“House Guest.” An episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (Season 1, Episode 8). First air date: 8 November 1962. MacDonald Carey, Robert Sterling, Karl Swenson, Peggy McCay, Adele Mara, Robert Armstrong, Billy Mumy. Writers: Marc Brandell and Henry Slesar. Based on the novel The Golden Deed (1960) by Andrew Garve. Director: Alan Crosland, Jr.

   Sally Mitchell (Peggy McCay) and her son Tony (Billy Mumy) are at the beach; for some reason Tony insists on swimming far offshore (it’s only much later that we find out why), where he nearly drowns. Only the intervention of Ray Roscoe (Robert Sterling) keeps him from going under.

   Sally, needless to say, is profusely grateful to Ray and tells her husband John (MacDonald Carey), who offers Ray a temporary place to stay until he can get on his feet, financially speaking. According to Ray, he’s just out of the Air Force and looking for an orange grove to invest in.

   Soon, however, Ray shows his true colors, making barely concealed passes at Sally and neglecting to find work. He even tries to coerce John into paying him to leave.

   Ray’s behavior deteriorates even further when, while driving John’s car, he gets into a fender bender with George Sherston (Karl Swenson) and his wife Eve (Adele Mara). Sally can’t help but notice Ray now making passes at Eve, just like he did with her.

   But George isn’t blind, either. After Ray reportedly gets too physical with Eve and she scratches his face, an enraged George confronts him just outside John’s house. The two are in a slugfest when John intervenes, trying to stop it. Then a terrible accident occurs: When John pushes him a little too hard, Ray falls against a car bumper. George checks the body for life signs.

   The thing to do now would be to call the police, but George argues that it would be nearly impossible to prove it wasn’t premeditated murder, considering Ray’s sexual advances and attempts at blackmail. They all agree the best action would be to bury their “accident victim” and pretend he’s moved on.

   Funny thing about Ray’s accident, though — it’s exactly according to plan ….

   Karl Swenson was all over television for three decades; he usually played in Westerns (e.g., Little House on the Prairie, Bonanza, Cimarron Strip, Gunsmoke), but not always (The Mod Squad, Barnaby Jones, Hawaii Five-O, Mission: Impossible).

   Robert Sterling had a few criminous credits: Johnny Eager (1941), The Get-Away (1941), and Bunco Squad (1950) — but he usually played lightweight comedy roles or good guys: the Topper TV series (1953-55), Ichabod and Me (series, 1961-62), and the first captain of the U.S.O.S Seaview in Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961).

   As for MacDonald Carey: Shadow of a Doubt (1943), the TV series Lock Up (1959-61), four appearances on Burke’s Law, and two on Murder, She Wrote — including what some regard as the smartest and trickiest episode of that series, “Trial by Error” (1986).

Hulu: http://www.imdb.com/video/hulu/vi886571033/

Editorial Comment:   According to IMDB, Andrew Garve’s The Golden Deed was also the basis for the first episode of a summer replacement series on NBC called Moment of Fear (1 July 1960; Season 1, Episode 1). Starring in the program were Macdonald Carey, in apparently the same role, Nina Foch, and Robert Redford.

HELENE TURSTEN – Detective Inspector Russ. Soho Press, hardcover, US, January 2003; trade paperback, May 2004. Translated by Steven T. Murray.

   Irene Huss is a police inspector in Goteborg, Sweden, and her story is a character-driven semi-procedural flavored with a strong dose of domestic life, reminiscent of Peter Robinson’s and Donna Leon’s police series.

   Private life is less idealized in Tursten’s book, although Irene’s chef-husband Krister is a little too good to be true. As she investigates the mysterious death of wealthy Richard von Knecht, the reader is also shown her household’s twice-monthly cleaning routine and a crisis with one of the daughters slipping into skinhead culture.

   There’s just enough of this sort of thing to provide a strongly realistic atmosphere, heightened by vivid descriptions of nasty weather and long hours of darkness during the weeks before Christmas. Despite the domestic detail, including a lovable dog, this is rather hardboiled, including, for example, a nasty run-in with a group of Hell’s Angels.

   Originally published in Sweden in 1998, this came out in English from Soho Press in 2003. Recommended, but not to those of you who have already tried and disliked Scandinavian crime fiction. This book won’t change your mind.

