User Reviews

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.

Veteran actor Myron McCormick and young Linda Lawson play a piano player and a chanteuse in a popular nightclub owned by a guy named Joey (Will Kuluva). Unfortunately for the duo, a "regular customer" is a local mobster named Little Dandy (Frankie Darro) who shows up with his henchmen and immediately begins to hit on Ms. Lawson---and he doesn't take "no" for an answer. After withstanding all his unpleasant advances, Little Dandy finally grabs her roughly while she's walking towards the stage and she ends up dumping her drink on his head. A brawl ensues with McCormick jumping in to aid his singer. The two entertainers have a sort-of father-daughter relationship and he does his best to keep her safe from hoodlums like Little Dandy. But then the story takes a very bleak detour. Ms. Lawson is beaten to death a few days later by an unknown assailant and McCormick is warned by a detective that he may be next to get "hit." An "Insurance Salesman" (Pat Harrington Jr. from "One Day at a Time" fame) also appears at the bar and threatens McCormick with bodily harm. In the end, this dour and violent tale has nowhere to go except to kill off McCormick. Without his lovely singer, he didn't have much to live for anyway. This episode was directed by the competent Alan Crosland Jr. but there isn't much he can do with the limited script. Ms. Lawson had a long and productive career as did Mr. McCormick. Of course, Pat Harrington's "Schneider" on "One Day at a Time" is one of television's more memorable comic roles. This is one of those few Hitchcock entries that totally lacks suspense. The "surprise" ending is anything but, and the plot itself is weak and pointless. Two nice people get killed for nothing more than defending themselves. End of story.

Gee, how clueless do you have to be to embarrass a mobster by spilling a drink over his head? That's what lounge singer Georgia (Linda Lawson) does, while getting an assist from her piano player Bert (Myron McCormick) when an altercation follows with Little Dandy Dorf's (Frankie Darro) henchmen getting involved. Off screen, Georgia pays for the indiscretion with her life, while Bert walks eggshells wondering when he'll have to face the music himself. Just when it looks like Bert can take some consolation in a protective custody arrangement, the boom is lowered by the natty looking gent who gave him fair warning over a couple fingers of whiskey. Too bad, he never saw it coming.

The surprise for me in this story was the appearance of Frankie Darro, a child star of the Twenties and Thirties who I took a liking to in some of his early vehicles. Here he looked nothing like his former self, having outgrown his youthful good looks that often got him typecast as a young tough or juvenile gang leader. He teamed with James Cagney as a principal character in the 1933 flick "The Mayor of Hell", and starred in three films with Kane Richmond titled "Born to Fight ", "The Devil Diamond" and "Tough to Handle". But my favorite has to be the Depression era flick which balances hefty doses of grim reality with spirit and humanity in a story of wayward youth called "Wild Boys of the Road" from 1933.

There is no suspense in this episode. What plot there is is about a gangster and his pals who take a shine to a pretty young singer. She works with a piano player. One night there is a confrontation where she dumps a drink on this guy's head. The piano player knocks him down. So the gangster has both of them killed. They can't defend themselves. They are simply victimized. Not only that, the piano player has to be intimidated by the associates of this psychotic jerk (Little Dandy Dorf). Anyway, it breaks the basic rules of a decent suspense story where there have to be some options for the characters. And, unlike most Hitchcock episodes, there is no irony at all.