The Hitchcock Project-Forecast: Low Clouds and Coastal Fog by Lee Erwin [8.17]

by Jack Seabrook

"Forecast: Low Clouds and Coastal Fog" aired on CBS on Friday, January 18, 1963, and was the only episode of the Hitchcock TV series to be written by Lee Erwin (1906-1972). Born Irwin Lieberman, he wrote for TV from 1952 until his death and his credits also include co-writing an episode of Star Trek. "Forecast" is an original teleplay that is not based on a story or a novel; it is well-structured and suspenseful and it contains subtle social commentary addressing relationships between the sexes in the early 1960s.

The show takes place in and around a beautiful beach house that is supposed to be in Los Angeles County, California, judging from the uniforms worn by policemen in the show. The exterior shots of the house and the beach it sits next to were filmed in Oxnard, a city in Ventura County about an hour west of downtown L.A. The house is still there at 1101 Capri Way.

Inger Stevens as Karen Wilson

After an establishing shot of the isolated beach house at night, located at the edge of a fog-enshrouded beach, the scene dissolves to the interior, where Karen Wilson, an attractive, young, blonde woman, is alone, tending to a fire in the fireplace. A foghorn is heard blowing outside and she turns on the radio; a weather report says that visibility is at zero. She looks out of the sliding glass doors that separate the living room from the outdoor patio, which faces the beach and the Pacific Ocean. The telephone rings and her husband Stan is calling from San Francisco, where he is working on a business deal. The deal is not done, so he tells her that he has checked into the Mark Hopkins, a real luxury hotel that opened in 1926. He has to stay overnight and remarks that Karen has never spent the night alone in their house before. She tells him about the fog and he replies that it "'sounds cozy,'" instructing her to lock up, take a sleeping pill, and go to bed.

Karen hangs up the phone and, just as soon as she has locked the front door, the doorbell rings and ominous music plays on the soundtrack. Outside, a man with a Spanish accent tells her that he has had car trouble. She opens the door, which is on a chain, and when the man tells her that his car has run out of gas, she tells him to walk to a gas station half a mile down the road. Karen refuses to let the man in to use the telephone, even though he tells her that his girl is in the car and he does not want to leave her alone. Karen shuts the door in his face, cutting him off. After locking the kitchen door, she goes to the bookshelf and selects a book; on her way up the stairs to bed, she hears a woman scream outside and then the loud engine of a car roaring off. Karen goes to the front door and looks out but, seeing nothing in the dark and the fog, she goes upstairs to bed.

Dan O'Herlihy as Simon Carter

Later that evening, she is awakened when the doorbell rings again. She gets up, puts on a robe, and goes downstairs to admit Deputy Sheriff Geary, along with another policeman and Sanchez, the man who had earlier come to her door. He is now in custody. She confirms his story about having come to her house earlier that evening and learns that his girl is in the hospital; she was missing when he returned to the car with gas. Karen tells the deputy sheriff about hearing a scream and a car driving off and he tells her that Sanchez's girl was found about a mile up the beach, unconscious, her skull fractured. Sanchez angrily accuses Karen of leaving the woman alone outside to die, but the deputy sheriff reassures her and tells her that they will be patrolling the area all night.

After the police leave with Sanchez, Karen calls her husband in San Francisco and wakes him up. She is hysterical and he agrees to get a car and drive home right away, since the fog has grounded all of the planes. She spends the rest of the night asleep on the living room sofa. Karen is awakened in the morning by the doorbell; her neighbor Simon Carter enters and makes coffee, and they discuss what happened the night before. He is a writer who says that his alibi for the prior evening is that he was watching a TV show that he wrote, commenting that "'watching what happens to one's story is a form of masochism I don't usually practice,'" perhaps speaking on behalf of some of the writers of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour!

