Albert Salmi, who probably did most of his work as heavies in Westerns, stars in this Rod Serling offering. One disconcerting thing for me is that the makeup to create his baldness seems so obvious. That little item aside, Salmi plays about as evil a character as one can imagine. He has everything life can give him and has treated everyone with incredible cruelty over the years. He has something like 34 million dollars of net worth. After destroying his last rival, he false into a deep malaise. There is no one left to mistreat. He sits in his office, getting drunk, bemoaning this problem, speaking in an incredibly condescending way to a poor janitor who has worked for the company for more than thirty years. As he exits, he comes upon a travel agency that he's never seen before. It is run by a woman with a set of horns, played by Julie Newmar. Of course, she works for the devil and has been sent to offer Salmi a proposition. He has said that he would give up everything to start over with new challenges. He dreams of Cliffordsville, a little town where he got his start. One pregnant statement that is simply passed over is when he asks if he needs to sell his soul, she says, "Oh, we got that a long time ago." I suppose that the trouble that ensues is partly due to his drunkenness and lack of thought, because it is anything but a picnic. As is often the case, it is simplistic, though Salmi really hams it up and gets us to despise him. For me, it was just too easy to predict the result.
Review of Of Late I Think of Cliffordville
