Tales of the Unexpected S01E01 & 02 - The Man from the South, Mrs Bixby & the Colonel's Coat

Welcome back to midnight viewing. I'm your host, Father Malone, and we're bag I should be welcoming us. We have returned from our time mixing and mingling with the absolute best of UK horror and have taken a genteel stamp laterally, In fact, we haven't left Old Lady at all. We just hitched a ride down to Roald Doll's house. That's right.

We are now engaged in the year's long struggle to tackle roll Dolls Tales of the Unexpected and with me, as always my brother in anthology television. Straight from the projection booth, mister Mike White. So good to be here. Thank you so much for the Malone. I'm excited to talk about some Doll.

I brought a peach just in case a Tales of the Unexpected ran for a whopping nine seasons or a series rather, they called them series over there in England. It topped out at one hundred and twelve episodes, spanning from March twenty fourth, nineteen seventy nine until May thirteenth, nineteen eighty eight. How many anthology series came and fell during that time period. The pull at the start, as you can tell from the title was not only that there was a majority of stories adapted by the legendary author Roll Doll, but mister Dall becomes our Rod Serling, appearing on screen to introduce the segments, and boy ain't he electric And not the first time he's done hosting duties. Back in nineteen sixty one, Doll hosted an American Twilight Zone clone called Way Out, where he sat in front of a monitor that was showing us the camera POV, so he had an infinite number of roles stretching back behind him.

It was a fairly unremarkable series, except for the credit sequence, which were just a bunch of hands sticking up through an earth and floor and then the last one burst into flames. So you might find this interesting. Mike actor Nicholas Pryor wrote one of the fourteen aired episodes. Very cool. Unfortunately, I found out that Nicholas Pryor has left us.

We are Dumbball Rally episode and yeah he's gone now. No, Yeah, he was such a nice guy too. God damn it. Well he wrote one of those Way Out episodes and those are all available on YouTube. Uh, don't get used to Roll Doll, though he didn't stick around for but thirty eight of the one hundred and twelve Unexpected episodes, and we are beginning and the beginning of that here, Mike, you want to say anything before we get dive into the episode, But the series of the Doll or the Well.

I have been listening to a podcast actually all about Roll Doll, and it's very fascinating. So if people want to know more about Roll Doll, there is a great show out there. I think it's like eight episodes, so if you just search Roll Doll podcasts, you will find it, and yeah, enjoy. So he was a very complicated person, let's put it that way. He created a shunt that was used in the medical industry for decades.

Well, and it was used to save his son, Yacas the son got hit by a car. And yeah, he gathered around what was it, an engineer himself and I think one other guy, and they created this thing, and yeah, they still use it in the medical industry. It's wild. He was alongside in Fleming battling the forces of evil in World War Two, and yeah, virulent anti Semite. But yeah, I mean those are all.

The other yes, all right, let's dive into this episode one aired originally on March the twenty fourth, nineteen seventy nine. It is entitled The Man from the South, written by Kevin Goldstein Jackson from the short story by Rold doll And. This one was directed by Michael Tutner. It's stars Jose Ferrer, Michael aunt Keen, Pamela Stevenson, Syrah Luckham and Katie Gerardo as the mysterious Woman. This is not the first, Northy last adaptation of Man from the South.

It first appeared on Alfred Hitchcock Presents with Steve McQueen as the young Sailor and Peter Laurie as the Southern Man, but they said it in Las Vegas. It was made again in nineteen eighty five, when Alfred Hitchcock Presents returned, now with Stephen Bauer as the young Man and John Houston as the betting Man. That adaptation was done by Miracle Mile writer director Steve Dejarnett and of course a man who does not understand the difference between theft and homage. Quentin Tarantino adapted it. You can't see it's air quotes where they openly discussed the nineteen sixty Steve McQueen episode, but for some reason call it the man from Rio.

Go figure, sure, because Tarantino's always right about everything. I've been trying to hack my way through that Cinema speculation book. Holy shit, is that riddle with errors? My goodness, Yeah, it's That's quite a tomb this ton, however, britten Back in nineteen forty eight is the tale of a young sailor with a lucky Zippo liner who he meets a man willing to bet high that that luck has run out. Mike, what did you think of this one?

Well, it's funny because in my mind I had conflated the two Alfred Hitchcocks, and even though I knew it was Peter Lourie in one, I kept thinking, Oh, he's the guy who's minding the bet. He's like this Alfred Hyde White type of person that's in this episode. And then I was thinking it was John Houston, and then I don't know who. I was thinking who the better was. Maybe Steve McQueen was in my mind, but I just was like, oh, yeah, John Houston and Peter Laurie.

