Alfred Hitchcock Presents Cop for a Day (1955–1962) Online

The perils of being the hothead and the perils of partnering with a hothead.

Nicely done, decent writing and acting. Of course the episode benefited from Walter Matthau and his wife being good, experienced actors. The surprise twist at the end was quick and to the point, one of those rare ones I didn't see coming because I made a different assumption which proved wrong in about half a second. Make sure you don't miss Hitchcock's ending dialogue.

Many of us Hitchcock-lovers enjoy post-mortems where we pick apart the stories, particularly when we find plot-holes - and we often do. The action of a story carries us right past an illogicality, so that we fail to notice it until we go back for a 2nd look.

After enjoying Matthau's performance, I noticed that the rationale for rubbing out the female witness would be doubly applicable to the 2 cops guarding the witness. They both get a better look at the killer than the woman may have done.

No problem, Hitch: it gave me the extra pleasure of feeling like a schmotty!

***SPOILERS*** It's the cool and calculated hoodlum Phil's,Walter Mathau, misfortune to hook himself up in a Mutt & Jeff stick up team with the fast on the trigger and slow in the brain Davey played by a Joe Pesci like, before anyone ever heard of him, Glenn Cannon: Thus my title for the episode. It's the shoot first and think later Davey who really got the two in hot water. That after robbing a bank messenger, Tom Begley, of $18,000.00 the hot headed and slow thinking Davey shot the guy in cold blood killing him. With a woman witnessing the murder, who's played by Walter Matthau's real life wife at the time Carol Grace, the two if caught and identified by her as the bank messenger's murderers may well end up in Sing Sing's electric chair.

With Phil & Davey holed up from the police in a flea bag hotel room Phil while going out to buy sandwiches and beer reads in the local newspaper that the messenger died of his wounds and that there's an eye witness to the killing! It's then that the the cagey Phil dreams up a plan that can solve both his and Davey's very pressing problems. Impersonate a cop and get to the eye witnesses', who's under 24 hour around the clock police protection, apartment and make sure by murdering her that she'll never live to testify against them.

***SPOILERS*** As cool as a cucumber Phil disguised as a cop talks his way, fooling the cops guarding her, into the eye witnesses apartment and with her thinking he's a cop guarding her she lets her guard down. After some harmless and friendly chit chat Phil coolly and cold blooded pulls out his police service revolver and murders the woman using a pillow as a silencer. Going back to his and Davey's hotel room Phil soon realizes the mistake that he made. Not in murdering the eye whiteness who's testimony can land him in the hot seat but in keeping his plan from his very unstable and paranoid partner in crime Davey!

I found this episode yesterday, among the thousands of ones I have in my library. I loved it. Because of the topic, simple but efficient, but also thanks of the Walter Matthau character, very unpredictable, surprising at the most.

Two hoods - Matthau and an accomplice - pull a petty robbery in the street; they steal a big wallet full of money and carried by a bank employee. They shot him. And afterwards, they discover through the headlines that the poor bank employee is dead. So, they decide to do something about it. Especially Matthau who intend to find the witness and eliminate him. Or, may I say, her. He goes to a shop, where a guy he knows - a sort of hood too - sells him a police uniform. And then , impersonating a street cop, Matthau goes to the witness apartment, just in front of the place where the robbery was pulled, and where two real cops are already standing to protect the witness. Matthau tells them that he has to investigate about the heist and ask some questions to the girl who saw the the bank employee murder. The two cops let Matthau get into the flat and our character begins to be polite with the young woman, who believes that he his a real cop. And two minutes later, Matthau shows his real state. The girl is frightened and tries to escape. But Matthau kills her with his gun. In cold blood. AND THAT'S EXQUISITE. Matthau with his good face, NOT A GANGSTER ONE - as could have been Lee Marvin's or Lee Van Cleef's one - playing here a cold blooded killer; and not a sadistic one, that should have been not credible at all, but a man who has to kill to protect himself against a poor woman who could testify against him. He kills her with no expression on his face, as easily as if he had to close a door because the place he stands in is cold...

I LOVED THIS SEQUENCE. And, I repeat, because it was Matthau. If it was Jack Lemon or Clint Eastwood, I would have told the same. But not Jack Elam or Neville brand.

Know what I mean?

I won't tell you more about this episode. Especially the ending...

It's very interesting too. And you can guess it. A gangster impersonating a cop, in the AH PRESENTS manner, with always very ironical results, you can guess it.