When a cellmate dies in prison, John Casavettes' character, Dust Connors, now out of prison, has enough information to look for the loot his cellmate's accomplice had hidden. He hooks up with Ann Sothern (always wondered what happened to her) and the two of them go in search of the stolen moneroviy. It is a game of give and take with Dusty being the real brains but Sothern providing answers to some significant questions. After a series of misdirections, it is realized that there is a cabin near a lake and the money may be there, along with a body. But what they get is a lot more than they bargained for and in the form of four legs and a tail. It's one of those episodes that leaves one sickened. Well done.
10 Reviews
"Yes, it was an act, and you fell for it!"
classicsoncall28 December 2022
Warning: Spoilers
For a brief moment, I thought Rusty Connors (John Cassavetes) was going to climb back down the ladder and say there was nothing to be found in the gap between the ceiling and the roof of the old boathouse. Since he was going to do a number on Helen Krause (Ann Sothern) anyway, why not take the easier way out. It's not like she was going to go and look for herself, not with all those rats running around the place. So, a missed opportunity that would have netted him a cool fifty-six grand in stolen cash from a couple years prior by Rusty's prison cellmate, Mike Krause (Rayford Barnes). Now when you think about it, the way Rusty and Helen managed to find the missing money was highly improbable, relying on vague references to past behavior and frequent boat rentals from a couple who had been killed in an auto accident. What's the likelihood the authorities wouldn't have searched the attic of that boathouse to look for the stolen loot? Too many vagaries in the story to suit me, but I did get a kick out of the way Rusty described Helen during their contentious falling out - a barrel of beef! - while sitting there with his arms and legs tied up and Helen looking to make a getaway. The closing scene made it look like both were doomed, and Helen's fading grip on the boathook appeared to make her a goner, but even I could have gotten my hands free from that tenuous flurry of knots binding Rusty's hands. To my thinking, he still could have gotten away with the money and have it all to himself.
Picks Up Steam, but Don't Eat Anything First
dougdoepke9 October 2015
The hour starts off slowly but picks up suspense before the big creep-out. Good thing producers hired two fine actors—Cassavetes (Rusty) & Sothern (Helen)—since most of the narrative is their talky give and take. Rusty gets out of prison with some info on missing loot of $56,000 from a bank heist. To fill in the missing pieces he takes up with slatternly waitress Helen, the girlfriend of the dead cell-mate who gave him the info. Now he and Helen try to piece together the loot's location, taking them eventually to an abandoned lake front shack where a surprise awaits.
I'm not surprised the idea came from horror-meister Robert Bloch, e.g. Psycho (1960). It's a big payoff, indeed. But then who would want to be prop-man here. I'm not even sure triple pay would be enough. Anyway, Cassavetes low-keys it as the slick ex-con, while Sothern does a tough broad bit reminiscent of the brassy early 1930's, but a long way from her fluffy TV roles. All in all, I expect this was a "water cooler" episode, one that got talked about over coffee the next day (but definitely leave off the snacks).
I'm not surprised the idea came from horror-meister Robert Bloch, e.g. Psycho (1960). It's a big payoff, indeed. But then who would want to be prop-man here. I'm not even sure triple pay would be enough. Anyway, Cassavetes low-keys it as the slick ex-con, while Sothern does a tough broad bit reminiscent of the brassy early 1930's, but a long way from her fluffy TV roles. All in all, I expect this was a "water cooler" episode, one that got talked about over coffee the next day (but definitely leave off the snacks).
One of the most chilling hours of television ever
d7eb200025 August 2006
I remember watching this vividly. It is one of the most terrifying pieces of TV up to then, 1964, and it probably continues to be true.
Who seduces whom and who abandons and betrays whom. Ann Sothern is the alluring moll...she used to do them dumb and sweet like Bother Orchid, but here she's something else. John Cassavetes plays the man who woos her to find the treasure and she is "wooed" to find the money. Cassaveetes is both intense, sexy and sly.
It is the story of what happens to two truly evil people who are both undone by their own vicious natures. There are no good guys or gals to be found anywhere on the screen watching this mesmerizing hour.
Ann Sothern is just amazingly crass, vicious and venal. Not at all like her Susie's or Maisie's that made her famous.
Who seduces whom and who abandons and betrays whom. Ann Sothern is the alluring moll...she used to do them dumb and sweet like Bother Orchid, but here she's something else. John Cassavetes plays the man who woos her to find the treasure and she is "wooed" to find the money. Cassaveetes is both intense, sexy and sly.
It is the story of what happens to two truly evil people who are both undone by their own vicious natures. There are no good guys or gals to be found anywhere on the screen watching this mesmerizing hour.
Ann Sothern is just amazingly crass, vicious and venal. Not at all like her Susie's or Maisie's that made her famous.
