The Hitchcock Project-Cornell Woolrich Part Four: "The Black Curtain" [8.9], overview and episode guide

by Jack Seabrook

First edition

Cornell Woolrich's 1941 novel, The Black Curtain, is two-thirds of a great thriller. The version aired in 1962 on The Alfred Hitchcock Hour is half of a good television show. Surprisingly, each starts out in an intriguing fashion before failing in different ways.

The Black Curtain was Woolrich's second thriller to be published after he had spent the better part of the 1930s writing short fiction for pulp magazines. The story begins as Frank Townsend wakes up on Tillary Street (the city is never identified, but we assume it is New York, though the Tillary Street of Woolrich's imagination bears little resemblance to the real Tillary Street in Brooklyn) after having been knocked unconscious by a piece of molding that fell from a building. He identifies himself as Frank Townsend but notices that the initials in his hat are D.N. Finding his way home, he learns that his wife Virginia has moved. When he locates her, she tells him that he left for work on January 30, 1938, and never came home until today, May 10, 1941!

Assuming that amnesia was caused by one blow to the head and cured by another, Frank wonders where he has been for more than three years. He gets his old job back but is soon pursued by an ominous man with a gun, barely escaping him by dashing through the closing doors of a subway car. He is forced to give up his job to avoid his pursuer and, when the man locates his residence, Frank and Virginia make a daring escape. Sending Virginia away for her own safety, Frank returns to Tillary Street, hoping it will hold clues to his recent past and help him understand why he is being pursued.

Richard Basehart as Townsend

After more than a week of fruitless searching up and down Tillary Street and the surrounding area, he meets a young woman named Ruth Dillon, who was in love with him during his lost years. She tells him that his name is Daniel Nearing and he learns that on August 15, 1940, he supposedly murdered a man for whom he worked as a groundskeeper in New Jericho. Frank is sure he is not guilty and decides to return to the scene of the crime to prove his innocence. He takes a train to the Diedrich estate and hides out in an unused caretaker's lodge. Frank reconnects with Emil Diedrich, an old invalid who communicates by blinking his eyes in Morse Code. Frank learns the truth, that the murdered man's wife and brother killed him and framed Frank.

The killers catch Frank and tie up him and Ruth, intending to kill them both, but Emil sets fire to his mattress and the house goes up in flames. Frank is saved but Ruth is killed, the man who had been pursuing him turns out to be a policeman, and Frank is able to explain everything that happened and clear his name. As the novel ends, he rides the train back home to his wife, finally able to resume the life that had been interrupted.

Lola Albright as Ruth

My summary of the novel leaves out a great deal but conveys the gist of the plot. The book is divided into three sections. In the first, Frank discovers that he has lost a period of his life and that something must have happened that put him in danger. In the second, he uncovers the details of who he was, where he lived, and why he is being pursued. In the third, he goes back to the scene of the crime and, through a series of extraordinary events, is able to prove his innocence. Woolrich's touch for setting up a suspenseful situation and taking it to extremes serves him well in the first two sections, but the third is too dependent on pulp magazine conventions and rapid fire events to fulfill the promise of the novel's beginning.

The adaptation on The Alfred Hitchcock Hour that aired on November 15, 1962, was not the first time that The Black Curtain had been produced, but it is the only time it has been adapted for television. The novel was first made into a movie and released in in 1942 with the title Street of Chance. The film stars Burgess Meredith and Claire Trevor and is not available on DVD or online, though there is tantalizing clip here. The radio series Suspense then aired the story three times: on December 2, 1943, November 30, 1944, and January 3, 1948.

Joel Murcott adapted The Black Curtain for television in 1962 and made enormous changes to the story in order to fit it into a running time of about 50 minutes. Unfortunately, most of the changes are not for the better. The show begins with Phil (not Frank) Townsend being hit over the head by a blackjack wielded by a young tough who robs him on a dark city street one night. A taxi happens on the scene and scares the young man and his friend away; the cab driver then helps Townsend to an all-night drugstore, where Phil recalls that he had just been discharged from the Army that morning and was on his way to City Hall to get married when he got out of a taxi and felt dizzy.

The cab driver takes Phil to see his girl, but she has married and had a baby since Phil disappeared. It is September 23, 1962, and he has been gone for three years. She went to the police and even hired a private detective but never found Phil; instead, she married the private eye. The cabbie and Phil visit an all-night diner and Phil sees an inscription on his watch that tells him that his other name was David and that a girl named Ruth loved him. The cabbie advises him not to go to the police and suggests he spend the night in a cheap hotel.

The coach tackles Carlin

The next morning, Phil wanders into a park, where boys are playing football. He meets Ruth by chance and suddenly a man takes a shot at him. He runs, avoiding more gunfire, and escapes when the shooter is tackled by the football coach. Going to the address Ruth gave him, Phil finds the apartment where he had been hiding out as David and meets the young man who mugged him but Phil does not make the connection because he never saw the boy's face. The young man infers that he will blackmail Phil and Phil finds a newspaper clipping that says he is wanted for the murder of the wife of a famous lawyer.

