The Hitchcock Project-James P. Cavanagh Part Six: Father and Son [2.36]

by Jack Seabrook

Edmund Gwenn as Joe Saunders

Edmund Gwenn made his last screen appearance in "Father and Son," a moving episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents from 1957 that is based on a short story by the English author, Thomas Burke, that first appeared in the August 1934 issue of Vanity Fair.

The story, just a page long in the magazine, concerns a 17-year-old named Sam Swote, who needs money and who looks for an easy way to get it. His father, Joe, has become "reluctant in handing out shillings" in the belief that it is time for his son to start earning a living. Sam thinks about the illegal tobacco sales occurring in the neighborhood and the police's interest in finding the man responsible. Wanting to "do his duty as a citizen" and perhaps earn a small reward to spend on a girl, Sam visits the police station, makes his report, and receives a reward.

"Father and Son" was first published here

The next evening, he is summoned to the police station to identify the man he had reported. He identifies Joe Swote, his own father, as the criminal, after which the police dismiss him and he senses that others look on him with disdain. As Sam slouches out of the police station, he trips and falls down the steps. His father leaps up and runs to the doorway, calling down to ask if his son is hurt.

Burke uses few words and little dialogue to draw a clear portrait of two characters whose relationship is tragic: the loving father who indulges his son, and the ne'er-do-well son who takes advantage of his father. The concern shown by Joe at the end when Sam falls, even after the betrayal, is heartbreaking and true to life. Each character's personality is consistent throughout the story: Sam is selfish to the end, while his father is compassionate. Thomas Burke holds back the identity of the tobacco seller and reveals it subtly, as Sam goes to the police station and sees what are described as two civilians and "a third civilian, his father ..." This withholding of the identity of the illegal tobacco seller creates suspense and allows Burke to surprise the reader; to this point in the story, there was no suggestion that the person Sam planned to turn in to the police was his own father.

The story's brevity and lack of dialogue presented a challenge to James P. Cavanagh when he adapted it for the small screen; the show was first broadcast on CBS on Sunday, June 2, 1957, and it is a model of adaptation in which the themes of the story are enhanced.

Charles Davis as Sam Saunders

The show begins with establishing shots: first, a foggy London street with a superimposed title card that reads, "London 1912"; next, the familiar three-ball symbol of a pawn shop. We then see a display case of rings on the pawn shop counter before the camera pulls back to reveal Sam and Joe Saunders, the father and son of the story. Joe owns the pawn shop and Sam asks him for money, but he refuses. Right away, we see that Sam is considerably older than the 17-year-old of Burke's story--Charles Davis, the actor playing Sam, was born in 1925, making him about 32 at the time of the TV show, though the character is revealed through dialogue to be 35. His father is played by the 79-year-old Edmund Gwenn. By aging both characters significantly, Cavanagh deepens the pathos of the situation, since it is one that must have been playing out over and over for many years.

Joe blames himself for helping Sam along so that Sam cannot hold a job; the dialogue establishes their history and their relationship and we learn that Joe has a drinking problem. After Joe refuses to give Sam two pounds, Sam says that Joe might not like what Sam has to do to get the money: this foreshadows the later betrayal at the police station.  Joe walks out of the shop and into the London fog and, moments later, a new character, Gus Harrison, enters the shop and collapses.

Pamela Light as Mae

In a pub, we see Sam talk to a pretty singer named Mae, who tells him that she is leaving the next day for a holiday in Brighton. Sam desperately wants her to stay with him and tells her he will get money, even offering to marry her, but she dismisses him until he has cash in hand. Sam tries to borrow fifty pounds from a man named Schiller, who refuses the loan. Schiller knows that Sam is harmless and when Sam picks up a heavy object with which to hit Schiller from behind, the lender's assessment of the young man proves true when Sam decides to replace the object on Schiller's desk.

The scene shifts back to Joe's home, where he and Gus sit at the kitchen table. Gus, a character not in the short story, is starving, after having been trying "to keep one jump ahead of the police," since he has been wrongly accused of murder. Joe and Gus are old friends and Gus reveals that there is a fifty-pound reward for his arrest; he is unaware that Sam has entered the pawn shop and stands listening behind the curtain that separates the shop from Joe's residence. Joe sends Gus to the cellar to hide and then goes to the front door of the shop to let in Sam, who had snuck out and who pretended to arrive just then. Sam spins a story to Joe about a business opportunity, claiming that he needs fifty pounds that night to buy in, but Joe does not believe him and refuses to lend him the money. Sam says he will do anything to get the cash and leaves, going back to the pub, where he tells Mae that he plans to turn Gus in to the police to collect the reward. As Sam leaves the pub, Mae picks up a telephone to make a call.

Frederic Worlock as Gus Harrison

The show's final scene takes place at the police station. Sam has already told the desk sergeant where to find Gus and is waiting for the fugitive to be brought in before he can collect his reward. Instead of Gus, the police bring in Joe, Sam's father, who looks distraught, especially after his son identifies him as the man who was hiding Gus. Gus escaped before the police arrived and the sergeant, clearly disgusted by Sam's behavior, reluctantly gives him the reward money after Joe admits that Sam was telling the truth and that he had been harboring the fugitive. Joe tells the sergeant that Mae, the singer at the pub, telephoned him to tip him off that Sam was going to tell the police about Gus. Sam takes the money and looks at Joe, who is crying. Sam rushes outside and falls down the stairs in front of the station, at which point Joe follows him out and calls down to ask if his son has hurt himself.

James P. Cavanagh's teleplay for "Father and Son" is a model of how to adapt a short, nearly dialogue-free story into a longer, dialogue-driven television show. Instead of having the story revolve around Sam and only introducing the father in the final scene, Cavanagh makes the father a central character, whose differences with his son are on display from the start. The girl referred to in the story becomes Mae, a character who serves as a tangible motivation for Sam's behavior, yet whose unexpected call to Joe allows Gus to escape. It is ironic that Sam's act of telling the police the truth about where to find a man thought to be a murderer seems to be the most unsavory act in the episode; Joe, Mae, and Gus all stick together on the wrong side of the law, yet their loyalty to each other seems more admirable than Sam's selfishly motivated adherence to the law.