       The Inspector Huss series:

Translated into English:

   1. Detective Inspector Huss (2003)
   2. The Torso (2006)

   3. The Glass Devil (2007)

Published in Sweden:

   * 1998 – Den krossade tanghästen, English title: Detective Inspector Huss (2003)
   * 1999 – Nattrond
   * 1999 – Tatuerad torso. English title: The Torso (2006)
   * 2002 – Kallt mord
   * 2002 – Glasdjävulen. English title: The Glass Devil (2007)

   * 2004 – Guldkalven
   * 2005 – Eldsdansen
   * 2007 – En man med litet ansikte
   * 2008 – Det lömska nätet

   Six films based on the series has appeared in Sweden and are available on the Internet as a six-DVD boxed set. Playing Inspector Huss is Angela Kovàcs. Contained in the set are:

   1. The Torso
   2. The Horse Figurine
   3. The Fire Dance
   4. The Night Round
   5. The Glass Devil
   6. The Gold Digger

   Swedish titles: Glasdjävulen / Guldkalven / Eldsdansen / Nattrond / Den Krossade tanghästen / Tatuerad torso.

   A trailer for The Torso can be seen here on YouTube.

“Captive Audience.” An episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (Season 1, Episode 5). First air date: 18 October 1962. James Mason, Angie Dickinson, Arnold Moss, Ed Nelson, Roland Winters, Sara Shane, Bart Burns. Teleplay: Richard Levinson & William Link, based on the novel Murder off the Record (1957) by John Bingham. Director: Alf Kjellin.

   Victor Hartman (Arnold Moss) publishes mystery novels, but even so he’s unprepared for what’s been developing for the past few days. Victor has been receiving tape recordings from a prospective author named Warren Barrow (James Mason) in which Barrow may be revealing his plans to exact revenge on Janet West (Angie Dickinson) for trying to frame him for murder —   OR what he’s saying on the tapes might just be notes for a novel he hopes to place with Victor.

   Victor is unsure and calls in Tom Keller (Ed Nelson), one of his best mystery authors. Is Barrow really planning murder, or is he just floating ideas for a novel? Because, if Barrow IS serious, something has to be done — and fast ….

   Altogether, the now legendary but then struggling to get established Richard Levinson and William Link were responsible for five Alfred Hitchcock Hour episodes, and not a bad one in the bunch: “Captive Audience”; “Day of Reckoning”; “Dear Uncle George”; “Nothing Ever Happens in Linvale”; and “Murder Case.”

   Another Alfred Hitchcock Hour episode, “The Tender Poisoner,” was also derived from a John Bingham novel.

Hulu: http://www.imdb.com/video/hulu/vi1490550809/

CRIMINAL JUSTICE. BBC, UK. Second series: 5 through 9 October 2009.

Maxine Peake, Denis Lawson, Sophie Okonedo, Steven Mackintosh, Kate Hardie, Nadine Marshall, Matthew Macfadyen, Zoe Telford. Written by Peter Moffat; director: Yann Demange.

   This was a highly touted five part series (one hour each, no adverts) shown over five successive nights. It was actually the second under this title, but as I seemed to be the only person who didn’t enjoy last year’s opener, I was fearing the worst.

   Actually this story of an oppressed wife who stabs her husband but then refuses to talk about it had some very good scenes and seemed to me to be on a different level that last year’s story.

   We saw the progress of the wife through the flawed justice system both through the courts and on remand in the prison system. At times slow moving, and implausible in places, there were enough moving moments to make this worth persevering with.

“Nobody Will Ever Know.” An episode of Kraft Suspense Theatre (Season 2, Episode 19). First air date: 25 March 1965. Tom Tryon, Pippa Scott, Myrna Fahey, Liam Sullivan, Robert Quarry, David Lewis, Frank Maxwell. Teleplay: Richard Fielder and Harry Essex. Story: Roger H. Lewis. Director: Don Weis.

   Tom Banning (Tom Tryon) seems to have it all: a well-paying research position at Continental Plastics, being married to the boss’s daughter, and the prospect of a promotion.

   So why is he skulking around a chemical laboratory with a camera photographing secret bench experiments, engaging in industrial espionage?

   Could it have to do with the fact that he’s not making enough money to cover the bills? That he resents his father-in-law’s intrusions into their private lives? That although he’s due for that promotion soon, he’s afraid he might not get it?

   That there’s an extremely attractive woman, part of the evaluation team, with whom he’s having an affair? That the money he’s getting for his spying would solve all their financial difficulties? Or could it be that the people he’s working for have guns and won’t hesitate to use them?

   How about all of the above?

   As Thomas Tryon, Tom Tryon made the bestseller lists with his written fiction (The Other, Harvest Home, Lady, etc.).

   Liam Sullivan specialized in playing villains almost entirely on TV, with three appearances on Perry Mason (1961-62), a Western series (The Monroes, 1966-67), a nice turn as a sadistic overlord in Star Trek (1967), as well as several primetime TV soaps.

