User Reviews

Andrew Thurgood (Claude Rains) has been a faithful employee for decades with a fancy jewelry firm. And, it seems as if his entire life is wrapped up in the company...just like his father and grandfather. So, when the boss tells Andrew that they are going to force him to retire (with full benefits, of course), he has the best sales week of his life...that is until he is apparently bamboozled by a lady thief on his last day.

This is a cute episode...almost comedic. I enjoyed it because of the nice script but mostly because it's a joy to watch Rains in ANYTHING. A fine actor, I'm glad he starred in a few episodes of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", as he managed to impress in each one of them.

An entertaining heist episode where a company head doesn't know that losing one man can lead to some severe consequences. The great Claude Rains is the timid guy who, in reality, is not so timid. He pulls of a heist of a hugely expensive necklace. But he has been let go because they are going with youth. The neat thing is that like most of these episodes there are several twists and turns and identity things going on. We are also not let in on the scheming until the end. I've said this in my reviews before. I really dislike it when A. H. comes out at the end and tells us that the plot didn't work. An arrest was made. It cheapens the whole story. I've never investigated to see if the network required a "crime doesn't pay" bit at the end.

The great actor Claude Rains stars as Andrew Thurgood, a 37-year employee of a long established jeweler, Maynard's, run by George Maynard (Alan Hewitt, best known as the police detective boyfriend of My Favorite Martian's landlady, Mrs. Brown). Maynard comes in one Monday and announced to Andrew that the store is going to have a complete modernization project and that he doesn't want Thurgood to wait another three years for his planned retirement, but would like him to happily retire at the end of the week.

Now understand, Maynard is not vicious in any way. He truly feels this would be a good time for a new head of his store to retire and enjoy the good life, so he can have someone new take over running his modernized store. Thurgood will have his pension, a gold watch, and be able to enjoy his life.

We see Thurgood working hard all week at making sales to longtime customers, but on Friday, his last day, a young woman comes in with a heavy French accent, saying she wants to buy an anniversary present for herself-from her husband, a noted psychiatrist, Dr. Anton Rudell. She selects a beautiful necklace which, with taxes, will cost $181,500. Pretty steep in 1959. She explains to Thurgood that when Anton sees her wearing the necklace in a certain dress, he will agree to let her keep it. So she asks Thurgood to bring it to their home/office and she will show it to him with the dress, and he will pay for it.

Thurgood meets her at the home, where they talk for a couple of minutes while the doctor is in his office. She takes the necklace and goes into another room down the hall-we don't see the inside of it, and the doctor happens to come out of his office. Thurgood hems and haws, telling the doctor that he doesn't want to spoil his wife's surprise. Anton calls out his wife who comes out of a different room. To the shock of Thurgood, it is a different woman entirely.

Apparently the whole thing was a scam, but Mr. Maynard is not mad. He tells Thurgood that even he could have been fooled the same way and not to worry, he's fully insured. Thurgood seemed totally crestfallen that such a horrible thing could have happened on his watch.

***ENDING SPOILERS*** Thurgood returns home and finds his daughter, all giddy because they pulled it off. She played the French woman. We learn that both Thurgood's father and grandfather also pulled off one great heist of Maynard's in their 40-year careers at the store. Andrew's only lament is that he had no son who could carry on the family tradition at Maynard's-the firm only employs men, which seems a strange rule for a jewelry store no matter what decade, given that women traditionally wear much more jewelry than men. The doorbell rings and it's Mr. Maynard. The daughter hides in another room as Andrew lets him in. Andrew is momentarily scared when Maynard says, "You didn't think you'd get away with it did you?" It turns out he was pretending to be mad. Andrew left without his bonus check and the watch he was given. Maynard has another surprise: He is bending the store policy and asking daughter Thelma to carry on the family tradition by reporting for work Monday morning-which she is happy to do.

As much fun as this one was, I do have one complaint with the script. While there were others around in the jewelry store where Thelma pretended to be the doctor's wife, in the entrance room at the house, with the doctor in his office, she and Andrew carried on a fairly long conversation as if they were salesman and customer still. Knowing what we learned later, all they had to do was have him give her the necklace and say-"Get going before Rudell comes out." Instead they carried on their act as though there was an audience hearing them-other than the TV viewers, I mean.

Otherwise, a delightful episode, so I give it a 9.

I have to say.. i was thoroughly impressed by this showing. I was impressed all the way through. It was like a mini movie in a way. Another reviewer here mentioned how during the time in the office.. the dad and the daughter didn't have to play at it.. but i disagree. He said that they were only playing for the audience at that time.. and that they didn't have to pretend in that private space.. as they had to pretend in the space of the jewelry shop.. which had other people around. (there were no other people around in the office). Again.. i disagree. They played it to the hilt. That would be the wisdom of the criminal mind.. to take nothing for granted.. to assume zero. And i mean.. literally zero. So they played it.. as though it was accurate.. in the doctor's office. And.. who knows? How do we know there might have been something that would have given them away had they not played it like this? Still.. i don't think this was a fault in the script at all. So.. i disagree with this gent.

Anyway.. i loved the play. Particularly did i love the part where the jeweler might have given it away.. when the owner came in and said.. 'you can't get away with this.' but he was cool. He was on edge.. as we.. with the inside viewpoint can see.. but he was cool. He was calm. And he could have given it away. It gives a person the model to be cool no matter what is happening.. because that person does not know what the other person knows or doesn't know. And it worked out for the lawbreaking thieving jeweler. Obviously he was in the wrong.. sinning.. but.. still.. it did work out for him.

Again.. i loved it. It was acted extremely well.. and i don't discount any part of it.. at all.

Thank you al. Splendid!

Maynard Company Jewelers has had a decades long relationship with members of the Thurgood Family, one hundred seventeen years to be exact. In all that time, they've only been relieved of expensive inventory twice in the past. A third time is coming, as Andrew Thurgood (Claude Rains), an employee of thirty seven years, is asked to retire by the firm's boss, George Raymond (Alan Hewitt). In what transpires as an ingenious jewelry heist, Thurgood's daughter Thelma (Betsy von Furstenberg) poses as a wealthy customer interested in an outrageously expensive diamond necklace. We don't know this of course during the story's early run; Thelma's relationship to her father is revealed as the twist that caps Andrew's career at Maynard's on his very last day of employment. And it's not like George Maynard got bamboozled only once. Seeing how outgoing Thelma is, he decides to break a century long tradition of not employing women in order to hire her, thereby insuring that the Thurgood family tradition gets to live on as well.