“Nothing Ever Happens in Linvale.” An episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (Season 2, Episode 6). First air date: 8 November 1963. Fess Parker, Gary Merrill, Phyllis Thaxter, George Furth, Burt Mustin, Sam Reese. Teleplay: Richard Levinson and William Link; screenplay: Robert Twohy based on his story in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine (title and issue unknown). Director: Herschel Daugherty.

   Mrs. Logan (Phyllis Thaxter), a widow living alone, is alarmed. From her upstairs bedroom window she has watched the suspicious behavior of her next door neighbor, Harry Jarvis (Gary Merrill), and feels it’s time to call in the authorities.

   In this instance, “the authorities” consist of mild-mannered Sheriff Ben Wister (Fess Parker) and his semi-official and somewhat excitable deputy Charlie (George Furth).

   Mrs. Logan details the late-night digging around she has seen Harry Jarvis doing, and concludes Jarvis has done in his wife and buried her in his backyard. The sheriff investigates as far as he can, but tells her that based on the evidence he has, Harry has done no wrong. Nevertheless, responding to Mrs. Logan’s urgings to DO something before this killer gets away with murder, he takes it upon himself to dig up Jarvis’s back yard, where he does find a body — but not the one he was expecting ….

   This story is a clever variation on Hitchcock’s Rear Window, but if you’ve seen that film you’ll be at a disadvantage here because of preconceptions and expectations that you may have brought with you from the movie — and I think the screenwriters are clearly counting on that. (To say more would be to say too much.)

   Among Gary Merrill’s crime/suspense screen credits are Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950), A Blueprint for Murder (1953), Witness to Murder (1954), and The Human Jungle (1954). He also commanded a bomber group in Twelve O’Clock High (1949) and was nearly eaten by a giant crab in Mysterious Island (1961).

   Amiable Fess Parker’s screen persona usually led him to being cast as good guys — e.g., Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone on TV — so he never had much of a chance at being a bad ’un.

   Phyllis Thaxter was equally adept at being a victim, a perpetrator, or just the girl next door. She appeared in a noir Western, Blood on the Moon (1948); in Act of Violence (1948), Women’s Prison (1955), as well as in nine Alfred Hitchcock TV series episodes (is that a record?). She was also Clark Kent’s adoptive mother in Superman (1978).

   Follow the link to Hulu to see why “Nothing Ever Happens in Linvale.”

“See the Monkey Dance.” An episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (Season 3, Episode 5). First air date: 9 November 1964. Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., Roddy McDowall, Patricia Medina, George Pelling, Shari Lee Bernath. Original teleplay: Lewis Davidson. Director: Joseph M. Newman.

    George (Roddy McDowall) is returning home to a caravan (trailer) situated on leased farm land in what could be western England. When his train makes a short station stop, he hurries to a phone booth to call his lover (Patricia Medina), a woman who is married to another man. They’ve planned to spend the weekend in close proximity to each other while hubby is away.

    But when George returns to the train, someone else has entered the carriage: a strange, nervous, querulous little man with horn-rimmed glasses (Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.), an attache case containing a Webley revolver that George doesn’t see, and a bad attitude. It’s not long before the new guy initiates a bout of verbal bickering with George. After a while, George concludes this fellow is simply crazy, and when their train reaches its stop he leaves, glad to be rid of this madman.

    It’s only a short walk to his caravan, and George makes good time there; he knows his lover should be arriving soon, and straightens up the place. But there’s something going on outside. When he opens the window, there’s that same crazy man, digging a hole just a few feet from the trailer. When George moves to object, however, the strange man pops open his case and reveals the gun. George quickly realizes that he’s not just digging a hole; he’s digging a grave ….

    This episode has an unusually witty script, with a couple of plot twists that someone who’s been paying close attention might anticipate. Nevertheless, it’s great fun to see McDowall and Zimbalist in a battle of wits and wills; in addition, Zimbalist pulls off a British accent quite well here.

    Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. played Agent Lew Erskine in the ’60s-’70s series The F.B.I and was the voice of Alfred the butler in the Batman animated series. Most viewers remember Roddy McDowall from the “Planet of the Apes” series of films; some may recall his turn in Evil Under the Sun (1982).

    You can see “See the Monkey Dance” on Hulu (follow the link).