How amazing was that? I'm completely wrong, But I gotta say, man, Jose Ferrere, Jesus, he's so good and I love that he rocks at ear ring and just doesn't give a shit. I mean he's wearing the ear ring in Doune too. And this is kind of like a little David Lynch reunion for me with Michael A. Keen, Sheriff Harry S.

Truman himself and then the Patasha Emperor Shadam the Fourth. Yeah. Always welcome to see him. And of course he is the greatest of all time Syrano de bergeract. I can watch that movie over and over and over again.

What that voice, that presence, just all noble and romance. I love Jose Ferrer. I even like Miguel Ferrer. Oh yeah, no, Miguel was great also sadly left us way too soon. Yeah, man, they're all going geez yeah.

Uh, he's fantastic here, He's the perfect guy to do it. I'm gonna have to go back and rewatch the John Houston performance because imagine that's pretty spectacular as well. I did watch the McQueen Peter Laurie one, which I enjoyed, and then I grudgingly rewatched The Man from Hollywood Four Rooms. Yeah, just couldn't pay me just to be thorough. I had to do it.

Uh oh, Michael a keen here so young, my goodness, just and uh, I really enjoyed him here, I thought. Yeah, he did a great job. Yeah, it's funny. This is the first time I ever thought about the title since you brought up The Man from Rio. This is the first time I ever thought about the title of the Man from the South.

And you know, on these anthology shows, we normally deal with some sort of area of the supernatural. So I kept thinking to myself because it's been a long time since I've seen any version of these. Obviously, if I'm mixing up the casts, and I'm just like, is he the devil? Is he from the South? As in the from Hell?

Like is that his whole thing? But no, he's just a pathetic person. Well, you know, you can't not or you cannot overestimate Roald Dahal, who no doubt thought that as he was titling his little drama. You know, I'm sure you watched in the opening segments him talking about like writing where he's just like so fanatical, like, yes, this took me six months, okay, because I go over every word these little tiny dramas. You gotta fucking get over it all.

Right, Look, I do good work here. People, you should pay attention. It's so funny. It's just like, well, if you don't like this, you might as well just call my baby ugly because I've been working so hard on this thing. God damn it, do you My fingers are bleeding?

Do you know that I have to I have to type in the bathroom at three am so I don't wake up my wife anyway? Now, this bet the bed alone, I've always loved. It works every incarnation, like just across the board, and it is a tantalizing one because when you put when you put your little finger up as a you know, you don't even use it, and it's on the hand you don't favor anyway, You're still going to be fine, and you might have this brand new It was a Cadillac in the original uh, the original short story, but here it's a Jaguar, right, a branded new or. He is really showing you that it's that he's got Spanish blood. Here in Jimika Jica.

Of course. Yeah, that the other guy who's name might keep forgetting. But he's just like such a cornball and gets pulled into this and I'm like, what are you thinking like, what, how are you okay with this? Yeah? That's that's the best character in each of these stories, right, the bystander who just meant these two idiots and is now suddenly refereeing a potential finger chopping contest.

Yeah, just standing around like, okay, I guess I'm the arbiter. Oh all right, great? Yeah. You know. The one thing that always trumbles me in each of them, however, is they they always take pains to tie the hand down and use the nails to separate the finger so that it will be a clean chop.

But I would still be looking at Jose Ferrer, an elderly man in a high temperature environment, and say, somebody else hold the fucking blade. He could just bury it in your hand. Yeah. Yeah, I don't really trust him, but I mean, because he's so bloodthirsty, I'm like, how many fingers do you have? Like I was kind of hoping.

Do they show that in other versions of this, like that he has other fingers? No, it's the gag is the gag is always that the wife has no fingers on her hand. Okay, all right, all right, Although in the Steve McQueen version they do not mention the length and breadth of his habit. She does here in this version where she's like he's lost eleven cars, he's manly spent like one hundred and ten times, and you think like, well, okay, so he has ninety nine fingers. Then yeah, and a bitching one.

Yeah, and then he's I love that. The intricacies of him with the string and getting that finger separated and getting the cleaver and all that, just the preparation of it is always just so delicious for me. Yeah, And the tension always matches up no matter the version, even the fucking Tarantino version, You've still got a there's potentially a finger to go here. At least in the Tarantino version, they solved the problem and gave the blade to a totally innocent person. You know what that should be the that is actually a pretty good innovation.

The bystanders should have been the guy with the cleaver, because then it's like, what the fuck is happening here? I sat down for a gin, and now I'm about to chop this man's finger off. Yeah. Yeah. I just remember Terenceino well obviously being insufferable in that one, and I just remember him talking because he is the man, the titular man from Hollywood, right and him just like I'm talking about butts in the seats, Like that's the only thing I remember from that whole thing.

