A Night with the Boys

Having briefly worked at Universal Studios, one thing we were taught is to ALWAYS mention Alfred Hitchcock to tourists. Never to be forgotten. Hitch dressing up as a beatnik to intro this story is the reason. A showman, and as many of us would suspect, a part-time ham actor who loved being a ham.

Point #2. I would bet this story was taken from real events; the young husband who loses his dough and gets a heck of a surprise. Murphys Law 101. Cowboy tv star John Smith (LARAMIE) is appropriately cast as a handsome gent with a problem. He gambles, also having a wife (Joyce Meadows) to support and a baby on the way.

What to do? To make up an excuse for his little habit, Irving (Smith) invents the wild story about being mugged -- replete with phony baloney scratches. And is that lipstick on his head? He files a report to the police (to make it all look good), and low and behold, the coppers find the mugger? How can that be? Wait and see, and Irving has lots of splainin' to do.

Real life, possibly, with a chuckle. Had Irving actually been beat up and robbed, the cops would have found NO ONE. Welcome to the real world, however this is Hitch's world.

Wonderful direction by John Brahm, lead director for TWILIGHT ZONE, adding a little TZ touch here. Thank you.

SEASON 4 EPISODE 30 remastered CBS dvd box set. All seven seasons are now on dvd in a mega box set. Released 2022. Super duper gift.

'Alfred Hitchcock Hitchcock Presents' "Night with the Boys" (1959)

Opening thoughts: "A Night with the Boys" was the first episode of the series directed by John Brahm, who went on to do another nine episodes. While not one of the best 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents' episodes or one of the best of Season 4, "A Night with the Boys" is a good start for Brahm and makes one intrigued enough in seeing his succeeding 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents' episodes. While his outings for the series did vary and his work wasn't as distinguished as the best work of the series' regular directors, Brahm was hardly a slouch and his best episodes were at least quite good. Quite good sums up "A Night with the Boys".

Bad things: It is not a perfect episode and may be easy to criticise for some, for me so much is done really well and while the not so good things were quite major they were also not that many luckily. Some of the production values are on the cheap side, indicative of lower budget than some other Season 4 episodes, obvious in the sparse settings and some less than fluid editing transitions.

More problematic was the final act, which was on the whole very rushed and far too coincidence heavy, too many of them unbelievable, which contributed to how far fetched the ending felt.

Good things: On the plus side, "A Night with the Boys" is very well acted all round, with an unsettling lead performance from John Smith dominating and carrying the episode beautifully. While Brahm's direction is not the most distinguished, he still keeps things moving along very well and doesn't let the atmosphere slip. Hitchcock's bookending doesn't disappoint, with the epilogue being priceless and one of the series' more memorable ones (namely seeing Hitchcock in a way one has never seen him before).

While not being one of the series' best looking episodes, it is photographed atmospherically. The theme tune continues to haunt, while the script has enough tautness and edge and the story grips and intrigues on the whole with some nice suspense.

Closing thoughts: Concluding, quite good if not great.

7/10.

Nice young husband (Smith) loses week's paycheck to bullying boss in a poker game. Embarrassed, he fakes a robbery so his pregnant wife (Meadows) won't know his foolish actions. But then the cops (De Santis) bring in a kid they say did it. So what's nice young husband to do now that he's lied to everyone.

It's a slender story with a mildly ironic payoff. The good thing is we can't tell where the story's going. Smith is excellent as the hesitant young guy, and we sympathize, though his sudden misgivings seem a stretch. Buffington's also persuasive as the obnoxious boss. But make-up should have done a better job with the cut that looks like a plastic paste-on. All in all, an average entry, at best.

(In passing— Catch hipster Hitch doing a jive-talking, bearded beatnik, circa 1959. It's a gas, daddy-o.)

It is a really intriguing, intelligent and not that foreseeable plot where you wonder what the next scene will provide. No murder at all but a good suspense which you won't regret. Maybe not the best episode ever but still a very good surprise. Many twists and that's we all expect in this wonderful anthology crime show.