“Twixt the Cup and the Lip.”   An episode of Kraft Suspense Theatre (Season 2, Episode 27). First air date: 3 June 1965. Larry Blyden, Charles McGraw, John Hoyt, Ethel Merman, Jean Hale, Joan Blackman, John Harmon, Lee Patterson, Lane Bradford. Teleplay: Don Brinkley; based on a story by Julian Symons (Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, January 1965). Director: Leon Benson.

    Imagine being fired for being too honest. That’s what happens to Lester Pennell (Larry Blyden), however, when Mr. Orbin (John Hoyt), his boss at an up-scale art gallery, catches Lester being too forthcoming about the value of an item they’re displaying for the French government: a silver sceptre once wielded by Louis XIV. Mr. Orbin and the French say it’s worth $2 million; Lester says it couldn’t be worth a penny over $1.5 million — tops.

    Not only has he been given his two weeks’ notice but Larry also has a falling out with his girl Lucille (Joan Blackman), who accuses him of being a “doormat.”

    Meanwhile, back in Lester’s apartment house his neighbor across the hall, Nick Stacey (Charles McGraw), has stolen two rare books from Lester. Nick, you see, is an ex-cop who got caught taking bribes and is presently, as he says, “at liberty.” (How he missed jail time for his graft is never explained.)

    Down the hall Clara Lovelace (Ethel Merman) and her daughter Lambie (Jean Hale) are under-employed actors waiting for a job.

    Lester is in a dark mood when he catches Nick with his stolen books, dark enough indeed to see how Nick can be of enormous help in exacting revenge on Mr. Orbin. Lester is intimately familiar with the security systems at the gallery — and that silver sceptre just seems to be begging to get ripped off.

    And so Lester evolves a shaky caper that involves Nick and his fence, Pogo (John Harmon), Clara, Lambie, and himself. When you consider that they never have a chance to do a full rehearsal of the robbery because the French ask for the sceptre back days sooner than expected and that Nick and Lambie have ideas of their own for the boodle, you may have already concluded this caper won’t go off anywhere near as planned ….

    However, while you might anticipate the outcome of this one, I seriously doubt you’ll be able to foretell exactly what happens in the fourth act — and why.

    Larry Blyden was a regular fixture on American TV in the ’50s and ’60s, playing amiable yet somehow sinister characters; he also hosted several daytime game shows. He appeared in a couple of episodes of Twilight Zone, one where he winds up in Hell and another in which he’s a ham actor in a TV Western who gets an education from a real cowboy. Blyden even won a Tony Award on Broadway.

    Gruff and gravelly-voiced Charles McGraw is the legendary film noir star (T-Men, Border Incident, Armored Car Robbery, The Narrow Margin, etc.) who could also register integrity if the role called for it (The Bridges at Toko-Ri). He and Ethel Merman appeared together in It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World two years earlier.

    Always dependable character actor John Hoyt’s career stretched from the ’40s to the ’80s. He could handle comedy or drama equally well. Science fiction fans may remember him from When Worlds Collide, in which he played a devious, wheelchair-bound billionaire, and as the friendly doctor in the first Star Trek pilot film.

    Julian Symons, upon whose story this show is based, is famous — or infamous, depending on your viewpoint — for the opinions he expressed in his critical survey of mystery fiction, Bloody Murder (a.k.a. Mortal Consequences).

“Who Needs an Enemy?” An episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. First air date: 15 May 1964 (Season 2, episode 28). Steven Hill, Joanna Moore, Richard Anderson, Barney Phillips, Dee Carroll, Paul Baxley, Wally Rose. Teleplay: Arthur A. Ross; story: Henry Slesar, based on a story in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine (title and issue unknown). Director: Harry Morgan.

   Charlie Osgood (Steven Hill) has been embezzling money from his firm to the tune of $60,000; his partner Eddie Turtin (Richard Anderson) has found out and isn’t at all happy about it. In the opening scene, in fact, Eddie literally has a gun to Charlie’s head and wants him to return the money — or else he’ll go to the cops, which would mean seven felony counts and thirty-five years in prison for Charlie.

   What’s a fella to do? One solution Charlie explores is to kill his partner — but things don’t quite work out as planned.

   Plan B, although complicated and risky, seems to have more promise of succeeding. With his blonde girlfriend Danielle (Joanna Moore), Charlie fakes his own “suicide.” The plan is going along smoothly until Charlie decides to share the wealth; then he finds out who his friends really are ….

   This brief synopsis may give the wrong impression of the show’s tone. It’s not as grim as it sounds; indeed, it comes close to being a screwball comedy, with all the main characters not being too tightly wrapped.

