The Hitchcock Project-Six People, No Music by Richard Berg [4.13]

by Jack Seabrook

Arthur Roos, undertaker, comes home from work one evening and drinks two glasses of whiskey while his wife, Rhoda, makes dinner. As they eat, he tells her about an unusual thing that happened at work. Department store owner Stanton C. Baravale died the night before and was brought to Roos's mortuary in the morning. Arthur's apprentice, Thor, left to get a bite to eat and, while Roos was alone with the corpse, Baravale suddenly cleared his throat and sat up, having come back from the dead to provide instructions for his funeral. Not wanting his kids to spend more than was necessary, he told Roos that he wanted "'Six people, one car, no music, cheapest box you carry,'" wrote his instructions on a sheet of paper, and lied back down, dead. Arthur tells Rhoda that an elaborate funeral was ordered and, since he told no one about Baravale's temporary resurrection, Rhoda burns the paper with the instructions for the small funeral, and she and Arthur go out to the movies.

"The Damnedest Thing"
was first published here 

"The Damnedest Thing," a short story by Garson Kanin, was published in the February 1956 issue of Esquire. Only two pages long, it is a humorous anecdote where a greedy couple suppresses news of a miracle for financial gain. The story is a fantasy grounded in reality, and it was adapted for Alfred Hitchcock Presents by Richard Berg. The show aired on CBS on Sunday, January 4, 1959, and it was directed by Norman Lloyd.

The TV adaptation follows the short story closely but makes some changes in how it is told in order to take advantage of the visual medium. When Arthur, whose surname has been changed to Motherwell, begins to tell Rhoda what happened, the screen dissolves to a flashback, allowing events to unfold in real time rather than be related in conversation. The day's events are expanded to fill the half-hour time slot. Baravale's lawyer, Fulton Agnew, is waiting for Arthur when he arrives at the funeral home and they discuss having Arthur handle the large funeral. Humorous musical cues underscore the light touch.

John McGiver as Arthur Motherwell

A conversation with Thor, the apprentice, follows, in which the young man reminds his boss of a promise from five years ago to give Thor "'a piece of the business;'" as with anything involving money, the discussion is painful for Arthur. The tale is given a location, which was absent in the story, and is said to take place in Poughkeepsie, New York, a small city less than two hours north of New York City. The contrast between this small city and the overly serious approach to the funeral of the department store owner adds to the amusement in this episode.

Arthur takes a telephone call from Agnew, who lays out the elements of a large funeral and, after Arthur hangs up, Baravale clears his throat and props himself up on an elbow. At this point, the flashback is interrupted by a scene in Arthur's kitchen that reminds us that what we are seeing is the story that Arthur is telling Rhoda. Another dissolve leads back into the flashback, where Baravale is brusque and officious, used to bossing people around. He tells Arthur: "'Never push goods on people that they can't use. Secret of the department store business. But what they can use, load 'em up to the gills.'" This bit of economic advice is not in the short story and it guides what the revived corpse does next; his sense of thrift was so strong that it worked a miracle and brought Baravale back from the dead.

Peggy Cass as Rhoda Motherwell

"'Six people, no music, one car, and an unpainted pine box,'" he orders, and lies back down, dead, leaving Arthur to wander around the funeral home, despondently looking at the note Baravale wrote. Thor returns and reads Agnew's elaborate order out loud as Arthur winces, thinking of all of the money he will lose if he follows Baravale's post-mortem instructions. Arthur dismisses Thor without telling him what happened and, back at home, the flashback over, Arthur (not Rhoda, as in the short story) burns the paper and washes the ashes down the sink drain. They exit, arm in arm, to go to the movies, secure in their impending financial windfall.

Howard Smith as Stanton C. Baravale

"Six People, No Music" is an understated black comedy in which Arthur Motherwell's greed causes him to act dishonestly and cover up a miraculous resurrection. The show succeeds due to its casting; John McGiver is perfect as Arthur and Howard Smith is appropriately gruff as Baravale; their scene together is the show's high point. Director Norman Lloyd uses a light tough without allowing the episode to veer into broad comedy. McGiver has a slight resemblance to Alfred Hitchcock, with his slow, precise speech, round face, jowls, and bald head with wisps of hair; had Hitchcock been an actor, the role would have been a perfect fit.