This is gristal Man Courtrooms was insufferable, but that had to be the worst part of it. Uh I rewatched it again about a year or two ago, sort of beginning to end, and obviously that the Rodriguez one is cartoony, so it's it sort of rises about criticism in a way. But I did think that the Alexander Rockwell one was really good with Jennifer Biale's. Barely remember that one was that that's not the Witchcraft one, is it? No, that's the Allens and Andrews one.

The one we're talking about is the one with Jennifer bils and what's his name? From fucking he was in the Sopranos. He's uh da, David Pravall. Thank you. I just looked it up, Okay.

You know, it was weird seeing Pamela Stevenson in this and didn't recognize her until afterwards. So she was a cast member of Saturday and Alive there for that Weirdo season where it was Jim Belushi and Harry Shearer and Christopher Guest. Yeah, no, that's that's a I did not recognize her at all. I kept wondering, who is this right? And it was around the same time time she did History of the World Part one with the French Revolution thing, like she must have been like on the come up as as far as British comedic actress, but I did not recognize her at all, and I had to sort of look it up after the fact.

I never realized that she was British. When she was on us on l Oh, yes. Okay, I seem to remember. I'm trying to remember. There was a bit that she did and I can't.

Well, I'm pretty sure it was her versus Victoria Jackson because they kind of shared some similar vibes if memory serves, like. The ditsy blonde thing. But yeah, yeah, yeah, But Pamela Stevenson was a little sharper, you know, she was. You could tell she's just playing the ditzy blonde, whereas Victoria really sold it. I wonder if she was in the one that was at the House of Blood.

It was like a parody film of horror films, but it was in uh, it was a British one. It took it took a long time for me to track that one down when I was doing a whole article about parody horror films. You know, I'd be kind of mad if I was the people that ran this hotel and I had some jackass just hammering nails into my tables. Okay, see him coming, like, hey, everyone, do not bet with this man. Right right, he has this picture up at the lobby.

We'll serve you, sir, but do not interact with anyone. It's always a shocking ending the first time you've seen it. Unfortunately, I've seen it one hundred and fifty times now, so it's not like we're going anywhere with it. And the finger remains that the shock is, of course, that his wife bet everything with him, and like apparently one more often than not, because she's got his fortune and all the cars and all the jewelry and you know, only two fingers on her left end or three in this case, right. That always that always varies from adaptation to adaptation.

I think in the final at the Alfred Hitchcock presents the Steve Dejarnate one, it's basically like one finger. It's just like a Thumb. Bloodbath at the House of Death movie I was trying to think of. I don't know if you've ever seen that. It's not very good.

Oh damn it. I was just gonna say, cause you please send it, send it my way, because it sounds fascinating, but it's really bad. I might do that anyway. Yeah, Vincent Price makes an. Appearance, Yeah, no, no, no, send it then, absolutely.

Kenny Everett is the main guy. Yeah, I forgot. She was on the not the nine o'clock news over in the UK. That's yeah, right, and that became not necessarily the news here. Right, Yeah, so I'll make sure that I still have a copy of that.

I don't tend to get rid of stuff when I write about. It right out. Anything else on this episode. Now just very solid. No matter how many times they tell this story, it still works as long as the acting is there, and the acting is solid with this one.

And yeah, you can't go wrong with Jose Ferrera. Indeed, now we're reverting to our old Tales from the Dark Side night Gallery Dreams for sale methods here. We're going to be doing two episodes per episode, two episodes of tales from the Tales of the Unexpected per podcast. So we're going to dive right on into episode number two, which aired originally on March the thirty first, nineteen seventy nine. It is.

It is entitled Missus Bigsby and the Colonel's Code, written by Ronald Harwood from the story by ROLLD. Doll, directed by Simon Langton, starring Julie Harris, Michael Horden, Richard Green, Frederick Farley as the pawnbroker. This is a tale of a an adulterous wife and a generous parting gift that may or may not expose her lies. Mike, would you think of this one? Boy?

I really liked The Man from the South. That was a really good episode. You know, that was a lot of fun. I had a lot of fun watching that Man from the South episode. I know this, come on, Rule Dahl took a lot of time to write this story, and you know, like fifteen pages he had it at one point, and I think it probably should have stayed about fifteen pages because there's a lot of filler in this episode.

Well I can't disagree with that. And somehow it's one of those stories where I look at everyone involved and just go I despise all of you. I don't care. Yeah, no, there's not one actor or sorry I should say character in here that you give a shit about. Not at them all, like this sort of loveless, gross marriage of these like this expatriate and her British husband and uh, and like she's cheating on him, so fuck her.