   Steven Hill (Mission: Impossible, Law and Order) is surprisingly funny as Charlie, a guy who expects loyalty from people he cheerfully cheats. Joanna Moore proves that not all blondes are dumb. And Richard Anderson, normally cast as a stolid authority figure, steals the show with his frazzled businessman portrayal.

   Two highpoints: Moore’s interview with a policeman (Barney Phillips) as she tries to say “I don’t know” a half dozen different ways, and Anderson’s hilarious eulogy for his “dead” partner at a memorial service as he manfully struggles to say good things about a guy who has consistently driven him crazy over the past twenty years.

   The show ends with a bang — literally — which, all things considered, seems entirely just.

   You can see “Who Needs an Enemy?” on Hulu.

SINGLE-HANDED. Radio Telefís Éireann (RTÉ), Ireland. TV mini-series: 1-2 Jan 2007; 1-2 Jan 2008; 12-13 Apr 2009. Owen McDonnell, Ruth McCabe, David Herlihy, Briain Gleeson, Ian McElhinney, Marcella Plunkett.

   This is an Irish production that has just been shown here in England as a three part series, but, checking the Internet, I find that it was original broadcast in Ireland at one episode a year, two parts each, from 2007 to 2009

   Jack Driscoll is a sergeant in the Irish police force who has moved back to the rural and sparsely populated west of the country where he becomes effectively a one man force (hence the title) though he has a helper and a superior turns up from time to time. (Jack’s the one on the left in the photo.)

   He has taken over from his father but as his investigation into the death of young female immigrant proceeds he finds that the squeaky-clean reputation that his father holds is, in reality, somewhat blemished. In the second episode this story comes to a head and in the third an old flame, and former colleague, comes to the area as part of an operation.

   This was an intriguing series with an intriguing setting and with very bleak story lines. It is well worth watching and I would recommend watching them in the order of production as the consequences of each programme are evident in the next.

“The Name of the Game.”   An episode of Kraft Suspense Theatre. First air date: 26 December 1963 (Season 1, Episode 10). Jack Kelly, Pat Hingle, Nancy Kovack, B. G. Atwater, Steve Ihnat, Monica Lewis. Story: Fred Finklehoffe; screenplay: Frank Fenton. Director: Sydney Pollack.

   Don’t confuse this single show with the later TV series. The name of the game here isn’t fame but winning and losing at gambling, specifically casino craps.

   Jack Kelly plays an expert gambler who is down on his luck. Along comes Pat Hingle as an over-eager, impulsive Texas oil millionaire (he says he’s worth $10 million) anxious to beat the house at its own game.

   Hingle wants to win $200,000 and split it 50-50. Kelly agrees to team with Hingle as long as he does exactly what Kelly directs him to do. “I don’t tell you how to make oil wells,” Kelly informs him, “and you don’t tell me how to gamble.” Chafing at the restrictions, Hingle reluctantly assents.

   Kelly warns his partner that the odds always favor the house and that he may have to pony up at least a million to win that two hundred grand, but Hingle doesn’t seem to care. And thus begins a marathon bout of gambling, with Kelly having to rein in Hingle now and then. Director Sydney Pollack has one long-duration shot from directly over the craps table looking straight downward — a “God’s eye view” of the action.

   It’s a long, hard slog but Kelly and Hingle finally do clear two hundred thousand. Hingle, however, is hot to double his winnings. Kelly, reminding his partner of their agreement, says it’s time to quit. He’ll be expecting his hundred grand after Hingle cashes in their chips. Kelly leaves the casino to see a girl he has just met (Nancy Kovack) and hopefully extend their romantic relationship.

   But Hingle is angry, accusing Kelly of being a penny-ante gambler and not the “player” Kelly fancies himself to be. Hingle is determined not to give his partner his cut, even if it means a fight ….

   But that’s not the end of it. There is a fine little twist in the story near the end where Kelly learns a valuable life lesson in the school of hard knocks.

   Although under an hour in length, “The Name of the Game” has a movie “feel” to it. There’s some nice misdirection in the plot, and the performances are uniformly convincing.

   Trivia: Knowledgeable sci-fi TV fans will recognize several familiar faces here. Nancy Kovack starred as a temptress in one Star Trek episode. From the same series, B. G. Atwater (later commonly billed as “Barry”) played the founder of the logical Vulcan civilization, and Steve Ihnat was a psychotic starship captain who insisted on being called “Lord” or bad things would happen.

