User Reviews

Harold doesn't have a lot going on in his life. I think the death of his 'friend' held a mirror up to his own life and what he sees makes him even more depressed. I say 'friend' because Harold and this friend waved to each other but he absolutely didn't know anything else about this person he's calling a friend.

I don't think John McGiver sounded drunk in this episode. I think he's giving this voice to a character that's drained dry. I'm assuming the only thing that got Harold out of the house was his job. He's not married, doesn't have kids, etc. It sounded like he did want more out of life but unfortunately he's got a sister that's a control freak. I'm not so sure I want to point out incest for why his sister flipped out on the idea of Harold being with another woman. There's a part of me that wants to consider the time frame. Harold's sister didn't have a job outside of the house so I'd consider it more from the point of view of losing a house she'd been in for many years and the point of view of having to get a job to support herself. It's quite a radical change when everything's changing at once.

Harold is a fair man. He puts just as much blame on himself as he does on his sister's controlling ways.

Anyway, Harold is determined to make up for lost time and wants to make himself important to himself. Take note of what he's doing. He steals a car, bottle of perfume, kills his sister and then kills himself. He's crossing the old figures out and changing the data by one to show he's part of this statistic. He's not going around bragging "I stole that car, bottle of perfume and killed my sister!" He only tells the cop he killed his sister because in his mind the murder wouldn't count if an outsider didn't say it was murder.

I didn't really consider the suicide to be played for laughs or even mock Harold for being so obsessed with these figures that he'd do this off the wall stuff. I think there was another message in Harold's suicide. I'm speaking as somebody that's struggled a lot and I don't think suicide is something done in the spur of the moment and you do this after a minute of thinking about it or doing it because you saw the word 'suicide' in a book. Imo suicide is usually something that a person has had to carry with them for a very long time. Please note the recent example of Naomi Judd's suicide. She hung on for many years til she couldn't bare it anymore. So I do think the writer has mixed signals if you thought this is something done on a spur of the moment.

And maybe I'm wrong for interpreting something the writer might not have intended. Harold seemed to snap after the death of his friend. The viewer can't see into Harold's past and see if he'd been struggling openly before the start of the episode or if this stuff was simmering below the surface and it all started erupting and would've came out of Harold whether his friend had died or if something else happened to set him off.

I do think the episode is interesting but the suicide is something to be wary about. Different people are gonna come away with different thoughts and there might be just as many that come away with the feeling of disgust at how Harold's suicide was handled.

One last tidbit: Mannix fans might want to check out this one in order to see Lt. Malcolm.

John McGiver is Mr. Goames, one of those freaks who wants to be an outstanding member of some statistically significant group, the kind of guy who might travel across the country on a pogo-stick just to be the only one who ever did it.

He discovers that the most select group in the nation is murderers and commits a murder in order to be included in the contemporary version of the Guiness Book of World Records.

The problem is that the murder is too well done and when he confesses, the police don't believe him.

It's rather light hearted and McGiver gives his usual performance, sounding as if he had a sinus problem, and looking goggle eyed. It's not a winner but neither is it dull.

In a case of carrying things a bit too far, Harold George Goames (John McGiver) discovers a unique way to deliver his name into the record books. If this had been a story about the difficulties of mental illness it might have made more sense, but the whole thing was presented in a decidedly ironic way. When Harold stole that bottle of perfume from the drug store, I wouldn't really consider that a robbery, it was a shoplifting offense if anything. But in his addled mind, I guess Harold was capable of justifying anything he did or was about to do. Meanwhile, sister Margaret (Vivian Nathan) couldn't have been more of a boring recluse herself; these folks really needed to get a life. Considering how irritated Margaret got when George declined a regular game of Chinese checkers, she might have joined him in the suicide column after his untimely demise.

A depressed, bitter man realizes that he is nothing special in the world. He has no lover. His job is commonplace. His days are tedious. He won't be remembered when he dies.

So he decides he will do something to be remember by: murder. Sound familiar?

Well, in 1958, it didn't -- which is why this episode is largely comedic. The premise is meant to be SO outlandish as to be whimsical.

Of course, in modern-day America, the disgruntled loser who decides to gain infamy by committing a mass shooting is a dime a dozen. He isn't looking to be a number in a statistics book, but to get his own Wikipedia page and at least a day of the 24-hour news cycle covering him.

For that reason, this episode that would otherwise be mediocre gets high marks from me. It's bizarre to watch something so horrifically commonplace today be portrayed as comically outlandish. It's like holding a funhouse mirror up to reality.

I will say that the very end of the episode is disturbing for any time period: a suicide played for laughs. It doesn't matter if the guy "had it coming" or whatever -- it's messed up.

My only other complaint is in regards to the treatment of the man's sister and murder victim in this episode. Even though it's made clear that she has taken care of her unappreciative older brother for more than a decade, she's also painted as if she "had it coming" before her murder. It's suggested that she chased women away from her brother and deliberately made him miserable. This reeks of Hitchcock's normal misogynistic slant, where all women in his productions are either bitter old shrews or young, seductive temptresses -- but are all out to make men miserable for some reason. Go to therapy, Hitchcock!

Maybe the lead actor had a cold or was on some sort of medication, but he sounds and even acts a little tipsy in this episode. It would be interesting to find out which possibility was the real one. Perhaps he intended for the character he was playing to come across as "under the influence"; that might explain the odd course of action he takes in his quest for significance. McGiver's strange demeanor and detached affect might also be seen as a sign of autism or Asperger's today.

The belittling, grasping sister displays the outrage of a wronged wife when she thinks her brother has a girlfriend; she even refers to the presumed sweetheart as "another woman". She's never let her brother get within spitting distance of a romantic relationship with anyone, and more to the point she herself never married. One has to wonder how deep and in what track her feelings run.

The story was by Miriam Allen deFord, noted for her mystery and science fiction writing. This is one of those tales that has a light, bemusing tone, but is pitch black and misanthropic at its heart. There are no winners here. Perfect for Hitchcock.

The tone of this episode is light hearted, but the "hero" commits suicide at the end to get in the almanac. This does not make any sense and it gives the appearance that killing yourself is a subject for comedy which it most assuredly is not. This is the worst 25 minutes of television I have ever seen.