Seven Things to Know About Alfred Hitchcock Presents

1. Alfred Hitchcock's daughter, Pat, appeared in ten episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Her first appearance was in the season1 episode "Into Thin Air." Its premise was based on an urban myth known as "The Vanishing Hotel Room," which also served as the basis for the novel and film So Long at the Fair (the latter starred Jean Simmons and Dirk Bogarde). Pat also appeared in the memorable season 3 episode "The Glass Eye" (but more on that later).

2. The final episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents was never broadcast on network television. Written by Robert Bloch (Psycho), it dealt with a manipulative woman, an easily-influenced young man, and the famous magician's trick of sawing a woman in half. NBC censors nixed the episode for being too disturbing. However, was included in the show's syndication package and has since been shown on TV frequently!

Barbara Bel Geddes.

3. The two most famous episodes are undoubtedly "Man from the South" and "Lamb to the Slaughter." The latter, directed by Hitchcock from a Roald Dahl teleplay, stars Barbara Bel Geddes as a woman who murders her cheating husband with a frozen leg of lamb. It earned Emmy nominations for Hitchcock (Best Direction) and Dahl (Best Teleplay Writing). In 2009, TV Guide ranked "Lamb to the Slaughter" at No. 59 on its list of the 100 Greatest TV Episodes. "Man from the South," based on another Dahl story, stars Steve McQueen as a young man who makes a macabre bet on how many times in a row a lighter will light. The episode co-stars Peter Lorre and McQueen's then-wife Neile Adams. Both "Man from the South" and "Lamb to the Slaughter" were also adapted for the 1979-88 TV series Tales of the Unexpected.

Steve McQueen in "Man from the South."

4. A number of prominent writers had stories that were adapted or wrote teleplays for Alfred Hitchcock Presents, including: Ray Bradbury, John Cheever, Roald Dahl, Saki, Garson Kanin, Eric Ambler, Robert Bloch, Stirling Silliphant, Richard Levinson and William Link, Dorothy L. Sayers, Ira Levin, Charles Beaumont, and Cornell Woolrich.

5. CBS broadcast Alfred Hitchcock Presents for its first five seasons and the show was perennially ranked in the Top 30 shows according to the Nielsen ratings. The ratings dropped when it moved to NBC in 1960 and was aired opposite The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. Although it never cracked the Top 30 again, Alfred Hitchcock Presents ran for seven seasons and 268 episodes. The show expanded to an hour in 1962 and was appropriately retitled The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. In that incarnation, it lasted three more seasons and 93 episodes.

Janet Leigh in Psycho.

6. When Alfred Hitchcock's plans to make Psycho in 1959 were nearly rejected by Paramount, the director cut production costs by using his Alfred Hitchcock Presents TV crew. Specifically, he "borrowed" the show's cinematographer (John L. Russell), set designer (George Milo), script supervisor (Marshall Schlom), and assistant director (Hilton A. Green) to make Psycho.

7. My favorite episode may be "The Glass Eye" from the third season. The remarkable cast features Jessica Tandy, Tom Conway, William Shatner, and Pat Hitchcock. Shatner's character tells the story of his sister, a lonely woman who becomes infatuated with a handsome ventriloquist and longs to meet him. As with many episodes, it ends with a devious twist--but this one packs a wallop (thanks largely to Tandy's acting). Stirling Silliphant (Route 66 co-creator and Oscar winner for In the Heat of the Night) penned the teleplay.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Season Two

Since Alfred Hitchcock Presents debuted on Peacock TV last spring, we've been working our way through the show's entire run. Last July, we reviewed the impressive first season. We recently finished the second season, which--by comparison to season one--was a disappointment. Too many episodes felt like filler material and there seemed to be a disproportionate emphasis on comedic episodes. The low point was a three-parter called "I Killed the Count," which would have been boring at a single episode--much less three! Plus, it wasted the dryly amusing John Williams (once again playing a police inspector).

Still, there were some bright spots among the 39 episodes, with the highlights being:

William Redfield as the murderer.