Dan Sheridan as Schiller

Unlike Burke's story, where Joe is engaged in an illegal enterprise, Cavanagh is careful to make the old man's transgressions less egregious: he shows loyalty to an old friend who says he has been wrongfully accused. Finally, in the TV version, there is no surprise when Sam turns his father in to the police; in Burke's story, this is a shocking moment, since the author had not to that point revealed the identity of the seller of black-market tobacco.

"Father and Son" is brought to the small screen by the talented Herschel Daugherty (1910-1993), a director who worked almost exclusively in television from 1952 to 1975. He directed 27 episodes of the Hitchcock series, including Cavanagh's "Fog Closing In," and he also directed sixteen episodes of Thriller.

Starring as Joe Saunders is the great Edmund Gwenn (1877-1959), who was born Edmund Kellaway in London and who began acting on stage in 1895. He served in World War One and began his film career in 1918. Gwenn appeared in many classic movies, including four directed by Alfred Hitchcock: The Skin Game (1931), Waltzes From Vienna (1934), Foreign Correspondent (1940), and The Trouble With Harry (1955). His most famous role was as Kris Kringle in Miracle on 34th Street (1947), for which he won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar. "Father and Son" was his last screen credit before he died two years later.

John Trayne (?)

Charles Davis (1925-2009) plays Sam, Joe's son. Born in Dublin, Ireland, Davis had a long career on stage in Ireland and on Broadway and appeared on large and small screens from 1951 to 1987. He was on Night Gallery twice and he appeared in seven episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, including the three-part "I Killed the Count."

Gus Harrison, on the lam for a murder that he says he did not commit, is played by Frederic Worlock (1886-1973), a British actor who was on stage in London and New York from 1906 to 1954. His first film was in 1914 and he was seen on screens large and small up to 1970. Worlock was on Alfred Hitchcock Presents four times, including "The Crocodile Case."

In smaller roles:

• Pamela Light as Mae; she had a short career on TV and film from 1956 to 1966 and this was her only role on Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
• George Pelling (1914-2008) as a policeman; he was on screen from 1946 to 1966 and he was in eight episodes of the Hitchcock series, including "I Killed the Count"; he was also seen on Thriller and The Outer Limits.
• John Trayne (1918-2004) as a policeman; he was seen mostly on TV from 1956 to 1973 and he was in three episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, including "The Hands of Mr. Ottermole."
• Dan Sheridan (1916-1983) as Schiller; born in Ireland, he was a busy character actor from 1945 to 1963 and he was also seen in the Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode, "The Crocodile Case."

George Pelling (?)

Thomas Burke (1886-1945), who wrote the short story, "Father and Son," was an English author of short stories, novels, poems and essays; he became famous due to his 1916 book Limehouse Nights, which featured stories set in the working-class Limehouse District of London, where many Chinese immigrants lived. Only a handful of films and TV shows have been made from his works, but one of them was D.W. Griffith's famous silent feature, Broken Blossoms (1919), adapted from Burke's story, "The Chink and the Child." Three of his stories were adapted for Alfred Hitchcock Presents, including the famous tale, "The Hands of Mr. Ottermole," which was voted the best mystery story of all time in 1949. A 1950 collection entitled The Best Stories of Thomas Burke was published in London and included "Ottermole" and "Father and Son." "Father and Son" was also collected in Burke's Night-Pieces (1935), which was reprinted in 2016 and is available in print or on Kindle.

Read "Father and Son" for free online here or watch the TV version for free online here. It is also available on DVD here. Read the GenreSnaps take on this episode here.

Sources:

Burke, Thomas. “Father and Son.” Vanity Fair, Aug. 1934, p. 21.

“Father and Son.” Alfred Hitchcock Presents, season 2, episode 36, CBS, 2 June 1957.

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

IMDb, IMDb.com, www.imdb.com/.

Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, www.wikipedia.org/.

In two weeks: Sylvia, starring Ann Todd and John McIntire!

Alfred Hitchcock Presents-The Opportunity-J.W. Aaron Mystery Solved!

by Jack Seabrook

When I wrote about "The Opportunity" back in 2014 (see here), I was unable to find anything out about J.W. Aaron, the author who wrote the story on which the TV show was based. The FictionMags Index lists ten stories by Aaron, all published in the mystery magazines in the late 1950s:



"Pat Hand," Manhunt (April 1956)
"Death of a Tramp," Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine (December 1956)
"You Can’t Beat Routine," Verdict (January 1957)
"Golden Opportunity," Manhunt (March 1957)
"Kidnap Case," Trapped Detective Story Magazine (June 1957)
"Cut-Throat World," Manhunt (October 1957)
"The Snatchers," Guilty Detective Story Magazine (November 1957)
"Blonde in the Bathtub," Trapped Detective Story Magazine (December 1957)
"To Crack a Safe," Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, (February 1958)
"Mad Dog Beware!," Manhunt (October 1959)

"Golden Opportunity" was published here

I recently heard from Bob Bjorkman, who writes:

Regarding your blog, bare-bones e-zine, Thursday, September 4, 2014.

The blog topic that day was "Golden Opportunity," written by J.W. Aaron and made into a 30-minute Alfred Hitchcock television segment. There was some discussion about who the author was. I can tell you that J.W. Aaron was a pseudonym for my father, John D. Bjorkman, who wrote several short stories during the 1950s.

I attach correspondence between H.S.D. publications and my father for "Death of a Tramp," which was published in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. The document identifies J.W. Aaron as John D. Bjorkman.

