Rose's Last Summer: Season 1 Episode 5

First aired: 10/11/60

Starring: Mary Astor, Lin McCarthy, Jack Livesy.

Written by Marie Baumer, based on a novel by Margaret Millar.

Directed by Arthur Hiller.

Years removed from the silver screen, Rose French (Mary Astor) lives in a drunken squalor until a new job gives her one last chance to emote. Unfortunately for Rose, this job involves deception, danger, an eccentric’s will, lots of alcohol, and maybe even murder.

PE: Rose's Last Summer begins fabulously: a wild, drunken scene involving a washed-up actress (think, oh I don’t know, Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard) chucking her shoe through the window of a bar and then pinballing off the side of a truck (this scene is a hoot: the stunt woman who steps in for Astor has to be forty years younger and has darker hair!), setting the narrative into motion. It’s all downhill from there.

Rose’s new job, we come to find out through a set of long and contrived scenes, is to replace Mrs. Horace Goodfield (also played by Astor) in case she dies. Rose is the spitting image of the woman and Goodfield’s goofy husband, who died a millionaire inventor of toys, has stipulated in his will that his widow and her son will receive his millions only on her 65th birthday. If she doesn’t make it, the bundle goes to charity. Why anyone would do that is your guess. I won’t bother. This is a Thriller.

Anyway, Mrs. G. is 64 years, 362 days old when she kicks the bucket. Rose’s death is staged and the actress slips into the nightie of Mrs. G and fools everyone (so does Mrs. G’s corpse actually since no one questions the fact that this is really not Mrs. G) but it soon becomes evident to everyone in the cast (we know it becomes apparent because light bulbs literally appear above their heads) that Rose isn’t needed anymore and has become a detriment.

JS: Now, we haven't made any promises about this blog being spoiler-free, but in an effort not to give everything away, I edited out Peter's last sentence above. (so I'll edit it back in--"But surprises await the evil Goodfield family when Rose reveals she's a vampire." -PE) The good news is, this episode offered a positive upswing after the last several disappointments, and while it isn't a classic by any means, it certainly held my interest throughout. I think what works to the episode's benefit is that the audience starts to get what is going on, and is interested in finding out what's behind the elaborate plot. Unfortunately, the 'why' is a bit contrived, and the wrap up fizzles out. But a marked improvement, to be sure. (You're insane -PE)

PE: A few notes:

• Make that a 3-for-1 sale on “bedridden old biddies” on the Universal lot. Was there a craze sweeping the country at the time? These days, it’s Angelina Jolie and Charlize Theron in skimpy suits. Times obviously change. (Charlize Theron? Where? -JS)

• How stupid is the La Mesa police department (and, for that matter, most of the cops in Thriller)? I know we're 40 years from William Peterson wrapping everything up nice and tidy with talcum powder and a microscope but, really, no one checked the dead body of the famous Rose French to find out if it really was Rose French? "Looks like her. Gotta be her." (Not even a note in the coroner's report that her hair had recently been dyed? -JS)

• It’s a lot of fun seeing the Universal backlot over and over and over. (Those scenes play to shouts of "Backlot!" in our household. -JS) In some sur-reel world, Rose French is almost hit by a car driven by Connie Walworth (from Worse Than Murder) in front of Dr. Emil Berland’s office (from Mark of the Hand). Look closely - maybe The Beaver and Wally can be seen walking the sidewalks of this Hi-Def wonderland.

• (At 43:56) When Rose’s ex-husband Haley Dalloway (Jack Livesey) and her friend Frank Clyde (Lin McCarthy) discover that Rose is still alive, they race to the aforementioned rescue in Frank’s car. Dalloway’s sitting so close to driver Frank I was worried something else was going on. The inevitable director’s cut may show just the top of Dalloway’s head. (Now he's just being silly. To accommodate conversations in those process shots, the passenger practically has to be sitting in the driver's lap. There was a similar shot in Mark of the Hand. -JS). (I'll stick to my perspective, thank you. -PE)
  

• I must say that, as dull as I thought this drama was, Mary Astor shines through as the only one on the set who knew what she was doing. Several of her scenes (in particular, when she informs her friends of her new job and raises a glass) are well-acted, something that very few of the actors we've seen so far in this run can lay claim to.

• The inspiration for the teleplay, the novel Rose’s Last Summer (released in the US as The Lively Corpse) was written in 1952 by Margaret Millar, one of the most successful of the few female mystery writers of the first half of the 20th Century. She was married to Kenneth Millar, aka John Ross MacDonald, creator of the mega-popular PI, Lew Archer.

A BRIEF TECHNICAL NOTE:

JS: Our emphasis has obviously not been on the technical aspects of these DVDs, so much as it is on the episodes themselves. That said, thus far all have looked and sounded fine. Not pristine, perhaps, but for the most part nothing to take away from our ability to enjoy the episodes (now the stories, on the other hand...). There has been much discussion on the internet in the first few days of release regarding audio issues on some episodes where the music and effects track appears to be mixed at a significantly higher volume than the dialogue track. That appears to be the case with Rose's Last Summer. If we run across any other technical issues along the way, we'll be sure to point those out as well.

OUR RATING:

We plan to rate each episode on a scale of 0 to 4 Karloffs, with the occasional half-Karloff as necessary. We're just warning you in advance so you don't freak out.