The Val Lewton Blogathon: The Seventh Victim (1943)

This essay is Thrilling Days of Yesteryear’s contribution to The Val Lewton Blogathon, which is taking place October 31, 2012 and is being hosted by Kristina of Speakeasy and Stephen at Classic Movie Man.  For a complete list of the participants and the films covered, check it out here…and before the lights in the theater dim I’ll need to warn you that this review contains spoilers.

Mary Gibson (Kim Hunter), a young student at a private girls’ academy, is called into the office of the school’s headmistress, Ms. Lowood (Ottola Nesmith), to receive some distressing news.  Mary’s sister Jacqueline, who’s been footing the bill for her sister’s education, is delinquent in paying Mary’s tuition (she’s six months in arrears) but Lowood and her assistant Mildred Gilchrist (Eve March) have discussed the matter and will arrange for Mary to work as an assistant teacher at the school to cover her expenses.  Mary, however, is more concerned about Jacqueline’s whereabouts and decides instead to travel to New York City in an attempt to locate her; Ms. Lowood agrees to finance the excursion.

Arriving in the Big Apple, Mary has a conversation with Esther Redi (Mary Newton), Jacqueline’s partner in a thriving cosmetics business, La Sagesse.  Ms. Redi was previously communicating with the school on Jacqueline’s behalf but she explains to Mary that their relationship ended when Jacqueline sold her stake in La Sagesse ten months earlier.  Another employee, Frances Fallon (Isabel Jewell), tells Mary that she saw Jacqueline not too long ago at an Italian restaurant nearby…and when Mary visits the eatery, she learns that Jacqueline rented a room from the couple running the restaurant, the Romaris (Chef Milari, Marguerita Sylva), but hasn’t been seen since.  A search of her room reveals only a gilt chair…and a hangman’s noose positioned over it.

Note the number on the apartment door.  This is not a good omen.

Mary’s subsequent investigation into Jacqueline’s disappearance introduces her to a number of disparate characters.  There’s seedy detective Irving August (Lou Lubin), who takes an interest in Mary’s plight and accompanies her to La Sagesse after hours…where he is killed by an unknown assailant.  (Fleeing from the tragedy, Mary winds up on a subway and encounters two “drunks” escorting a third man…who turns out to be the murdered detective!)  She also makes contact with lawyer Gregory Ward (Hugh Beaumont), apparently a boyfriend of Jacqueline’s, who arranges for Mary to get a job as a kindergarten teacher while she continues to search for her sister.  Ward is keeping secrets from Mary, however—he’s actually Jacqueline’s husband…and he’s falling in love with Mary.

Then there’s frustrated poet Jason Hoag (Erford Gage), who first makes Mary’s acquaintance at the Romaris’ restaurant but later proves most helpful in getting additional information on Mary’s whereabouts.  His friendship with psychiatrist-author Louis Judd (Tom Conway) eventually leads all of them to the Greenwich Village headquarters of a Satanic cult known as the Palladists, who welcomed Jacqueline into their coven but have now issued a sort of “fatwa” against her because she betrayed the group (in her sessions with Judd).  They were holding Jacqueline hostage at La Sagesse while plotting her death (the Palladists are pacifists, but contradictorily, betrayal of their order is deemed punishable by death) when August stumbled onto Jacqueline and she killed him with a pair of scissors.  Judd, Jason, Gregory and Mary convince Jacqueline that the police will understand the circumstances in the private eye’s death, and she’s to hide out in Mary’s apartment before confessing to the police.

This symbol, found in a book on black magic by Hoag, will be used as a trademark of La Sagesse beauty products (La Sagesse is French for "the way").  Four parallelograms + three sides of the triangle...makes seven.

The Palladists learn where Jacqueline is hiding and she is brought before them so they can mete out punishment.  They won’t kill her—but knowing Jacqueline’s fragile state of mind (she talked about committing suicide on several occasions) they attempt to convince her to do away with herself, still she refuses.  On her way back home to Mary’s, she’s stalked by a hitman hired by the Palladists, but she manages to elude him in a crowd of actors heading over to a neighborhood bar for fun and frolic after a performance.  When Jacqueline reaches her apartment above the restaurant, she encounters a woman named Mimi (Elizabeth Russell) who’s been living in the apartment next door.  Mimi is very ill, and will no doubt die soon…but she’s tired of waiting for death and has decided to live life to the fullest before her time has come.

Judd and Jason have paid the Palladists a visit, where they learn that the group was holding Jacqueline but have since let her go.  Judd relays this information to Ward, who tells Mary that putting Jacqueline in an asylum for a much needed rest is his only avenue…and he also confesses his love for her.  As Mimi leaves her apartment, dressed to the nines, she hears a loud thud coming from Jacqueline’s place—Jacqueline has put her noose and chair to its ultimate use as Mimi descends the stairs.

The reputation of motion picture producer Val Lewton (1904-1951) has always rested on a series of low-budget horror films he oversaw at R-K-O from 1942 to 1946—productions that were usually priced at a maximum of $150,000, with short running times (around 75 minutes) and branded with lurid titles such as Cat People and I Walked With a Zombie (they were test-marketed in audience groups before going before the cameras).  Lewton possessed an amazing poetic sense and a feel for cinema, overcoming budgetary limitations with a strong grasp of literary conventions, and understanding that horror is often most effective when it is suggested, not shown.  The shadows and low-lighting of Lewton’s productions—many of which foreshadow the film style that eventually became known as film noir—worked to a tremendous advantage in presenting a psychological form of horror once described as “the fear of the unknown working on you.”

