry. However, the sum total is memorable only for the chew marks Van Fleet leaves on the scenery. And the cast does feature two series favorites, Harris and Qualen. On the other hand, the entry is well produced-the sets effectively suggest an over-heated urban slum. At the same time, the expected payoff is too mild for a series that specialized in strong payoffs. Reviewer Hitchcoc is right: the episode is talky, too talky. It's a showcase role, but overwhelms the story itself. With Shrike's out-of-control attitude, it's hard to see how she could survive even one day in a tough neighborhood. The trouble is the plot is slender, and Van Fleet goes way over the top in making Mrs. ![]() Two retired insurance men try to apply their expertise to help an angry slum dweller (Van Fleet) during an urban heat wave. In my book, it's not a very good episode. Looks to me like the material was chosen because of the distinguished author, Ray Bradbury, and the recent Oscar-winning actress Jo Van Fleet (East of Eden, 1955). I don't think he was going to unload on anyone but the Mrs. Shrike returning home with an alcohol fueled greeting for his wife, complete with longshoreman's hook in his back pocket. However his instincts on this one was good, as the story ends with Mr. Shrike (Van Fleet) to share his concern about inadvertently inviting personal tragedy, and with the temperature reaching the ideal ninety two degree temperature the statistics indicated were ripe for homicide, Clarence almost resorted to physical assault himself before being dissuaded by his partner. I don't think proprietor Michael Ansara was guilty of a bait and switch, but if you checked the sign for ground round on the outside window of his shop, it read forty nine cents per pound, but inside the store it was sixty seven cents! Anyway, because he couldn't get the abusive Mrs. How about apples at eighteen cents per pound at the local grocer, or celery at two for a quarter! And then you had pork chops at seventy five cents per pound at the butcher shop. With this story set in the present day of the 1950's era, one can appreciate the prices of everyday items before inflation really took hold. Also notable, and something I pick up on when watching these old shows, is how they serve as a time capsule reminder of the way things used to be. I don't know when the study of the subconscious entered the mainstream, but this early reference to it in a television program was certainly notable. What struck me about this episode was the reference that Clarence (Harris) made about the 'subconscious mind', and how it relates to a person's sense of well being, or in this case, lack of. Harris, John Qualen) apparently feel the need to intervene in the lives of ordinary people they feel meet actuarial statistics favoring imminent death, and set their sights on a curmudgeonly woman (Jo Van Fleet) who browbeats everyone she comes in contact with. A pair of retired insurance salesmen (Robert H. ![]()
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