The Kiss-Off

The changes in Rip Torn over the years make him almost unrecognizable in this appearance from fifty-six years ago. And it's not how slim he is here. Or his face. His voice is so much different. That's what really threw me. We've seen a lot of stars who thanks to re-runs age from youth to retirement right before our eyes. This was a well-written caper story with a big twist. A conviction crazy cop got Ernie with a bum rap years before. Ernie wants to get some payback. Will he be able too? Without going back to prison.

An interesting, character-driven and quite well done episode in which, to get back at the Police for a six-year prison sentence over a false accusation, Rip Torn commits a bank robbery under heavy disguise but taking care to leave behind the incriminating key to his own hotel-room! Of course, he is immediately picked up for questioning (which pleases his old nemesis Bert Freed no end) but, though the three eye-witnesses of the theft acknowledge a comparable stature between Torn and the aggressor, they cannot bring themselves to point the finger of suspicion at him! When the cop threatens to indict him regardless, Torn dares him to do so, since he knows full well the evidence will not stick (especially in the face of the earlier miscarriage of justice he had sustained)

Ernie (Rip Torn) is a bitter man. He just spent six years in prison for a crime he didn't commit and when the truth is revealed, he doesn't even get an apology from the cop and district attorney who put him away. So, he decides to get even. It all begins with him in disguise robbing a local tax office....and where it goes from here, you'll have to see for yourself.

I might have scored this one a 9, but like too many episodes of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", you see a perfect crime and love the show...only to have Hitchcock himself in the epilogue say something like "he was later caught and punished for his crimes"...which is unnecessary and apparently tossed onto the end of the show to please some sponsors or the network. All I know is that Rip Torn did a great job and John Foran and Talmadge Powell wrote a dandy episode...only to have this worthless epilogue tacked on and damaging the show.

Many people understandably dislike the tiresome "crime does not pay" epilogues on this show. I ignore these epilogues since they often spoil the fun of the episode, or dilute the twist. These objectionable epilogues are not Hitchcock's idea, it was the Hays Code in force at the time for making movies and television shows: all criminal action had to be punished, and neither the crime nor the criminal could elicit sympathy from the audience, or the audience must at least be made aware that such behavior is wrong, usually through "compensating moral value."

I'm sure Hitch didn't like it any more than we do.

Rip Torn plays a man who was sent to prison for six years for a crime he didn't commit. Once out, in disguise, he robs a tax office, taking 12,000 dollars. The cop who arrested him the first time is after him again. The result is fulfilling. Hitchcock's final comments often ruined the episodes. Ignore what he says.