"Anyone for Murder?" is a black comedy featuring Barry Nelson as psychology professor James Parkerson, who posts an experimental notice in the paper about helping married couples eliminate their significant others. Once he informs the police about his intentions, he answers the first respondent, a Mr. Bingham (Edward Andrews), who wants to pay the professor for all 20 letters he's received, intending to carry out each murder for a price. Meanwhile, Parkerson's wife Doris (Patricia Breslin) has been carrying on for the past six months with a young man, Robert Johnson (Richard Dawson), who balks at continuing at the same pace, offering to hire Parkerson to kill Doris' husband, without knowing that he has actually tried to get Parkerson to kill himself. The professor turns to Mr. Bingham to murder Johnson, and everything goes wrong from that point. It doesn't quite hold up till the end, but the wonderful cast keeps it afloat. As he previously did in 3 episodes of THRILLER, Edward Andrews, a fine comic actor, again proves to be an underrated villain, while Richard Dawson, shortly before his initial fame on HOGAN'S HEROES, was just beginning his career, with two features and three TV episodes behind him.
7 Reviews
Bizarre but not boring
rms125a5 August 2017
Warning: Spoilers
The limpidly beautiful Patricia Breslin, usually the sweet ingenue, here is Doris, delightfully cynical, audacious, angry, and a bit twisted. Barry Nelson is irritating throughout as her husband, James; it's hard to see why Doris loves him so much. An unrecognizable Richard Dawson (credited as "Dick Dawson" here) with an almost flawless American accent plays Richard, a guy betrayed by both his lover and her husband, even though he unwittingly rescues them from the fourth character in this ménage à trois -- Bingham.
Bingham (almost certainly a sobriquet) is played by Edward Andrews, a supporting actor who is usually NOT the genial comedic character he is often erroneously mischaracterized as, but rather someone whose presence should automatically trigger alarm by default just to be on the safe side: tall and bulky with probing eyes, manipulative manner, and unspoken agenda which lies hidden just below a usually placid surface ... yeah, he's trouble.
The episode's convoluted ending is imperfect and Hitchcock's summing up does not improve things. I felt most empathetic towards Dawson's character, despite his serious failings.
Bingham (almost certainly a sobriquet) is played by Edward Andrews, a supporting actor who is usually NOT the genial comedic character he is often erroneously mischaracterized as, but rather someone whose presence should automatically trigger alarm by default just to be on the safe side: tall and bulky with probing eyes, manipulative manner, and unspoken agenda which lies hidden just below a usually placid surface ... yeah, he's trouble.
The episode's convoluted ending is imperfect and Hitchcock's summing up does not improve things. I felt most empathetic towards Dawson's character, despite his serious failings.
Good Cast, Easy Black Comedy.
rmax30482318 June 2013
Warning: Spoilers
It's never dull, but this story of a psychology professor who researches murder and gets mixed up in his own wife's scheme to have him bumped off, could have used a quicker pace, better gags, and wittier dialog.
Barry Nelson as the professor never seemed to age in the course of his long career. He didn't look any older in "The Shining" than he did in "Bataan," thirty-seven years earlier. Richard Dawson, as the lover of Nelson's wife, is barely recognizable if you're used to seeing him on "Family Feud." Edward Andrews, wearing his trademark horn-rimmed glasses and his insinuating smile, is fine as the semi-comic hit man.
It could have been a lot shorter. Time sort of stretches out as we watch Nelson trying to make his first contact with Andrews, whom he's never met, signaling his identity by tying and re-tying his shoelaces, much to the dicomfit of the bar's staff and other customers. When no one approaches him except the waiter -- David Fresco with a monumentally ignorant face -- Nelson tentatively asks if the shoelace business is meaningful to him. Fresco, in a tone and with an expression that passes for puzzlement, replies, "You didn't tie them right the first time?" The set up is fine. The joke is not. A more careful and sophisticated writer might have had the stupid-looking waiter launch into a disquisition on obsession, fetishes, and Freud -- or SOMETHING. Instead, the opportunity is deep sixed.
The ending is bewildering and not at all amusing. You can't keep a good cast down, though, and they soldier on mightily.
Barry Nelson as the professor never seemed to age in the course of his long career. He didn't look any older in "The Shining" than he did in "Bataan," thirty-seven years earlier. Richard Dawson, as the lover of Nelson's wife, is barely recognizable if you're used to seeing him on "Family Feud." Edward Andrews, wearing his trademark horn-rimmed glasses and his insinuating smile, is fine as the semi-comic hit man.
It could have been a lot shorter. Time sort of stretches out as we watch Nelson trying to make his first contact with Andrews, whom he's never met, signaling his identity by tying and re-tying his shoelaces, much to the dicomfit of the bar's staff and other customers. When no one approaches him except the waiter -- David Fresco with a monumentally ignorant face -- Nelson tentatively asks if the shoelace business is meaningful to him. Fresco, in a tone and with an expression that passes for puzzlement, replies, "You didn't tie them right the first time?" The set up is fine. The joke is not. A more careful and sophisticated writer might have had the stupid-looking waiter launch into a disquisition on obsession, fetishes, and Freud -- or SOMETHING. Instead, the opportunity is deep sixed.
