User Reviews

I don't know if Dahl actually wrote this story but it was one of the best.Susan Strasberg plays a fortune teller.In her case she's the real deal and her Tarot cards never fail. She gets a visit form Max Gail one day and does a reading. She does it over and over again and it continues to be the same message- Max Gail is going to come into a great deal of money and shortly after will die. Strasberg finds Gail repulsive but marries him to inherit his wealth. Things don't go as planned.It turns out that SHE is the one who inherits the money. Max Gail kills her to get HER money. After he does he buries her outside in a rainstorm and comes into the house soaking wet.He turns on the TV and accidentally gets electrocuted from the cord The cards were right.HE did come into a great deal of money and shortly after HE does die.It just didn't happen the way his wife expected. Good performances all around. I have seen this same story on other shows but this was the best version

Charlie is down on his luck, wanting to dance like Fred Astair, but not allowed in the dance class, so he turns to help from Madame Myra, a gypsy and fortune teller. Charlie is skint, having used his last dime to get there, he can't even pay for his session, so he fixes her toaster for payment. When she reads his cards she sees incredible wealth, so she contrives a way to make her his perfect match. Of course there is a twist in the waiting.

I quite like this episode, maybe Roald Dahl's introduction put me in a good mood, but it's well structured, cleverly written, nicely acted (apart from the woman downstairs!!)

The twist is really well executed, never saw it coming, you watch it and feel a huge annoyance towards the characters, it's played out seriously, nobody is sending it up.

7/10

Susan Strasberg, who died too early in 1999, and Max Gail play the lead roles in this American episode of Tales of the Unexpected. It has a typical New York feel to it and the background music is something similar to the 70s detective dramas from the USA. Susan was the daughter of the great method actor Lee Strasberg.

Also worth highlighting is the performance of Kenneth Tigar as the Attorney who informs Susan's character of her $350,000 inheritance. In those days, $350,000 was a lot of dough, as it is now of course. Kenneth is also a German translator, so he's quite multi-talented.

The episode has a bit of a twist and it's quite gruesome, to be expected in the Tales of the Unexpected universe. There's a claustrophobic feel to this episode, when you see Susan and Max crammed into their apartment which has a backyard by the way. The backyard plays a key scene in the denouement.

I thought the idea for this episode was good but it got kind of clunky in the telling. Wouldn't you question someone digging a six foot deep, rectangular fish pond in the back yard? For a fortune teller like Madame Myra (Susan Strasberg), couldn't she see what was coming? And how gullible does one have to be not to question an obviously manufactured characteristic like 'three moles on her left shoulder', to describe the babe of Charlie's (Max Gail) dreams? Technically, Myra's reading of the cards turned out to be accurate, since Charlie did come into an inheritance by virtue of being married to her, and died shortly after by being a dimwit about handling electronics soaking wet. But if you think about it, Charlie did in his wife before she ever got down to the attorney's (Kenneth Tigar) office to complete the paperwork. As Bugs Bunny would say - 'What a maroon'.