The Manacled - As a detective sergeant escorts a convicted killer on a train ride to San Quentin, the latter tries to negotiate his freedom. Like several episodes, this is essentially a two-character play, but it's extremely well acted by Gary Merrill as the detective and especially William Redfield as the intelligent criminal who seeks out human weaknesses. The teleplay features dialogue by the great Stirling Silliphant, with my favorite passage being when the killer explains he already knew everything about the man who would escort him:  "I thought whoever it was would be wearing a ready-made suit off of a basement rack, his heels would be run down. Be the kind of man who was living on the installment plan. Doesn't really own anything, just pieces of things. A piece of a cheap car, a piece of an ice box, a piece of a bedroom set. And all the stuff he has pieces of is already falling to pieces. But he'll keep paying on it and paying on it, month after month because that's the kind of man he is. Just a piece of a man."

One More Mile to Go - During a violent argument, a man (David Wayne) kills his wife in a rage. Instead of calling the police, he cleans up the crime scene and puts her corpse in the trunk of his car. His goal is to dump the body, but a malfunctioning tail light and a persistent highway cop cause persistent problems. Directed by Hitchcock, this tense episode opens with an mesmerizing sequence without dialogue as we view the crime through a window from outside the house. 

Jessica Tandy and Robert H. Harris

Toby - Albert Birch (Robert H. Harris) is shocked when his former flame Edwina (Jessica Tandy) contacts him out of the blue. Upon meeting again, their romance is rekindled and Edwina agrees to marry Albert. She also reveals that she has custody of her dead sister's baby, Toby. However, she refuses to let Albert--or anyone else--see Toby. The climatic twist is not unexpected, but that doesn't negate the impact of this low-key, unsettling episode. Jessica Tandy gives a haunting, disturbing performance--seven years before she appeared in a pivotal role in Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds.

Evelyn Rudie and Cedric Hardwicke.

A Man Greatly Beloved - A young girl named Hildegarde (Evelyn Rudie) befriends a grumpy recluse (Cedric Hardwicke), who may be a famous retired judge. Through his friendship with Hildegarde, the man gradually becomes an esteemed member of the community. Again, the twist is not surprising, but this episode is elevated by charming, natural performances--especially young Evelyn Rudie. The supporting cast includes Robert Culp in an early role. Based on a short story by Winnie the Pooh author A. A. Milne. Incidentally, Evelyn Rudie earned an Emmy nomination the same year for an episode of Playhouse 90. 

Stirling Silliphant--The Poet Laureate of 1960s Television

Stirling Silliphant and his wife
Tiana Alexandre.

For years, I knew producer-writer Stirling Silliphant as the guy that wrote In the Heat of the Night (a favorite) and The Poseidon Adventure (a guilty pleasure). I had also read where he and James Coburn were good friends with Bruce Lee. That was pretty much it. But that all changed when my wife gave me a DVD set of with 16 episodes from the first season of Route 66 as a birthday present several years ago.

Most people remember Route 66 as that "road show" with the cool music about two guys driving around the country in a Corvette. That's an apt description, though it doesn't capture what made Route 66 innovative--it was almost an anthology show set throughout the U.S., with terrific guest stars and sparking scripts. The lead characters, Tod (Martin Milner) and Buz (George Maharis), were sometimes the focus of the stories...and sometimes not. Oh, one or both would be present in every episode, but their part in the proceedings might be peripheral. (Note: Maharis eventually left the series and was replaced by Glenn Corbett).

Martin Milner and George Maharis.

Yet, what truly set Route 66 apart from its contemporaries--and even more so today--were Silliphant's scripts. Silliphant, who co-created the series with producer Herbert B. Leonard, wrote an incredible 73 of the 116 episodes over the show's four-year run. In terms of entertainment value, the plots were consistently above-average, but it's Silliphant's dialogue that gave Route 66 its unique voice. As David Mamet would do later, Silliphant embellished his characters with dialogue that would never pass for natural--but which conveyed a singular poetry all its own.

Tod, or more likely Buz, often got the poetic dialogue. But it could be a guest star, too, as in the episode "Hell Is Empty, All The Devils Are Here," in which Eva Stern plays a young woman coping with the memory of her husband's first wife:

"All of a sudden, I know how an insect feels, how helpless when it's caught by a cruel child. A blank face, bigger than the sky, smiling down at you from somewhere beyond your own tiny world. Smiling down and taking its time, letting its icy fingers pull off your legs and wings."

