As implausible as the plot is, it still keeps the viewer anticipating how old Frank Partridge (Sidney Blackmer) and wife Mildred (Virginia Gregg) were going to pull off an insurance scam that requires her to 'play dead' for seven years in order for their policy to pay off. There's enough plot holes in this story to sink a small boat, the first of which is how Frank managed to keep their house and continue making payments on the policy when the original premise was they couldn't afford to do either. On top of that, Mildred would have to find a place to live and pay rent, so the hole they were in would only get dug deeper. In fact, I had to shake my head when Frank suggested Mildred move further away to San Francisco when the insurance adjuster (Robert Emhardt) came calling. Shows like this were written as if one could come come up with living arrangements in a new location during the commercial break. The twist ending isn't much of one if you're a regular follower of shows like this or 'The Twilight Zone', as you had to figure the entire ruse would fall apart somehow, one way or another. As the show's host, Alfred Hitchcock had a good description of his series' appeal when he made his closing comments, describing AHP as 'fairy tales for grown up children'. Yeah, I think that about covers it.
Review of Don't Come Back Alive