Meanwhile, the man who shot at him turns out to be a private investigator who is tracking him down. Hiding in the apartment, Phil and Ruth talk (and talk and talk) and he learns that he worked for her uncle. The private eye is a man named Frank Carlin, who was hired by Ruth's uncle to look into the murder of the uncle's wife, whose body was found in Phil's apartment above his employer's garage. Phil had chronic migraines and would either pass out, grow violent, or go blank; after one of these events, he confessed to murder.

Ruth lures Carlin

Eventually, Phil convinces Ruth to go outside and act as bait to lure Carlin to the apartment. When the private eye arrives, Phil overpowers him and demands the truth. Carlin admits that Ruth's uncle murdered his own wife and then asked Carlin to frame Phil and kill him; Carlin agreed because he had fallen in love with Phil's wife. The show ends as Phil tells Ruth that he plans to go to the veterans' hospital for treatment and they express a desire to see each other again.

The TV version of "The Black Curtain" is so different from the novel that it is necessary to relate the plot of each one in order to make sense of the changes. One of the aspects of the novel that I find most disturbing is the way that Townsend forgets about his wife, who has already had to fend for herself for over three years during the Great Depression, and takes up with a young woman/lover. The TV show solves this, surely pleasing the censors, by making Virginia not his wife but his former fiance. She is now married and has a baby, so there is no concern about adultery with Ruth or abandonment of Virginia.

Harold J. Stone as the cabbie

The minor characters in the TV show are good additions. The cabbie helps Townsend find his way in the first half, and the druggist provides a bit of useful information as well as being an entertaining character. Starting out on a dark, wet city street in the middle of the night is a promising way to begin the episode and the early scenes have a noir feeling to them that is first supported then sabotaged by the awkward musical score by Lyn Murray. Initially, the jazzy score seems to work with the events onscreen, but as the show goes on it seems more and more like someone pulled music cues and slapped them onto the show without paying attention to what was going on; it's hard to believe that this score was written specifically for this episode.

Townsend is hit on the head

The show goes badly awry starting with the scene in the park, when Carlin appears out of nowhere and begins shooting at Phil. Intended to be a surprise, it instead seems ridiculous, especially when Carlin runs onto the field in the midst of a group of teenage boys and takes more shots at Phil. Worst of all is when the football coach tackles the gun-toting private eye! The show grinds to a halt not long after that as Phil takes up residence in the apartment where he lived as Dave. In fact, he never leaves it for the remainder of the show, and much of the second half is taken up by Ruth talking endlessly, explaining what happened with the murder. It is difficult to condense a novel into an hour of television, but other episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour do a much better job than this!

Having the private eye take on such a key role in the story does not work at all. In the end, he turns out to be Virginia's husband and Phil's pursuer, having covered up for the real killer after he was hired by Virginia to find Phil. It's too much to put on a single character, especially one who gets little screen time or dialogue until the end. In adapting Woolrich's novel for TV, Murcott made the mistake of trying to simplify some things while making others overly complex. The result is a boring mess, something Woolrich's stories rarely are. They may depend on wild coincidences, but they are entertaining, something "The Black Curtain" on TV is not.

Lee Philips as Carlin, the private eye

The prior adaptations of The Black Angel are different from the TV version. The first radio adaptation aired on Suspense on December 2, 1943, and Francis M. Nevins Jr. calls this the best radio adaptation ever broadcast of a Woolrich tale. I have not heard many others, but I can attest to the quality of this show. It stars Cary Grant as Townsend and it was adapted by George Corey. In this version, the character of Virginia is wholly omitted, as is much of the book's first section. Townsend finds Ruth quickly, so much of the search in the book's second section is omitted as well.

The thrilling escape made by Frank and Virginia in the novel is made by Frank and Ruth in this version, which compresses events but follows the novel's general plot. The old man's Morse Code eye blinks are simplified to "blink twice for yes and once for no," which works better, but the biggest shock of all comes at the end, when the old man identifies Ruth as the killer! She murdered a man who would not leave her alone and kills herself at the end when the truth comes out. Having the hero's love interest turn out to be the killer is a wonderful way to wrap up the story and it packs a hardboiled punch that the novel and TV show lack. (Although I have not seen the movie Street of Chance, online reviews state that it was the first to change the identity of the murderer to Ruth.) Listen to this great half-hour of old time radio here.

George Mitchell as the druggist

The Suspense version of The Black Curtain must have been popular, and deservedly so. It marked the first episode of the series to be sponsored by Roma Wines ("made in California for enjoyment around the world") and almost exactly a year later it was produced live for a second time, again with Cary Grant, for the show's first anniversary on November 30, 1944. The second live production uses the same script by George Corey but moves the date ahead a year from 1943 to 1944. Listen to it here.

A third radio production of The Black Curtain marked the first episode of the expanded, hour-long Suspense series on January 3, 1948. George Corey again wrote the script; this time, Robert Montgomery stars. The story takes place in 1944 and is padded, making it less exciting than the half-hour versions that preceded it. There is a clever bit of business early on when Townsend learns that he missed the start of World War II, much like Rip Van Winkle sleeping through the American Revolution, but the additions made to stretch the broadcast to an hour do not improve it. Listen and decide for yourself here.