No, people don't talk that way...except in Silliphant's Route 66 episodes. In fact, one can often guess which episodes were penned by Silliphant from just looking at the colorful titles (e.g., Love Is a Skinny Kid, How Much a Pound Is Albatross, There I Am--There I Always Am, etc.).

Inger Stevens and George Maharis.

Stirling Silliphant's later career would include a well-deserved Academy Award for Best Screenplay for In the Heat of the Night. Still, I think he was at his peak in the early 1960s, writing for Route 66, creating some of the most poetic dialogue ever written for a weekly TV series.

For a sample scene from Route 66, check out this clip from the Silliphant-penned episode "Burning for Burning" with Inger Stevens.

James Garner Makes a Fine Marlowe

Garner as Chandler's detective.

Having consumed the Philip Marlowe novels as a teenager, I'm typically hard on the film adaptations of Raymond Chandler's hard-boiled detective. The only one that truly captures Chandler's cynical protagonist and his unflattering portrait of L.A. is Murder, My Sweet. That 1944 version of the novel Farewell, My Lovely holds up well thanks to Dick Powell's sharp performance and Edward Dmytryk's moody direction. My choice for runner-up, Marlowe (1969), may be a surprise, certainly for fans that prefer the more conventional Big Sleep (1946).

At first blush, James Garner may not seem like the ideal Philip Marlowe. But in screenwriter Stirling Silliphant's update of Chandler's The Little Sister (1949), Garner channels his dry wit into an enjoyable, effective performance. It's just a shame that the producers selected one of the lesser Marlowe novels for their movie.

Marlowe's client is Orfamay Quest (Sharon Farrell), a naive young woman from rural Kansas who is searching for her missing brother Orrin. Marlowe tracks the latter to a seedy seaside hotel, but learns his quarry has departed--and the desk clerk has been murdered with an ice pick. When Marlowe later follows up on another lead, he discovers a second body stabbed with an ice pick. Before the police appear on the scene, the detective searches the room and finds a film processing ticket under the dead man's toupee.

Garner and Gayle Hunnicut.

The photographs show television sitcom star Mavis Wald (Gayle Hunnicut) in a compromising position with gangster Sonny Steelgrave. Marlowe suspects blackmail and soon finds himself immersed in a web of deceit, greed, and jealousy.

Raymond Chandler's intricate plotting is one of his trademarks. In fact, in the Marlowe novels, he often integrated the plots of some of his earlier short stories. Personally, I find Chandler's complex mysteries easier to follow in print than on film. In Marlowe, Silliphant remains faithful to Chandler novel, but has trouble tying up all the loose ends. The conclusion, in particular, is messy, though male fans can at least find solace in a tasteful Rita Moreno striptease.

Bruce Lee destroys Marlowe's office.

Still, there's much to like in Marlowe, from Garner's strong performance to the ease with which Silliphant has transplanted the character to the late 1960s. One of the film's highlights is Bruce Lee's supporting turn as one of Steelgrave's henchman. He first visits Marlowe's office to offer the private eye money to back off from Mavis. When Marlowe refuses, Lee's baddie displays his impressive martial arts skills by smashing up the detective's office. Later, the two have another entertaining (though too short) encounter on a rooftop.

It's a shame that Garner wasn't cast in additional Marlowe movies. I would have especially liked to have see him in an adaptation of The Lady in the Lake, my favorite Marlowe novel, which has only been filmed once (as Robert Montgomery's gimmicky first-person Lady in the Lake). Of course, Garner later channeled some of his Marlowe persona into a TV detective named Jim Rockford. That turned out pretty well for him.

Sam Peckinpah Goes Kung Fu in "The Killer Elite"

At the outset of The Killer Elite (1975), Mike and George appear to be two happy-go-lucky mercenaries that work for a CIA contractor. That changes when George (Robert Duvall) kills a defector they're protecting--then shoots Mike (James Caan) in the knee and elbow. As George stands over his bleeding pal, he states flatly: "(You) just retired. Enjoy it."

As Mike recovers from extensive surgery, his two bosses (Arthur Hill and Gig Young) visit him to deliver good news and bad news. The good is that he will receive $1500 in disability a month (a tidy sum compared to government employees). The bad news: "Given a year, maybe you'll be able to walk up a flight of stairs. That leg of yours will never be anything but a wet noodle."