Chris Robinson as Rick

As they sit outside on the patio in the sun, the fog having burned off, he confesses that he falls for happily married women. Karen ignores his comment and admits that she feels responsible for what happened to the woman. Just then, a trio of surfers walk by on the beach carrying their boards. They call to Karen, who refers to them as her friends and offers them coffee. Simon says that he loathes the younger men and leaves. After he exits, Karen hears a car engine that sounds very much like the one she heard the night before, right after the woman's scream.

The first act of "Forecast: Low Clouds and Coastal Fog" sets Karen up as a woman alone in a remote, possibly dangerous setting. She refuses to help a suspicious male stranger, who represents the "other" because he is Hispanic and speaks with an accent. In contrast, Karen is portrayed as the ideal American woman, white, blonde, and well-off. Sanchez turns out to be innocent (at least, it seems that way at the end of act one), but his girl has been hurt by a person or persons unknown. Karen summons her much-older husband home to act as her protector. In the morning, another older man visits who implies that he also desires her; he seems suspicious, especially when she hears a loud car engine right after he leaves. At this point in the story, the surfers seem irrelevant, but that will change.

As the second act opens, the three surfers, whose names are Rick, Ed, and Tom, have replaced Simon on the patio and are having coffee and chatting with Karen. They encourage her to come surfing with them and, after brief resistance, she agrees. Later, her husband arrives home to an empty house, having driven four hundred miles in a hurry thinking that his wife was terrified. Instead, she is shown to be out in the ocean, surfing with the young men in a scene with unfortunately obvious rear-projection. She falls off her board and they rescue her as Stan runs to the water's edge. After the surfers have left and she is inside with Stan, he is upset at her for engaging in seemingly frivolous activity when he thought she was upset.

Peter Brown as Ed

Stan receives a telephone call that his deal has not fallen through as he thought, so he immediately decides to fly back to San Francisco with Karen, since the sun is out and the fog is gone. In one of the show's inexplicable decisions, she declines to accompany him, instead saying that if he cannot make it back by evening she will stay with their friends, the Baileys. Karen opens a desk drawer to get Stan's checkbook for him and sees his automatic pistol; she takes it out and brandishes it, joking that "'Anybody comes messin' around here I'll just pull out old Bessie and blast 'em.'" Stan demonstrates that Karen doesn't know what to do with the gun; he takes it from her, loads it, and engages the safety catch. The viewer familiar with the principle of Chekhov's gun expects that, if a gun is introduced in act two, it will most likely be fired in act four.

After Stan leaves and Karen is alone again, she telephones Deputy Sheriff Geary to ask about the injured girl, whose name is Marta Garcia. Karen drives to the hospital, where she encounters a doctor named Foster in the hall and asks him about Marta, whose condition is unchanged. From down the hall, Sanchez watches Karen; he angrily confronts her outside the elevator, telling her that her concern has come too late and insisting that, although she would have taken in a stray dog that came to her door, she would not let him in. She offers to help pay for Marta's medical care and he replies, "'You will get your chance to pay and I will be there to collect.'"

Richard Jaeckel as Tom

In act two, the surfers are introduced and they claim to have seen Sanchez fighting with his girl on the beach the evening before, which they think means he is guilty of the attack. Karen's poor judgment is shown when she goes surfing with them and has to be rescued; throughout the episode, she is portrayed as a helpless woman who makes poor choices. Another bad decision on her part comes when she declines Stan's invitation to come with him to San Francisco; instead, she plays with his gun, suggesting that she does not understand the gravity of her situation. She then goes to the hospital and is threatened by Sanchez, who seems dangerous yet unlikely to have attacked the girl, as the surfers assume. In fact, the most likely suspect at this point in the show is Simon, Karen's lustful neighbor.