I queried further and received more information:

Dad was born and raised in Minneapolis. After high school, he enlisted in the army. He was in the 3rd Infantry division in North Africa, Sicily, and Italy. Coincidentally, James Arness, also from Minneapolis, and Audie Murphy were in the same division. After WWII he attended South Dakota State for a couple of years, then married my mother. He became an agent/ telegrapher on the Milwaukee Railroad and spent his career in small South Dakota towns along the railroad from Sioux Falls to Rapid City, while raising a family, finally retiring in 1984. He was about 35 in the picture I attach, which would have been about 1960. Which is about when he wrote the last of his short stories for the crime magazines.

Following are excerpts from his obituary:

John D. Bjorkman

Sioux Falls--John D. Bjorkman, 80, died at his home on Wednesday, October 13, 2004. John D. Bjorkman was born on May 14, 1924 in Minneapolis, to Alfred and Grace Bjorkman. After high school, in 1942, he enlisted in the United States Army, where he served as a combat infantryman and later as a military policeman. He participated in the North African campaign, the Sicilian campaign, and four amphibious landings on the Italian coast, including Anzio Beach, serving with a valor he never acknowledged in life, but for which he was awarded numerous medals, including the Bronze Star. Upon his return from the War, John attended South Dakota State College in Brookings. John was an agent and telegrapher for the Milwaukee Road in various towns in South Dakota from 1950 until his retirement in 1984. He was an ardent sports enthusiast. He coached his sons for many years in youth baseball and developed a passion for golf, which he continued to play several times each week, until two months before his death. He also authored several short stories, published under his pen name, J.W. Aaron, in magazines such as Ellery Queen's and Alfred Hitchcock and in hardcover in a compilation of best short stories. He was a member of the American Legion, VFW, and Elks.

I am grateful to Mr. Bjorkman for kindly sending along information about his father and for solving the mystery of the identity of author J.W. Aaron!

The Hitchcock Project-James P. Cavanagh Part Five: One More Mile to Go [2.28]

by Jack Seabrook

F. J. Smith's short story, "One More Mile to Go," begins as an "elderly, small-town storekeeper" named Jacoby strangles his nagging wife, Edna, as she sleeps. Having planned the murder in advance, he loads his wife's body in the trunk with "a box of iron weights" and drives from his home in Edgetown toward New Orleans. He plans to sink the weighted corpse in a "deep bayou" off a "seldom used dirt road."

As he gets close to the place where he plans to turn off the highway, his reverie about having committed the perfect crime is shattered by the siren of a police car behind him. The policeman tells Jacoby that his car's taillight is out. Nervously, Jacoby chats with the highway patrolman, who suggests that he stop at Fischer's Service Station, "up the road," to have the taillight replaced. Jacoby does as instructed, giving the gas station attendant a five-dollar bill and asking him to install a new bulb. The bulb fails to work, however, and the trooper pulls into the station to buy a Coke. The policeman deduces that Jacoby's car has a "bad connection" and notices that its trunk looks "pretty loaded down." Jacoby, who owns a feed store, explains that heavy bags of fertilizer are in the trunk. The trooper suggests opening the trunk to fix the loose wire, but Jacoby, feeling "as though he were about to fall or faint," claims that he left the key to the trunk at home. The policeman tries to yank the trunk lid open but the lock holds; finally, the trooper bangs on the fender and the light goes on.

David Wayne as Jacoby

Jacoby drives off, relieved at his "remarkable deliverance from near calamity" and convinced that it was "the result of his own ingenuity." As he approaches the turnoff to the dirt road that leads to the bayou, the trooper's car approaches from behind and Jacoby again has to pull over. This time, the policeman gives him the change he neglected to take from the five-dollar bill he gave the gas station attendant. Unfortunately, the trooper notices that Jacoby's taillight is out again and suggests that Jacoby follow him "a half mile up the road" to police headquarters, where the mechanic can fix the light at no charge. Jacoby has no choice but to follow the policeman to certain discovery of his own crime.

Smith's suspenseful story is built around a situation with which any reader can identify: the feeling of fear and powerlessness that overcomes a driver when he or she is pulled over by a policeman. Usually, the infraction is minor, but here, where the driver in question harbors a terrible secret, the stakes are immeasurably higher. The reader is forced to identify with the driver, a cold-blooded murderer, and the transference of guilt is complete as the reader cannot help but root for the killer and hope he makes his escape. Ironically, despite all of Jacoby's planning, his scheme is unraveled by something as simple as a malfunctioning taillight. It is as if the universe will not allow him to succeed in committing the perfect crime.

Steve Brodie as the cop

Smith's story was published in the June 1956 issue of Manhunt and it was collected by David C. Cooke in the 12th Annual Collection of the Best Detective Stories of the Year, published in 1957. The tale was purchased for adaptation on Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Alfred Hitchcock chose it as one of the three episodes he would direct for the second season of the series. He was in between finishing The Wrong Man and starting Vertigo when "One More Mile to Go" was rehearsed and filmed in three days, from January 9, 1957, to January 11, 1957; the show aired on CBS on Sunday, April 7, 1957. The telefilm is a brilliant piece of work that shows the master enjoying a technical challenge and exploring themes that he would return to in Psycho.

James P. Cavanagh's script features minimal dialogue for long stretches and one wonders how many of the wordless sequences were invented by the director. The show opens with a fade-in on a view of a house in the distance, with bare trees in the foreground suggesting a winter scene that will soon be reflected in the cold relationship between the main character and his wife. A picture window on the house is the only source of light, and its placement at the center of the shot makes it resemble a movie screen at a drive-in movie. There is a dissolve and we get a closer look as the screen is filled by the multi-paned window, whose central pane is cracked--again, this suggests a fracture in the relationship behind the glass. The camera moves forward a bit but cannot penetrate the window glass, so it remains outside as the scene plays out in a room beyond the window and inside the house.

