The Hitchcock Project-Crackpot by Martin Berkeley [2.15]

by Jack Seabrook

What seems like a chance encounter turns into a frightening experience in "Crackpot," which aired on CBS on Sunday, January 6, 1957.

Ray and Meg Loomis have just gotten married and are on their honeymoon when they get a flat tire on their way to a hotel in Santa Barbara, California. Ray's Aunt Florence was recently murdered by a burglar whom she surprised robbing her safe and, although the publicity around the crime gave the couple second thoughts, they went ahead with the wedding. Ray finishes putting on the spare tire and his hands are dirty when he notices that it is also flat. Just then, another car drives by on the remote road and Ray flags it down.

The driver of the other car introduces himself as Mr. Moon, a heavyset, genial man in a white suit and hat who uses a handy air hose to equalize the pressure between the spare tire in his trunk and the one on Ray's car. Ray trips while handing the tube back to Moon and his dirty hands land on the front of the man's suit, leaving two large grease stains. Moon's demeanor immediately switches and he flies into a rage, using the air hose as a whip and telling Ray, "'I could kill you for what you did.'" Moon suddenly gets back into his car and drives off, leaving Ray to remark to Meg that the man must be insane.

Biff McGuire as Ray Loomis

When Ray and Meg reach their hotel, the lobby is crowded due to a convention and the suite they had reserved is not available. They are ushered into the manager's office, where a policeman named Sergeant Carpenter says that a man who fits Ray's description of his aunt's murderer was picked up in Ventura the night before. He had a bracelet with him, but Ray examines it and says that it did not belong to his aunt.

Soon the problem with the room is cleared up and Ray and Meg are in their honeymoon suite, where he picks her up and opens the door to carry her over the threshold only to encounter Mr. Moon once again. He is back to being friendly and cordial; a valet cleaned the grease stains off of his white suit and he is staying in the room right next door. Once Moon has left, Ray hears him banging on the wall between the rooms and yells at him to stop, only to have the desk clerk telephone to tell Ray that Moon is complaining about him doing the same thing.

Robert Emhardt as Moon

Ray goes out onto the balcony and walks over to Moon's room, where he looks in and sees Moon creating a large hole in the wall with a hammer and chisel. When Ray bangs on Moon's door from the hallway and Moon opens it, the man denies hammering on the wall and Ray sees that a large mirror is hanging over the spot where he saw the hole. He turns to see Moon pointing a gun at him and the man tells Ray to leave, suggesting that Ray needs a psychiatrist. Moon adds that if there is any more trouble, he will call the police and have Ray put away.

Ray returns to his room, visibly upset, and tells Meg that they need to leave because Moon has a gun and threatened to kill him. Ray says that he recalls seeing Moon on the night his aunt was murdered and concludes that the man wants to kill him because he knows that Ray can identify him. Meg stays positive, suggesting they order champagne and forget their troubles, but Ray begins to hear a ticking sound coming from the wall. On the other side, Moon listens to what is happening in Ray's room and pulls a clock out of the hole whenever Meg leans over to listen, making her think that her husband is hearing things.

Mary Scott as Meg Loomis

Fearing that Moon has planted a time bomb in the wall, Ray is shocked when Moon appears in the doorway holding a gun and telling Ray that he has three minutes until the bomb goes off. Ray accuses Moon of killing his aunt, claiming that she caught him robbing her safe and he panicked and hit her. Moon seems unstable, alternating between smiling and sudden fits of anger. As he reaches around the door to engage the lock, Ray hits him and seems to knock him out. Ray sends Meg to the lobby and rushes into the bedroom to get her overnight case when suddenly Moon is on his feet and approaching Ray.

Moon takes the case from Ray, his gun pointed at the newlywed; he searches the case and uses his gun butt to smash the mirror in the lid, revealing a cache of hidden jewels. Ray begs Moon to let him go before the bomb goes off and Meg rushes in with Sergeant Carpenter. Moon reveals that he is really a detective with the Pasadena Police; Carpenter explains to Meg that her husband was in debt and that he was the one who robbed his aunt's safe and murdered the woman when she surprised him in the act. The detective says that the charade was the only way he could think of to trap Ray. The alarm goes off on the clock in the wall and Moon chides himself for forgetting to turn it off. Meg tears up as she looks at her husband and realizes that their honeymoon is at an end.

"Crackpot" is an entertaining episode that succeeds due to the performances of the three leads. After watching it, one wonders about the detective's plan. Moon must have been following Ray's car, since Meg remarks that the road they were on was a shortcut suggested by the same gas station attendant who checked their spare tire. Did the attendant purposely engineer the flat tire so Moon could come on the scene and act crazily? Moon must have pretended to be the crackpot of the title in order to set up the later events at the hotel.

The "bomb" in the wall.