And then the guy she's cheating on him with is a fucking like fox Hunter. Like that that alone makes me despise the guy. And then it's just this privileged white guy manner. Fucking uh, I hated everyone. And then you know we're supposed to feel bad for the husband.

We can't even do that. No, no, not at all. And I mean I was kind of glad when she gets the wife gets fucked over by the well you think that she's getting fucked over by the pawnbroker. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, this is great because I don't even know the purpose of this, like this whole thing of her not you know, like the guy says, say you got it from Aunt Sally or whatever this fake name is, because she goes and visits her aunt every couple months, and of course when she's talking about visiting aunt every few months. Again, my mind goes to the supernatural, and I'm like, oh, she's a witch.

Oh, they're going to make human sacrifices, and that's why she looks young or whatever it is, or you know, Aunt Aunt Sally's you know, just really out there and she needs to like, I don't know, the comfort her or something. No, she's having an affair. Okay, all right, great, that's cool. Guy says, all right, you know what, I'm done with this affair. Here's this nice parting gift.

Here's this beautiful mink coat, and off you go. There's the receipt or the papers are in the pocket, so you don't need to worry about customs. You're all set. Why does she on this coat? Why does she not come back and say, Aunt Sally gave this to me, the guy gave her the lie and by her coming up with this whole thing of oh, I'm going to pawn the coat.

I'm going to tell the guy not to write what it is on the pawn slip, and then I'm going to pretend that I found this and give it to my husband and then he's going to go pick up this coat. Why is she doing all this? Why is she obfuscating everything. You know, when he sends her away in his car with his chauffeur and the chauffeur has to give her the note basically saying that's it, fuck off and here's your parting gift. I thought, what a cocksucker like to give her such a conspicuous romantic overture to take back to her husband.

So it's not only like I don't want to see you anymore, but I'd also like to break up your fucking life. But then he does give her the oh you need, here's an excuse for you, just say, and Sally gave it to you. I'm like, okay, yeah, sure, Now here's the thing, Mike. I don't trust anyone's lie. I always come up with my own.

So I was a little okay with Julie Harris going out on her own, but her methods were fucking bonkers. Maybe this was a thing back in the fifties when Roaldaald was writing this like something you could you could game the system by using a pawnbroker to like hold your your your wares for a little while. But and if her husband had any morals at all, he would, you know, I was afraid he was going to be such an honest man that he would go, oh, gosh, yeah, somebody lost this pawn receipt for this mink coat. I told the guy what was in there, and I told him, you know, you better write this on there, and somebody's going to be looking for you know, I'm going to take out an ad in the paper or I was expecting something like that, like a more of a twist.

And there's also like a very conspicuous shot when she's trying on the mink the very first time. She takes her old coat and lays it over a chair and then she's wearing the mink, and I was like, oh, is it going to be the old coat that's in the box, Like did she fuck up? And like slop it and not know? But no, like all of my stuff, I felt like I was giving doll better ideas than what he came up with. I will say the scenarios that were playing in my head no thanks to what was going on on screen, was that there were three ways to go here, that the pawn broker just stole it, yep, the husband when when here's what I thought was going to happen at the end, when Julie Christie is finally returning to the husband's dentist office that he was going to confront her because he now knew because the note that he had given her was still in the pocket, so he could have exactly.

And I thought, and I was expecting, because we're dabblers in the occult and and or just gruesome that in a dentist office he was about to get revenge. And I thought, oh man, this is gonna go so bad. And then it was like, oh, okay, I guess the pawnbroker fucked her over and gave this little bitty mink stole instead of the other thing, and now everyone's kind of fucked. And then I mean, I guess it's a good ending that he's fucking his secretary and he gave her the mink. But why would wouldn't he say to the secretary, don't wear this past my.

Wife, right right, exactly, keep. That in the box until you get home. Okay, don't write you're a secretary in a dentist office, right. I'm trying to send you a photo. Yeah, here we go.

I'm gonna put this in the chat, this shot of this lady. I was just like, what is going on here? Like I kept thinking, like, is she announted somehow? Like that weird shot of this old lady who was in the office. Is she in the dentist office?

I thought she was in the She's no, she's there when the woman's trying on the coat, oh right, right right yeah, And I'm just like they have that weird cut over to her, and I'm like, what the hell's going on? Like this is just a oddly directed episode too, and of course they're doing the thing really bothered me in British television for so many years, where it's the video versus the film, and they are cutting back and forth between video and film all the time, and it drives me crazy. Like even when I was a little kid watching Tom Baker Doctor Who, I was just like, why does it look so different from this scene to this scene? My little eight year old brain was. Melting, and across the country mine was as well.