The ending is bewildering and not at all amusing. You can't keep a good cast down, though, and they soldier on mightily.
Original Idea, Loopy Result
dougdoepke26 January 2016
The best thing about this goofy production is the absence of clichés of any kind. I'm not sure what the writer has in mind, but the best way to take events is as black comedy, without the laughs. The set-up, however, is something of a curious grabber. A professor decides to research married couples who have proclivities toward killing their spouse. So he advertises that in so many words and in a newspaper, no less. No wonder Barry Nelson as the prof keeps rolling his eyes in loopy fashion. I'm guessing such research is not part of his school's core curriculum.
Anyway, things twist around to where the prof moves to kill his wife's lover (Dawson), while the lover moves to kill her husband (the prof.). The big irony is they don't know they're involved in the same lovers' triangle. So the identity of each guy's marked man remains unknown to the other. Thus, as acquaintances, they socialize without realizing they're actually trying to kill each other. A second irony is both unknowingly want to hire the same hit man (Andrews). All in all, It's certainly a different story idea. But, on the whole, reviewer Maxwell is spot-on with the production details. I'm just sorry the idea's poorly worked out, and not up to the caliber of the performers or the farcical potential.
Anyway, things twist around to where the prof moves to kill his wife's lover (Dawson), while the lover moves to kill her husband (the prof.). The big irony is they don't know they're involved in the same lovers' triangle. So the identity of each guy's marked man remains unknown to the other. Thus, as acquaintances, they socialize without realizing they're actually trying to kill each other. A second irony is both unknowingly want to hire the same hit man (Andrews). All in all, It's certainly a different story idea. But, on the whole, reviewer Maxwell is spot-on with the production details. I'm just sorry the idea's poorly worked out, and not up to the caliber of the performers or the farcical potential.
Plot Driven
Hitchcoc21 May 2023
When a professor decides to do some social experimentation, he sets all kinds of things in motion. He puts an ad in the paper, asking women who want to kill their spouses to contact him. He gets twenty responses before the newspaper refuses to run the advertisement any longer. Of course, he struck a nerve with some people who wish to pursue his offer. In addition, one person, probably a pro, wants the list of names so he can offer his services. Before long we have a loop where one person who is seeking to kill someone is also the one who is to be killed. The odd man in this thing is Richard Dawson who starred in Hogan's Heroes and later hosted The Family Feud game show. Never really thought of him as the one carrying on an affair with a married woman.
"If I wanted my husband killed, I'd kill him myself."
classicsoncall29 November 2022
Warning: Spoilers
This might be the dumbest Hitchcock episode I've seen. Nothing much about it makes sense from beginning to end. Take Barry Nelson's character, Dr. James Parkerson, continually tying and untying his shoe in the restaurant, while trying to attract the attention of a couple sitting across from him. Didn't he realize how stupid he looked? And after stating to Bingham (Edward Andrews) that he would charge him ten thousand dollars to 'cancel' a person for him, Bingham turns around and offers him five hundred dollars for each of the twenty contacts Parkerson received. If this were really an enterprise in which Parkerson would charge based on the way a potential client looked, why would he even agree to that? Didn't make sense. But then the scenario at the Parkerson home truly went haywire. How did Robert Johnson (Richard Dawson) show up there when earlier he told Parkerson he didn't know where his lover Doris (Patricia Breslin) lived? Hitchcock must have been confused by the whole thing himself, since he didn't offer his usual closing monolog about who committed the crime and got sent up the river for it. Was there even a crime? Beats me.
I disagree with the other reviewers...this one is just bad.
planktonrules21 May 2021
The plot for "Anyone for Murder?" is very contrived and difficult to believe...even for a TV show. Professor Parkerson (Barry Nelson) has placed a classified ad which seems to imply that it's advertising for a hitman to rid folks of unwanted spouses. When the police bring him in to discuss the ad, Parkerson says it's all for research for some article....which seems VERY strange and hard to believe. Regardless, the paper refuses to run the ad any more...but not before about 20 folks DID respond! One of them, however, isn't a man who wants to get rid of his wife....he wants the names of the 20 so he can get them to pay him to kill the spouses. At the same time, Parkerson finds out his wife is having an affair and has been for some time. What's next?
I thought it was really interesting seeing Edward Andrews playing a hitman, as he was such a familiar TV actor and never would I have imagined him being a hitman! Not quite as surprising is seeing Richard Dawson playing the wife's lover...but it still was unusual.
This was a bad episode. The plot made no sense and where all this goes at the end...well, it also doesn't make sense. Overall, a far less than satisfying episode because of the story itself. The actors do their best here...but they just aren't given much to work with in "Anyone for Murder?".
I thought it was really interesting seeing Edward Andrews playing a hitman, as he was such a familiar TV actor and never would I have imagined him being a hitman! Not quite as surprising is seeing Richard Dawson playing the wife's lover...but it still was unusual.
This was a bad episode. The plot made no sense and where all this goes at the end...well, it also doesn't make sense. Overall, a far less than satisfying episode because of the story itself. The actors do their best here...but they just aren't given much to work with in "Anyone for Murder?".
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