I’m fond of all of the Lewton horrors, but my favorite is The Seventh Victim (1943).  While pros and cons can be offered up as to whether or not it’s the producer’s masterpiece (some make a strong case for Zombie, others say Cat People or The Body Snatcher), it’s my darling because it highlights a fascinating world of foreboding pessimism, where terror lurks underneath a mundane, everyday surface, and where the “big city” is unrelenting in its depiction of nocturnal menace.

On the first three Val Lewton pictures—Cat People, Zombie and The Leopard Man—Lewton assembled a production team that included director Jacques Tourneur and film editor Mark Robson.  The success of the three films prompted R-K-O to split up the teaming of Lewton and Tourneur, reasoning that they would be on the receiving end of twice as many successful pictures if they worked separately.  Indeed, R-K-O had planned to move Lewton up into the “A” category of films…but they balked when Lewton announced that he wanted give the untested Robson a chance to direct.  The studio gave their producer an ultimatum: find another director or languish in B-picturedom.  Out of loyalty to Robson, Lewton agreed to stay put…though you could also argue that the producer realized he’d be able to sneak things past the studio as long as he was working the low-budget side of the street.

And the themes which Lewton “smuggled” past the censors!  The topic of suicide was a definite no-no according to the Production Code, and yet Seventh Victim concludes with the title character taking that very same way out.  The theme of death permeates the film, bracketed by the John Donne quote at the beginning (where it is etched on a stained glass window) and end (spoken by Jacqueline) and present in many of the movie’s characters (Judd, Jason, Mimi)…presented as unhappy people with meaningless existences who nevertheless maintain the will to soldier on.  Jacqueline’s character is depicted as someone who longs for the release that death will bring, and when R-K-O told Lewton to lay off the messages in his movies the producer informed them that Victim did have a message: “Death is good.”

The Palladist coven of Victim was also controversial for its time.  Satanism had been touched upon previously in films like The Magician, Seven Footprints to Satan and The Black Cat, but Seventh Victim treated the subject with a mixture of both reverent menace and the casual mundane.  In preparing the screenplay with Charles O’Neal (Ryan’s dad), scenarist DeWitt Bodeen (who had also worked on Cat People and its “sequel,” Curse of the Cat People) arranged to attend a meeting of a group of Satanists in N.Y.C. to help with the treatment…and later described the members as the same elderly folks knitting and crocheting in Rosemary’s Baby (though that group was depicted in a lighter, almost comedic vein).  There’s no doubt that the Palladists in Victim are formidably evil…and yet they’re made up of seemingly ordinary and benign people, best represented by one-armed dancer Natalie Cortez (Evelyn Brent), who plays the piano in one memorable scene.  (How did she lose her arm and was it related to her dancing?  We’re never given this information.)

Other subtexts in the film include a recurring theme of doubles, represented by “doppelgangers” like Mary (the good sister) and Jacqueline (the sinister one), and the characters of Judd (the cynic) and Jason (the romantic poet).  Good vs. sinister is also depicted in the film at one point by twin staircases leading up to Judd’s apartment, in which Jacqueline is staying (Judd jokes to Mary that he prefers to take the left entrance, or the more “sinister” one).  There’s also some subtle lesbian undercurrents; not only in the characters of Jacqueline and Frances (who’s distraught when Jacqueline is attempting to kill herself by drinking the wine furnished by the Palladists) but also the minor, seemingly inconsequential characters of Ms. Lowood and Miss Gilchrist at Mary’s private school.

Only in a Lewton film would something as simple as a morgue be rewarded with a literary allusion.

The Seventh Victim remains the most “noir” of all the Val Lewton horror films.  It’s essentially a detective story with a touch of the occult/supernatural (I think the detective story aspect grounds it in believability), with the doubles theme also reinforced in the title—there were six former Palladists murdered before Jacqueline, who will become the “seventh victim”…and there are also “seven” detectives investigating the events in the film.  Four of them are amateurs: Mary, Ward, Jason and Judd…while the professionals are represented by August and the two men (William Halligan, Richard Davies) hired by Ward to track down wife Jacqueline.

It’s also interesting to note that the film has subtly influenced a number of movies that came after it.  A justly famous shower scene, in which a vulnerable Mary is confronted by Mrs. Redi (who’s on the other side of the curtain), no doubt made an impression on either director Alfred Hitchcock or author Robert Bloch when Psycho went into production.  The sinister atmosphere of Victim can also be detected in Jacques Tourneur’s Lewton-like Curse of the Demon, not to mention The Innocents and Burn, Witch, Burn.  The nod to Victim by Tourneur’s Demon is fitting since it’s clear that director Robson learned a great deal “at the feet of the master”; the “night walk” sequence, in which Jacqueline frantically tries to return home after being released by the Palladists, is echoed in the earlier Cat People, Zombie and Leopard Man.

I'm probably the only person in the world who laughs at this...but the "drunk" on the left in the subway sequence is Wally Brown, who at the time was partners with Alan Carney in R-K-O's feeble attempt to create a comedy team to rival (Bud) Abbott & (Lou) Costello.