   Frank Maxwell could be seen on TV just about anytime during the ’50s through the ’70s, including Perry Mason (1960-61), a comedy series (Our Man Higgins, 1962-63), two other episodes of Kraft Suspense Theatre (including “Leviathan Five”, reviewed here ), one Banacek (“Now You See Me, Now You Don’t”), five Barnaby Jones episodes, and four appearances on Quincy, M.E.

Editorial Comment:   Tom Tryon was born in Hartford, the city around the corner and up the street from me, and as something of a native son, all of his accomplishments, both in TV and the movies, then later as a bestselling author, were always written up in the local paper — the one I used to write mystery reviews for — but I’ve never read any of his fiction, I’m sad to say.

   The photo is only a publicity shot. It has nothing to do with the TV show that Mike just reviewed, but it’s how I remember him as an actor the most, with a solidly sculptured face and lots of hair.

“Hangover.” An episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (Season 1, Episode 12). First air date: 6 December 1962. Tony Randall, Jayne Mansfield, Robert Lieb, Myron Healey, Tyler McVey, June Levant, William Phipps, Dody Heath. Teleplay: Lou Rambeau. Based on two short stories by John D. MacDonald and Charles Runyon. Director: Bernard Girard.

   Hadley Purvis (Tony Randall) has a major drinking problem, one bad enough to prompt his wife to threaten divorce if he doesn’t quit. One morning he wakes up to find his wife gone; in her place, however, is another woman named Marion (Jayne Mansfield).

   Now, we can all agree that worse things can happen to a man than to wake up to a woman like Marion, but Had’s problem is he doesn’t remember a thing from the day before. It’s only in little fragments that he gradually reconstructs what actually happened — and the final revelation will prove devastating …

   Note the unusual pairing of credits for the stories this television play was based on. You have to wonder what the situation was there.

   Tony Randall was excellent at light comedy (114 episodes of The Odd Couple, 44 installments each of The Tony Randall Show and Love, Sidney) and seldom ventured into crime drama. He did appear in Agatha Christie’s The Man in the Brown Suit (1989, TVM) but was totally miscast as “Hercule Poirot” in The Alphabet Murders (1965).

   In “Hangover,” Jayne Mansfield reunites with her co-star Tony Randall from the screen comedy Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957), but the character dynamic is totally different. She also appeared in the latter-day film noir The Burglar (also 1957).

     Hulu: http://www.imdb.com/video/hulu/vi1574436889/

Editorial Comments:   Mike may be too young to remember, but I’m not. Tony Randall had a solid career in old radio before becoming a long-time favorite of both movie and TV audiences. He was best known as Reggie, one of the three adventurers in Carleton E. Morse’s I Love a Mystery series in the late 1940s.

   I also discussed the unusual story collaboration between John D. MacDonald and Charles Runyon with Walker Martin. Says Walker:

    “JDM had the same reaction as Mike. See his introduction in the paperback collection, End of the Tiger, which reprints the story. Originally published as ‘Hangover’ in the July 1956 issue of Cosmopolitan. His reaction is also brought out in Martin Grams and Patrik Wikstrom’s book on the Hitchcock TV shows.

    “JDM says, ‘…I realized some committee of idiots had decided to combine my story with another story by Charles Runyon. The result of course was cluttered nonsense.’

    “Runyon’s story was also called ‘Hangover’ and was published in the December 1960 Manhunt. I recently read the JDM story and the Runyon story addition is the Jayne Mansfield character. By the way she looks the best I’ve ever seen her look. She should have kept the short hair.”

BLUE MURDER. ITV, UK. Season Five: 7 September to 12 October 2009. Paul Loughran, Nicholas Murchie, Caroline Quentin, Ian Kelsey, Ceallach Spellman, Eden Garrity.

   This series, with Caroline Quentin as D. C. I. Janine Lewis juggling her job and the needs of her children, usually to the detriment of the latter, has combined the occasional good plot with a lot of uninteresting family squabbles.

   This new series (6 one-hour parts, less adverts) was a big improvement with Lewis concentrating on her work and her team, whose deficiencies were previously well to the fore, actually seemed efficient.

   The series dipped a little with a two-part finale when Lewis’s family problems cropped up again and the team took so many liberties with police procedure (or what is shown as police procedure on other programmes) that disbelief had to be firmly suspended.

   Nevertheless this was a series I enjoyed.

“The Black Curtain.” An episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (Season 1, Episode 9). First air date: 15 November 1962. Richard Basehart, Lola Albright, Harold J. Stone, Gail Kobe, James Farentino, Lee Philips, Celia Lovsky. Teleplay: Joel Murcott. Based on the novel The Black Curtain (1941) by Cornell Woolrich. Director: Sydney Pollack.

