I Can Take Care Of Myself is one of those Hitch one offs that's not typical of the series as a whole. Nor does it resemble, in plot and characterization, any other entry in the half-hour series that I can remember. Well acted by lead players Myron McCormick and Linda Lawson, with good support from Will Kuluva, Edmon Ryan, an almost unrecognizable Pat Harrington, Jr. and ex-child star Frankie Darro as the very light "heavy" of the piece.
It's a simple story of a middle aged pianist and the young woman who works with him as a singer in a New York nightclub. The act appears to be doing well enough but for the presence of a mobster known by the name of Little Dandy, who quickly develops an obsession with the singer, who rejects his advances.
There is an unfortunate incident, an altercation is maybe a better word for it, that leaves Dandy humiliated, in public, no less. While tension had been building for a while it didn't seem so bad as matters turned out, as neither the pianist nor his singing partner treated the man with respect. Admittedly, being a criminal, he didn't deserve any, yet I couldn't help but wonder why these urban entertainers didn't handle the Dandy business with more street smarts and at least humor the little jerk.
The refusal of these two gifted, likable people to play ball, as it were, would cost them dearly, and it feels way disproportionate to their snubbing of the mobster, who, as a character, rather anticipates the much later (and louder) Joe Pesci in his pathological cruelty. Director Alan Crosland, Jr. handled this one nicely. Maybe it's me, but in its atmosphere and interactions between the characters, and in some of their names, the episode, while set in contemporary New York, has the feel of an old movie, like something out of the Prohibition era.
It's a simple story of a middle aged pianist and the young woman who works with him as a singer in a New York nightclub. The act appears to be doing well enough but for the presence of a mobster known by the name of Little Dandy, who quickly develops an obsession with the singer, who rejects his advances.
There is an unfortunate incident, an altercation is maybe a better word for it, that leaves Dandy humiliated, in public, no less. While tension had been building for a while it didn't seem so bad as matters turned out, as neither the pianist nor his singing partner treated the man with respect. Admittedly, being a criminal, he didn't deserve any, yet I couldn't help but wonder why these urban entertainers didn't handle the Dandy business with more street smarts and at least humor the little jerk.
The refusal of these two gifted, likable people to play ball, as it were, would cost them dearly, and it feels way disproportionate to their snubbing of the mobster, who, as a character, rather anticipates the much later (and louder) Joe Pesci in his pathological cruelty. Director Alan Crosland, Jr. handled this one nicely. Maybe it's me, but in its atmosphere and interactions between the characters, and in some of their names, the episode, while set in contemporary New York, has the feel of an old movie, like something out of the Prohibition era.