   In a minor but memorable bit part, Grace Lee Whitney plays a statuesque blonde whose luck with the dice waxes but rapidly wanes; she had a continuing role as Yeoman Rand on Star Trek. And of course Jack Kelly played the impetuous young executive officer of the deep space cruiser C-57D who is torn to bits by the Id Monster in Forbidden Planet (1956).

SHERLOCK HOLMES. Made for Cable-TV movie: HBO, 15 November 1981. Frank Langella (Holmes), Susan Clark (Madge Larrabee), Stephen Collins (Larabee), Richard Woods (Watson), George Morfogen (Moriarity), Laurie Kennedy (Alice Faulkner), Christian Slater (Billy the Page). Based on the play by William Gillette. Directed by Peter H. Hunt.

    Supposedly when American actor William Gillette was writing the play which would become his most famous role (his image as iconic as the Sidney paget illustrations from The Strand) he wired Arthur Conan Doyle as to whether it was all right to marry Sherlock Holmes to the heroine at the end of the play. Doyle’s famously terse cable in return was succinct:

    This filmed stage play, which aired on HBO originally, is the version that became a major hit on Broadway (Sherlock’s Last Case) when revised in 1987 with Frank Langella in the lead role (fresh from his hit in the revived John Balderston play of Dracula).

    Played with snap, flare, and a wink and a nod towards the audience, the plot involves Professor Moriarity’s convoluted plot to destroy Sherlock Holmes by drawing him into a complex plot involving the innocent Alice Faulkner, being held virtual prisoner by Moriarity’s cohorts, the Larrabees (Stephen Collins and Susan Clark).

    Langella and Morfogen have real fun as Holmes and Moriarity, and the highlight of the play is their game of one-upsmanship in a recreation of the famous meeting at Baker Street between the pair from “The Final Problem.” As the table turn from one gambit to the next the two actors show real passion for the performance.

    It’s worth watching the whole production for that scene alone, but fortunately you don’t have to. The old war horse of a play may wheeze a bit here and there, but thanks to a sparkling cast it is tremendous fun as well. Collins and Clark are particularly good as the Larrabees and Woods a stalwart Watson.

    But this is a star turn for the actor playing Holmes, and Langella knows it. He take possession of the stage at every turn, filled with kinetic energy and yet sprawling across the stage in lethargy like a great cat after a big meal at other times. Both Leonard Nimoy and Charlton Heston had some success with the play in other revivals after Langella, but it is hard to imagine anyone having the energy he displays here.

    Director Peter H. Hunt directed a good deal of television and also the film 1776. Clearly he knows how to shoot a film of a stage play with style and creativity.

    The Gillette play was previously filmed as a silent with John Barrymore in the role of Holmes, Roland Young as Watson, and Gustav Von Seyfertitz as Moriarity. That version is now available on DVD from Kino International.

    The play is very loosely the basis of the Rathbone and Bruce film The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes from 2Oth Century Fox with George Zucco as Moriarity. It was also loosely the basis for the Broadway musical Baker Street with Fritz Weaver and Martin Gabel as Holmes and Moriarity.

    Christian Slater, who plays the page Billy here, was in good company. In the original Gillette production in the West End of London the role was played by young Master Charles Chaplin, age thirteen.

    With Robert Downey Jr. playing a 21st Century take on the great sleuth currently on the big screen, it’s nice to return to this and see this version of the Gillette play showing such vitality.

Editorial Comment: For a delightful two-minute clip from the play on YouTube, go here. While there does not appear to be a commercial DVD of the HBO film, it is usually easily available on the Internet on a collector-to-collector basis.

MIDSOMER MURDERS. ITV, UK. Series 12, Episodes 1-3. 19 March, 26 March & 7 July 2009. John Nettles (D.C.I. Barnaby), Jason Hughes (DS Ben Jones), Jane Wymark (Joyce Barnaby), Barry Jackson (Dr Bullard), Kirsty Dillon (WPC Gail Stephens).

   This long-running programme returned after a short break with three episodes, the first, “The Dogleg Murders,” set in and around a golf club. It’s been a while since I unreservedly enjoyed one of this series and this was no exception.

   It had many of the usual and welcome light touches, but the members of this ridiculously snooty club were unreservedly obnoxious in extreme. When the motive for the crimes was revealed it was trivial in the extreme. Only a homicidal maniac or a uncaring scriptwriter would think it reasonable.