Noir lighting

Joel Murcott (1915-1978), who adapted The Black Curtain for The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, wrote for radio and then for television from 1955 to 1975, including nine episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and three of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. With Henry Slesar, he co-wrote the excellent hour-long episode, "Behind the Locked Door."

"The Black Curtain" was directed by Sydney Pollack (1934-2008), who had a long and successful career as a director and sometimes an actor. He began as a TV director from 1961 to 1965, then switched to movies from 1965 to 2005, winning an Oscar for Out of Africa (1985). He directed two episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour.

The unfortunate score by Lyn Murray (1909-1989) was one of 35 he wrote for The Alfred Hitchcock Hour; among his many credits were Hitchcock's To Catch a Thief (1955).

Gail Kobe as Virginia

Starring as Phil Townsend is Richard Basehart (1914-1984), whose career was discussed in the article on Henry Slesar's "Starring the Defense." Basehart's website here has plenty of information about the actor.

Lola Albright (1924- ) co-stars as Ruth; her career began in movies in 1947 and added TV in 1951. She was a regular on Peter Gunn from 1958 to 1961 and was in three episodes of the Hitchcock series.

The helpful cabbie is played by Harold J. Stone (1913-2005), a wonderful and prolific actor who was on TV and in movies from the late 1940s to the mid 1980s. His career has been discussed in connection with "The Night the World Ended," "Lamb to the Slaughter," and "The Second Verdict," which represent three of the five times he appeared on the Hitchcock show.

James Farentino

Gail Kobe (1931-2013) appears as Virginia in one of her two roles on the Hitchcock series. She was a TV actress from 1956 to 1975 and then had a career change and produced soap operas in the '70s and '80s. She was also on The Twilight Zone three times and The Outer Limits twice.

In only his second acting credit, James Farentino (1938-2012) portrays the young tough who mugs Townsend and hits him over the head, setting the story in motion. This was the first of Farentino's two appearances on the Hitchcock series, and he frequently was seen on TV and in the movies from 1962 to 2006, including twice on Night Gallery.

Celia Lovsky

Celia Lovsky (1897-1979) is seen briefly as Townsend's landlady; she was on three episodes of the Hitchcock series, including "The Kind Waitress."

The druggist at the all-night pharmacy is played by George Mitchell (1905-1972), who also appeared in Henry Slesar's "Forty Detectives Later," as well as two other hour-long episodes. He was in movies from the mid-'30s to the early '70s and on TV from 1949 to 1973. He was on Thriller twice and The Twilight Zone four times.

Finally, the private detective, Carlin, is played by Lee Philips (1927-1999). He acted in TV roles from 1953 to 1975 and in movie roles from 1957 to 1965; he continued to work in the industry as a TV director from 1965 to 1995. He was on the Hitchcock show four times, The Twilight Zone twice, and The Outer Limits  once.

Watch "The Black Curtain" for free online here. It is not yet available on DVD.

Overview: Woolrich on Hitchcock on TV

Cornell Woolrich was not well served by the Hitchcock TV show. Of the four episodes that adapted his stories and a novel, only one is memorable, and none capture the suspense for which he was famous.

"The Big Switch" is an average episode from the first season with good performances, but it fails to live up to "Change of Murder," the story from which it is taken.

"Momentum" is a weak episode that strips the original story of the title attribute.

"Post Mortem" is the most successful of the lot, due to a strong script by Robert C. Dennis and a terrific comedic performance by Joanna Moore.

"The Black Curtain" is a failure that turns an entertaining novel into a boring hour.

The best adaptation of Woolrich's work connected with Hitchcock is, of course, the masterful 1954 film Rear Window. The TV shows don't even come close to its brilliance.

CORNELL WOOLRICH ON ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS/THE ALFRED HITCHCOCK HOUR EPISODE GUIDE

Episode title-“The Big Switch” [1.15]

Broadcast date-8 Jan. 1956

Teleplay by-Richard Carr

Based on-"Change of Murder" by Woolrich

First print appearance-Detective Fiction Weekly, 25 Jan. 1936

Notes

Watch episode-here

Available on DVD?-here

Episode title-“Momentum” [1.39]

Broadcast date-24 June 1956

Teleplay by-Francis Cockrell

Based on-"Murder Always Gathers Momentum" by Woolrich

First print appearance-Detective Fiction Weekly, 14 Dec. 1940

Notes

Watch episode-here

Available on DVD?-here

Episode title-“Post Mortem” [3.33]

Broadcast date-18 May 1958

Teleplay by-Robert C. Dennis

Based on-"Post-Mortem" by Woolrich

First print appearance-Black Mask, April 1940

Notes

Watch episode-unavailable online

Available on DVD?-here

Episode title-“The Black Curtain” [7.9]

Broadcast date-15 Nov. 1962

Teleplay by-Joel Murcott

Based on-The Black Curtain by Woolrich

First print appearance-1941 novel

Notes

Watch episode-here

Available on DVD?-no

IN TWO WEEKS, A SERIES ON ROBERT C. DENNIS'S STORIES ON THE HITCHCOCK SERIES BEGINS WITH AN ANALYSIS OF "DON'T COME BACK ALIVE"!