Act three opens with Karen returning home from the hospital in a taxi; Stan has taken their only car, so she is unable to drive anywhere on her own. As the day goes on the fog again rolls in off the ocean. At the hospital, Dr. Foster and Deputy Sheriff Geary tell Sanchez that Marta has died. He is distraught and seems determined to exact revenge, driving to Karen's house after dark has fallen. Expecting Stan to return, Karen sets a candlelight dinner for two, unaware that Sanchez is outside the front door, trying to pick the lock. He peers in through the kitchen window before setting to work on the lock on the back door. Meanwhile, the events of the prior night begin to repeat themselves as Stan calls from San Francisco to tell Karen that the airports have shut down due to the fog and he cannot come home. This time, she says that she will go to the Baileys' house, unaware that Sanchez has successfully picked the lock on the back door and entered the house. As Karen dials the phone to make another call, he sneaks into the living room and runs up the stairs when he hears the back door opening.

Simon Scott as Stan Wilson

Karen hears it too and grabs the gun, only to discover that Simon Carter has walked in through the unlocked kitchen door. Karen points the gun at Simon, whose number she had been dialing, but he tells her to put it down and places it in the drawer of the living room's coffee table, unaware that Sanchez is watching their every move. Karen lies and tells Simon that Stan will be home at any moment, but he knows that she is wrong and pompously begins to speak about the basic drives that men have that led to the events of the prior night. Although Karen hears a noise upstairs, Simon continues to talk, theorizing that every man has a murderer inside him and speculating that the man outside in the fog the night before was overcoming frustration. He sits uncomfortably close to Karen and remarks that his goal is attainable; he grabs her and she fights him off and runs. Suddenly, the doorbell rings and Karen runs outside to encounter the three surfers in the dense fog.

Act three unfolds as a repeat of the events of the night before, with Karen trapped at home again by herself and Sanchez bent on revenge, blaming Karen for his girl's death in a show of misplaced anger because he does not know who is really responsible. Stan is once again incapacitated. Sanchez breaks in and becomes the first threat to Karen's safety; the second threat arrives in the person of Simon, whom Karen foolishly trusts. He acts on his lust and she runs out into the fog, since the interior of her home is now unsafe; she takes the place of the girl from the night before and again meets the surfers.

The final act begins as Rick, Ed, and Tom assure Karen that they will protect her. Sanchez runs back upstairs as they enter the house; we will later learn that he came downstairs and took the gun from the coffee table drawer after Simon left through the patio doors. The surfers think that Simon is the hidden threat, unaware that Sanchez is in the house, and Rick wields the fireplace poker as he and Tom search the second floor, Sanchez barely managing to avoid them as they go from room to room. In a Hitchcockian touch, the viewer's loyalties are momentarily transferred to Sanchez, as we fear his capture and thrill to his escape.

Christopher Dark as Sanchez

Finding no one, Rick and Tom return to the living room, where they discover that the sliding glass doors have been left open and realize that Simon left that way. Rick telephones the police, saying that he is calling from the Wilson house at Red Rock Point, a fictional location, and asks them to come to Karen's home. The scene that follows is chilling and finally reveals what has really been going on. Karen sits in the living room with the three surfers and they explain that they heard about the fog on the radio and that the planes had been grounded, so they decided to check on her. She says that she feels sorry for Simon and thinks he is sick. She begins to wonder why the police have yet to arrive and Rick begins to discuss the surfers' love  of "kicks"; Ed shuts off a table lamp and there is a subtle mood change as Simon and Sanchez have been forgotten and Karen thinks that she is alone with three young men.

Ed slides the chain on the front door to lock it and Karen begins to get scared. He turns off another light and suddenly the truth comes out as the surfers explain that they siphoned the gas out of Sanchez's old truck the day before. Fortunately for Karen, Sanchez is at the top of the stairs, watching and listening to every word. Now he knows who is responsible for his Marta's death. The surfers begin to threaten Karen, explaining that they ripped the phone lines out of the wall outside the house before entering and that the call to the police was fake. No one is coming to save her and they will have their way with her and then set fire to her house when they leave, expecting the police to blame Sanchez and preventing her from identifying them.