   During the course of getting mugged by some street punks, Phillip Townsend (Richard Basehart) gets conked on the noggin; when he comes to, he has an entirely different identity. What he’s forgotten is his criminal past, which soon catches up with him when a man tries to kill him in the park ….

   You can hardly go wrong with a Cornell Woolrich story; just about everything he wrote had cinematic potential. This particular narrative had already been dramatized on radio and even filmed as Street of Chance (1942) with Burgess Meredith and Claire Trevor, except a building had to fall on the protagonist to induce his personality change.

   Richard Basehart made quite a splash with his psycho cop killer in He Walked by Night (1948). He also appeared in Tension (1949), Fourteen Hours (1951), The House on Telegraph Hill (1951), The Intimate Stranger (1956), Portrait in Black (1960), The Paradine Case (1962, live TV), The Satan Bug (1965), 110 episodes of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964-68), and The Great Bank Hoax (1978).

   Lola Albright appeared in The Good Humor Man (1950), The Killer That Stalked New York (1950), five appearances on Burke’s Law, one episode each of McMillan & Wife and Columbo, and 81 episodes of Peter Gunn (1958-61) as Pete’s girlfriend Edie.

Hulu:   http://www.imdb.com/video/hulu/vi836239385/

“Annabel.” An episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (Season 1, Episode 7). First air date: 1 November 1962. Dean Stockwell, Susan Oliver, Kathleen Nolan, Bert Remsen. Teleplay: Robert Bloch, based on the novel This Sweet Sickness (1960) by Patricia Highsmith. Director: Paul Henreid.

   David Kelsey (Dean Stockwell), outwardly a fairly normal if brilliant individual, is leading a double life, assuming two different identities.

   He also has a case of unrequited love for Annabel Delaney (Susan Oliver), who is already married to a man who’s getting angrier and angrier; while David, in turn, hardly notices Linda Brennan (Kathleen Nolan), herself another case of unfulfilled desire. Ultimately, something’s got to give — and it does, violently ….

   Stockwell’s character is very much in Patricia Highsmith’s Talented Mr. Ripley mold: insensitive, narcissistic, warped, and capable of almost anything.

   Dean Stockwell’s huge list of screen credits includes Home, Sweet Homicide (1946), Song of the Thin Man (1947), Compulsion (1959), two episodes of Columbo, one Ellery Queen (1975), 97 episodes of Quantum Leap (1989-1993), and 15 appearances on the Battlestar Galactica reboot (2006-09).

   Susan Oliver did a lot of TV starting in the ’50s; sci-fi enthusiasts remember her from the Star Trek pilot film. She had a long run on the Peyton Place soaper, two appearances each on The Name of the Game and Murder, She Wrote — and she was also a superiior pilot.

   As for Robert Bloch: Psycho — ’nuff said.

Hulu:   http://www.imdb.com/video/hulu/vi1071120409/

“Don’t Look Behind You.” An episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (Season 1, Episode 2). First air date: 27 September 1962. Jeffrey Hunter, Vera Miles, Abraham Sofaer, Dick Sargent, Alf Kjellin, Ralph Roberts, Mary Scott, Madge Kennedy. Teleplay:
Barré Lyndon, based on a novel by Samuel Rogers. Director: John Brahm.

   Daphne (Vera Miles) is late for a dinner date and, like Little Red Riding Hood, decides to take a shortcut through the woods, which almost proves fatal because a serial killer is stalking her.

   She does make it unmolested, however. Within the next few minutes after her arrival, no fewer than four men show up at the party. She doesn’t know it at the time, but one of the four has already committed murder and another one will soon be making an attempt on her life…

   Maybe it’s just me, but this one doesn’t quite gel. True, the characters’ intentions are adequately foreshadowed, but the whole thing seems wonky and unconvincing.

   Vera Miles’ criminous credits include 23 Paces to Baker Street (1956), The Wrong Man (1956), Psycho (1960), three appearances on The Name of the Game, one on the Jim Hutton Ellery Queen, and three episodes of Murder, She Wrote.

   Jeffrey Hunter appeared in Fourteen Hours (1951), A Kiss Before Dying (1956), Key Witness (1960), Man-Trap (1960), and 26 episodes of the Temple Houston TV series (1963-64).

Hulu: http://www.imdb.com/video/hulu/vi685244441/

Editorial Comment: The pilot for the Temple Houston TV was titled The Man from Galveston (1963) and was considered so well done that it was released theatrically. David Vineyard reviewed it here on the blog last July.