Seventh Victim also marked the film debut of Kim Hunter, who would later go on to score an Best Supporting Actress Oscar for reprising her stage role as Stella Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire, as well as grace such film classics as Tender Comrade, A Matter of Life and Death, Deadline – U.S.A. and the first three of Planet of the Apes films.  Tom Conway, best known to film audiences as the Falcon in R-K-O’s successful detective flick franchise, actually reprises a role he played in the earlier Val Lewton film Cat People (though considering the outcome in that film, you have to assume that the “Louis Judd” in Victim either takes place before Cat People or in some parallel universe).  The remaining cast—Jean Brooks (a memorable presence with her black wig and straight cut bangs), Isabel Jewell, Evelyn Brent, Erford Gage, Hugh “Leave it to Beaver” Beaumont and Ben Bard—give superb performances, often speaking their dialogue in a quiet whisper that heightens the suspense of the tension-filled atmosphere.  It’s a shame that Elizabeth Russell didn’t get any sort of billing here, though it could be argued that’s because hers is a small part (the “Mimi” character is a literary allusion to La Boheme, her dress at the end has to be a Cat People in-joke).  Still, the underrated character actress made quite an impression in other Lewton movies like Curse of the Cat People and Bedlam, not to mention cult faves like The Corpse Vanishes and Weird Woman.

And I also chuckled when I saw that the librarian helping poet Hoag is played by Sarah Selby, best known to Gunsmoke fans as "Ma Smalley," the owner of Dodge City's best boarding house.

Upon its initial release, The Seventh Victim did not make the critical or box-office noise that greeted the first trio of Val Lewton films: The New York Times’ Bosley Crowther posited that the film might have made more sense if it had been run backward; Howard Barnes at The New York Tribune groused that he fell asleep during it.  Appreciation of Victim really didn’t take hold until after the war, when critics and audiences alike slowly began to appreciate the foreboding, nihilistic world presented in the film and the “banality of evil” represented by the seemingly ordinary but no less formidable Palladists.  It is unabashedly the one Val Lewton film I revisit time and time again, a movie best watched at 3 or 4 in the morning when the spell of its isolation and pessimism will really do a number on you.  (And I’ll guarantee you won’t want to take a shower until daylight breaks.)

Mayberry Mondays #63: “Community Spirit” (11/23/70, prod. no. 0315)

Even for those of you who’ve never sampled a two-reeler from the veteran comedy team of Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Jerry “Curly” Howard—collectively known as The Three Stooges—the knockabout trio is so firmly ingrained into popular culture that those unfamiliar with their oeuvre have been clued into how most of their comedy shorts are plotted.  Moe, Larry and Curly are usually hired to perform some blue collar task, claiming to be experts (like plumbers or painters), and by the end of the second reel have completed fouled up said menial exercise beyond recognition.  On such simple premises great comedy is born.

And that’s the foundation for today’s installment of Mayberry Mondays, a little outing entitled “Community Spirit.”  Our episode begins with Mayberry R.F.D.’s hero, poor-dirt-farmer-turned-town-council-head Sam Jones (Ken Berry), pulling up to the pumps at the humble gas station of village idiot Goober Pyle (George Lindsey).  Goober is entertaining his two other idiot friends, pedantic county clerk Howard Sprague (Jack Dodson) and fix-it savant Emmett Clark (Paul Hartman)—both of whom have ample time to sit around and do absolutely nothing despite being gainfully employed.

GOOBER: Hey, Sam…there was some paintin’ contractor in here from Mt. Pilot yesterday…he was wantin’ to know the way to your farm…

SAM: Oh, yeah…he found it, all right…the outside of my house needs painting again and I asked him to stop by…

HOWARD: Did he give you an estimate?

SAM: Oh boy—did he give me an estimate…he estimated that he could start my job in three months if I gave him a two hundred dollar deposit…and that’s just to get on his schedule…

HOWARD: Oh, I’m telling you, Sam…it’s getting so some craftsmen these days are doing you a favor just to talk to you…

While I don’t wish to defend this contractor’s actions…it is possible that the delay in his doing the job might be explained by the fact that he spends a good deal of time hanging out with his moronic buddies at a gas station, if activities in the surrounding area are any indication.

EMMETT: Sam?  This painter from Siler City have a nice clean truck?

This is what we like to call in the TV snark business a “blooper,” because Goober has previously established that the painter hailed from Mt. Pilot.

SAM: Yeah…yeah, as a matter of fact he did, Emmett…

EMMETT: Yeah, I thought so…there’s two things you can’t trust in this world…a salesman with a pair of cuff links and a painter with a clean truck!

Three if you include a fix-it man who licks the plugs on appliances.  But I digress.

SAM: Well, I’m on my way over to Mt. Pilot right now to look up Al Danker…I just hope he hasn’t retired…

EMMETT: Now there was a painter!

SAM: Yeah…

EMMETT: Remember he used to drive that old Model A pickup?

SAM: Uh-huh…

EMMETT: Had paint splashed on it from every job he ever did!

GOOBER: I remember that thing…ol’ Al never did carry a color chart…he’d just walk you around his truck…

Every episode…one laugh-out-loud moment.  Sam explains to his friends that he’s got to line somebody up, because he doesn’t have time to do it himself…which provides the episode’s second laugh-out-loud moment, if you’re familiar with his revolutionary non-farming techniques.  He pays Goober for the gas and Emmett & Howard both wish him luck.

GOOBER (as he sits on top of his soda machine): You know, Sam keeps that farm of his lookin’ first-rate, don’t he?

Well, it’s certainly uncontaminated by crops, that much is certain.

HOWARD: Yeah…yeah, it calls for a considerable outlay, too…but preventive maintenance like that always pays off…

GOOBER: You know, I bet I’ve been usin’ that perventive maintenance stuff without even knowin’ it…?

EMMETT: Whaddya mean?

GOOBER: Well, my shoes…whenever they need half-soled, I always go all out and have Mr. Killingsworth pound on some new heels… (Emmett stares at him) Well, ain’t that perventive maintenance?