George (Duvall) and Mike (Caan)
prior to Mike's "retirement."

Fueled by determination and perhaps a little revenge, Mike makes an impressive recovery, but now wears a brace on his left arm and walks with a cane. However, he still wants to get back in the business. Mike gets his opportunity when he's asked to protect an Asian diplomat from an assassination attempt by none other than George.

Unlike most of his films, Sam Peckinpah was not involved with The Killer Elite from the beginning. He joined it when his plans for a thriller called The Insurance Company hit a snag. In fact, in the book Peckinpah, author Garner Simmons includes this telegram sent by studio executive Mike Medavoy to Peckinpah: "I am confirming to you, per your note of January 27th that you are not to do any writing on the script."

The Japanese poster emphasized
the kung fu!

Instead, Marc Norman (Shakespeare in Love) and Stirling Silliphant (In the Heat of the Night) penned the screenplay. Although Robert Hopkins' source novel Monkey in the Middle took place in England, the film's locale was shifted to San Francisco. Silliphant, a martial arts enthusiast who trained under Bruce Lee, added several kung fu elements. Caan's character practices martial arts as part of his rehabilitation and Ninja assassins also try to kill the Asian diplomat played by Mako. Silliphant even wrote a role for his wife Tiana Alexandra, who held a brown belt at the time (and also studied under Lee).

Given his lack of involvement in the script, it's surprising that The Killer Elite comes across as a typical Peckinpah film. In fact, it works as a thematic sequel (of sorts) to my favorite Peckinpah movie: The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970). In both films, the protagonists are betrayed by a friend (or friends) and left to die (one could argue that Mike "dies" when his profession is apparently taken away from him). And both films focus on the rehabilitation and, ultimately, reinvention of their protagonists. In the concluding scene of The Killer Elite, it's obvious that Mike has undergone a life-changing transformation.

Director Sam Peckinpah.

While The Killer Elite doesn't rank with Sam Peckinpah's best films, it remains an interesting outing that makes outstanding use of the San Francisco locales. Plus, Caan gives one of his best performances. My only real criticism centers on the martial arts fight sequences. While I love a good kung fu fight, Peckinpah's attempts come across as pedestrian--especially compared to the action films being made during the same period by Bruce Lee and others in Asia. Peckinpah should have mandated the substitution of a couple of good shootouts. With this film, though, he probably didn't have the clout to do that.

Longstreet: The Way of the Intercepting Fist

In the 1971 made-for-TV movie Longstreet, James Franciscus played a insurance investigator who lost his wife and sight during an explosion intended to kill him. Determined to find the criminals responsible, Mike Longstreet has to learn first how to live with his blindness. He gets ample support from his assistant Nikki (Martine Beswick), best friend Duke (Bradford Dillman), and Pax, a white German Shepherd that becomes his seeing-eye dog.

Marilyn Mason and Franciscus.

As was often ABC's practice, the movie doubled as a pilot for a prospective TV show. The regular series debuted that fall with Marilyn Mason replacing Martine Beswick and Peter Mark Richman taking over as Duke. Set in New Orleans, the premise had Longstreet investigating various cases, often for the Great Pacific Insurance Company (where Duke worked). Stirling Silliphant created the series, which was loosely inspired by a series of novels by Baynard Kendrick about a blind private detective.

A prolific script writer, Silliphant's best television work was on Route 66, which he co-created with Herbert B. Leonard. Silliphant's teleplays on that show featured some of the elegant (but far from realistic) prose ever written for the small screen. For the most part, Longstreet seems far too straightforward for a Silliphant series, but some episodes were exceptions and the best example is the first one: "The Way of the Intercepting Fist."

James Franciscus and Bruce Lee.

It opens with Longstreet being assaulted in an alleyway by a crooked longshoreman and his cronies. A young Asian man named Li Tsung (Bruce Lee) fends off the attackers with an impressive display of martial arts. Later, Longstreet seeks out Li, an antiques dealer, and asks to become his martial arts student. Initially, Li refuses by saying: "The usefulness of a cup is its emptiness." However, he eventually relents and not only teaches Longstreet how to defend himself, but also about himself. The episode ends with Longstreet confronting and defeating the longshoreman. That act, we're led to believe, will end the villain's influence and lead the police to the businessman behind a large-scale hijacking scheme.