Louise Larabee as Jacoby's wife

We hear muffled voices but cannot make out words clearly, and ominous music playing on the soundtrack foreshadows dark deeds to come. A man (Jacoby) sits, reading the paper by the fireplace (the cold temperature outside hardly matches the chilly marriage portrayed inside), while a woman, presumably his wife, stands before him, berating him. She snatches the newspaper from his hands and throws it in the fire (I think I could make out her yelling, "Now you're listening!") and he stands and uses the fireplace poker to push the burning newspaper further into the hearth. The argument intensifies and the woman slaps her husband; he begins to threaten her with the poker, she steps out of the view of the camera, and he violently hits her over the head with the poker.

For the first time, the camera enters the house, as there is a cut to a close-up of Jacoby's face. What was the argument about? It does not matter--a typical battle between husband and wife has ended in sudden, angry murder. Contrast this to the short story, where Jacoby planned out the murder and strangled his wife while she slept. In Cavanagh's teleplay, Jacoby's actions seem to constitute a crime of passion, and this makes his subsequent behavior easier to identify with. The initial scene that portrays the events leading up to the murder is added to the story to establish motivation.

Norman Leavitt as Red

Jacoby confirms that his wife is dead and looks around the empty house to see if anyone witnessed his act. Seeing no one, he picks up the telephone but sees blood on his sleeve and puts the phone down. The sight of the blood on his clothing tells him that he cannot hide his own guilt and makes him change his plan. But what was his plan? Who was he going to call--the police? Did he think he could get away with murder and then change his mind when he saw the blood? We have no idea and we must try to read the thoughts and emotions on Jacoby's face because, to this point, there has been no dialogue other than what was muffled behind the window when we could not hear clearly.

Deciding to cover up his act, Jacoby uses a handkerchief to clean the blood off the poker. He also wipes off his own fingerprints, putting the poker back in its stand and throwing the handkerchief in the fire. He enters the garage (we see that his car has California license plates, so the location of the story has been moved from Louisiana), picks up a shovel, and puts it down--perhaps he thought about burying the body and then changed his mind. Unlike the Jacoby in the story, this Jacoby planned nothing in advance and is making it up as he goes along. It is a credit to Hitchcock's direction and the acting of David Wayne (as Jacoby) that we are able to understand his thoughts as he processes his options without a word of speech or even voiceover narration. There is a quick shot of his wife's dead body on the floor, and then we see Jacoby take a large sack from the garage and put her body into it. We see him pulling the sack slowly over her clothes and, with the closing of the bag, she ceases to be a person and becomes a thing to be disposed of.

The opening shot resembles a drive-in movie

Jacoby struggles to put the heavy burden in the car's trunk and throws in some heavy, metal objects to weigh it down, along with a rope and a chain. He opens the garage, gets into his car, and drives off into the night. There is a dissolve to the car driving on a lonely road (a highway sign identifies it as Route 99, a north-south highway later replaced by an interstate) and many critics have commented that the shots of Jacoby driving are similar to those of Janet Leigh driving to the Bates Motel in Psycho; both characters fear discovery of their crimes and have something with them in the car that they must keep hidden. Jacoby is pulled over by a motorcycle cop and finally the first words are spoken, approximately ten minutes into the episode. There is a nice shot where the cop examines Jacoby's license and Jacoby notices the blood on the cuff of his sleeve and rolls it up to conceal it. He is from Edgetown, though there is no such place in California and this is surely carried over from the short story.

At the gas station, Jacoby once again does something while no one else is looking, this time surreptitiously checking that the trunk is still securely locked. Rather than drinking a Coke, the cop drinks from a water fountain, perhaps because Coca-Cola was not one of the show's sponsors. There are several tight close ups of the characters' faces that allow us to get a good look at their emotions, and a look of terror comes over Jacoby's face when the cop asks the gas station attendant for a crowbar to pry open the car's trunk. As so often happens in Hitchcock's films, the viewer is fully engaged with the killer and is afraid he will be caught; the transference of guilt is strong in this scene, as we quietly pray that the cop will not find the body in the trunk. Fortunately for Jacoby, the act of trying to pry open the trunk causes the taillight to go back on, and Jacoby's face shows delight in his deliverance.

Cracked glass as metaphor for broken marriage

There are more shots of Jacoby behind the wheel as he lights and smokes a cigarette; these shots alternate with point of view shots of the road and the lake as he approaches it with the intention of submerging his wife's corpse. The cop pulls him over, the taillight fails, and the show ends with Jacoby's car pulling out to follow the cop's motorcycle to his doom, but there is one final shot--that of the car's taillight flickering on and off, evidence of the cruel fate that the killer was unable to escape.

"One More Mile to Go" is  a triumph. In his seminal article on Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Steve Mamber notes the "superbly executed opening scene" and comments on the show as a whole that the "incident is suspenseful because the audience knows the hero to be in even greater danger than the law officers themselves suspect." The fact that Mamber refers to Jacoby as a "hero," even inadvertently, demonstrates how successful Hitchcock is at making the viewer identify with the criminal. Patrick McGilligan calls this episode the "season highlight" and comments that it represents a "tour de force of macabre humor and suspense..."

The author of the short story, F.J. Smith, had one other story adapted for Alfred Hitchcock Presents ("Reward to Finder," broadcast later in 1957) and the FictionMags Index lists 15 short stories that he wrote, but I have not found any biographical details about the author. The fifteen stories appeared mostly in mystery magazines between 1956 to 1960, with two more in 1966 and 1967; "One More Mile to Go" is the earliest one listed. In Patrick McGilligan's Hitchcock bio, he lists Smith as "George F.J. Smith," and this is also reflected in The Alfred Hitchcock Presents Companion, but I have found no other source for this added first name--both the short story in Manhunt and the onscreen credit for the television adaptation simply list the author as "F.J. Smith."