EMMETT: Well, if you want to stretch a point…

GOOBER: Besides…if I don’t get the new heels I feel like I’m walkin’ uphill…

Howard, in his capacity as Mayberry’s aspiring evil supervillain, has blocked out most of Goober and Emmett’s inane conversation…because his feverish brain has been hatching a most diabolical scheme:

HOWARD: You know…I just had an idea…

GOOBER: Well, imagine that!  It’s only ten o’clock in the morning…

HOWARD: I very definitely have the seed of an idea!  (Excitedly) An idea whose…whose roots go back to the very history and tradition that made this country great!  (Goober and Emmett exchange dumb looks) And…and to the resourcefulness of the early pioneers!  You know, a long neglected custom of those early times was the community barn raising…where everybody got together and…and pooled their labor and skill to erect a farmer’s barn…well, it…it was a wonderful example of…of friendship and cooperation!  Now just think how great it would be to revive that tradition on behalf of Sam Jones!

GOOBER: Well, I don’t get it…Sam’s already got a barn…

Howard…for future reference…you might want to consider supplementing these lectures with Colorforms…

HOWARD: I mean, to apply the principle of barn raising to Sam’s painting problem…getting some of his friends and neighbors together to hold what you might call a “paint-in”…

Look that up in your Funk and Wagnall’s.

EMMETT: You mean…go out there and paint his house?

HOWARD: Exactly!  Instead of him hiring somebody that might take a week or more, I figure we men could probably go out there Saturday morning bright and early and finish the job before sundown…huh?

GOOBER: Well, that sounds fine with me…I always loved to paint—ever since kindergarten!

“Teacher says I’m the best one in the class!”

EMMETT: I guess I can go fishin’ next Saturday…

HOWARD: Great!  I knew I could count on you guys to cooperate!  I can’t wait till Sam gets back from Mt. Pilot to tell him the news…

GOOBER: Boy…I wanna see Sam’s face when he hears about this…

So what would you imagine to be the reaction of a man who’s just learned that his three cretinous pals are volunteering to paint his house?

SAM: Now…let me get this straight, Howard…you…you guys want to paint my house for me?

HOWARD: Yeah!  Sam, it’ll be a labor of love…knowing we’re helping to perpetuate the community spirit of our forbearers!  You know, reviving in a small way a…a vanished era of mutual help and trust!

EMMETT: Yeah…on top of that, we’ll save you a pot full of money!

SAM: Gee, I…I really appreciate this, you guys…but…

“…the only way I would even consider letting any of you near my place with a paint brush would be if I was completely swacked on painkillers…”

SAM: …I just got back from Mt. Pilot, and Al Danker is still in business…and as a favor to me, he’s gonna squeeze my job in and start it on Thursday…

EMMETT: We can start the job tomorrow morning!

GOOBER: Yeah, we’d be finished in no time!  All of us workin’ together, swarmin’ all over that house of yours, sloppin’ paint on there a mile-a-minute…

SAM: No…no, fellas…no, I couldn’t impose on you like that—besides, it’s really a job for a professional painter…

In the real world…this would be the end of the conversation.  But this is a sitcom, and writer/series consultant Bob Mosher has conveniently chosen to make the main character of this series an idiot, since Sam would have the foresight to see what’s going to result from this farrago. (He’s already gotten a taste of it in one of the series’ classic episodes, “The Mayberry Float,” which features my all-time favorite line of dialogue from Goober: “[Y]ou had no right to put us in charge!!!  You know how stupid we are!!!”)

EMMETT: Well…you talk about professional painting—you’ve seen that guest room in my house, Sam…

SAM: Yeah…yeah, I’ve seen it, Emmett…

EMMETT: Well, I didn’t have any professional help on that!  Did it in a half a day!

SAM: Really?

EMMETT: Yeah…sure…most people would be afraid to put pastel paint over purple flower wallpaper…not me!  Mixed the paint myself—pale pink—went on slick as a whistle!

GOOBER: I remember that, Emmett…it was beautiful…when the sun hits it, you feel like you’re in a room fulla polka dots!

Sam, despite his insistences, is having a great deal of difficulty trying to tell The Unholy Three that painting his house is a bad idea.

HOWARD: Sam…are you afraid to let us paint your house?

SAM: Oh, no!  No—it isn’t that, Howard…it’s just…

“…that I’m afraid to let you paint my house.”

GOOBER: Alice and Millie said they’d fix the food…

HOWARD: …and I know that you’re in favor of community spirit…

SAM: Sure I am, Howard…sure…but…

GOOBER: …and you cain’t be worried about cancelin’ out Al Danker…you said he only squoze you in as a favor…

SAM: Well, yeah…

HOWARD: Then the only thing that’s holding you back is the fear of imposing on us, right?

“Well, that and the possibility that my house could be blown up in a fatal flammable paint fume incident.”  Sam’s protestations are for naught…because we still have another fifteen minutes to fill.  “You got nothin’ to worry about, ol’ buddy,” Goober tries to reassure him.  (Sam, maybe if you and Mike the Idiot Boy [Buddy Foster] moved the house so the others couldn’t find it…)

Saturday morning arrives, and Howard, Emmett & Goober pull up in Goober’s truck and Howard leaps off the running board to show off his coveralls to Sam.  (Sam remarks “You look like a painter”—though I believe the adjective “gay” was excised from this syndicated broadcast copy.)

And in this screen cap of Goober, we see that the man is simply incapable of wearing any sort of chapeau without looking like a doofus.  Each of the hats that the three “painters” are wearing read “Mann Bros. Painting”—a Los Angeles/Hollywood-based paint store whose owners were probably tickled pale pink at all the free publicity they got in this episode.

