User Reviews

Joseph Cotton plays a cheating husband who's parked on a remote "Lovers Lane" with lovely Julie Adams (she's also "seeing" someone else) when he's accosted by a young hoodlum (Don Gordon) who seems bent on not only robbing the couple, but making life even more miserable for them. At gunpoint, Gordon lays on the insults to Cotton (much fun is made of his name "Courtney Masterson") and then demands that he get into the trunk of his own car. But the tables are turned quickly as Cotton knocks Gordon down and somehow ends up with the gun. Gordon pulls out a knife, but...now it's Cotton who's giving the orders, and after much pleading, the would-be robber is forced into the trunk himself. Ms. Adams naturally wants to know what Cotton's plan of action is now that Gordon is safely locked up, but Cotton isn't sure what to do. Going to the police is ruled out because it would be too much bad publicity for both of them. After driving her home, he takes a ride back out close to the original scene of the crime. After releasing Gordon, the two have some words and Gordon assures Cotton that he hasn't seen the last of him. Cotton has other ideas about that; he puts a bullet through the fellow's heart. Cotton now feels that it's safe to go to the police and concocts a story about how he picked up "hitch-hiker" Gordon and then an attempted robbery ensued. According to his tale of woe to the cops, Cotton wrestled the gun from Gordon (almost true) and then shot him when the firearm went off "accidently." After checking Gordon's dubious past, Cotton is able to finally go home and it looks like he's in the clear. There's no further investigation and no marital infidelity exposed either. But...a few days later in his office, Cotton receives a visitor who identifies himself to his receptionist as a detective. When the fellow enters his office, he tells Cotton that he's a Private Investigator hired by his wife to keep tabs on him. It seems that she's suspected all along that he's been cheating on her. Then the payoff: the P.I. throws Gordon's knife on his desk and tells Cotton that he saw the attempted robbery out at Lovers Lane. He watched the whole sordid affair in which Gordon ended up in the trunk of Cotton's car. At that point, the Investigator informs Cotton that he doesn't have to report his infidelity to his wife or go to the police after all. He's only interested in blackmailing Cotton for all he's worth. With Gordon's death on his hands, our hero is caught between a rock and a hard place. And that's where the story ends. This episode was directed by Stuart Rosenberg who went on to direct features like "Cool Hand Luke," among others. The cast is in peak form in this entry, but there is one complaint: Julie Adams isn't given enough screen time. Host Hitchcock was keen to have some of his shows end ambiguously. This is one of them.

When the story begins, a couple (Joseph Cotten and Julie Adams) are hanging out in his car on Lover's Lane. A bandit (Don Gordon) arrives and terrorizes them at gunpoint. Eventually, the man is able to get the gun away and locks the creep in the trunk of his car...something the gunman was originally going to do with him! Now the plan is to take the crook to the nearest police station but there's a problem...the two lovers are cheaters and if they go to the cops, the story about them having an affair will likely come to light. So what to do, what to do....??

The acting is very good in this one and I enjoyed all of it except for the big twist at the end. As I thought about it, the twist really didn't make a lot of sense. If a private detective was watching all of this transpire, it's hard to believe he wouldn't intervene or at least call the cops when the punk was holding a gun on the couple or when he was trying to stuff Cotten's character into the trunk...it just didn't add up.

I rather liked this one. There were a couple "guy in the trunk" episodes along the way. It''s interesting how some of the acting heavyweights of the time showed up on these episodes. Here it's Joseph Cotten who was in Shadow of a Doubt as well as Citizen Kane. He plays the cheating husband to Julie Adams who almost married the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Anyway, his fooling around comes home to haunt him. I rather enjoyed the bad guy who screwed everything up. Cotten would have been fine if he hadn't shot the guy in cold blood. The long suffering wife is the element that comes out of nowhere. He is a cad. Hitchcock lets us imagine what happens next. When I was a kid and watched this show in its prime, my friends were upset with the "Alfred Hitchcock Ending" of many of his shows--no resolution. I always sort of liked using my imagination.

Sorry, but I think Julie Adams looks too glamorous to be making out with a guy in a car, and Joseph Cotton looks too old to be behaving like this, too. That's high school stuff, not sophisticated adults! Does anyone else agree?

P. S. Just saw that this first aired the day after I was born!

At least one other reviewer for this episode had the same idea I did. Why would private detective Elleridge (Claude Stroud) stand by observing what was going on between Courtney Masterson (Joseph Cotten) and the thug Stickney (Don Gordon) when it looked like a murder was in the offing? Shouldn't he have intervened to prevent a potential disaster? Even the police inspector's (Ted de Corsia) attitude seemed kind of cavalier, expressing his feeling that the crook was better off dead than going through the trouble of arresting and booking him. That's why some of these Hitchcock twist endings don't exactly pass the sniff test once they're over and done with. You start thinking about the story and it starts to fall apart.