David Wayne (1914-1995) was born Wayne James McMeekan and began acting on stage in the 1930s. He started appearing in films in 1940, with a bit part in Stranger on the Third Floor, then spent time fighting in WWII before joining the Actors Studio. He first appeared on TV in 1948 and his screen career lasted until 1987. He won two Tony Awards for his stage work and was seen on The Twilight Zone and Night Gallery. Wayne memorably played the Mad Hatter on the Batman TV series and co-starred with Jim Hutton as Inspector Queen on the Ellery Queen TV show that ran from 1975 to 1976. He also starred in an episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, "The Thirty-First of February."

The motorcycle cop is played by Steve Brodie (1919-1992), who played the husband in Cavanagh's "The Creeper." Born John Stevenson, Brodie was on screens big and small from 1944 to 1988 and was seen in four episodes in all of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, as well as on Thriller and in such films as Out of the Past (1947) and Winchester '73 (1950).

Poor Louise Larabee (1916-2002) once again plays a nagging wife who is murdered by her husband; her other appearance on Alfred Hitchcock Presents is in a similar role as a wife who is murdered by her husband in "The Orderly World of Mr. Applebee." Born Alberta Louise Lowe, she worked briefly in film from 1935 to 1936, then pursued a stage career beginning in 1937, supplemented by roles on TV from 1951 to 1966.

Finally, Red, the gas station attendant, is played by Norman Leavitt (1913-2005), a busy character actor whose screen career stretched from 1946 to 1978 and included roles in seven episodes of the Hitchcock show, such as "John Brown's Body." He was also seen on The Twilight Zone and Thriller.

Watch "One More Mile to Go" for free online here or buy the DVD here. Read the GenreSnaps take on this episode here. Thanks to Peter Enfantino for providing a copy of the story!

Sources:

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

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

IMDb, IMDb.com, www.imdb.com/search/.

Mamber, Steve. The Television Films of Alfred Hitchcock. www.tft.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/pdfs/Mamber-Television-Films-of-Alfred-Hitchcock.pdf.

McGilligan, Patrick. Alfred Hitchcock: a Life in Darkness and Light. Regan Books, 2003.

“One More Mile to Go.” Alfred Hitchcock Presents, season 2, episode 28, CBS, 7 Apr. 1957.

Smith, F.J. “One More Mile to Go.” Manhunt, June 1956, pp. 19–26.

Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 24 Nov. 2018, www.wikipedia.org/.

In two weeks: Father and Son, starring Edmund Gwenn!

• The podcast "Presenting Alfred Hitchcock Presents" continues on a monthly basis. Al Sjoerdsma from the Ann Arbor District Library dissects one episode per installment; the latest is "Breakdown." This podcast is extremely detailed and very well done.
• Another podcast worth a listen is "Good Evening: An Alfred Hitchcock Podcast." Sisters Annie and Kathryn examine an episode every other week. This podcast is less serious and less detailed but the commentary is entertaining. The most recent episode discussed was "Murder Me Twice."

The Hitchcock Project-James P. Cavanagh Part Four: The End of Indian Summer [2.22]

by Jack Seabrook

In Maurice Baudin Jr.'s short story, "The End of Indian Summer," which was published in the April 1945 issue of Esquire, a clerk at the Triumphant Insurance Company inadvertently discovers three similar claims filed by Marguerite Gillespie, a retired high school French teacher. Every few years, she married a retired man who unexpectedly died while they were on their honeymoon. Each of the three unfortunate husbands was quickly cremated.

Mr. Rogers, an investigator in the Triumphant claim department, is sent to check up on Mrs. Gillespie at her current home in Lafayette. Pretending to be a businessman, Rogers makes inquiries around town about the widow and recognizes a stranger as another insurance claims investigator; Rogers assumes the company sent another man to keep an eye on him.

Steve Forrest as Joe Rogers

Feigning interest in buying a home, Rogers is invited in by Mrs. Gillespie, who introduces him to Charles Raymond, her next husband. After Rogers leaves, he encounters the other detective but spurns the man's offer to compare notes.

The next morning, the other detective tells Rogers that Mrs. Gillespie and Mr. Raymond left town in a hurry. The other detective reveals himself to be Saunders, from Reliable Insurance Company; he was investigating Raymond, who had at least six wives drown in the bathtub on their honeymoon and who collected life insurance on them all! The detectives wonder who will die first--the bride or the groom.

Gladys Cooper as Marguerite Gillespie

The story's title refers to that time each year, in the autumn, when summer seems to return unexpectedly; for Mrs. Gillespie and her latest fiance, it is a time to recover some of the happiness of youth. That period is about to come to an end, however, due to plans for murder.

The author of the story, Maurice Baudin Jr., has seven short stories listed in the FictionMags Index, all but one published in the slicks between 1945 and 1947. IMDb lists two TV shows adapted from his stories, including this one. He appears to have edited several collections of short stories for students and he may be the same Maurice Baudin who taught creative writing at New York University and whose students included Joseph Heller. He may have died in 1982, though a birth year of 1918 suggested in one online source seems unlikely, assuming he was teaching writing at NYU in the 1940s. It's possible there was a father named Maurice Baudin who taught and a son who wrote, but I have been unable to confirm this.

James Gleason as Howard Fieldstone

In any case, the short story was adapted for Alfred Hitchcock Presents by James P. Cavanagh and aired on CBS on Sunday, February 24, 1957. Cavanagh made important changes to the story and the film benefits from good direction by Robert Stevens and from a strong cast.

As often happened, the screenwriter had to take long, narrative passages from the story and turn them into dialogue between characters on screen. The show begins with an establishing shot, the camera swooping up the side of a tall city building as jaunty music plays on the soundtrack to suggest the fast-moving world of business. There is a dissolve to a close up of a paperweight on a desk; the paperweight bears the logo of Triumphant Insurance Co. We sees claims manager Sam Henderson talking on the phone at his desk; he says, "'No, I'm not going to fire him--not yet'" as Joe Rogers walks into the office and overhears the end of the phone conversation.