Emmett produces a list from his pocket and notes the supplies that he purchased: paint, turpentine/paint thinner, sandpaper, steel wool, paint panels…and when he asks Sam if there’s anything he left off the list he’s told that Sam only has a few paint brushes.

EMMETT: Oh, I got eight paint brushes of different sizes…then I got three sash brushes for the trim…and a couple of paint rollers…

SAM: Oh…uh-huh…

EMMETT: I figgered on a job like this you wouldn’t want to use any old brushes…they got fewer bristles…they run a little bit more, but I figgered you wanted to go first class…

SAM: Oh, yeah…sure…sure…

EMMETT: Yeah…well, uh, the whole thing comes to a hundred and thirty-seven dollars…and four cents…

For those of you familiar with the thrifty nature of Emmett’s character, you naturally saw this coming a mile away.  Sam thanks Emmett for picking up the supplies and casually mentions that he’ll square things with shop owner “Elliott” the next time he’s in town…Emmett counters that he didn’t know Sam had an account there, so that’s why he ponied up for the supplies himself.  Sam then explains that he’ll cut Emmett a check for what he owes him (Emmett: “You can forget the four cents…just make it a hundred-and-thirty-seven dollars even.”)…and then the two of them stand there for what seems like an eternity.  It’s apparent that Emmett isn’t going anywhere until that reimbursement is in his sweaty little hand.  (Emmett sort of reminds me of the Jack Benny character…except he’s not as funny.)

SAM: You…uh…you want it now, Emmett?

EMMETT: Well, might as well get it out of the way before one of us forgets it…

As Sam goes into the house, he’s passed on the way by his best girl, bakery shop doyenne Millie Swanson (Arlene Golonka) and his cousin Alice Cooper (Alice Ghostley), the Jones family housekeeper.  The two women greet the “painters” outside:

GOOBER: How you girls comin’ with the food?

MILLIE: Oh, fine!  Alice has a real nice lunch planned!

What is this, a Shake ‘n’ Bake commercial?  (“And ah helped!”)

ALICE: Whenever you want a coffee break, let us know…

MILLIE: Yeah…

EMMETT: Say, Alice…I wouldn’t mind a cup of coffee before we get started…

ALICE: Oh, yeah!

MILLIE: We’ve got a big pot ready…

HOWARD: Yeah, that sounds like a great idea!  Take the ol’ morning chill out of bones, huh?

So the five of them file into the house, and Sam stops Emmett out at the front entrance.

SAM (handing him a check): Uh…here you go, Emmett…

EMMETT (slight pause): Oh…right!

SAM: Yeah…yeah…hey…uh… (Calling inside the house) Guys…where do you think would be the best place to start?

HOWARD (coming to the door): Well, we thought we’d have a cup of coffee before we plunged right in…come on, Emmett—it’s getting cold!

(Emmett follows him inside)

SAM: Oh…

Sam then glances at his watch.  It’s going to be a loooong episode, as witnessed by this screen cap of the “coffee break”…

SAM: Well…uh…whaddya say we…we open up that paint and see how much thinner it’s going to take, huh?

HOWARD: Yeah…yeah…come on fellas…let’s get crackin’…finish your coffee, Goob… (The three of them get up from the couch)  Let’s get out there and hit the ol’ brushes, huh?

(The camera cuts to the four of them walking outside)

EMMETT: Speakin’ of brushes…I gotta a couple of paint rollers, too…in case you guys got any preference…me, I’m used to a brush…how ‘bout you, Howard?

HOWARD: Well, it’s strictly a matter of the functional requirements of the job, Emmett…you know, if you’re working on a clear surface area that’s unbroken by windows and doors and angles and like…well…uh…I personally prefer the wider coverage by a roller…

GOOBER: Uh-huh…I used one of them paint rollers once when I put some bookshelves up in my room…

HOWARD: You have bookshelves?

GOOBER: Well, sure!  (Sheepishly) I didn’t let ‘em dry long enough and a couple of my comic books stuck right to the paint…

Sam interrupts this scintillating discussion by telling his pals that “brushes or rollers, guys—it’s all the same to me.”  Even though he’s not getting the personal attention that one would be afforded by professionals, his goofy chums attempt to emulate experts by putting off the painting as long as they can.

HOWARD: It’s a great day for painting!  Clear and sunny…makes a man feel like working…

EMMETT: Yeah…there’s nothin’ like gettin’ an early start…what time is it, Sam?

SAM (looking at his watch): It’s…uh…ten minutes to ten, Emmett…

HOWARD: Oh…I didn’t realize it was late already…

GOOBER: Well, we left my place about nine…

EMMETT: You know…Sam…I was thinkin’…what this job would cost ya if you hired regular painters…

HOWARD: Oh, I’ll betcha six or seven dollars an hour…

SAM: Yeah…I guess…

(Emmett pulls a marker out of his pocket and starts to write on one of the porch columns)

EMMETT: Lemme figger somethin’…

SAM: Hey, Emmett…

EMMETT (turning around): Huh?

SAM: Uh…

EMMETT: Oh, it’s all right…we’re gonna paint anyhow… (He goes back to figuring)

GOOBER: What are ya figgerin’, Emmett?

EMMETT: Well, let’s see…uh…we left after nine o’clock and it’s nearly ten now…uh…say…uh…seven bucks an hour…spread that out over three men…comes to… (He laughs) Look at that, yeah!  You know, Sam—if you’d hired painters, they…it’d cost you over twenty bucks for the work we’ve done so far!

SAM (sighing): I wouldn’t be surprised…

There’s a fade-out for a commercial break, and when we return to the action Sam learns as he grabs a can of paint and a ladder that he will not be a participant in the Great Paint Experiment of 1970.