Makes the 1971 movie WILLARD look like THE YEARLING
mcintyro21 January 2009
I remember seeing this on television right around the time WILLARD came out in 1971. First of all this was done 7 years earlier with rats. Second, I don't know how it could have even aired. There was an episode of EASTSIDE WESTSIDE starring George C Scott that dealt with a baby in a tenement during a garbage strike that gets severely bitten by rats. James Earl Jones guest starred. The network had to cut footage with the rats, so we had to depend on Mr. Jones' excellent acting skills. Because the network chose to sugarcoat the episode, this led to Mr. Scott becoming angry about doing network television. I am surprised that no fans of the show ever singled this episode out. It is truly eery and chilling, and again I don't know how it could have aired. The acting was outstanding.
HATS OFF TO ROBERT BLOCH, THE AUTHOR
tcchelsey4 July 2023
The man behind such chillers as PSYCHO, Robert Bloch was hired again by Hitch to write this dandy trip into the macabre. This will stick with you.
What a story! What a cast! John Cassavetes is perfectly cast as a former prison inmate who hooks up with his dying cellmate's wife (Ann Sothern) as to where thousands of dollars in stolen loot is stashed. Wait and see, folks....
This is one heck of a cat and mouse tale as both are playing the same game. It's also a different role for Sothern, who was more of a comedian in the tradition of Lucille Ball. She had a terrific comedy show on tv and appeared in scores of funny movies, going back to the 1930s. Possibly, she may have won this role due to a dramatic part in the chiller, LADY IN A CAGE (1964) which she appeared in just before this. Ann played a friend to Olivia de Havilland who was being held hostage in her home by a gang of teens. This was a violent movie and occasionally turns up on tv.
Watch this for the neat twists and the exceptional acting by two old pros. Filmed at the famous Universal back lot, around the time the studio was building its iconic City Walk. SEASON 3 EPISODE 3 CBS dvd box set.
What a story! What a cast! John Cassavetes is perfectly cast as a former prison inmate who hooks up with his dying cellmate's wife (Ann Sothern) as to where thousands of dollars in stolen loot is stashed. Wait and see, folks....
This is one heck of a cat and mouse tale as both are playing the same game. It's also a different role for Sothern, who was more of a comedian in the tradition of Lucille Ball. She had a terrific comedy show on tv and appeared in scores of funny movies, going back to the 1930s. Possibly, she may have won this role due to a dramatic part in the chiller, LADY IN A CAGE (1964) which she appeared in just before this. Ann played a friend to Olivia de Havilland who was being held hostage in her home by a gang of teens. This was a violent movie and occasionally turns up on tv.
Watch this for the neat twists and the exceptional acting by two old pros. Filmed at the famous Universal back lot, around the time the studio was building its iconic City Walk. SEASON 3 EPISODE 3 CBS dvd box set.
Where the rats are
sol12182 January 2012
Warning: Spoilers
***SPOILERS*** It's those cute furry and cuddly little critters the rats who take center stage in this skin crawling "Alfred Hitchcock Hour" episode about greed murder and double crossing that really make it worth seeing.
The story has to do with a payroll robbery that had it's $56,000.00 disappear along with one of the robbers Pete Taylor. The person who took the rap for the robbery Mike Krause, Rayford Barnes, ended up getting a ten year sentence but died of pneumonia after serving only two year of it. It's now up to Mike's cell-mate whom he clued in where the money is hidden the shifty eyed Rusty Connors, John Cassavetes, to find the hidden cash but he'll need help in finding it. That help comes from Mike's old lady the drop dead, in Mike's opinion, gorgeous Helen, Ann Southern, who's working as a waitress back in Hainesville.
You can see right away that both Rusty, who had since been released from prison, and Helen hit it off right from the start. Both were devious and back stabbing in their motives, by using each other,in getting the hidden $56,000.00. Rusty in fact went so far,it must have almost killed him, to even romance and make love to Helen who was nothing compared to what Mike told Rusty about her, being a former Miss America, in order to get her to tell him what she knew about where Mike hid the stolen cash. As it turned out the cash together with Pete Taylor's body was hidden in the house that the Tompsons, who have since been deceased, ranted by the river! Something that the local police who left no stone unturned in their trying to find both Taylor and the stolen cash completely overlooked!
***SPOILERS*** It's here where the rats, the real heroes in the movie, come in. It's the hundreds of rats, occupying the Thompson house, who devoured Taylor's body who was stashed there together with the cash by Mike after he murdered him. It was that no good scheming rat Helen who two timed Mike and set Taylor, who she was having an affair with, up to be murdered by him. Mike keeping what he knew about the money from Helen, he started getting suspicious about her, ended up hiding the stolen cash together with the murdered Pete Taylor. It was just too bad for Mike that he didn't live long enough or served out his sentence to get out of prison and keep the money all for himself!