Karen pulls open the coffee table drawer, expecting to see the gun, but it is gone. She is pinned down on the sofa with a hand over her mouth. Suddenly, a gunshot rings out from the stairs and Ed is hit. Sanchez rushes down into the living room, holding the gun and standing over Tom, who begs for his life and receives a kick in the face. Ed lies on the floor, shot in the arm, as Rick runs out the sliding glass doors, over the patio and onto the beach. Sanchez runs out onto the patio and shoots at Rick, but Simon suddenly appears and tackles the surfer. Sanchez follows and holds the gun on Rick, who tells him to go ahead and shoot. Instead, Sanchez pulls the man to his feet and marches him back inside Karen's house. Simon apologizes to Karen outside on the patio and she bursts into tears as a plane flies overhead. The fog has lifted and the danger has passed.

Russ Thorson as Deputy Sheriff Geary

The last act cleverly plays with the viewer's emotions, transferring our loyalties to Sanchez as the surfers search the house for Simon, who has already left. The scene that follows is chilling, as the surfers' guilt gradually comes to light while the mood and the room darken. They are exposed as brutal, amoral men, whose only interest is in kicks and who are willing to rape and kill without remorse. Unexpectedly, Sanchez is the one to rescue Karen, aided by Simon! But in the end, who wins? The guilty are caught yet the women continue to suffer; Marta is dead and Karen has been through a harrowing experience.

The men in "Forecast: Low Clouds and Coastal Fog" are mostly varying degrees of bad. Stan, Karen's husband, is much older than she, a protective husband who cares more about his business than his wife. It's fitting that she wears a baby doll nightgown to bed, since Karen is essentially a baby doll for her older husband. Sanchez may come to the rescue at the end but that doesn't excuse his threats and we never know what he would have done if the surfers had not arrived. Simon may apologize to Karen at the end, but he was so overcome with lust for the "'happily married'" woman that he nearly attacked her before being interrupted by the arrival of the surfers, whose amorality and guilt tops that of any of the other male characters. Even the policemen and the doctor are unable to help either of the women.

The show is well directed by Charles Haas (1913-2011), who helmed only this single episode of the Hitchcock TV series. He started his Hollywood career as an extra before becoming an assistant director and then a director of documentaries and industrial films. After making training films for the Army in WWII he went back to directing industrial films before becoming a TV director in 1951. He continued directing until 1967, making a few films along the way, as well as four episodes of The Outer Limits.

Robert Millar (?)

Lovely Inger Stevens (1934-1970) plays Karen Wilson; she was in one other episode of the Hitchcock TV series, "My Brother, Richard." Born Inger Stensland in Stockholm, Sweden, she was on screen from 1954 to 1970 and also appeared on The Twilight Zone twice. She starred in the TV series The Farmer's Daughter from 1963 to 1966 and died of an overdose in Hollywood.

Creepy Simon Carter is portrayed by Irish actor Dan O' Herlihy (1919-2005), who started out as a stage actor in Dublin and appeared on screen from 1947 to 1998. He was a regular on The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters (1963-1964) and co-founded the Hollywood School of Drama with fellow Irish actor Charles Davis, who also appeared on several episodes of the Hitchcock TV series. "Forecast" was O'Herlihy's only role on the show.

Rick, who seems to be the unofficial leader of the trio of surfers, is played by Chris Robinson (1938- ), who started out on Broadway in 1954 and began acting in films in 1957, including playing the title monster in Beast from Haunted Cave (1959). He appeared frequently on episodic TV during the 1960s, including two episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (see "The Dividing Wall"). He wrote the screenplays for three films in the mid-1970s and also directed movies and TV shows during that period. As an actor, he had long-running roles on two soap operas: General Hospital, from 1978 to 2002, and The Bold and the Beautiful, from 1992 to 2005. Robinson's most recent acting credit was in 2022.