As with many of Silliphant's Route 66 episodes, the plot is secondary to the characters. It affords Lee the opportunity to describe jeet kune do, his "system" of martial arts and philosophy. In 1973's Enter the Dragon, Lee describes it succinctly as "the art of fighting without fighting." Still, it's this episode of Longstreet that includes perhaps Lee's best analogy: "Empty your mind. Be formless, shapeless, like water. Now, if you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. Put it into a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow, or creep or drip or crash. Be water, my friend."

Lee in Marlowe (1969).

If there is much of Bruce Lee in "The Way of the Intercepting Fist," that's no surprise as he worked on the script with Silliphant. The two had becomne friends after Silliphant sought out Lee in the late 1960s to learn martial arts. In fact, it was Silliphant who had Lee hired as fight choreographer and henchman in 1969's Marlowe. (Lee isn't in much of the movie, but has a most memorable encounter with James Garner.)

Lee earned strong reviews for his guest appearance on Longstreet and reprised his role in three more episodes. Yet, despite a likable cast and interesting setting (though the show was not shot on location like Route 66), Longstreet only lasted one season. Television audiences just didn't seem that interested in insurance investigators. (Despite that, George Peppard played one the following year in Banacek, though it only lasted for two seasons totaling 17 episodes.)

Meanwhile, Bruce Lee--who had previously rejected offers to make Asian "kung fu" movies--signed a contract with Raymond Chow to make two films. The first one, The Big Boss (aka Fists of Fury), was released the same year as his Longstreet appearances. It became an unexpected worldwide smash and made Bruce Lee an international star.

James Franciscus starred in two subsequent short-lived TV series: Doc Elliot (1973-74) and Hunter (1976-77). Interestingly, he later played a crooked politician in Good Guys Wear Black (1978), one of Chuck Norris' first martial arts films. Franciscus worked steadily in film and television until his death in 1991 at age 57 due to emphysema.

The Five Best "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" Episodes

In terms of longevity, Alfred Hitchcock Presents was the most successful American television anthology series. It ran from 1955 to 1962 in a half-hour format and then from 1962 to 1965 as The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. The list below includes only the 268 half-hour episodes.

Barbara Bel Geddes looking calm.

1. Lamb to the Slaughter - When a meek housewife (Barbara Bel Geddes) learns that her cheating husband is leaving her, she whacks him--fatally--with a frozen leg of lamb. She then calmly calls the police to report that her husband was murdered by an intruder. This darkly amusing tale, written by Roald Dahl, works to perfection--right down to the killer punch line. It was one of only 17 episodes (of the total 268) directed by Hitchcock.

2. Man from the South - Based on another Roald Dahl story, this episode stars Steve McQueen as a young man who bets a wealthy oddball (Peter Lorre) that he can light his lighter ten times in a row. If he can, he wins Lorre's snazzy convertible. But if the lighter fares to produce a flame just once, he loses a finger. A suspenseful, well-acted classic featuring another one of Dahl's trademark twists.

Vera Miles in Revenge.

3. Revenge - The very first episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents raised the bar very high. A distraught woman (Vera Miles) tells her husband she has been assaulted. When the police investigation goes nowhere, the couple seek their justice and go looking for the assailant. In a long-running series featuring a number of memorable twist endings, "Revenge" features perhaps the most potent one. Directed by Hitchcock.

4. The Glass Eye - Director Robert Stevens won an Emmy for this haunting tale of a middle-aged woman (Jessica Tandy) who falls in love from afar with a ventriloquist she has never met. After they begin exchanging letters, he agrees to meet her--with disastrous results. This beautifully written teleplay (by Stirling Silliphant) provided underused actor Tom Conway (George Sanders' brother) with his last good role. It's ultimately a very sad story of two lonely people.

Billy Mumy with loaded gun.

5. Bang! You're Dead - Hitchcock directed this wonderfully tense episode about a young boy (Billy Mumy) who mistakes a real gun for a toy pistol and spends the day playing with it. The worst part: the gun is loaded. Mumy's success as Will Robinson on Lost in Space has obscured his finest TV work, as in this episode and the "It's a Good Life" episode of The Twilight Zone.

