User Reviews

You have to put yourself back in time to the late Fifties to appreciate this episode. A mob boss sends a Shylock out to collect a gambling debt of $26.40 from a suburban housewife! Now I know addiction to gambling is no laughing matter, but I thought the plot for this story was somewhat ridiculous. If she was in the lurch for a couple hundred bucks I could see it, but going out for this kind of small change seemed petty. And how about the guy who made the call on Fran Holland (Jan Sterling)? He was such an affable fellow that she called him Mr. Cooney (David Opatoshu). I wonder if he could have broken a leg for the money.

You know, I had to think about Mrs. Holland's strategy there with the bus stop requests at fifteen cents apiece. At that rate she would have had to approach a hundred sixty seven people to make twenty five dollars, probably more if more than one refused like the one lady did. There again, I couldn't see the logic of the story, even compensating for the price of things in the Fifties. Those couple of examples made the forty nine dollar compact look like a treasure by comparison. All of this contributed to an angst filled day for Mrs. Holland, on top of the stress of trying to give up her addiction to the ponies.

So it was with a large measure of fortitude and good luck that she recovered her pocketbook back from the crashed car by way of the police officer. It seemed to me that the store detective (carl Betz) should have come in for some retribution as well, he with the grabby paws who tried to have his way with the woman. After all she went through, you would have thought Mrs. Holland learned her lesson, but no. I wonder if Washington Flyer won, placed or showed.

This is a story of addiction. It's about a young housewife who has apparently been diagnosed with a gambling addiction. To the point where her husband has given her an ultimatum, stop the gambling or our marriage is over. She needs 25 dollars to pay off a bookie who will betray her to her husband. She ends up literally begging on the street. The fare for a bus trip is 15 cents and she pretends to have forgotten her purse. People oblige her but it is a slow process. Along comes Carl Betz who impersonates a police officer and takes her a way. He is, of course, after something else. He propositions her, offering her the 20 dollars she needs. They have an accident which she has caused, and while he is unconscious she races from the scene. The young woman is pathetic and certainly believable in most respects. She is an addict. It's interesting that in 1958 it was already referred to as a disease. The conclusion is pretty easy to figure out if you've watched enough of these. Still, it's nicely paced and keeps our interest to the very end.

A pony-playing housewife (Jan Sterling), in the hole for $25, has one afternoon to pony up before bookies dun her husband who warned her they'd be through if she ever gambled again. The suspense factor is high as the lady pretty much panhandles before being reduced to shoplifting, eventually getting "arrested" by a fake cop who tries to rape her and even survives a car crash before obtaining the money in the nick of time. That night, her husband has to go to the nation's capitol on business and she immediately calls her bookie to put two dollars on "Washington Flyer" -on the nose, of course!

Back in the Fab 50s, the nightmare of addiction was often a joke but it's no laughing matter and this thought-provoking aspect gives the tale an unintended dark side. Destructively compulsive behavior reared it's ugly head again in the premiere episode of THE ALFRED HITCHCOCK HOUR entitled A PIECE OF THE ACTION (airdate 9/20/62) but this time the disease was dealt with in a somber manner. A professional cardsharp (Gig Young) posing as an investment counselor and married to a wealthy débutante (Martha Hyer) uses a deadly dangerous deception to dissuade his kid brother (Robert Redford) from following in his footsteps. HANGOVER (airdate 12/6/62), a later, more PC episode of the series, was a black riff on Frank Tashlin's WILL SUCCESS SPOIL ROCK HUNTER? that saw a manic Madison Avenue wunderkind's (Tony Randall) life spin out of control in an alcoholic haze as he loses his job, meets a fantasy dream-girl (a va-va-voom Jayne Mansfield) in a bar, and can't remember how or why his wife (Dody Heath) went missing. "Hitch" dispensed with his customarily droll closing wrap-up to say a few words about Alcoholics Anonymous. The obscure, demure Dody Heath would compete with flamboyant sex symbol Jayne Mansfield one more time in the noir-like European proto-giallo, DOG EAT DOG (1965). Disturbing.

I watch both Alfred Hitchcock series and never feel like rolling my eyes and thinking storylines like this one are on par with an after school special. So yeah, you're dealing with well told stories but you aren't being preached to. It's a magic that seems lost in today's times imo.

So this episode deals with a lady that's got a problem. It's true there's times I laugh at some of the prices mentioned on these old series (one example takes place from a few episodes ago when a character played by Phyllis Thaxter is told by her husband to get an estimate for a plumbing issue and the amount of 10 dollars is thrown out) I realize that more than likely was an accurate price scale for that time period but the amount seems comical in 2022. I really like the amount of money the lady owed her bookie. 26.50 isn't a large amount of money but I also think it shows how even a small amount of money can turn into a big problem if you keeping adding to that amount and losing.

Fran's husband knows she's got a problem. I reference what I said on my 'Sylvia' review that a lot of parents/guardians will keep trying to help their child instead of washing their hands of the whole affair. I called the behavior realistic but I can also flip the coin over and see Fran's husband is being realistic on the flip side. Fran's husband isn't a mean man, he's just fed up with all this and flat out tells Fran it's gonna be over if he finds out she's gambling again. The storyline doesn't mention how long Fran's been gambling and just how much she's lost previously.

Fran goes through a lot in this episode. She's got her husband's threats of their marriage being over and she's gotta come up with the money she owes her bookie before her husband gets home from work. She gets to a bus stop and she pretends like she doesn't have any money for bus fair and she asks various people for change in order to supposedly get her bus fair. She manages to stay out there long enough to get about 5 dollars worth in change. That's nowhere near enough and time's running out quickly!

Fran decides to try and shoplift a sterling silver compact but she gets caught supposedly by a man that's in charge of security. Fran ends up in the car with this man and he wants to put the moves on her. He's waving around a 20 dollar bill while this is going on. He ends up wrecking the car but Fran's okay enough to shakily get out of the car and go back home. She left her things behind in the car because she was so shook up. Cops trail her to her home to give her back her purse. The stolen compact is returned to Fran but she tells the men the compact isn't hers and to take it back. The men also mistakenly thought the 20 found on the floor of the car belonged to her but Fran stays quiet about that because that 20 is enough to pay back what she owes to her bookie. The bookie gets paid back and she tells him she's through making bets. Perhaps Fran got scared straight by her close call? Nope. The end of the episode features her talking to her husband on the phone and how he's off to Washington for business. This ends up setting Fran up for another gambling spree as she had caught notice of a horse to bet for in the newspaper called Washington Flyer. So she's on the phone placing another bet as the episode ends.

That ending isn't played for laughs imo. It's not an ending that makes you chuckle and say 'There she goes again!!' It's honestly an ending that's painful and realistic. My guess is there's lots of people in this world that are going through stuff, they're being warned that you're gonna lose everything if you keep this up. Fran's addiction is a sickness and if there had been a part two to this episode, well, Fran more than likely wouldn't have had a happy ending.

I know I'm getting long winded, I just truly enjoy these stories and they're so well told. Would highly recommend this episode and would especially recommend if you're a Little House on the Prairie' fan. Fran is played by the lady that ends up playing Charles Ingalls mother. Fran's husband will end up playing Lars Hansen and the bookie will end up playing the head of the blind school that Mary went to after losing her sight.