HOWARD: What are you doing, Sam?

SAM: I thought I’d sort of get started here, Howard…

HOWARD: Oh, no no no…we’re here to paint your house ourselves!  Your friends and neighbors have come to take this problem off your hands!

SAM: Well…

HOWARD: We wouldn’t think of letting you so much as raise a brush…

SAM: No, no…I plan to pitch in and work right along with you…

HOWARD: No, Sam…you’re gonna have your hands full just supervising the job…

And believe me, brother…he’s not kidding.

HOWARD: We’re here to take your orders and see to it that you get this job done just exactly the way you want it done!

EMMETT: That’s right, Sam!  We’re the workers…you’re the boss!

GOOBER: You just tell us what to do and we’ll get right on the ball!

SAM: Well…okay, then…I thought it’d be a good idea to start around the side of the house there before the sun hits it…

HOWARD: Yes…that’s a good thought, Sam…but just to save time, I worked up kind of master plan last night…

Yes, like a guy I know (oddly enough, he’s related to me) who’d chart his assaults on Saturday morning yard/garage sales with all the precision of the Normandy Invasion, Howard spreads out a blueprint on how Casa del Jones will be painted.  “As you see here…we have four basic vertical walls and two porches…now I figured if two of us started on Porch One and one of us on Wall Three…and then all of us move over to the remaining two side vertical walls…by the time we finish there the paint on Porch One ought to be dry enough to come back and do the trim.”  (I hope you’re paying attention to this.  There might be a quiz at the end of this post.)

“That sounds good to me,” replies Emmett.  “I’ll start mixin’ the paint.”

HOWARD (to Goober): …if you’ll set up the ladder on Wall Three, I’ll put the drop cloths on Porch One…

GOOBER (snapping to attention): Yes, sir!

(Goober goes over and starts to pull a ladder off the truck)

SAM: Howard…Howard, I was thinking…it still might be a better idea…

HOWARD: No, Sam…if we stick to my master…no no no no no!!! (To Goober) Goober…according to my side elevation here, you’re going to need the extension ladder on Wall Three…

GOOBER: Uh…gotcha…

Howard then confers with Emmett, who’s busily opening up one of the paint cans (Egyptian Sand).  He’s going to add a little pigment to match the present color of the house, but Sam tells him it’s not necessary.  Au contraire, Emmett would respond if he knew what it meant.  “I happen to have a sixth sense when it comes to color!”

Emmett might have an otherworldly color sense…but he could use a few lessons on the proper way to paint around windows.

SAM: Hey, Emmett…how’s it going?

EMMETT (as he works): Oh, fine…these narrow strips could be a little tricky if I didn’t have such a good eye…

SAM: Uh…Emmett…you want to take your rag here and wipe some of that paint off the glass?

EMMETT: Where?

SAM: Well…right there on the edge…

EMMETT: Oh, that!  (He scoffs) Well, I’ll tell ya, Sam…you try to wipe that off now you’re gonna smear it…

SAM: Well…yeah, Emmett…but…

EMMETT: …the thing to do is let it harden up real good…then it’ll peel off with a razor blade…

SAM: Yeah, well…

EMMETT: ...it’ll be no trouble at all…in a day or two, you and Mike get all the windows at once…be no problem…

Sam looks at another window and sees that Emmett’s non-existent concern for trim work has affected that part of the house as well, and he decides to try one more time.  But Emmett cuts him off with “Sam…if you don’t mind, I’d rather you not look over my shoulder while I’m doing such delicate work.”

This is slightly off-topic, but this painting job reminds me of an incident that took place a short time after I migrated to Morgantown, WV in the winter of 1992 to begin what I have often called here on the blog my “years in exile.”  The old apartment where my BBF The Duchess and her first husband lived was being turned over to a friend of theirs (who needed a cheap place to live) and in return for taking over their lease they had agreed to paint the interior of the place.  The problem arose when Duchess’ friend decided to make himself scarce during the actual decoration job (I forget precisely the reason for his absence, but it was a lame one to be sure) so Mr. Duchess, myself and a few more friends had to tackle the assignment unsupervised…and because we were short on paint, we ended up mixing a few cans of existing pigment, which became the loudest Color Purple ever imaginable.  Seriously.  It was so bad it made our eyes hurt to look at it, and if twenty years ago the paint laws had been a little more stringent we would have all been arrested for crimes against Sherwin-Williams.  (Their friend was not pleased with our handiwork…and he later moved out of the apartment because the landlord was a little “funny in the head”—which prompted The Duchess to tell the friend: “How do you think we got away with all the sh*t we did when we were living there?”)

Okay, back to the riveting antics on R.F.D.  A scene shift finds Goober ascending a ladder…and a furious Howard yelling at him from the ground.

HOWARD: No, Goober!  No!

GOOBER: What’s the matter?

HOWARD: That’s Wall Number One!

GOOBER: Well, so what?

(Sam walks over and joins Howard)

HOWARD: The plan was to start with Wall Number Three, remember?

GOOBER: Oh…well…

SAM: Well, look…as long as he’s already started there, Howard…

HOWARD: Sam…if you’ve got a master plan you’ve got to stick to it!  Otherwise…chaos!  (He emphasizes this last word with a physical flourish)

Goober rolls his eyes as Howard storms off.  Then there’s another scene shift that finds Emmett painting trim, and Goober carrying a ladder to the adjacent side of the house.

GOOBER: Is this Wall Number Three?

EMMETT: Who knows?

GOOBER: Well, it better be…

EMMETT: Why?