Joby Baker as Thor

Richard Berg (1922-2009), who wrote the teleplay, went to Hollywood in 1942 to work as a dialogue coach but returned to the East Coast, where he ran an art supply store in Connecticut and wrote TV scripts in the evening. In 1957 he went back to Hollywood and, in the decades that followed, he became a prolific producer of TV movies and miniseries. He wrote for TV from 1955 to 1986 and was a producer from 1961 to 2000. This was the only episode of the Hitchcock series that he wrote.

The short story's author, Garson Kanin (1912-1999), made his debut on Broadway in 1933 as an actor and began directing Broadway plays in 1936. He also wrote plays from 1946 to 1974; his most famous was Born Yesterday (1946), which was also filmed. He wrote and directed films from 1938 to 1969, with a break to serve in the Army in WWII; he also wrote novels and short stories, as well as non-fiction. He was married to the actress Ruth Gordon from 1942 to 1985 and this is the only episode of the Hitchcock series to be based on one of his works.

Wilton Graff as Fulton Agnew

Norman Lloyd (1914-2021), the director, was one of the people most responsible for the success and quality of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. Born Norman Perlmutter and active in the theater in the 1930s, he had a long career as a film and television actor, from 1939 to 2015, and appeared in Hitchcock's Saboteur (1942) and Spellbound (1945). He also directed for television from 1951 to 1984. He acted in five episodes of the Hitchcock series and directed 22, including "Man from the South."

Joseph Hamilton

Arthur is played by John McGiver (1913-1975), an actor with a face and voice like no other, except perhaps Alfred Hitchcock. Funny in a deadpan way, he was born in New York City and began his acting career in Irish Repertory Theater. He served in WWII and then worked as teacher, appearing in plays Off-Broadway before becoming a full-time actor in 1955. He had ten children and was on screen from 1955 to his death in 1975. He was seen on Alfred Hitchcock Presents twice (see ("Fatal Figures") and also appeared on The Twilight Zone twice.

Peggy Cass (1924-1999) plays Arthur's wife, Rhoda. She acted on Broadway from 1949 to 1985 and won a Tony Award in 1957. She was on screen from 1950 to 1997 and was a regular on the soap opera, The Doctors, from 1978 to 1979, but she is best remembered today for her appearances on TV game shows, especially To Tell the Truth, where she was a regular panelist from 1960 to 1978.

In smaller roles:

• Howard Smith (1893-1968) as Stanton C. Baravale; he was on Broadway from 1917 to 1964, on screen from 1918 to 1967, and on radio beginning in 1928; he was a member of Orson Welles's Mercury Theatre and had a role in The War of the Worlds. He served in the infantry in WWI and appeared on The Twilight Zone twice (he was the boss in "A Stop at Willoughby"), but this was his only role on the Hitchcock series.
• Joby Baker (1934- ) as Thor; he was born in Montreal and had a career on TV and in film from 1952 to 1984. He was on the Hitchcock show four times, including "Madame Mystery,"  had a regular role on the series Good Morning, World (1967-1968), and later had a career as a painter, as shown here.
• Wilton Graff (1903-1969) as the lawyer, Fulton Agnew; he was on Broadway from 1933 to 1941 and on screen from 1939 to 1964. He also appeared in two other episodes of the Hitchcock show, including "Death of a Cop."
• Joseph Hamilton (1899-1965) has a brief appearance as a funeral home worker; he started in vaudeville as a teenager and then appeared in local theater for decades before embarking on a career on the big and small screens that lasted from 1954 to 1965. He appeared on The Twilight Zone and in five episodes of the Hitchcock show, including "The Five-Forty Eight."

Read "The Damnedest Thing" online here, watch the TV version here, or order the DVD here. Read the GenreSnaps review here.

Sources:

The FICTIONMAGS Index, www.philsp.com/homeville/FMI/0start.htm.

Galactic Central, www.philsp.com/.

Grams, Martin, and Patrik Wikstrom. The Alfred Hitchcock Presents Companion. OTR Pub., 2001.

IBDB, www.ibdb.com.

IMDb, www.imdb.com.

Kanin, Garson. "The Damnedest Thing." Esquire, Feb. 1956, pp. 63-64.

"Six People, No Music." Alfred Hitchcock Presents, season 4, episode 13, CBS, 4 January 1959.

Wikipedia, www.wikipedia.org.

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