   The second, “Secret and Spies,” has as its background MI6 adventures in Berlin before the fall of the wall. At first I thought it might return to a proper story but no, unfortunately, the characters were so eccentric that they beggar belief. There is an extended cricket sequence which, like all other cricket sequences, was just so silly that no one who has ever played the game could possibly believe it.

   The third programme, “The Black Book,” which involved the lucrative forgery of paintings by Midsomer artist Henry Hogson, seemed at fIrst like a return to the Midsomer Murders of old but it went on for 20 minutes too long and had a wholly unbelievable conclusion.

   There was a time when this series was an amusing frippery, but the plots were well designed and the crimes had a logical background to them. However, the producers seem to have gone the way of so many before them in deciding that since the success of the programme depends on its amusing background they would emphasise the quirkiness, letting the series live on its charm and series characters.

   Unfortunately in a detective series, no matter the ambiance, that’s not enough.

GUNRUSH. Made-for-TV movie: ITV, 23 August 2009. Timothy Spall, Deborah Findlay, David Harewood, Paul Kaye. Teleplay: Richard Cottan. Director: Richard Clark.

    This was a highly touted production with gushing previews in The Radio Times about the state of Britain today and serious dramas about the common man standing up against the threat of teenage hoodlums out to destroy the British way of life.

    In fact it was silly nonsense with outrageous stereotypes behaving in a ridiculous manner, with unbelievable story lines. It was probably supposed to be real life rather than “crime drama,” but the story asked you to accept such ridiculous behaviour from so many characters, including the police, and used outrageous coincidence that it was unbelievable.

    The story was about how the teenage daughter of a middle-aged couple in London was fatally shot by two disaffected black youths while queuing to buy goods in the local store. The father (Timothy Spall, center above), dismayed by the thought that police weren’t acting, stole evidence and then set out to find the culprits himself, leading to a violent — and wholly unbelievable — conclusion.

   Poor stuff.

LAW AND ORDER. BBC, 4-part mini-series, 6 April through 27 April 1978. Peter Dean, Derek Martin, Deirdre Costello, Billy Cornelius, Alan Ford, Ken Campbell, Fred Haggerty. Screenplay: G. F. Newman. Director: Les Blair.

   Not the long-running Dick Wolf series or one of its spin-offs, this was a British four-part series from 1978. Back then I had no video recorder, and I had a sort of method for screening tv programmes of not watching new ones but waiting to read reviews and then catching them on the repeats.

   When this series aired there was such a furor of complaints that the series was, to the best of my knowledge, never repeated, leaving me to regret my selection methods.

   Now thirty-one years later we have had a repeat on BBC 4, the BBC’s least watched digital channel.

   The series was written by G.F. Newman, a man who has developed a reputation as an anti-establishment figure (and the man behind the more recent and upmarket Judge John Deed).

   In the first story, “A Detective’s Tale” we meet London D.L Fred Pyle, a sly, mix-with-the-criminals type of detective, who is seen taking a sizable bribe from a major villain to look the other way. Pyle hears from an informant that Jack Lynn, a career criminal, is about to stage an armed robbery and makes it his job to catch him.

   In the second episode, “A Villain’s Tale” the focus starts on Lynn as he sets up his armed robbery, however, soon, he suspects that the police are on to him and abandons the prospect. Meanwhile four other criminals stage an armed robbery and when three of them are caught, Pyle plants evidence that Lynn is the fourth man.

   In the third episode, “A Brief’s Tale”, we follow the legal system, firstly Lynn’s solicitor, whom we see given secrets to the police for return favours, and then the barrister he employs. The barrister is more concerned with how much money he will make but does actually put on a spirited defence until the judge, outraged by the barrister implying police corruption, forbids him from pursuing that line of defence.

   It is no surprise when the three guilty villains are found not guilty but Lynn, a career criminal but entirely innocent of this offence, is found guilty.

   In the final part, “A Prisoner’s Tale”, we see Lynn, a proud and angry man, as he tries to resist the prison system but is forced to compliance through bent and violent prison guards, incompetent and uncaring officials, and the system. This is by far the bleakest of the four programmes — and that’s saying something — and it leaves one with a feeling of helplessness.

   Of course it’s probable that the system is not as bad as Newman is making out, but it seems likely that some corruption of the kinds he indicates is inevitable. This is a powerful if depressing series, and I’m pleased that finally I have been given a second chance to see it.