The credit for this delightfully endearing change-of-pace for the usually morbid, mean-spirited shenanigans of Hitchcock's classic 30-minute escapades goes entirely to the stellar performance by John Smith who perfectly embodies the nice-guy decency of a hard-working young husband who foolishly gambles away his weekly salary in a (probably 'fixed') game of poker with his sleazy boss and co-workers. How he manages to retrieve the $92 he desperately needs to pay for the medical bills for his pregnant wife (sweetly played by Joyce Meadows) leads to a deftly presented series of happy accidents, capped by a nifty twist ending the talented young Smith responds to with a perfect mixture of bewilderment and dawning realization that, on rare occasions, nice guys do indeed finish first. The only mystery of "A Night with the Boys" regards John Smith's career. After making an impressive film debut at 23 as the concerned newlywed in John Wayne's blockbuster "The High and the Mighty", Smith seem primed to quickly emerge as one of the top young leading men of the decade. Not only did he have the tall blond All-American good looks (and perfect physique) of a Tab Hunter, but he also was a first-rate trained actor. His obvious sincerity and athletic prowess endeared him to moviegoers of all ages, yet most of his movies were difficult to find on the bottom end of double bills. And on the rare occasion when he landed a part in a mainstream movie of top quality, the filmmakers seemed far less interested in his acting ability than in making sure he doffed his shirt so the camera could explore the topography of his muscular physique (a perfect example was "Friendly Persuasion"; rather than cast him in the lead role of Gary Cooper's Quaker son (a star-making breakthrough for which he was more than capable), he was merely allotted roughly 5 minutes participating in a grueling wrestling scene where the camera once again zoomed in to explore his shirtless physicality). Towards the end of the 1950s, he did achieve lead roles, but such black-and-white quickies as "Island of Lost Women" and "Women of Pitcairn Island" were virtually interchangeable. Ultimately, 2 Western TV series proved to be his career salvation. "Cimarron City", an expensive, critically acclaimed series teaming him with George Montgomery and Audrey Totter, should have been Smith's shining hour and would have been had not the dolts at CBS programmed it opposite the most popular show of its time, NBC's "Bonanza". "City" was therefore cancelled before it had even completed its first season, but at least it led to what John Smith is chiefly remembered for--"Laredo", a ratings smash that ran for 4 seasons and finally made Mr. Smith and his co-star (and best friend) Robert Fuller international stars. A return to theatrical films seemed the next step. But when John Wayne, who had given John Smith his first breakthrough movie a decade earlier (and reportedly signed Smith to a personal contract) cast the still-quite-young Smith as the young male lead opposite Wayne, Rita Hayworth and Claudia Cardinale in the costly blockbuster "Circus World", the film bombed, Smith was relegated to 'guest' stints in mediocre TV shows, retired from acting at 40, and was not heard of until the NYTimes noted his death at age 63. I only bring this up by way of thanking MeTV (and several other cable-TV channels) for airing not only classic but long-forgotten TV series of the past. And by doing so, they remind me of so many actors and actresses I admired during my childhood. My thanks also to IMDB for providing the answers whenever I wonder "Whatever Happened To . . ."? I must have been around 8 or 9 when I had the audacity to write to some of these people I especially liked and requesting that they send me autographed photographs. It didn't take me long to realize that the recipients of my fan mail never even read, much less received, my letters which were instead intercepted and forwarded to the publicity department of whatever studio had the particular movie star under contract. And responded to my letters by sending me a postage-stamped-sized photo and fake thank-you note. Nevertheless, I persisted in explaining to each person exactly what I liked about them and their movies that made me so happy. And to my great surprise, a few of them actually did read my letters and wrote back to me on their personal stationary, using fountain pens (!) and autographing 5x7 photographs. Among them: Kathryn Grayson, Dewey Martin, and John Smith.