Philip Coolidge as Sam Henderson

Sam has discovered that Marguerite Gillespie collected $50,000 each on two life insurance policies when her husbands died on their honeymoons; he suggests that Sam's investigative work was sloppy and that his failure to met the beneficiary in person caused him to overlook this unusual situation. By creating this initial scene, Cavanagh turns exposition into dialogue and gives Joe a good reason for later thinking that the second investigator was sent by his boss to check up on him. Sam assigns Joe to find Mrs. Gillespie and tells him to take along his wife so she can protect him from the femme fatale.

Kathleen Maguire
as Helen Rogers

The scene then shifts away from the city to the bucolic, rural town where Mrs. Gillespie lives. There is another establishing shot, this time showing the charming small town, nestled in a valley. The camera looks down from a hill overlooking the town and the music fits the languid, country setting. There is a dissolve to the exterior of a large, country hotel, then another dissolve to Helen Rogers sipping coffee at a table in the hotel dining room. Joe's wife, a character who does not exist in the short story, is played like a romantic young female lead from a 1940s' film, with a tailored suit and a perky attitude. In the first scene, she is used as a dialogue partner for her husband and little more. She notices the other investigator staring at them and Joe follows him into the lobby, where the man is heard inquiring about Mrs. Gillespie. Joe and Helen discuss Joe's certainty that the man has been sent to check up on him, but here--unlike in the short story--the events of the first scene make his concerns seem reasonable.

Joe and Helen then visit a real estate office and ask if the Gillespie home is for sale; inexplicably, Joe insists on visiting Mrs. Gillespie alone, without his wife. He does so and finds Mrs. Gillespie to be a somewhat older woman than the one described in the story; she admits that she is "'house proud'" and she is delighted to show off her home to the stranger. The scene between Joe and Mrs. Gillespie features a shot of the sort that often appears in episodes directed by Robert Stevens--the camera is placed in a low position, looking up at the characters, with an inanimate object positioned in the foreground to draw our attention. The object this time is a teapot and, as the widow serves tea to her guest, we wonder if this is how she poisoned her husbands.

Coincidentally, Mrs. Gillespie takes this opportunity to discuss the loss of her two bridegrooms. At this point, Howard Fieldstone arrives (he was there already in the story) and asks Joe if he wants to buy the house. They had been keeping their wedding plans a secret but Howard is anxious to tie the knot.

After some amusing dialogue among Joe, Marguerite, and Howard, Joe opens the front door to find the other investigator waiting on the porch and Joe gives him the cold shoulder. Another interesting shot follows in the next scene, as Joe brushes his teeth before a hotel room mirror and we see Helen, sitting up in bed, reflected in the glass. She comments that Joe always feels protective and sentimental toward old folks, but when a bellhop brings a telegram the mood changes: it's a report from the home office that Mrs. Gillespie has requested a $50,000 life insurance policy on Mr. Fieldstone.

Cavanagh adds another new scene where Joe and Helen sit together in the hotel dining room and discuss the lack of proof that Mrs. Gillespie has done anything wrong. The other investigator is stationed at a nearby table and Howard Fieldstone wanders in. Joe introduces him to Helen, suggesting that Fieldstone looks healthy and surely could pass an insurance physical. Fieldstone diverts suspicion by commenting that he has no use for insurance but he and Marguerite both passed physical exams that morning, at her insistence. He mentions that other people are interested in buying his fiancee's house and that the wedding is imminent.

Hal K. Dawson as
the real estate agent

Later that evening, Joe and Helen are back in their hotel room as Joe is on the phone, still trying to get damaging information about Mrs. Gillespie. He gets a call and learns that her house sold that afternoon; once again, he rushes off alone, leaving his wife behind. At Mrs. Gillespie's house, the real estate agent answers the door and the couple is gone. The other investigator arrives and the final conversation between him and Joe plays out much as it does in the story. The dead wife count has been reduced from six to four and Joe responds that Mrs. Gillespie had two husbands cremated "'before we could find out how she poisoned them.'"

James P. Cavanagh's script for "The End of Indian Summer" succeeds in taking a very short story that has little dialogue and turning it into an entertaining short film with plenty of interaction between characters. Adding Sam Henderson, Joe's boss, strengthens the credibility of Joe's belief that the other investigator is watching him; in the short story, this was something that had no foundation. Joe's wife, Helen, gives him someone to talk to when he is investigating Mrs. Gillespie; unfortunately, she is forced to miss key scenes, and thus her character's function is less clear. By expanding the character of Howard Fieldstone, Cavanagh makes the surprise ending even more delightful, since both the male and female murderers have been presented as charming characters.

Robert Stevens (1920-1989) does another fine job with the episode's direction; he clearly sets the scene twice with establishing shots and uses unusual camera placement more than once to increase visual interest and to suggest menace that is not evident in the dialogue. Stevens directed 49 episodes of the Hitchcock series, including "Place of Shadows."

Ned Wever as Saunders

Starring as Joe Rogers is Steve Forrest (1925-2013), who was born William Forrest Andrews, the younger brother of Dana Andrews. Steve Forrest fought in the Battle of the Bulge in WWII and had a long screen career, mainly on TV, from 1951 to 2003. He appeared in one other episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents ("Post Mortem"), as well as on The Twilight Zone and Night Gallery. He starred on the series S.W.A.T. during the 1975-1976 TV season.

Dame Gladys Cooper (1888-1971) shines as Marguerite Gillespie; born in London, she began acting on stage as a teenager and started her film career in the silent era. After juggling stage and film roles for decades, she focused mainly on film after 1940 and began to appear on TV in 1950. She appeared three times on the Hitchcock show, including "What Really Happened," and she also was on The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits. Hitchcock cast her in Rebecca (1940). She was made a Dame in 1967 and kept acting until the year she died.