Well in the end the real rats,Helen & Rusty, got their just deserts by ending up as rat food in both of them,like the double crossing rats that they were, doing themselves in! As it turned out nobody was ever able to find both Rusty and Helen's, together with Pete Taylor's, bodies s well as the missing $56,000.00 in stolen money. And the only ones who did know the truth of where the bodies as well as money were hidden the rats weren't talking.
The story has to do with a payroll robbery that had it's $56,000.00 disappear along with one of the robbers Pete Taylor. The person who took the rap for the robbery Mike Krause, Rayford Barnes, ended up getting a ten year sentence but died of pneumonia after serving only two year of it. It's now up to Mike's cell-mate whom he clued in where the money is hidden the shifty eyed Rusty Connors, John Cassavetes, to find the hidden cash but he'll need help in finding it. That help comes from Mike's old lady the drop dead, in Mike's opinion, gorgeous Helen, Ann Southern, who's working as a waitress back in Hainesville.
You can see right away that both Rusty, who had since been released from prison, and Helen hit it off right from the start. Both were devious and back stabbing in their motives, by using each other,in getting the hidden $56,000.00. Rusty in fact went so far,it must have almost killed him, to even romance and make love to Helen who was nothing compared to what Mike told Rusty about her, being a former Miss America, in order to get her to tell him what she knew about where Mike hid the stolen cash. As it turned out the cash together with Pete Taylor's body was hidden in the house that the Tompsons, who have since been deceased, ranted by the river! Something that the local police who left no stone unturned in their trying to find both Taylor and the stolen cash completely overlooked!
***SPOILERS*** It's here where the rats, the real heroes in the movie, come in. It's the hundreds of rats, occupying the Thompson house, who devoured Taylor's body who was stashed there together with the cash by Mike after he murdered him. It was that no good scheming rat Helen who two timed Mike and set Taylor, who she was having an affair with, up to be murdered by him. Mike keeping what he knew about the money from Helen, he started getting suspicious about her, ended up hiding the stolen cash together with the murdered Pete Taylor. It was just too bad for Mike that he didn't live long enough or served out his sentence to get out of prison and keep the money all for himself!
Well in the end the real rats,Helen & Rusty, got their just deserts by ending up as rat food in both of them,like the double crossing rats that they were, doing themselves in! As it turned out nobody was ever able to find both Rusty and Helen's, together with Pete Taylor's, bodies s well as the missing $56,000.00 in stolen money. And the only ones who did know the truth of where the bodies as well as money were hidden the rats weren't talking.
Rusty and Helen's Big Adventure
sneedsnood5 May 2015
Ann Sothern and John Cassavetes are stars from opposite decades -- she from the 1940's, and he from the 1970's -- but they meet here in the early 1960's as an unlikely duo of lovers/con artists named Rusty and Helen. Their aim is to find hidden loot left by Rusty's dying cell mate, who also happens to have been Helen's former lover. This is one of my least favorite plot lines, and the characters of Helen and Rusty are not particularly interesting as they plot to find the loot without much to go on. Rusty is all dark, nervous energy, and Helen seems half-asleep. This was shot during Ann Sothern's plump period, when her heavy eyelashes seemed to weigh down her eyelids, adding to her not-quite-there quality. Rusty and Helen employ juvenile logic and follow ridiculous clues that lead, unconvincingly, to a rat infested, abandoned shack where you just can't trust anybody. Helen pulls a fancy switch, but can't seem to quit while she's ahead and hangs around too long to gloat. These people are their own worst enemies, and therein lies this episode's cautionary tale.
BAD DIALOG!
skarylarry-9340031 July 2021
Warning: Spoilers
She would probably say, they won't know who you are, not who you were, when talking to him about when they find him. And she says they are splitting $28,000 each. She would say, splitting $56.000, $28,000 each. And the stupidest thing is he never once said to untie him or to let him go; not once (when he was tied up). That is sheer nonsense; not realistic! I forgot: Wouldn't Rusty have just told her that there was nothing up there (Where the money was)? Then later he would go back and pick up the loot! Dumb again!
No honor among thieves at the "Water's Edge"
chuck-reilly16 October 2007
Warning: Spoilers
In prison, a dying Rayford Barnes informs his cell-mate, John Cassavettes, that he was in on a big robbery and that the money is still unaccounted for. Before he can give any specifics, he passes away. Upon his release, Cassavettes looks up Barnes' old girlfriend, Ann Sothern in the hopes that she can lead him to the cash. The wily Ms. Sothern is hoping that Cassavettes will do the same thing for her. The mismatched couple are after the same prize but aren't about to share it with each other. The story unfolds with little sympathy for its characters and inevitably they get what they deserve---and it isn't very pretty. It seems that the loot is being guarded by some nasty little critters.
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