Sources:

"The Black Curtain | Suspense | Thriller | Old Time Radio Downloads." The Black Curtain | Suspense | Thriller | Old Time Radio Downloads. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 July 2015. <http://www.oldtimeradiodownloads.com/thriller/suspense/the-black-curtain-1943-12-02>.

"The Black Curtain | Suspense | Thriller | Old Time Radio Downloads." The Black Curtain | Suspense | Thriller | Old Time Radio Downloads. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 July 2015. <http://www.oldtimeradiodownloads.com/thriller/suspense/the-black-curtain-1944-11-30>.

"The Black Curtain | Suspense | Thriller | Old Time Radio Downloads." The Black Curtain | Suspense | Thriller | Old Time Radio Downloads. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 July 2015. <http://www.oldtimeradiodownloads.com/thriller/suspense/the-black-curtain-1948-01-03>.

"The Black Curtain." The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. CBS. 15 Nov. 1962. Television.

Grams, Martin, and Patrik Wikstrom. The Alfred Hitchcock Presents Companion. Churchville, MD: OTR Pub., 2001. Print.

IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 01 July 2015. <http://www.imdb.com/>.

"Main Page." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 01 July 2015. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page>.

Nevins, Francis M. Cornell Woolrich--first You Dream, Then You Die. New York: Mysterious, 1988. Print.

Woolrich, Cornell. The Black Curtain. New York: Ballantine, 1982. Print.

The Hitchcock Project-Cornell Woolrich Part Three: "Post Mortem" [3.33]

by Jack Seabrook

"Post-Mortem" first
appeared here

"Post Mortem" is an example of a mediocre Cornell Woolrich story that was vastly improved when adapted for television. The story, titled "Post-Mortem," was first published in the April 1940 issue of Black Mask. The TV adaptation on Alfred Hitchcock Presents aired on CBS on Sunday, May 18, 1958, with a teleplay by Robert C. Dennis. It starred Joanna Moore, Steve Forrest and James Gregory and it was directed by Arthur Hiller.

Woolrich's original story begins as the former Mrs. Josie Mead receives a visit from three reporters who tell her that she is one of three Americans to win the Irish Sweepstakes, to the tune of $150,000. She tells them that she is now Mrs. Archer, having remarried after the death of her first husband, Harry Mead. Knowing nothing about a sweepstakes ticket and unable to collect the winnings without it, she and her new husband Stephen search their house without success. Once Mrs. Archer is alone, she receives a return visit from Westcott, one of the reporters, whose probing questions lead to the conclusion that the winning ticket must have been in the pocket of the suit in which Harry Mead was buried.

Although Westcott and Mrs. Archer discuss exhuming the body, when she proposes the idea to Stephen he has a negative reaction, saying that "It gives me the creeps!" Without Stephen's knowledge, his wife and Westcott go to the cemetery, where workmen dig up the grave of Harry Mead.  Westcott and Mrs. Archer open the coffin and Westcott locates the winning ticket in the corpse's suit pocket. He also notices something else and asks that the body be removed and sent for an autopsy.

Joanna Moore as Mrs. Archer

Mrs. Archer figures out that Westcott is a detective, not a reporter, and explains that her first husband died suddenly after her second husband had sold him a life insurance policy. Westcott admits having noticed that the corpse had a fractured skull and thinking that Archer murdered Mead. Though Mrs. Archer confesses to the murder, he tells her that she has the details all wrong and that he knows she is trying to protect her new husband.

Mrs. Archer explains to Westcott that her second husband bought a new sun lamp for her to use while in the bathtub but that he keeps accidentally knocking it over. She also mentions that Archer brought Mead a bottle of whisky right before he died, but Westcott's suspicion that the bottle was poisoned does not make sense because the bottle dropped and smashed on the floor. The delivery man who brought a replacement bottle helped her pick up the pieces and said that there was enough for a stiff drink in some of the larger fragments.

Westcott leaves Mrs. Archer home alone and Stephen returns. When she is in the bathtub, her new husband knocks the sun lamp over and it falls in the water, but she is not killed because the power goes out right before the accident. Westcott sneaked into the basement and turned off the power just in time! He accuses Archer of the inadvertent murder of the delivery man, who died of poisonous liquor that he drank from a broken fragment of the bottle with which Archer had planned to murder Mead.

Steve Forrest as Archer

It turns out that Harry Mead had died a natural death after all, but his sister suspected foul play and got the police involved. The fractured skull that Westcott saw on Mead's corpse was due to an accident that occurred when the undertaker's assistant dropped the coffin while loading it into the hearse! Westcott remarks wryly that he happened upon one murder unexpectedly while investigating what turned out to be a case of death from natural causes.

It's clear from the convoluted plot of "Post-Mortem" that Woolrich got tied up in knots while writing this story and had to come up with some wild coincidences to wrap up all of its dangling threads. Robert C. Dennis had a challenge ahead of him when he was given the task of adapting the story for the small screen, a challenge that he solved quite neatly by streamlining the plot and utilizing a comic tone.

