User Reviews

As with many of the Alfred Hitchcock presents episodes the quality of acting is high. Robert Strauss does a credible job as the wealthy and bombstic toy magnate(Ted Beale) and Anne Frances is excellent as his younger, sultry and bored trophy wife(Peg Beale).

While easy to miss, I believe there is an underlying reason why Ted Beale would hire a hunky male(Donnelly Rhodes as John Cochran) as his personal assistant . It appears to be a trap to catch his beautiful wife Peg's unfaithfulness by putting a younger attractive man in her presence.

Before his interview for the personal assistant job Cochran accidentally catches Peg Beale in an uncompromising situation with a another man. When Ted later introduces her to her to John as his wife there is a great deal of tension.

Initially Peg implores Ted not to hire John as he has might tell of her exploits with another man. Ted ignores her pleas and hires John, eventually inviting him to live in their home which is where he runs the toy business from.

Peg is cold and dismissive towards John until he prevents a drunken Ted from catching her in a liason with another man during Ted's birthday party. After this she softens towards him, sparks fly and the two become intimate.

An often repeated plot line emerges with John and Peg falling in love and deciding that Ted has to go in a way that leaves his wealth to Peg. I initially assumed that Peg was trying to coax John into killing Ted and be blamed for it but that premis(another often repeated plot line) does not take hold.

We learn that the elevator can get stuck and the reason is a particular fuse. Peg and John get stuck on it(perhaps pre-planned by Ted), allowing for their first kiss. A allegedly hungover Ted, unconcerned that the two were on it together explains why it stops sometime and how to fix it. In doing so he also makes clear a way someone could make it stop, hint hint..

Before leaving on a long vacation planned by Ted, Peg, aware that no one will be in the house for several weeks pulls the elevator fuse thinking Ted is on it, thus dooming him to a slow horrible death.

Unable to contact John, who was supposed to be n Europe hawking Ted's business and assuming Ted is now dead, Peg returns home to find the elevator still stuck where is was when she left. After she replaces the fuse and prepares the bring the elevator down, Ted appears. His demeanor is creepy and after some banter he suggests they go upstairs on the elevator. When it opens Johns body is on it and Ted's expression show relish in Peg's horror.

My conclusion is that I think the trap was set by Ted from the beginning. He was aware of Peg's philandering and wanted to make her pay for it. He hires John as bait and everything plays out as planned right down to the elevator fuse. A jealous older man with a young beautiful wife who married him only for money gets his revenge in gruesome fashion. Both are guilty as Peg caused John's death by rigging the elevator and Ted could have saved him. A common plot with some twists.

A bit contrived and there are some technical flaws the most notable that I would expect the smell in the house to be putrid enough to cause a grimace from Peg given a dead human body was in it. Overall for a 1 hour TV show made in 1965 this is watchable and the acting, especially that of Robert Strauss, is excellent.

The story here is a reworking of one I've seen before, but darn if I can recall what series it appeared in. Might have been a British anthology program. Oh, well. The set up here gives away the twist ending pretty well in advance for those paying attention. The faulty elevator blowing a fuse hints at the way the philandering wife of toy manufacturer Ted Beale (Robert Strauss) might find a way to get rid of him. It's somewhat questionable whether 'Teddy Bear' suspects wife Peg (Anne Francis) is carrying on with his male secretary Johnny Cochran (Donnelly Rhodes), although the very closing scene suggests he knew more than he let on with that sly grin of his. As was customary, Alfred Hitchcock discloses that the Beale's were both put away for the death of Cochran, but I'd have to wonder why they couldn't have found a competent attorney to plead an accidental death. Even though Peg did have murder on her mind, the circumstances being what they were, it certainly could have been considered an accident, especially since the victim was the wrong one!