Marian Cockrell Movies
- 1958
Millicent Bracegirdle (Mildred Natwick), who has lived a sheltered existence in the English town of Easingstoke, shocks her tea-drinking friends with the announcement that she is going to go on her first-ever vacation -- and the destination is the wicked city of Paris. On the first night of her holiday, Millicent stops over at a hotel in Bordeaux, where she enters the wrong room and finds herself face to face with a murderer named Septimus (Gavin Muir). Needless to say, this is far more excitement than Miss Bracegirdle had ever bargained for -- but is she equal to this momentous occasion? ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1957
Lonely old Emma Paisley (Dorothy Stickney) adopts a stray cat, which insists upon roaming outside Emma's apartment and annoying her next-door neighbor, a bookie named Rinditch (Fred Graham). Finally, Rinditch tells Emma to keep the cat locked up, else he'll kill the wandering feline. As it turns out, however, it is Rinditch who ends up dead -- and he doesn't have eight spare lives like Miss Paisley's cat. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1955
Barry Fitzgerald, who made his film debut in Alfred Hitchcock's 1930 theatrical film Juno and the Paycock, guests in this episode as Stretch Sears, a recently paroled thief. With Christmas approaching, Stretch has no trouble landing a job as a Santa at a big department store. But it isn't the Yuletide spirit that is motivating Stretch; he intends to rob the store, and is using his job to case the joint. But the scheme goes off on a entirely different direction when "Santa" Sears makes the acquaintance of a juvenile delinquent known only as the Tenth Avenue Kid (played by Bobby Clark -- not the Broadway comedian of the same name). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1956
Publisher Alexander Vinton (John Williams) is curious about a novel that has been submitted to him, in which a woman murders her husband. Somehow, the descriptive passages in the novel suggest that it is not a work of fiction at all, but instead something of a biography. Thus, Vinton pays a visit to the location in which the novel is set -- and has a fateful encounter with the sister (Evelyn Varden) of first-time author Julia Pickering (Patricia Collinge). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1960
This episode is based on a short story by H.H. Munro (aka Saki) who specialized in offbeat character studies with surprise endings. Straight-laced Victorian Mrs. Wellington (Elspeth March) wants to hire the "perfect" governess for her troublesome children. The woman hired is Charlotte Hope (Elspeth March), who subscribes to what she calls the "Schwartz-Metterklume Method" of child-rearing -- which consists of allowing her charges to run wild and free! Naturally, Mrs. Wellington strongly disapproves...but as things turn out, she might have been better off allowing the unorthodox Charlotte Hope to remain in her employ. Curiously, several of the episode's more prominent performers are uncredited, including veteran character actress Norma Varden and child star Angela Cartwright. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1955
This episode is based on a famous urban legend, previously filmed as the 1949 theatrical feature. Patricia Hitchcock (daughter of the boss) stars as Diana Winthrop, who attends the 1899 Paris World's Exposition in the company of her mother (Mary Forbes). Having left their hotel room to fetch some medicine for her ailing mother, Diana returns a few hours later, only to be told that she has not been registered. Further investigation reveals that no one can remember ever seeing Diana or her mother -- and there is serious doubt that her mother ever existed! The key to the mystery is a patch of wallpaper...and the solution involves an elaborate ruse to save the Exposition from being closed down before it has a chance to open. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1957
Taxidermist George Tiffany (Henry Jones) is commissioned to stuff a horse named Napoleon, whose body will then be included in a time capsule being prepared by the town of West Warlock. While trying to complete his job, George suffers the constant annoyance of his boorish brother-in-law Wadron (Sam Buffington). Finally, George can stand no more -- at which point he takes advantage of the fact that the time capsule will not be opened for another 100 years. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1956
A young Charles Bronson is cast as con artist Frank Bramwell, who in concert with his equally larcenous wife Lorna (Norma Crane) intends to fleece a wealthy old eccentric named Monica Laughton (Estelle Winwood), who has a habit of hanging funeral wreaths on her door when she believes that someone in her largely imaginary "family" has died. Upon inveigling their way into Monica's home by posing as her kinfolk, the conniving couple learns that the old lady is even more delusional than ever, imagining all sorts of nonexistent relatives and household pets. One thing Monica hasn't imagined, however, is that plate of delicious-looking cookies in the kitchen, which Frank and Lorna eagerly devour.... ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1956
Season two of Alfred Hitchcock Presents begins with a droll but sinister little mood piece, directed by Hitchcock himself. Cedric Hardwicke heads the cast as wealthy and powerful Mr. Princey, whose daughter Millicent (Tita Purdom) has just finished murdering her faithless suitor. Determined to protect his daughter and save the family name, Princey decides to frame someone else for the killing. The unlucky patsy is one Captain Smollet (John Williams), to whom Princey extends a "Hobson's Choice": take the rap for the murder or be murdered himself. "Wet Saturday" is based on a short story by John Collier, which had previously been dramatized numerous times on the radio anthology Suspense. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1956
Newly arrived in Heaven, mystery writer Alexander Arlington (John Williams) asks permission from Recording Angel Wilfred (Alan Napier) to return to Earth so that he can find out who murdered him. The list of suspects is formidable indeed, including not only Arlington's faithless wife Carol (a pre-Gunsmoke Amanda Blake), but also his nephew and his secretary. In his efforts to reconstruct the crime, Arlington succeeds only in getting himself bumped off all over again -- and it looks for a while as though he'll never discover "whodunit." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Adapted from a Saturday Evening Post serial by Frank and Marian Cockrell, Dark Waters stars Merle Oberon as heiress Leslie Calvin, a woman with a neurotic aversion to water. This stems from the fact that in her childhood, Leslie was one of four survivors of a torpedoed steamship. Preying upon Leslie's fears, conniving Mr. Sydney (Thomas Mitchell), a guest at the Calvin family's Louisiana plantation, concocts a campaign of terror designed to drive the poor girl crazy so that he can claim her vast inheritance. Sydney and his cohorts also have the presence of mind to murder all of Leslie's closest relatives, leaving her utterly helpless. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Merle Oberon, Franchot Tone, (more)
- 1958
Once again, Perry (Raymond Burr) handles a case way outside his normal "jurisdiction" of Los Angeles, when Ellen Sabin (Jody Lawrence) is charged with murdering her husbnad (Maurice Manson). In fact, Perry proves his client's innocence during the coroner's inquest, in which the key witness is a talking parrot named Casanova (voice supplied by Mel Blanc)! Based on a 1939 novel by Perry Mason creator Erle Stanley Gardner, this is allegedly the first dramatic TV episode to feature a chalk outline of the victim's body at the murder scene, though there may have been a few precedents in various live telecasts. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1938
Harold Lloyd plays a professor of Egyptology, frightened by the notion that he has fallen under an ancient Egyptian curse. Lloyd has the opportunity to join an archeological expedition to search for a missing tablet that will determine his fate, but he has to travel from Los Angeles to New York before the party sails to Egypt. Alas, Lloyd is also required to appear in court to answer charges of "indecent exposure" (it's a long story). The rest of the film is a frantic chase with the authorities pursuing the fugitive professor across the country, highlighted by a daredevil sequence atop a moving train. Most of the individual gags are funny, but Professor Beware is several notches below the standard set by Harold Lloyd's silent films. The lukewarm boxoffice response to this film would convince Lloyd that he should retire from performing--which he did, returning to the screen only for 1947's Sins of Harold Diddlebock. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Phyllis Welch, Raymond Walburn, (more)