The police were waiting for Ray and Meg at the hotel, and perhaps the initial problem with the room reservation was created so that Ray could be brought into the manager's office to examine the necklace and confirm that it was not his aunt's, thus demonstrating that he was familiar with her jewelry. Moon arranged to book the room next to Ray's in order to set his plan in motion; creating the hole in the wall and pretending to plant a ticking time bomb were all part of his elaborate plan to trick Ray into revealing the location of the hidden jewels. Moon's continuing bizarre behavior was all to support the suggestion that he was a dangerous crackpot. When Moon sees Ray with the overnight case, he takes it from him at gunpoint and comments that the police had already searched his luggage; however, on the spur of the moment, Moon smashes the mirror in the bag and finds the jewels in the one place they had not already looked.

The end credits for "Crackpot" say that the teleplay was by Martin Berkeley, based on a story by Harold Gast. The story was not published but rather was the teleplay for an episode of the early, live TV series The Web that was broadcast on September 5, 1954. The synopsis for this episode says that "an ice cream stain on the suit of a stranger develops into a murder threat that disrupts a young couple's honeymoon." Unfortunately, this episode is lost, so it is not possible to see how Ray got an ice cream stain on Moon's suit rather than a grease stain from changing a flat tire.

Harold Gast (1918-2003) started out in the late 1940s writing for radio and then spent the rest of his career writing teleplays, from 1954 to 1994. His script for "Crackpot" on The Web was his first TV credit. He also worked as a TV producer on shows like Judd for the Defense and Cannon.

Michael Fox as
Sergeant Carpenter

Martin Berlekey (1904-1979) was a performer in Broadway shows in the late 1920s and began writing films in 1941. He wrote for TV from 1949 to 1963. Among his screenplays were Revenge of the Creature (1955) and The Big Caper (1957), which was directed by Robert Stevens. His script for "Crackpot" was his only work for the Hitchcock TV show. Berkeley cooperated with the House Un-American Activities Committee in the early 1950s and was said to have volunteered more names than any other witness.

"Crackpot" was directed by John Meredyth Lucas (1919-2002), a writer and director who worked mostly in television from the early 1950s to the early 1980s. He directed only three episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, including "Jonathan"; he also directed episodes of Star Trek and Night Gallery. He grew up in Hollywood and wrote a memoir called Eighty Years in Hollywood; of interest is the fact that his stepfather was film director Michael Curtiz.

Phil Garris as
the bellhop

Starring as Ray Loomis is Biff McGuire (1926-2021), who was born William McGuire and who started out on Broadway, including a role in the original cast of South Pacific (1949). He acted on screen from 1950 to 2013 and was in the classic 1973 film, Serpico. He appeared in four episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, including "The Gentleman from America."

As Moon, Robert Emhardt (1913-1994) switches with ease between seeming innocent and dangerous. Emhardt was Sydney Greenstreet's understudy on Broadway in the 1930s and a founding member of the Actors Studio; his career on TV and in film stretched from 1949 to 1982. He was seen in six episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, including "De Mortuis," one unforgettable episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour ("Return of Verge Likens"), and episodes of The Twilight Zone, Night Gallery, and The Night Stalker.

Meg Loomis is played by Mary Scott (1921-2009). Born in Los Angeles, she appeared in movies beginning in 1942 and on TV beginning in 1951. She is best remembered today for her roles in eight episodes of the Hitchcock TV show, including "The Diplomatic Corpse." In the late 1940s, she was on Broadway in a production of Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra when she met the English actor Cedric Hardwicke; she got pregnant and he divorced his wife. Hardwicke and Scott wed in 1950, when he was 57 years old and she was 29. She later wrote an autobiography called Nobody Ever Accused Me of Being a 'Lady,' and there is an interesting obituary here.

In smaller roles:

• Michael Fox (1921-1996) as Sergeant Carpenter; Fox had numerous screen credits from 1952 to 1991 and was also seen on The Twilight Zone, Batman, and The Night Stalker.
• Phil Garris (1919-2004) as the bellhop; he played small parts on screen from 1946 to 1979.
• Raymond Guth (1924-2021) as the hotel desk clerk; he was on screen from 1956 to 2000 and also had a role in "Terror at Northfield."

Raymond Guth as
the desk clerk

Watch "Crackpot" here or order the DVD here.

Sources:

"Crackpot" Alfred Hitchcock Presents, season 2, episode 15, CBS, 6 January 1957.

CTVA US Anthology - “The Web” (CBS) Season 4 (1953-54), ctva.biz/US/Anthology/Web_04_(1953-54).htm. 

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

IMDb, www.imdb.com.

Wikipedia, www.wikipedia.org.

Listen to Al Sjoerdsma discuss "Crackpot" here!

In two weeks: "The Indestructible Mr. Weems," starring Robert Middleton!