GOOBER: Well, if not… (He mimics Howard’s earlier gesture) Chaos!

(He starts to climb the ladder, and Sam walks up to the two of them)

SAM: Wow!  You’re really rolling now, huh, guys?

GOOBER: Yeah!

SAM (grabbing the ladder): Let me steady that for you, Goob…

As Sam helps Goober with the ladder, Goob looks down at Sam’s watch.  “Emmett—do you know what Howard’s got us doin’?”

“What?” Emmett grouses.

“Well, he’s workin’ us right into our lunch hour!”  Goober then climbs down the ladder, and he and Emmett go into the kitchen via the back porch.  All Sam can do is feebly call after them (“Emmett…guys…”) and then look nonplussed.

The scene then shifts to the Jones kitchen, where Howard, Emmett and Goober are finishing their lunch—Goober is shoveling a large piece of pie onto his plate.

ALICE: I hope you boys had enough to eat…

HOWARD: Oh, yeah…everything was just fine, Alice…

MILLIE: You didn’t have any pie, Emmett?

EMMETT: Oh, I had too many helpings of that great meat loaf and potato salad…I gave my pie to Goober…

GOOBER: I’m workin’ on Sam’s now…what’s the matter, Sam?  You don’t seem too hungry…

SAM: Well…I….had a big breakfast, Goob…

HOWARD (clapping him on the back): Well, come on, Goob…let’s hit the brushes…thanks again for the fine lunch, girls!

ALICE: And thank you, Howard…

MILLIE: It’s the least we can do for you hard-working men…right, Sam?

SAM: Yeah, right…right…

Sam’s all-too-clear irritation is funny in itself…but it gets a bit of a boost when he looks over at the table to see that Goober is still gobbling down pie.  Honestly, he’s watched these guys at the fix-it shop or at Goober’s Gas-Up every week…why is he perturbed by their goldbricking?

Back on the job, Sam is walking along the porch…and Emmett, who’s still working at painting the porch columns, asks him for a glass of water.  Sam walks along until he gets the back entrance…and just as he steps on the first step leading up to the kitchen Goober calls at him from up above.  “I spilled a little paint there…you better watch it,” Goober helpfully instructs him.

Cue the sad trombone!

A scene shift finds Sam climbing a ladder to jaw with Howard, who’s painting the second story of the house by standing on the roof.  In this screen cap, Goober can be seen working on the other wall.

SAM: Well!  Everything’s going fine now, huh, Howard?

HOWARD: Oh, yeah…great…great…sure pays to have a master plan, I’ll tell you that!  Heh heh…

SAM: You sure you don’t want me to get a brush and give you a hand, huh…?

HOWARD: No…no…we need you to coordinate our efforts!

SAM: Uh…

HOWARD: Tell you what you could do, though…is take a peek around the corner and see how Goober’s doing…

SAM: Oh…okay… (He doesn’t have to look too far) Oh!  There he is, right there…hi, Goob!

GOOBER: Hi, Sam!

SAM: Ah, you’re doin’ fine…coming this way…

GOOBER: I’d say that’s purty good timin’…huh, Sam?

SAM: Yeah…

HOWARD: How ‘bout that…huh, Sam?  Heh heh…

Oh, the suspense is killing me.  Sam…take a look at Goober’s work.

Wah wah wah wah…so Sam, through gritted teeth, asks Howard and Goober to follow him down the ladder and take a look at their handiwork from a ground’s eye view.

SAM: Is that the can of paint you started with, Goob?

GOOBER: No…I run out about half an hour ago…Emmett mixed me a new batch…

HOWARD: Well, didn’t he compare it to the old batch?

GOOBER: Said he didn’t have to…he mixed it from memory…

SAM: From…oh, boy… (Yelling) Emmett!!!

HOWARD: Well…there certainly is a discrepancy in the pigmentation…

I don’t know when I’ll ever get the chance to use that…but you better believe I will.

EMMETT: You want somethin’, Sam?

SAM: Yeah…yeah…look!  Look at that!  (He points to the house)

HOWARD: I thought you told me you had a “sixth sense” about color, Emmett…

EMMETT: Well, with a tricky paint like that anybody could be off a hair…

SAM: A hair?  Emmett, that wall is tan and that wall is brown!!!

HOWARD: There’s no doubt about the mismatch, Emmett…

EMMETT: Look, Howard—it ain’t my fault if you and Goober didn’t check with each other!  Whichever one of you goofed it up will just have to wait until his wall dries and paint it all over again!

GOOBER: Well, I ain’t paintin’ no wall over again!  I just used the paint you give me!

HOWARD: Well, I’m not painting my wall over!  You’re the one who used the wrong color!

GOOBER: Well, why didn’t you tell me?  You’re the one with the master plan…

And another one of Howard’s carefully manufactured schemes falls prey to idiocy.  It’s hard out there for a supervillain.

EMMETT: You know…ordinarily this create a small problem…but…the walls comin’ together at the corner the way they do… (Chuckling) Well, Sam gets a lucky break!

SAM: Lucky break?

EMMETT; Well, yeah!  You gotta front door and a side door…anyone comin’ in the front door only sees the front wall…anyone comin’ in the side door sees the side wall…but I ask you—who’s gonna walk up to your house catty cornered and see both walls at once?

This man runs a fix-it shop, ladies and gentlemen.  The State Farm agent in Mayberry gets called on the carpet every time he has to account for an electrical fire in that burg.

SAM: I can’t have two walls with two different colors on them!