Mike Kuhn as the bellhop

The doomed (or is he?) fiance, Howard Fieldstone, is played by veteran character actor James Gleason (1882-1959), who started out on stage and who served in the Army in WWI. He appeared in film from 1922 to 1958 and on TV from 1952 to 1958; he was very busy in films in the 1930s and 1940s. This was one of two appearances he made on Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

Giving personality to an underwritten role is Kathleen Maguire (1925-1989) as Joe's wife, Helen. She appeared almost exclusively on TV from 1949 to 1981, including three episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

Philip Coolidge (1908-1967), who appeared in a total of seven episodes of the Hitchcock series, plays Sam Henderson, Joe's boss. He was on screen from 1947 to 1967 and had a part in North By Northwest (1959).

In smaller roles:

• Hal K. Dawson (1896-1987) as the real estate agent; he played bit parts on screen from 1930 to 1980 and also was seen in the Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode, "You Got to Have Luck."
• Ned Wever (1899-1984) as Saunders, the other investigator; he was a star on radio in the 1930s and 1940s and played Dick Tracy. He was on screen from 1955 to 1968 and appeared in three episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, including "The Night the World Ended." He also had success as a songwriter.
• Mike Kuhn (1932- ) as the bellhop; as Mickey Kuhn, he played children in classic films such as Gone With the Wind (1939) and Red River (1948). His career petered out in the 1950s and he appeared in his final film in 1956. He was on TV three times, all in 1957 episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and then he left show business.

Read "The End of Indian Summer" for free online here. Watch the TV version online here or order the DVD here. Read the Genre Snaps take on this episode here.

Sources:

Baudin, Maurice. "The End of Indian Summer." Esquire, Apr. 1945, pp. 54–55, 151.

"The End of Indian Summer." Alfred Hitchcock Presents, season 2, episode 22, CBS, 24 Feb. 1957.

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

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

Heller, Joseph, and Adam J. Sorkin. Conversations with Joseph Heller. Univ. Press of Mississippi, 1993.

Hoffman, Mary. At Home Anywhere. New Rivers Press, 2010.

IMDb, IMDb.com, www.imdb.com/.

"Ned Wever." Dick Tracy Depot, dicktracy.info/people/ned-wever/.

Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 24 Nov. 2018, www.wikipedia.org/.

In two weeks: One More Mile to Go, starring David Wayne!

The Hitchcock Project-James P. Cavanagh Part Three: Fog Closing In [2.2]

by Jack Seabrook

In the ten years that Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour were on the air, they won only three Emmy Awards. Edward W. Williams won in 1956 for editing "Breakdown," Robert Stevens won in 1958 for directing "The Glass Eye," and James P. Cavanagh won in 1957 for writing "Fog Closing In." That same year, Rod Serling won the Emmy for writing "Requiem for a Heavyweight" (Serling's teleplay won in the category of shows that ran one hour or more, while Cavanagh's won in the half-hour category). What was it about this episode that led industry professionals to give it an award that otherwise eluded this well-written series?

"Fog Closing In" is based on a short story titled "The Fog Closing In" by Martin Brooke that was published in the April 1956 issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. The story begins as Mary Turner and her husband argue over breakfast about an ongoing dispute. The summer before, they moved to Kansas City because he got a better territory for his job as a salesman. They bought a large house so Mary's parents could visit and they purchased a dog named Clancy to protect her while she is at home by herself. They even hired a woman named Mrs. Powell to stay with Mary at night when her husband is away. Why, then, is she fearful?

Phyllis Thaxter as Mary

Mary's husband leaves to go on a sales trip and she is alone in the house, with every sound she hears causing her to grow increasingly apprehensive. She waits until six o'clock, when the long-distance telephone rates go down, then tries to call her parents, but all of the circuits are busy. Mrs. Powell fails to appear at 6:30 and the sounds in the empty house cause Mary's fear to increase, until she hears someone enter through the cellar door and ascend the stairs. She takes a revolver from the desk drawer and remains quiet when her husband calls to her through the locked door of her bedroom. "Now, now at last she knew the name for all her fears." Her husband breaks down the door and Mary shoots and kills him. The telephone rings and her mother is on the line; Mary tells her: "'Everything is fine now. I'm coming home.'"

"The Fog Closing In" is a gripping portrait of a neurotic woman, unhappy in her marriage, who allows her fears and imagination to run wild when she is left alone. In the end, she settles on her husband as the cause of her problems and kills him, thinking she can return to the safety of her pre-adult life with her parents.

The introduction to the story provides some information about Martin Brooke, which is a pseudonym for a female author born in Virginia and approximately 40 years old. She had worked as an advertising copywriter and this was her first short story. The FictionMags Index lists one other story by Martin Brooke ("Flowers for the Living," Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, June 1957), but I have not been able to find anything else by or about this obscure writer.

Paul Langton as Arthur

Her story was purchased and James P. Cavanagh adapted it for Alfred Hitchcock Presents. The episode aired on CBS on Sunday, October 7, 1956, and stars Phyllis Thaxter as Mary, who is given the last name of Summers. Following Chekhov's principle about the gun, Cavanagh shows the gun in the very first shot as Mary's husband Arthur removes the firearm from the drawer and shows it to his wife, reassuring her, "'Don't worry--it won't go off.'" Students of Anton Chekhov know full well that if you show the audience a gun in the first act, it had better go off in the second.

The first scene between Mary and Arthur dramatizes the narrative in the story and provides exposition through dialogue; here, we learn that Mary's parents lived with her and Arthur for five years. Mary and Arthur moved to a new house to get away from them and, while Mary wants them to move back in, Arthur does not. Mary is inexplicably afraid, whether she is alone or not, and seems to fear adulthood, even at age 35, since she has been unable to separate from her parents successfully. Arthur suggests that she see a psychiatrist but Mary at first refuses and then reluctantly agrees to consider his recommendation.