The TV show begins with a scene where Judy (Josie in the story) relaxes in a bubble bath. Steve brings in an electric heater and places it on the side of the tub before plugging it in. They argue about money; she has savings from her first husband's life insurance policy and he thinks they should invest the money in something risky but potentially rewarding. He accidentally knocks into the heater and burns his hand. This scene sets up the attempted murder at the end of the episode nicely and provides a welcome opportunity to see the lovely Joanna Moore in a bubble bath!

It's not in the attic!

The second scene corresponds with the beginning of Woolrich's story, as the reporters arrive at Mrs. Archer's home. Unlike the source, Westcott is not among them, and it becomes apparent that the story will be told with a light touch, taking full advantage of Moore's excellent comic timing. She banters with the reporters who keep pressing her to pose on the sofa for flattering photographs as she tells them about her life "on the stage" before she met her first husband. Moore plays the role with a delicate southern accent and her performance is perfect.

In the next scene, Steve and Judy search the attic for the ticket and realize where it must be. Steve turns down Judy's suggestion of digging up the body, so we get another scene of her in the bubble bath, this time telephoning the cemetery to arrange the exhumation all on her own. The scene then shifts to the Shady Rest Cemetery, where Judy, all in black, arranges the grisly task. Finally, Westcott makes his appearance, entering the cemetery office and volunteering to search the body, claiming to be a reporter doing a human interest story on the sweepstakes winner.

James Gregory as Westcott

James Gregory, as Westcott, adds an amusing touch when he comes back into the office after going over the corpse--he has to ask the cemetery clerk for a bottle and glass so he can down a quick drink before he is able to answer any questions. Back at the Archer homestead, Judy tells Stephen about finding the ticket and he resents her plan to manage the money wisely. Westcott then visits Judy and admits to her that he is an insurance investigator, not a detective as in the story. He suspected Steve of murdering Harry and now has an autopsy report to prove that Judy's second husband poisoned her first. With this simple change, script writer Dennis cleans up much of the muddle that occurs at the end of Woolrich's story. Gone is the skull fracture, gone is the delivery man, gone is the broken bottle fragment with enough poisoned liquor in it for a deadly drink.

Phoning the cemetery

Westcott suggests to Judy that her new found wealth puts her in danger from a husband who has already murdered for a much smaller sum and, though she argues that Steve loves her, the seed of doubt has been planted in her mind. The episode's climax finds her back in the bathtub, as Steve first gives a fake apology and then throws the electric heater into the tub! She screams, the doorbell rings, and Steve races downstairs, where Westcott and some policemen rush in and arrest him. Steve tells them that there was an accident and that Judy may be dead, but she marches down the stairs in a robe and sadly tells them that he tried to kill her. Fortunately, Westcott pulled the fuse before leaving the house, so even though the heater was plugged in it had no electric power and was thus harmless.

Best of all is the conclusion to the episode, completely new in Dennis's script. The cops take Steve out of the house and Westcott tells Judy that he will be electrocuted, the very fate she avoided. Suddenly, she runs outside and approaches Steve before he is put into the police car. She hugs him and observers think this strange, but we see that she has removed the winning ticket from his pocket. "Thank goodness I remembered!" she says. "I don't want to go through that again!"

Caught!

Robert C. Dennis should get much of the credit for cleaning up Woolrich's somewhat tortuous story and turning it into a straightforward half hour of television. The rest of the credit goes to the three lead actors. Joanna Moore is especially good and carries the show. Steve Forrest is competent as Archer, and James Gregory is his usual, gravelly-voiced self as Westcott. The program is quite enjoyable and a real improvement over the source.

"Post Mortem" was directed by Arthur Hiller (1923- ), who directed 17 episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents in all. Among them were two comic tales that were less successful than "Post Mortem": "The Right Price" and "Not the Running Type." Robert C. Dennis (1915-1983), who wrote the teleplay for "Post Mortem," wrote thirty episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, including "The Right Kind of House" and "Dip in the Pool."

Starring as Judy Archer is Joanna Moore (1934-1997), who was in four episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and another two of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. Her outstanding comic timing and beauty add immeasurably to the success of "Post Mortem," as they do to "Most Likely to Succeed" and "Who Needs an Enemy?"

Archer tosses the heater into the tub

Steve Forrest (1925-2013) plays Steve Archer with a quiet strength; his chiseled features make him perfect for the role of a husband who turns out to be a murderer. Forrest was in the U.S. Army in WWII and fought at the Battle of the Bulge; after the war he embarked on a sixty-year career on stage, in movies, and on TV. He was on Alfred Hitchcock Presents twice, along with episodes of The Twilight Zone and Night Gallery. The twelfth of thirteen children, he was sixteen years younger than his brother, Dana Andrews, who starred in many classic films noir.

James Gregory (1911-2002) plays Westcott; his career stretched from the forties to the eighties and he played numerous cops on countless TV shows. He was on Alfred Hitchcock Presents three times, including Fredric Brown's "The Cream of the Jest" with Claude Rains, he turned up in a single episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, and he appeared on episodes of Thriller, The Twilight Zone, Star Trek, Night Gallery, and Kolchak: The Night Stalker. One of his most memorable roles was a recurring part as Deputy Inspector Lugar on the series Barney Miller from 1975 to 1982.