EMMETT: Sam…I’m the first one to admit that it’s your house…and you’re entitled to have it any way you want…I mean…with a professional painter you have every right to be as fussy as that…

SAM: I had a professional painter all lined up!

GOOBER: Sam…are you hintin’ you don’t like our work?

SAM: No…no, I’m not hinting…now, look…as much as I appreciate your efforts, guys, I’m coming right out and saying it: this is not working out!

“Let’s face it, guys,” Sam continues to berate the three men when they protest that they thought they were doing a good job.  “You’ve been here almost the whole day and…and look what I’ve got to show for it—three walls are painted…two of them in different shades…a lot of half-finished trim…six windows with paint all over the glass…and fourteen dollars worth of brushes you haven’t even used yet!”

SAM: Look…look…I don’t want to seem ungrateful…but I think under the circumstances the best thing you can do…is just take your drop cloths…and your ladders…and your…community spirit…and…and leave!

And so Emmett, Goober and Howard walk off…Howard punctuates his exit with a huffily delivered “Well, all right, Sam.”  The scene shifts to a long shot of Jones Manor, which has been repaired thanks to the efforts of professional painter Al Danker, who ”really bailed me out,” according to Sam.  (Al and his men accomplished the job in a day and a half.)

ALICE: I guess all’s well that ends well, huh?

SAM: Yeah…now all I have to do is bail myself out with Howard, Emmett and Goober…

Talk about a glutton for punishment.  I’d leap at the chance to never associate myself with those numbnuts ever again.

ALICE: Haven’t seen ‘em since, huh?

SAM: No, I haven’t been into town…I’ve been too busy with Al here getting the house finished…I hope they’ll still talk to me after the way I blew my top…

ALICE: I’ve never seen you that angry, Sam…

Alice, of course, wasn’t on the show during the aforementioned “The Mayberry Float”…which I personally think is Sam’s boiling point in the history of Mayberry R.F.D.  (Let’s face it…this is Ken Berry we’re talking about here.  The guy is just too nice.)  Sam tells Alice he’s going to go into town and apologize to the fellas but then the sound of a car horn and a shot of Emmett’s trusty DeSoto pulling into view signals that the three doofuses have had the same idea.

SAM: I, uh, was just coming into town to talk to you…

HOWARD: Oh…well…as a matter of fact…we just came out here to…talk to you…

SAM: Well, I wanted to apologize for Saturday…I really lost my cool…

HOWARD: Well…we kind of feel like we had it coming…after the way we botched the job…

SAM: Oh…

GOOBER: Yeah…we…well, we figgered we oughta come out here and apologize to you…right, Emmett?

EMMETT (staring at the house): Hey…well…well, whaddya know?

HOWARD: That doesn’t look so bad after all!

GOOBER; No, that looks great!  And look at them two walls…they ain’t even different!

HOWARD: No…they match perfectly!

SAM (humoring all of them): Yeah, they do…

EMMETT: Hah!  Have I got a sixth sense when it comes to mixin’ paint or don’t I?  It’s all in the dryin’…I coulda told you that!

Yes, to keep peace with his worthless friends…Sam Jones never reveals that his spiffy-looking paint job was the work of professional men and not some bucolic incarnation of the Ritz Brothers.  “I feel kind of silly,” burbles Howard.  “I mean, we’re stuck with several apologies we don’t really need.”

“Well—why don’t we just save ‘em up,” muses Sam.  “I’m sure they’ll come in handy someday.”  He knows there will be other occasions when these three knuckleheads will strike again.

Coda time!

This one actually has an amusing finish, with Millie stopping by the council office on her way to the bakery—she explains she has to be at work earlier than usual because the never-seen but nonetheless formidable Mrs. Boysinger is ill (bad dates would be my guess):

SAM: Oh, I’m glad you stopped by…I just called Elliott and ordered that lumber to…fix the steps on your front porch…?

MILLIE: Oh, great!  Great!  That’s one project I’ve been dying to get out of the way…

SAM: Well, I’ll be out Saturday to take care of it…

MILLIE: Uh…er…this Saturday?

SAM: Yeah!

MILLIE: Oh!  W-w-well, okay…but…well, Howard said that he and Emmett and Goober were going up to Myers’ Lake to do some fishing…I mean…they won’t be around to give you any help…

SAM: I know…that’s why I’m doing it Saturday…

Before I fire up Thrilling Days of Yesteryear’s Alice-o-Meter™ (it’s been so long) this week, this particular installment of R.F.D. features curious closing credits.  If you’re familiar with the show, you know that the opening sequence of R.F.D. features Sam (Berry) and Mike (Foster) playing a game of catch, whereupon Mike forgets his own strength and heaves the baseball through a shed window, causing it to break and producing a “What-are-you-an-idiot?” look on Sam’s face.  Now, previous episodes of R.F.D. have a closing credits sequence that shows an illustration of the Jones Farm in the lower right corner…

…but with “Community Spirit,” the closing credits finds Sam having fixed the window in the shed, and he and Mike resume their fun and frolic.  My vague memory of when the show was originally on in primetime seems to remember that this is the way the show always closed and that the later Jones Farm illustration was something used for the syndicated versions.  (But if I’m wrong about this, let me know.)

Anyway, Alice’s appearance in this show marks three show-ups for the character in the final season of Mayberry R.F.D…and while this is cheating a bit, I’ll clue you in and let you know that she’s also in next week’s entry, “The Harp.”  It will also feature two actors who have previously appeared on the series (only playing different roles)…and a visit from a character actor who’s best known for his roles in Ball of Fire, So Ends Our Night and Casablanca.  It’s also a terrible episode…but I hope that won’t deter you from next week’s Mayberry Mondays!