After Arthur leaves, Mary closes the blinds and we see that there are two framed photos on the fireplace mantle, one on either end, with photos of her husband and her father, representing the two male forces competing for her love. Time passes slowly as she waits until six p.m. to call her parents; unlike the story, where she has a dog, in the TV show she is completely alone in the house. She hears a crash and ventures into the dark hall downstairs, where she sees an open door, a broken vase on the floor, and a cat, its eyes shining in the blackness. What she does not see at first is a man hiding against the wall in the hallway. She closes the open door, turns, sees the man, and is frightened.

George Grizzard as Ted

The stranger speaks kindly to her and tells her, "'Don't be afraid, I'm not gonna hurt you.'" He appears to be as scared of her as she is of him and she quickly realizes that he has escaped from the state hospital. Mary is kind to the man, whose name is Ted, and invites him into the living room, confessing that "'I know what it's like to be afraid of a place.'" She identifies with Ted and sees herself in him, telling him that she thinks she is worse off because she cannot identify the source of her fear. She talks about recalling a time when she was safe and she walks to stand by the photo of her father on the mantle; the memory she shares is of her father protecting her.

Mary realizes that she is afraid without her parents and that her husband does not understand. She confides in Ted that she never wanted to get married and only did so because her parents lost their money and she thought her husband could take care of them. She then relates a recurring dream of being in her bedroom ("'I'm afraid of my bedroom'") alone when she hears footsteps approaching the door. She always wakes up screaming as the door opens. The dream seems to be a clear reference to a fear of sex and this extended scene, which Cavanagh added to the story, suggests that her interaction with Ted allows Mary to express, in a subtle way, that her real fear is of sex with her husband. One wonders whether she is frigid and whether she and Arthur have consummated the marriage; in the story, he makes reference to an unfulfilled desire to have a family.

Billy Nelson
as the cab driver

At this point, once Mary has had her breakthrough, the character of Ted is no longer necessary to the drama and can be disposed of. Two men arrive from the state hospital and ask to search the house, looking for Ted; Mary allows them to do so as Ted escapes out the back door. She never tells them that Ted had been there and, their search concluded, they leave.

Mary then goes upstairs and the teleplay picks up where the short story left off. She tries to telephone her parents but the circuits are busy. Mary is alone in her bedroom and it seems as if her dream is being reenacted: she hears someone enter the house and she hears footsteps approaching the bedroom. Mary takes the gun from the desk drawer and, when Arthur enters, he tells her that he came back because he heard about the man who escaped from the hospital and he was worried about her. Mary seems to be in a trance and shoots Arthur. He falls to the floor and the telephone rings. Mary answers it and tells her father: "'I'm alright now. Now I can come home.'"

"Fog Closing In" is a psychological study of a woman who never wanted to get married and who fears sex and adulthood, finally killing her husband so she can return to her father and her place in his family as a child. Cavanagh adds the character of Ted, who serves as her counterpart and who allows her to see what she is afraid of and act on it, even though the act is not rational and will have consequences.

Norman Willis as the orderly

Is the teleplay worth an Emmy? Watching the episode is a tedious experience with too much dialogue and not enough action. Studying it for subtext is more interesting than sitting though it. This is not the fault of Phyllis Thaxter (1919-2012), who plays Mary; she was a fine actress who deserves more attention than she has received. Born in Maine, Thaxter started out on Broadway in 1939 and made her first film in 1944, with her first TV appearance coming in 1953. Among her nine appearances on the Hitchcock show are "The Five-Forty Eight," in which she also plays a mentally unstable woman, and "The Long Silence," where she lies in bed, unable to speak and in great danger. She also appeared on The Twilight Zone and Thriller and she played Ma Kent in Superman (1978).

Arthur is played by Paul Langton (1913-1980), who played many character roles in a screen career that lasted from 1943 to 1972. This was his only appearance on the Hitchcock show, but he was on The Twilight Zone twice and he was a regular on Peyton Place from 1964 to 1968.

George Grizzard (1928-2007) adds another disturbed character to his repertoire with that of Ted. Grizzard was on screen from 1955 to 2006, working more on television than on film. He had a Broadway career that spanned the same years and he was in the original cast of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. Grizzard was seen in three episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, as well as episodes of The Twilight Zone and Thriller and the famous Bus Stop episode, "I Kiss Your Shadow."

In smaller roles:

• Billy Nelson (1903-1973) plays the cab driver who comes to the front door to pick up Arthur; he started out in vaudeville and was on screen from 1935 to 1961. He played mostly bit parts and this was his only appearance on the Hitchcock series. There is a tribute to him here.
• Norman Willis (1903-1988) plays the lead orderly from the state hospital who asks to search the house; he was on screen from 1934 to 1965, usually in small parts. He was in four episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, including "Revenge."
• Paul Frees (1920-1986) is uncredited on screen but provides the voice of Mary's father on the telephone at the end of the show; he had a long career as a voice actor and was the voice of Boris Badenov in The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, among countless others. He had five voice-only roles on Alfred Hitchcock Presents, all uncredited.

The cat's eyes shine in the darkness of the hallway.

Carol Veazie (1895-1984) also receives a screen credit, and print sources report that she plays Mrs. Connolly, but she is nowhere to be seen in the show.

Herschel Daugherty (1910-1993) directs the show with little verve; his prior directorial effort on the series was the much-better episode, "The Creeper," also written by Cavanagh. Daugherty directed 27 episodes in the Hitchcock series.

Thanks to Peter Enfantino for providing a copy of the short story.

Watch "Fog Closing In" for free online here or buy the DVD here. The next episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents to be written by James P. Cavanagh was "None Are So Blind," which is reviewed here, in the series on John Collier.

Sources:

Brooke, Martin. “The Fog Closing In.” Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Apr. 1956, pp. 106–111.

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

“Fog Closing In.” Alfred Hitchcock Presents, season 2, episode 2, CBS, 7 Oct. 1956.

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

IMDb, IMDb.com, www.imdb.com/.

Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 24 Nov. 2018, www.wikipedia.org/.

In two weeks: The End of Indian Summer with Steve Forrest and Gladys Cooper.