Because it drives me bananas to go from video to film. It should be outlawed in a way like either do one or the other take that video camera outside. We'll deal with that. We've dealt with worse, But don't keep switching the formats because it is so fucking yeah it eight year old me, fifty two year old me, all the same, stop it please. Yes, yeah, I really called attention to itself.

And that's the thing. Sorry. Going back to Man from the South, I was like, oh, this looks like a million bucks. It does not look. Cheap yep, And that where they were on location in Jamaica, So you know, maybe it was because it was the pilot or something.

And now like now they're having to spend some some I don't know what are they happening? Pounds pounce, yeah, pounds sterling yes, yeah, And you can tell these are like tube cameras just because of the way that the light gets shown on them. And I'm surprised there's no streaking like you would get that weird streak with a tube camera as well. I'll be waiting for that now. Michael Horden, he is an extraordinary voiceover actor.

He's the narrator of Watership Down. Who's the wise man voice in Labyrinth? Wow, that's that's the one I mean I wanted to mention. Yeah, I mean, how many years decades now is his voice been echoing him in my brain? And then to find out it's Watership Down as well, like, oh my god, like so it was nice to see him and one of those instances where I love that we're mostly dabbling in UK television now because we get to see a lot of these actors that we probably know from one role, and this sort of opens up our perception of them because obviously we're going to do research and finding out something like that makes me want to hunt down even more from that guy, because you know, it's it's as good as Farrair.

Yes. Now, I didn't watch Labyrinth when I was a kid. I hadn't seen that until maybe I was in my thirties or even forties, but I did watch young Sherlock Holmes a ton and he does the narration and that one as well. Yeah he's old. He did a lot.

Yeah, it looks like he did a lot of Wind in the Willows. He was always Badger and oh gosh, yeah, and then he did a lot of. Oh he's the doctor, right, he's the fucking doctor in yellow Beard. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's got a great, great voice. Holy shit.

Oh and there he is in the Medusa Touch. I don't know if you've ever seen that one, but that's great. Oh no, I'm definitely going to seek it out. I'm also gonna now seek out if he's got any audio books he better. Oh that would be great.

Yeah. No, his his voice is like, butter. Well, where we are we on this? I don't know his her husband's fucking some. I guess the idea is that she is getting she's getting what she deserves and then some because now she knows her husband's doing exactly what she was doing and there's nothing she can say about it.

And we don't know if he ever knew that she was, if he was on to her. Right, Yeah, and yeah, I was like, yeah, she deserves this, And I was kind of I mean, I wasn't rooting him on because he's cheating as well, but I was kind of like, Okay, yeah she deserves but she's getting here and his whole thing, and like, oh, I'm just going to do some work at the office. I'm like all right, yeah, that works. For me absolutely. I mean I wish they had given us like like I said, like he found the note that guy had written to her, so then he felt the impetus to do that instead of just being as morally bankrupt as everyone else in this goddamned episode.

Right. Yeah, no, it would have been nice even if he was like henpecked or something, because she just does not like him and he's kind of a dickhead. When it comes to you, you know, oh, make sure that you brush your teeth correctly and all that stuff, and her the uh, the dental assistants little poem about brushing your teeth. I was like, I do wish I could remember that because it's so annoying. Sorry, hold on say that last part again.

Fuck, I said, when it comes to the dental assistant and doing that little rhyme about brushing your teeth, I was like, I wish I could remember that because it's pretty annoying. Well, glad you can't then, because it's annoying, sir. But I could do that whenever anybody tell us about brushing their teeth. Well remember up and yeah whatever she says. All right.

Well, on the next episode of Midnight Viewing Tales of the Unexpected, we're gonna be taking a look at the next two episodes. Those are William and Mary and a Lamb to the Slaughter. Until then, where can people find you, mister White? Well, pretty much everything I do is available over at weirdingwaymedia dot com, and that includes the show I've been doing for a couple of years out which is called The Projection Booth, So come on by and check that out. New shows every week.

As for me, you're listening to Midnight Viewing, you know, we're on twice a week. Every Monday we do a fest or we do one of these here anthology series. Every Friday we do find the Malone's weekly round up, and if you head over to the Patreon channel, we've got so much goddamned exclusive stuff going on over there, like Vault seven oh two where Nuka, Cota, Quantum and I are taking a look at the Fallout television series episode by episode, and we also have all of our Star Trek fest Away missions are occurring over there, so check that out and until next time, try to enjoy the Daylight