Roscoe Ates with Joanna Moore

Familiar faces in smaller roles include Roscoe Ates (1895-1962) as the cemetery clerk, who was in six episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. His long career began in vaudeville and included a role in Freaks (1932) and small parts in King Kong (1933), Gone With the Wind (1939), Sullivan's Travels (1941), and The Palm Beach Story (1942). Playing one of the reporters was David Fresco (1909-1997), who appeared in twelve episodes of the Hitchcock series, including "The Gloating Place," "Water's Edge," and "The Second Wife."

David Fresco is behind Joanna Moore

Woolrich's story had been adapted twice before, once on radio and once on TV, both times for Suspense. The radio version aired on April 4, 1946, and starred Agnes Moorehead; the script was by Robert Tallman. Like the Hitchcock version, this version begins with a scene involving the bathtub and the sun lamp, but then follows the story more closely, leaving out the business with the delivery man and the broken bottle. This time, Josie confesses to murder but it turns out to be a ploy to trap Stephen. Listen to this version online here.

The Suspense TV version is a primitive half hour of live television that aired on May 10, 1949, and stared Sidney Blackmer and Peggy Conklin. A tedious show to sit through, it makes significant changes to the story. This time, Archer is the doctor who signed Mead's death certificate, and he is suspicious from the start. The winning sweepstakes ticket isn't even mentioned until halfway through the show, and it turns out to be a fake story planted by the insurance investigator. The only plus to this show is that it is the only version in which we get to see Archer visit the grave, although when he inspects the body he finds no ticket! Frank Gabrielson wrote the script and Robert Stevens directed; this version may be viewed for free online here.

The Alfred Hitchcock Presents version of "Post Mortem" is available on DVD here; it is not currently available for online viewing.

Sources:
Grams, Martin, and Patrik Wikstrom. The Alfred Hitchcock Presents Companion. Churchville,

MD: OTR Pub., 2001. Print.

IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 13 June 2015. <http://www.imdb.com/>.

Nevins, Francis M. Cornell Woolrich--first You Dream, Then You Die. New York: Mysterious, 1988. Print.

Nevins, Francis M., Jr. "Introduction." Rear Window: And Four Short Novels. New York: Ballantine, 1984. Vii-Xx. Print.

"Post Mortem | Suspense | Thriller | Old Time Radio Downloads." Post Mortem | Suspense | Thriller | Old Time Radio Downloads. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 June 2015. <http://www.oldtimeradiodownloads.com/thriller/suspense/post-mortem-1946-04-04>.

"Post Mortem." Alfred Hitchcock Presents. CBS. 18 May 1958. Television.

"Suspense (1949): "Post Mortem" (10 May 1949; Season 1, Episode 9)." YouTube. YouTube, n.d. Web. 14 June 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xW0gmBiGWRM>.

Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 13 June 2015. <http://www.wikipedia.org/>.

Woolrich, Cornell. "Post-Mortem." 1940. Rear Window: And Four Short Novels. New York: Ballantine, 1984. 41-74. Print.

The Hitchcock Project-Cornell Woolrich Part Two: "Momentum" [1.39]

by Jack Seabrook

Woolrich's story was
first published here

The second episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents to be adapted from a Cornell Woolrich short story was "Momentum," broadcast on CBS on June 24, 1956, as the last episode of season one. The story on which it was based is "Murder Always Gathers Momentum," which was first published in the December 14, 1940 issue of Detective Fiction Weekly.

As the story begins, Richard Paine waits outside the window of Mr. Burroughs, recalling that he had been a faithful employee of Burroughs's company who was owed $250 in back pay when Burroughs declared bankruptcy to avoid paying his debts. Paine and his wife have suffered from lack of money and are about to be turned out of their apartment for unpaid rent. He sees Burroughs talking to another person and watches as the old man opens his safe, takes out a stack of bills, and gives money to the unseen person, who leaves. Paine hides from view and cannot see who is leaving.

Once the visitor is gone and Burroughs has retired upstairs, Paine summons his courage and breaks into the house through a window. He opens the safe, having memorized the combination minutes before, and is suddenly bathed in light as Burroughs appears, alerted by a silent alarm. Burroughs holds a gun on Paine and tries to pull off the handkerchief covering his face. Paine wrestles with Burroughs, deflecting the gun and knocking the old man to the floor. Burroughs grabs the handkerchief and identifies Paine, who shoots and kills the old man with his own gun. Taking only the $250 he was owed, Paine escapes unseen but fears that "Murder, like a snowball rolling down a slope, gathers momentum as it goes."

