User Reviews

Paul Hartman of "The Andy Griffith Show" fame, stars as a mild-mannered and inconsequential clerk who steals $200,000 from his company and then meekly turns himself into the police. Robert Bray and Bert Freed are the detectives who interrogate him fiercely because although he freely admits his crime, Hartman refuses to tell them where the money is. Even threatened with a long stretch in prison does nothing to dissuade this fellow, to the utter exasperation of Bray and Freed. They think he's off his rocker and reluctantly send him to trial where he's quickly convicted of Grand Larceny. So off Hartman goes to prison for fifteen years. He's out after 12 for good behavior, but not entirely off the hook. Upon his release, Detective Bray visits him and tells him that he's still liable for the $200,000 and will keep his eyes on him until its recovered. To his complete surprise, Hartman immediately fesses up where the money is hidden and is very contrite about the whole incident. Bray walks away thinking that Hartman's tour in prison must've made him a changed man---and in a way, he is. On a luxury liner heading to the South Seas a few months later, Hartman tells a fellow passenger about how he "invested $200,000" and that over 12 years the interest and profit came to a staggering $150,000. So there was method to his madness after all. This episode was directed by the prolific and talented Arthur Hiller who's still with us after all these years. The top-notch cast help move this little tale along without a hitch, culminating with Hitchcock's usual surprise ending---and not a dead body anywhere to be found.

Would you trade your freedom for twelve years for a hundred fifty thousand dollar payoff? That's what this episode suggests, as mild mannered investment clerk, Milton Potter (Paul Hartman), embezzles two hundred grand from his employer, and promptly turns himself in to the police! All kinds of things wrong with this episode. Actor Hartman was in his mid-Fifties when he appeared in this story, and he looked it, but it was mentioned that he had worked at Metro Investments for thirteen years straight out of college. So unless he graduated when he was about forty years old, that idea wasn't very credible. With three years taken off for good behavior, Potter's release from his fifteen year sentence found him returning to the scene of the crime, so to speak, to return the original amount of money he stole. Seems to me if he had the intelligence to swindle a couple hundred grand unnoticed, he should have been smart enough to move up in his organization to make more money, and afford to put some cash aside each week. I mean, he worked for an investment company, he could have put the money to work earning compound interest and been a free man the whole time. Probably not a hundred fifty thousand, but still a nice chunk to go along with Social Security in his old age. One thing for sure though, the episode wouldn't hold water today, with bank interest rates much less than one per cent. But then again, a hundred fifty grand wouldn't go far either!