Greg Morris as Dr. Foster

Peter Brown (1935-2016) plays Ed, the surfer who gets shot in the shoulder. Born Pierre Lynn de Lappe in New York City, Brown appeared on film and TV from 1957 to 2005. He co-starred in the TV series Lawman (1958-1962) and was featured in several soap operas from the early 1970s to the early 1990s, including Days of Our Lives, The Young and the Restless, One Life to Live, and The Bold and the Beautiful. Brown appeared in one other episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, "Death of a Cop," and there is a website devoted to him here.

The third surfer, Tom, is played by Richard Jaeckel (1926-1997), a recognizable tough guy from TV and movies who started his film career in 1943 and his TV career in 1951. He was on the Hitchcock series four times, including a key role in "Off Season." Jaeckel had regular or semi-regular roles in six TV series in his career; the most memorable was as Martin Quirk, the police captain on Spenser: For Hire.

Simon Scott (1920-1991) plays Karen's husband Stan; he was on screen from 1952 to 1985, appeared in three episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (including "Memo from Purgatory") and one episode of The Twilight Zone, and was a regular on the TV series, Trapper John, M.D. (1979-1985).

Christopher Dark (1920-1971) plays Sanchez. Born Alfred Francis DeLeo, he served in the Army in WWII and acted on screen from 1950 to his death, usually on TV. He was in one other episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

In smaller roles:

• Russ Thorson (1906-1982) as Deputy Sheriff Geary; he was on radio in the 1940s and on screen from 1949 to 1978, appearing once on Night Gallery and twice on The Odd Couple. He was in one other episode of the Hitchcock TV series, "The West Warlock Time Capsule."
• Robert Millar is credited as Mitch and must be the second policeman who comes to Karen's house with Geary and Sanchez; he was on TV from 1960 to 1969.
• Greg Morris (1933-1996) as Dr. Foster; he served in the Army during the Korean War and also appeared in "Final Escape" on The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. He was in one episode of The Twilight Zone and was best known for his long-running roles on Mission: Impossible (1966-1973) and Vega$ (1978-1981).

Kathleen Quinlan as Karen

This episode was remade for the late-1980s revival of Alfred Hitchcock Presents as "Fogbound," which aired on USA on October 8, 1988. Lee Elias is credited as the writer, though he had been dead for sixteen years. The episode is half the length of the original but appears to have used the same teleplay, which was cut and altered slightly by an uncredited writer. This version opens with a radio report stating that there have been three murders in the area in as many months, and the Wilsons' house is on a marina rather than a beach. Stan never appears and the trio of young men are seen sitting on a boat docked at the marina; there is no surfing. The doctor at the hospital is a woman this time and when Sanchez returns to Karen's house, he carries a switchblade.

Ric Sarabia as Sanchez

In the final scenes, Simon's attack on Karen is more aggressive, as he grabs her, pushes her down on the desk, and kisses her until she grabs the gun and hits him in the side of the head before running outside. At the end, Sanchez shots Tom and Ed in the chest before running outside, where he takes another shot at Rick and points the gun at Simon, telling him that he witnessed his attack on Karen. In the end, Sanchez tells Karen that "'I came here to harm you, but I couldn't have done it.'" She invites him into her home and the show ends as they walk together through the fog.

While this version as a whole is poorly acted and directed, Ric Sarabia gives a good performance as Sanchez and the additional dialogue between him and Karen at the end provides closure to his story that was missing from the original. Kathleen Quinlan plays Karen and Mark Sobel directed the show.

Watch "Forecast: Low Clouds and Coastal Fog" online here. It is not available on U.S. DVD. Watch "Fogbound" online here and compare the episodes.

Sources:

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

"Fogbound." Alfred Hitchcock Presents, season 4, episode 1, 8 October 1988.

"Forecast: Low Clouds and Coastal Fog." The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, season 1, episode 17, CBS, 18 January 1963.

IMDb, www.imdb.com.

Wikipedia, www.wikipedia.org.

Listen to Al Sjoerdsma discuss "The Hands of Mr. Ottermole" here!

In two weeks: "Diagnosis: Danger," starring Michael Parks!