Skip Homeier as Dick

He goes to a bar and orders two drinks, certain that the bartender suspects him. Moving to the washroom to take out a stolen bill to pay the bar tab, Paine is followed by the bartender, whose surprise entrance leads to a struggle, a gunshot, and another murder on Paine's conscience. "Two in less than an hour. Paine didn't think the words, they seemed to glow out at him, emblazoned on the grimy washroom walls in characters of fire, like in that Biblical story." The story to which Woolrich refers is, of course, the story of the prophet Daniel and the writing on the wall. The words written on the wall are translated roughly in part as "you have been weighed in the balance and found wanting"; this applies to Dick Paine in "Murder Always Gathers Momentum" most clearly after he has committed his second murder, and the doom implied by the ancient sentence foretells his end.

Joanne Woodward as Pauline

Outside the washroom, in the bar, Paine finds a drunk, who demands to be served; Paine pretends to be the bartender, giving the man a bottle and shooing him out the door. Staggering home to his apartment,Paine sees his wife Pauline asleep and passes the rest of the night alone, kneeling on the floor of the outer room, head and arms buried in the sofa cushions. Pauline finds him in the morning and he tells her not to mention the name Burroughs. Claiming to have borrowed the much-needed cash from a friend, he becomes paranoid and thinks that people on the street below are coming after him. However, the first person he fears turns out to be the building's janitor, showing the Paines' apartment to a prospective new tenant.

Dick tells Pauline to pack so they can leave in a hurry. He thinks he sees someone outside waiting for him and tells Pauline to go to the train terminal, buy two tickets to Montreal, and wait for him on the train. After she leaves, he crouches by the window, running outside when he thinks the man is after Pauline. Of course, the man is waiting for someone else, but Dick immediately sees another man loitering on the sidewalk and scurries back into his apartment. The man comes to the door and Dick shoots him as he enters, only to learn he was just a loan shark. Dick races out but the gunshot attracted attention and he exchanges gunfire with a policeman, killing the cop but being wounded himself in the process.

Watching through the window

Bleeding badly, Paine enters a taxi and asks the cabbie to drive him around the park to kill time before meeting Pauline at 8 o'clock. Turning the radio on, the cabbie hears a report about the dangerous fugitive in his cab. Dick shoots the cabbie as he attempts to run away, dons his cap and coat, and drives to the terminal. Barely able to maneuver the cab from loss of blood, Dick reaches the station and staggers up the stairs and onto the train. He makes his way through the cars, near death, and reaches Pauline. Falling into the seat beside her, he causes her to drop her handbag and a packet of bills falls out. She explains that she had gone to see Burroughs the night before and he gave her the money he owed Dick, but since Dick had told her that morning not to mention his name, he never knew that she was the unseen figure he saw Burroughs talking to as he watched through the window.

"Murder Always Gathers Momentum" has as its backdrop the Great Depression of the 1930s, and the financial difficulty faced by Richard and Pauline Paine would have been familiar to readers of the detective pulp magazine in which it appeared. When the story was adapted for television about fifteen years later, times had changed. World War Two had come and gone, as had the Korean War, and by 1955 the nation was at peace and the economy was in much better shape than it had been in 1940. The title of the story was shortened to "Momentum" and, despite a teleplay by Francis Cockrell and direction by Robert Stevens, the episode is less than the sum of its parts. It bears a copyright date of 1955 but was not broadcast till the end of June 1956, suggesting that the producers realized it was a weak episode and held it till the end of the season, when viewership declined.

Homeier superimposed over stock
footage of New York City; note
"The Phenix City Story" on
the marquee, dating the shot
around summer 1955

As is often the case on Alfred Hitchcock Presents, the televised version of the story begins with scenes depicting events that were already in the past when the print version of the story began. We first see Dick Paine superimposed over stock footage of crowded city life as he comments in voiceover on the "rat race." Voiceover and superimposed shots continue as he looks for a job unsuccessfully; it is confusing that the stock footage appears to be of locations in New York City, while the action of the episode later seems to take place in California rather than in New York, as it did in Woolrich's story.

A scene of Dick and Beth (not Pauline) at home follows, where we learn of their money troubles and the tension that this brings into their marriage. Dick stops in a bar and tries unsuccessfully to borrow money from the bartender; he drinks some Dutch courage before heading to Burroughs's house, where we pick up with the start of the original story. Knowing the surprise ending, it's hard to believe Paine cannot see his own wife through the window, though her identity is shielded from the viewer's eyes by a well-placed curtain. The day for night filming in this scene is not very effective, leading to some confusion as to the time of day. The scene is so well-lit that it's hard to believe Paine does not see his wife walking away from the house.

High-contrast noir lighting is used in
this shot, where Ken Christy as
Burroughs points a gun at Paine

Unlike the story, Paine does not try to mask his identity by tying a handkerchief over his face; this suggests that the theft was a spur of the moment decision rather than something he planned in advance. Burroughs recognizes Paine right away but neglects to mention that Dick's wife just left the premises. Oddly enough, the situation, the lighting, and the use of voiceover all suggest a noir aspect to "Momentum," but the episode never really coalesces and fails to maintain the noir atmosphere from start to finish.

