Alfred Hitchcock Presents, S1E29, “The Orderly World of Mr. Appleby”

We saw Robert H. Harris back in “Shopping for Death,” and he gets a plummier, more obnoxious role here–and this time around, his character’s condescending streak is unburdened by good intentions. Laurence Appleby is a kind of fussy, snobbish hoarder; his antique shop is little more than an excuse to collect all the curios he’s ever dreamed of. If you want anything good, as genteelly frustrated customer Martha (Meg Mundy) soon learns, it’s conveniently already marked as sold. What a pity.

Appleby’s wife (Louise Larabee) is losing patience with this hobby he’s pretending is a job, and she’s no longer willing to bankroll it, especially when their marriage is a brittle, ill-tempered sham. Neither of them think the other can do anything right. But Appleby needs that money, because one of his dealers–played by the urbane Michael Ansara–is losing patience too. If he wants these new Hittite pieces, first he’ll have to pay his tab.

Appleby’s solution to this financial fix is obviously going to be a spot of murder. It’s a predictable turn (orderly, I suppose), and while I can’t fault Harris’s performance, Appleby is so simplistically unlikable–so lacking in charisma and depth–that he can’t help being boring. We’ve certainly seen our share of “unlikable” main characters, but most of them have had a little more juice; even Appleby’s eccentricities feel mass-produced, like they came flat-packed like IKEA furniture. The episode doesn’t even give him much time to drool over antiques.

Our first saving grace comes in the form of Michael Ansara¹ as antique dealer Disar (of Disar & Son: “I’m Son,” he says). Disar, in his controlled and tactful way, feels like he’s enjoying himself. He’s perceptive, secure, dryly witty, and attuned to bullshit. I’d rather follow this guy. Maybe he’ll kill his wife.

One thoroughly sourced murder later–Appleby picks the literally-pull-the-rug-out-from-under-her-feet method out of a book called Accident or Murder, which got a genuine laugh out of me–and Appleby’s debts are paid … but Disar is asking for cash up-front for his next few orders. When Appleby balks, Disar suggests that he take the bold step of actually selling a few antiques for a change to get the money. Maybe the wealthy Martha, who paid up so readily for the camel sculpture she broke, would come back?

Appleby chooses to sell himself instead, embarking on an unctuous seduction (he does have to sacrifice a jewelry box for the cause, which is the smartest move we see him make). It doesn’t take long before Martha’s ready to fall into his arms–but her lawyer, in what seems like a strange move, advises taking it slow.

Meg Mundy is the other highlight of this episode. Mundy is an interesting figure with a limited but pretty impressive filmography (Ordinary People, The Eyes of Laura Mars, and Fatal Attraction, for example), albeit mostly in small roles; she also did a fair bit of stage work, where she was able to headline. She’s compelling here, with her professional model beauty offset by an eager, slightly gawky intensity. I don’t buy her (one-sided) romance with Appleby, which I’ll talk about more below the break, but I buy her. Right from her introduction, her Martha is a woman who–underneath the shyness–wants what she wants and can pay for it.

Appleby doesn’t see that about her. All he sees is her bank account, and as soon as the wedding bells have rung (off-screen) and he has access to it, he’s exactly as picky and demanding with her as he was with his first wife. It doesn’t matter that we know that Martha has good taste and a good eye for the finer things; he never consults her about the shop. (No wonder she’d be fine with it getting foreclosed on.) Suddenly, she’s just a woman who brought a messy, destructive cat² into their home, and he’s eyeing the rug again.

There’s some mild comedy in Appleby being so “orderly” that he doesn’t want the clutter of a second murder method, even when he has a whole book of them, but that tiny, uncommented-on payoff is pretty weak. Honestly, his orderly nature is never more than a background character detail: he’s driven to murder because he needs money for his compulsive antique habit, not because either wife is disruptive, disorganized, or untidy. (He thinks they both are, but that’s just a bonus as far as motive is concerned.) I’m not sure why this detail merits inclusion in the title. To some extent, that’s this episode in a nutshell: reasonably clever and reasonably satisfying, but with the hovering feeling that it doesn’t quite make enough sense or matter as much as it should. It has a few too many missed opportunities.

The Twist: Martha realized the truth about the first Mrs. Appleby’s death fairly early on. She chose to marry Appleby anyway (???), but she and her lawyer worked out a routine where he would call every night to verify that she was alive and well. If she’s not, the truth will come out. Right as Martha’s flexing this implicit blackmail to get Appleby to give up the shop to stay at home with her–and right as the lawyer’s making his nightly phone call–she slips on the rug and dies in the actual accident her predecessor’s murder only imitated. With no hope of getting the lawyer to believe this outlandish story and with no time to cover anything up, Appleby is cooked.

This is a decent ending. Meg Mundy gives Martha a dark glow as she seizes the chance to openly exercise her own cruel streak. When she explains the meaning of the phone calls, she puts the right amount of mustard on “and happy,” just enough to let him visualize all the years ahead of him that he’ll spend tending to her every whim. It’s a shame her reign is cut short, because Appleby in a peculiar, coddled hell of his own making is more interesting than Appleby paying for his crime (and one uncommitted crime on top of that) in a more straightforward, socially sanctioned way.

As my question marks will indicate, I’m still hung up on what Martha is getting out of this before Appleby’s murder attempt gives her the excuse to reveal her ace in the hole. She’s wealthy. She’s attractive. She may be shy, but she’s personable and can conduct herself well in public, so she’s not Elaine May in A New Leaf. If she’s a sadist, as the ending potentially hints, then I can understand that much, but why on earth was she dating Appleby before she found this extraordinary leverage? She doesn’t have to settle for this guy when all he has to offer is a modicum of smarmy charm. She’s not even that into antiques! Her interest in them seems to vanish after that initial shopping scene! So we’re left with a cluelessness and awkwardness so deep that she’s truly moved by Appleby’s flattery and truly believes he’s her only chance at matrimony–but somehow that naivete is immediately replaced by the steely nerve of a born manipulator once she knows the truth. It’s an off-screen speed-run of The Heiress.

For that matter, I would suggest to Martha that while it’s nice to have a guarantee that if your husband kills you, he’ll hang no matter how cleverly he stages it, you will still be, you know, dead. She knows to be on her guard against any tricks with the rug, but what if he’d tried something else before she revealed the catch? Was she having all her food checked for poison too? She’s lucky he has such a limited imagination.

So the logic of it all doesn’t quite hold up for me, and it’s not so dazzling that I don’t care about that. But there is an excellent, stylish close-up here that deserves attention: the way the camera holds on Appleby’s face, freezing in anticipation and staying frozen from shock and dread, during that second rug-pull, while Martha’s key line–“Was that how you did it before?”–calmly floats in from out of frame … it’s so good that director James Neilson rightly repurposes the setup minutes later to see us out.

Directed by: James Neilson

Written by: Stanley Ellin (story), Victor Wolfson & Robert C. Dennis (teleplay)

Up Next: “Never Again”

1. I’m not the only person who thought Ansara had it: he had a long and well-regarded career in everything from Biblical epics to Westerns (where he, a Syrian-American, was often–though not always–cast as a First Nations character; this thankfully faded out around the ‘70s) to procedurals to science fiction. As a Star Trek fan, I know him best as Kang. ↩︎
2. Possibly Orangey again? He’s a big orange boy named Dicky, and I love him. ↩︎