Honorable Mentions:  Breakdown (a Hitch-directed episode with Joseph Cotten as a man paralyzed in his car), One More Mile to Go (a man with a corpse in his car trunk), and Victim Four (a Paul Henreid-directed episode about a woman whose bad headaches are really bad). It's interesting to note that both Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Twilight Zone featured adaptations of Ambrose Bierce's An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. However, The Twilight Zone episode was actually a short French feature filmed two years before its broadcast on Twilight Zone.

The Towering Looker from San Sebastian

I'm often surprised by what's available among the free on-demand movies offered by my cable service. Recently, I had an opportunity to revisit three films, one each from the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s: Guns for San Sebastian, The Towering Inferno, and Looker.

Guns for San Sebastian (1968) is often described as a Spaghetti Western, though it was made in Mexico and none of the four stars are Italian. But, hey, Ennio Morricone composed the score, so it sounds like a Spaghetti Western. Anthony Quinn stars as an outlaw who seeks sanctuary in a church to avoid capture. When the priest (Sam Jaffe) who protects him is exiled to a remote desert village, Quinn accompanies him. Shortly after their arrival, the priest is killed and the villagers--and bad guy Charles Bronson--mistakenly assume that Quinn is the new priest. I thought this was a spiffy premise with lots of potential, but, alas, Guns for San Sebastian squanders its opportunities and settles for being a routine action film. Quinn seems to be willing to do more with his role, especially during the film's first half. Bronson, whom I've always liked, and Jaffe are respectable, though their characters are pretty one-dimensional. As Quinn's quasi-love interest, Anjanette Comer is dreadful and appears to own an impressive stash of cosmetics for a peasant girl. Our on-demand grade: C.

Newman and McQueen discuss how
to extinguish the big blaze.

The Towering Inferno (1974) has an interesting backstory: After Irwin Allen's The Poseidon Adventure cleaned up at the box office, Warner Bros. bought the rights to The Tower, a novel about a burning skyscraper. Around the same time, 20th Century-Fox obtained the rights to The Glass Inferno, which featured a similar plot. Concerned that their competing movies would cancel each other out with moviegoers, the two studios opted to co-produce The Towering Inferno and put the film in Allen's hands. It features an all-star cast of screen vets (William Holden, Jennifer Jones, Fred Astaire), then-current stars (Paul Newman, Faye Dunaway, Steve McQueen), and even one of the The Brady Bunch kids (Mike Lookinland). It's as if The Towering Inferno wants to offer something for viewers of every age. What it lacks is a strong narrative, which is odd considering that Stirling Silliphant (The Poseidon Adventure, In the Heat of the Night) penned the script. Poseidon worked well because it focused on one group's quest to survive and featured a dynamic performance from Gene Hackman as its leader. In contrast, Inferno comes across as a series of vignettes and we never spend long enough with any of the characters to really care about their fates. There are some suspenseful sequences, especially when Newman and Holden are trying to evacuate party guests from a top floor. But, in the end, the film doesn't gel and we're left with lots of 1970s orange-colored decor and Maureen McGovern singing "We May Never Love This Way Again" (a limp variation of "The Morning After"). Believe or not, Fred Astaire--who looks mostly bored--earned his only Oscar nomination for The Towering Inferno. Our on-demand grade: B- (I like orange...and Fred)

Susan Dey and Albert Finney.

About once every ten years, I feel compelled to watch Michael Crichton's Looker (1981). When it's over, I always wonder:  Why did I waste my time watching it again? I think the problem is that I remember the premise (intriguing) and forget the execution (which is ludicrous). Albert Finney plays a plastic surgeon whose latest clients are beautiful women seeking minor facial changes so they'll look "perfect." When a couple of these women end up dead, Finney begins an investigation (while he comes under suspicion by the police). Finney's sleuthing leads to a mysterious company called Digital Matrix, a sneaky politician played by James Coburn, and something called Light Occular-Oriented Kinetic Emotive Responses (hey, it spells "looker"!). He also meets a model played by Susan Dey in the horrible period in her career between The Partridge Family and L.A. Law. She and Finney have negative chemistry! Plus, they appear to be in different kinds of movies: he's doing a serious suspense film and she's acting in a playful mystery. Ultimately, intriguing ideas are spewed all over the place and I'm never quite sure what the heck the movie is about. Sadly, though, I'll probably watch it again in about ten years. Our on-demand grade: D.