After Paine leaves Burroughs's house, the visit to the bar is omitted from the TV show, so Paine does not commit a second murder. Perhaps this was a conscious decision by Cockrell to make Paine more sympathetic. The sense of paranoia that Paine feels when he is back in his apartment is also much less; rather than thinking  that the janitor has it in for him, the janitor just barges into the apartment and shows it to a prospective tenant. Again, it is hard to accept that Beth would not tell her husband about her visit to Burroughs, but the twist ending depends on her keeping silent. Cornell Woolrich had the ability to pile one coincidence on top of another and to make the reader forget about lapses in logic due to the propulsive nature of his writing. The TV version of "Momentum" does not succeed in this way, leaving the viewer to wonder why people fail to say and do the things that one would expect them to do.

It is strange that Dick tells Beth to buy two bus tickets to Mexico, then changes it to San Diego. Why alter this detail from the story, in which they live in New York City and he tells her to buy train tickets to Montreal? The change from train to bus lessens the suspense, as the final scene does not have Paine struggling his way through crowded train cars. In fact, he never boards the bus, but rather happens on Beth sitting on a bench outside the station.

Harry Tyler is on the right in one of his
11 appearances on the series

Paine also does not shoot the loan shark in the TV version, nor does he exchange gunfire with a policeman and get fatally wounded. Instead, a bill collector (standing in for the loan shark of the story) enters Paine's apartment and Paine is accidentally shot in a struggle. Paine locks the bill collector in the bedroom and escapes. Presumably, Cockrell decided (or was told) that TV censors would not accept a multiple murderer as the protagonist of this episode, and so Paine's progress is changed so that he only kills Burroughs, and that is by mistake. Even the poor cabbie who picks up Paine is spared--Paine hits him over the head with his gun rather than shooting him.

The biggest problem with "Momentum" is that it lacks the title attribute and never really builds suspense. Paine dies in Beth's arms  at the end and his last words circle back to the comment he made at the beginning of the show: "It's a rat race--you run all day." Unfortunately, despite a talented writer, a skilled director, a competent cast, and various noir touches, "Momentum" is a letdown and does not live up to the promise of Woolrich's original story. Francis M. Nevins sums it up this way: "this all-too-straight-forward little picture left out most of the Depression Era desperation and anguish . . . that permeate Woolrich's story."

Francis Cockrell (1906-1987), who wrote the teleplay, started his career in movies in 1932 and moved to TV in 1950. He placed many short stories in pulps and slicks in the '30s and '40s and wrote a serial called "Dark Waters" with his wife Marian Cockrell that was serialized in The Saturday Evening Post, published as a novel, and adapted as a film. In addition to writing four episodes of Batman, he wrote 18 episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, including "Back for Christmas," "De Mortuis," and "The Dangerous People."

Mike Ragan as the cabbie

"Momentum" was directed by Robert Stevens (1920-1989), who began as a TV director in 1948 and added movies in 1957. He directed two episodes of The Twilight Zone; among the 44 episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents that he directed was "The Glass Eye," for which he won an Emmy.

Playing the lead role of Dick Paine is Skip Homeier (1930- ), who began his acting career as a child on radio and successfully navigated his way through growing up on camera into a long career as an adult. He appeared in films from 1944 to 1982 and on TV from 1950 to 1982; he was on The Outer Limits, two episodes of Star Trek, and two episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

Joanne Woodward

Joanne Woodward (1930- ) plays Beth Paine. She started on TV in 1952 and in film in 1955. Her many films include The Three Faces of Eve (1957) and The Drowning Pool (1975). She was married to Paul Newman from 1958 until he died in 2008 and this was her only appearance on Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

Among the familiar faces filling out the cast of "Momentum" are Ken Christy (1894-1962) as Burroughs, Mike Ragan (1918-1995) as the cabbie, and Harry Tyler (1888-1961) as the old man looking at the Paines' apartment. Tyler was one of the most prolific of character actors on the Hitchcock series, appearing in a total of 11 episodes.

Was this insert shot added later to
match the air date in late June 1956?

Prior to being adapted for television in 1955, "Murder Always Gathers Momentum" had been adapted for radio (as "Momentum") and broadcast on October 27, 1949, as part of the series Suspense, with a radio play by E. Jack Neuman and starring Victor Mature and Lurene Tuttle. The radio version may be heard online here. Like the version televised in 1956, this version reflects the economic conditions of the times--Dick Paine is lazy and does not want to look for work, even though his wife says that everyone who wants a job has one. The multiple murders are present, but Paine's first killing is over royalties he thinks he deserves from an invention rather than unpaid back wages.

The TV version of "Momentum" is available on DVD here or may be viewed for free online here.

Sources:

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Grams, Martin, and Patrik Wikstrom. The Alfred Hitchcock Presents Companion. Churchville, MD: OTR Pub., 2001. Print.

IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 30 May 2015. <http://www.imdb.com/>.

"Momentum." Alfred Hitchcock Presents. CBS. 24 June 1956. Television.

Nevins, Francis M., Jr. "Introduction." Cornell Woolrich: First You Dream, Then You Die. New York: Mysterious, 1988. Vii-Xx. Print.

Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 30 May 2015. <http://www.wikipedia.org/>.

Woolrich, Cornell. "Murder Always Gathers Momentum." 1940. Rear Window and Four Short Novels. New York: Ballantine, 1984. 134-69. Print.